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The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons
Deep Insights

Tim Davies, Stephen B. Walker, Mor Rubinstein, Fernando Perini

Capetown; Ottawa: African Minds; International Development Research Centre (IDRC) (2019), xiii, 574 pp.

"A decade ago, open data was more or less just an idea, emerging as a rough point of consensus for action among pro-democracy practitioners, internet entrepreneurs, open source advocates, civic technology developers, and open knowledge campaigners. Calls for “open data now” offered a powerful cr ... itique of the way in which governments and other institutions were hoarding valuable data paid for by taxpayers – data that if made accessible, could be reused in a myriad of different ways to bring social and economic benefits and democratic change. Ten years on, open data is much more than just an idea. First, it was a movement, and then a label applied to vast quantities of data from genomics and geospatial data to land registers, contracting, and parliamentary voting. Today, it’s a term found on government portals, in global policy documents, and in job descriptions. Thousands of businesses around the world owe their existence or their growth to the release of open government data, and hundreds of civil society organisations have embraced open data as a key element of their social change toolkit. For a while, it may have been possible to identify a cohesive open data movement united by shared interests, working simply to gain access to more data and establishing the principle that government data should be open. However, as the movement has evolved, stakeholders have turned their focus to linking data use to specific needs and to questions of how to quantify the return on investment in advancing open data. Within this fast growing and organic open data movement, an ever-increasing number of networks and communities of practice have become more diverse, fluid, and cross-sectoral. So what is the open data movement today? What has it achieved over the last decade? Answering these questions is at the core of this publication. It is a collective effort to explore what we can learn from the past, to identify how to build on the investments made to date, and to look at how open data policy and practice have started to address challenges such as mainstreaming and sectorisation. Exploring these questions is not just important for historical purposes. It can yield important insights on how best to move forward. This publication is also an invitation to identify the issues that may sustain this broad coalition into the future." (Introduction) more

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Good Data

Angela Daly, S. Kate Devitt, Monique Mann (eds.)

Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures (2019), 370 pp.

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Open Data in Developing Economies: Toward Building an Evidence Base on What Works and How

Stefaan G. Verhulst, Andrew Young

Cape Twon: African Minds (2017), v, 275 pp.

"Recent years have witnessed considerable speculation about the potential of open data to bring about wide-scale transformation. The bulk of existing evidence about the impact of open data, however, focuses on high-income countries. Much less is known about open data’s role and value in low- and m ... more

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Open Data, Transparency and Accountability: Topic Guide

Liz Carolan

Birmingham: GSDRC, University of Birmingham (2016), 32 pp.

"Open data involves the release of data so that anyone can access, use and share it. The Open Data Charter (2015) describes six principles that aim to make data easier to find, use and combine: open by default; timely and comprehensive; accessible and usable; comparable and interoperable; for improv ... more

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Open Data Readiness Assessment Ukraine

Artem Serenok, Daniel Dietrich et al.

Kyiv: UNDP (2015), 90 pp.

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Gobierno Abierto en América Latina

Paris: OECD (2015), 283 pp.

"Los países de América Latina han implementado importantes reformas de gobierno abierto durante los últimos años. La combinación de los esfuerzos a nivel nacional con el soporte que los países han obtenido por parte de la Alianza para el Gobierno Abierto (AGA) ha sido benéfica para lograr ava ... more

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Emerging Implications of Open and Linked Data for Knowledge Sharing in Development

Tim Davies, Duncan Edwards

IDS Bulletin (Institute of Development Studies), volume 43, issue 5 (2012), pp. 117-127

"Movements towards open data involve the publication of datasets (from metadata on publications, to research, to operational project statistics) online in standard formats and without restrictions on reuse. A number of open datasets are published as linked data, creating a web of connected datasets. ... more

The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons Deep Insights