Open data refers to the notion that information should be readily available and standardized. This open data movement is affecting both the American government and society, with leaders and advocates in the government and technology sectors working to free information from outdated storage and siloed systems to make it accessible to the public.
One of the challenges for the open data movement is that the data isn’t housed in one single technology, so its adoption can’t be tracked like other technologies. The various technologies that contain open data, however, can be monitored and tracked like any other technology.
In this respect, open data is moving forward. Government agencies and private entities are adopting open data, getting ahead of the trend of full use. Eventually, the all-important role of open data in informing decisions and gaining insights will be realized.
Process and Progress of the Open Data Movement
Successful open data requires standardization, publication, and use. Data must first be standardized in open formats and published to the general public. Once this is accomplished, that data can be used to inform decisions, gather insights, and fuel change.
In light of current trends, the improved open data environment is both a reality and a necessity. It’s important for the government and private sectors to use data once it’s widespread. The time and resources involved in standardization and sharing are only valuable if the open data can be used for decisions and insights.
Fortunately, the growing use and development of visualizations, reports, dashboards, and other tools demystify data to make it accessible for individuals without any background or training in data science or analysis, giving it a truly mainstream appeal.
Federal Data Strategy and Data Standardization
In February 2018, the federal government released the President’s Management Agenda, a statement of the approach to modernizing the government.
This transformation involves three key elements:
- Information technology.
- Data, accountability, and transparency.
- Federal workforce.
The move toward this agenda reflects the government’s recognition of the need to keep technology systems and the data they generate separate.
One of the key projects in this movement is the creation of the Federal Data Strategy, which consists of principles, practices, and use cases for data, all of which propel data standardization forward.
Among the principles is a commitment to conscious design, which monitors and standardizes the data quality and integrity through strategic interoperability. Leveraging data as a strategic asset and utilizing it efficiently is another strong principle in this strategy.
The Problem With Closed Data
Despite the clear benefits and use cases, many government entities and companies cite confidentiality or insufficient resources as obstacles to data sharing. These challenges can be significant, but far more problems are created when data is closed.
Company register data is monitored and maintained by official registrars. This is the basis for business decisions for buying, selling, and regulation within a jurisdiction, however. Without access to this data, companies don’t know who they’re doing business with.
For this reason, more and more U.S. states are making their company registrars open, creating a transparent and trusting business environment. Restricting this information creates friction and opacity in business, and it also offers a virtual shield for crime and corruption.
One example of problematic closed data is the state of Illinois. This state not only refuses to publish any data, but it also restricts access. Corporate data is excluded from the Freedom of Information Act, searching the corporation register is prohibited by law, and the state enacts a considerable fee for purchasing data and restricts its availability when it is purchased.
Regardless, data publication and transparency is rapidly taking hold, not only in the U.S., but in other countries as well.
Benefits of the Open Data Movement
The benefits of the open data movement are virtually limitless, but they all fall within three overarching categories:
- Transparency.
- Management.
- Automated reporting.
Management can be defined in different ways, but it often includes budgeting, auditing, allocation of resources, tracking resources, managing personnel, identifying anomalies, and other vital aspects of business operations. Open data allows more individuals within an organization to understand the operations, more tools to be designed and implemented to enhance productivity, better integration of efforts, and fewer wasted resources. With automated reporting and transparency, these management efforts are enhanced.
Automated reporting is a tool for both management and transparency. Clean, automatically reported data can be integrated directly into management systems, increasing the overall efficiency and minimizing administrative time and resources. These data reports can also be turned over to the public, improving transparency and increasing public confidence in the organization.
Transparent data can also be used by one organization to improve the management and operations of another. For instance, weather data, a long-standing open data set, gives organizations the ability to tailor logistics. From agricultural processes and long-haul trucking to planning company events or vacation time, free access to weather data and projections is paramount to business functions across multiple verticals.
In government, these benefits are more pronounced. Transparency in government serves both management ends and public opinion, giving the citizens confidence in the government and leaders. Automated reporting also improves the government’s accountability to investors and the public.
Automation can be used to apply predictive modeling to decision-making and cost reduction. For example, a predictive model can be used to identify patterns and stop fraud or address citizens’ needs quickly. These predictive models can’t occur without automation, however, which can’t happen at this scale without proper standardization and data sharing.
Looking to the Future of the Open Data Movement
Though these possibilities look promising for the future of transparent, standardized data, there’s a lot to explore in the widespread implementation of open data.
Science is leading the pack in terms of a strong and growing open data movement. The sciences are focusing on releasing not only reports, statistics, and studies, but also the data sets that informed and shaped them. This allows other researchers and peers to verify, validate, explore, and expand the scientific basis for the studies and move toward a breakthrough.
Geographic information systems are another vast, untapped resource. From land and city planning to disaster response and relief, logistics, crime control, power consumption, transportation, and more, there are limitless possibilities in location data.
Once data is universally free and open to the public, legal and compliance issues will become less of a concern, but there are still obstacles to overcome. Along with the normative shifts required of organizations as they focus on open data standardization and publication, copyright, confidentiality, proprietary, and privacy issues must be addressed within the organization.
These data challenges exist in every organization, such as grant management, spending, contracts, and more, all of which create open data issues. By viewing open data from a vertical or sectoral perspective, industries like housing, health care, defense, and education could address data issues from top to bottom. In the right context, all of this data is informative and relevant. Examining data from multiple perspectives produces fascinating and intensive discussions for the future.
Open data regarding government programs lends itself to digitization and transparency. Cycles of budgeting and spending could be analyzed with data about performance and outcomes, feeding information back into these processes to provide a holistic picture of agency activities to the public and investors.
Governments and organizations are recognizing the value of data as a strategic asset. Put to its fullest use, data can enhance the success of organizations, but that requires an active role from the data manager to maximize the value of data. The chief data officer will be vital in both private and public sectors as society embraces open data.
The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, an act that implements government-wide goals and requirements for evidentiary policymaking, includes the OPEN Government Data Act. This act requires a chief data officer for each agency and rules that all public data must be standardized and published as open data. This is a huge step toward the future of open data.
Without the universal transparency and availability of data sets, we can only examine and predict certain aspects of the future for open data. To explore new dimensions and expose more possibilities, widespread, comprehensive open data sets need to be available.
In Conclusion
Possibilities, obstacles, and potential for open data that are well-understood are just the beginning. There are many ways to explore open data issues, implementation, and possibilities, such as open science data and geographic information systems, legal and practical hurdles, and program use and outcomes. As more and more data sets become available, data can reveal insights that fuel the growth and illuminate the possibilities for the future of the open data movement.
As open data becomes more and more mainstream, organizations will need effective tools to manage, standardize, and publish data in a clear, comprehensive format. Izenda’s business intelligence solutions provide analytics, reporting, visualizations, and more in an intuitive format tailored to all users, from business analysts to data scientists. Contact us today to learn more and request your demo or try it now for free.
