Open Data: Infrastructures and ecosystems

Strong claims have been made for the potential benefits to be derived from government open data initiatives: from open data fuelled economic growth, to stronger democratic accountability and improved delivery of public services (33; 16; 11; 22; 15; 21). Activists have called on governments to free our data(1) and provide raw data now (3). Open data initiatives are conventionally presented with the primary role of governments being to remove the legal and technical barriers that have previously restricted access to data, with any action to realise benefits from that data being driven by actors outside government. However, this paper challenges that representation on two grounds. Firstly, it highlights that a number of significant open data initiatives involve the strategic creation of new datasets and data infrastructures, drawing on, but not solely consisting in, existing government data. Secondly, it argues that the successful realisation of impacts from open data relies on more than the dataset, involving the mobilisation of a wide range of technical, social and political resources, and on interventions beyond dataset supply to support coordination of activity around datasets. Drawing on case studies from the UKs open government data initiatives and the International Aid Transparency Initiative, this paper highlights some of the interventions that may be necessary to support realisation of impact from open data initiatives.