Evaluation of the National Open Government Data (OGD) Portal of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Increasingly, Open Government Data (OGD), a philosophy and set of policies, gains on momentum today. Believed to promote transparency, accountability and value creation by making government data available to all (OECD, 2018), OGD constitutes a yet another field in which the interlocking relation between technological advances and politics can be studied. Using the national OGD portal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (http://www.data.gov.sa/en) as a case study, this evaluates the portal to underline the significance of maintaining the quality of the data sets published online. The usability framework (Machova, Hub, & Lnenicka 2018) constitutes the framework for evaluation of the OGD portal. The findings suggest that there are many drivers to re-use the data sets published via the portal. At the same time, however, there are barriers to re-use the data sets on account of the non-publication of updated data sets. Implicitly, quality of the data sets should be improved. More involvement of the government agencies is required for contributing toward the data sets. Also, user involvement should be promoted by encouraging them to contribute to the data sets and lending recommendations for the improvisation of the data sets published via the portal.

Citation

Saxena, S. (2019), "Evaluation of the National Open Government Data (OGD) Portal of Saudi Arabia", Visvizi, A. and Lytras, M.D. (Ed.) Politics and Technology in the Post-Truth Era (Emerald Studies in Politics and Technology), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 221-235. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-983-620191015