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The associativity evaluation between open data and country characteristics

Yean-Fu Wen (Graduate Institute of Information Management, Research Center on Big Data and Smart City, National Taipei University, New Taipei City, Taiwan)
Yi-Ting Hwang (Department of Statistics, National Taipei University, New Taipei City, Taiwan)

The Electronic Library

ISSN: 0264-0473

Article publication date: 16 May 2019

Issue publication date: 3 June 2019

366

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to review the levels of open government data (OGD) among various countries that are not consistent with the development levels of those countries. This study evaluates the associativity between OGD Index (OGD) and the characteristics of those countries as well as to compare the degree of OGD among countries. Accordingly, an advanced discussion to explore how a country’s characteristics affect how that country’s government opens data was presented.

Design/methodology/approach

The stakeholder relationships of OGD is analysed with the characteristics of a country. The usage data are compared with the data availability according to nine indicators. These data collected from the statistics and OGDI websites are grouped for comparative statistical analyses based on basic descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance and a regression model with variance inflation faction.

Findings

The results 1) revealed the reasons some countries have high-ranking indexes and 2) verified the high index values of countries in terms of their degrees of development. This study, thus, attempted to derive a balanced appraisal of national development and OGD.

Research limitations/implications

The study sample is limited only to countries 1) which open the statistical data; and 2) are of uneven population density and development degree. The OGDI is limited to expert evaluation. The score might be vary to experts and users with diverse countries at different evaluation period. The limitations can be attributed to the differences between OGDI and real open levels. These differences might influence the reliability and validity.

Practical implications

Government departments with OGD policies provide raw data in various formats and with application interfaces for user access. This study, thus, attempts to derive a balanced appraisal of national development and OGD. The factors that evaluate which types of countries open the level of data are explored.

Originality/value

This study establishes stakeholder relationships of OGD and extends to analyse the characteristics of a country and OGD that affect the government data open level. The relationships are evaluated through the OGDI with design score scheme. The measurement results indicated that a country possesses high relation to open data with high DI and nature resource.

Keywords

Citation

Wen, Y.-F. and Hwang, Y.-T. (2019), "The associativity evaluation between open data and country characteristics", The Electronic Library, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 337-364. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-04-2018-0081

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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