Best Practices/Civic Use Of Open Data

SAMOS WORKSHOP: USES OF OPEN DATA WITHIN GOVERNMENT FOR INNOVATION AND EFFICIENCY

TITLE OF THE BEST PRACTICE: CIVIC USE OF OPEN DATA

File:Best practice-OpenCoesioneMonithon-Samos-v1 1.docx

1 OUTLINE OF THE BEST PRACTICE

Citizens, journalist, experts, researchers, students – or all combined – collect information on a specific project chosen from an open data portal about public projects (in this case it was the OpenCoesione1 database). This information can be uploaded on a platform based, for example, on Ushahidi2 (like the Monithon3 platform), by selecting the projects from a list and is geo-referenced and enriched with interviews, quantitative data, pictures, videos. The result is a form of bottom-down, civic, collective data storytelling. This approach fosters participation of the citizens and indirectly improves the efficiency of public spending.

2 MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

2.1 CHALLENGE

The lack of transparency on how public money is spent and the lack of control over the projects status are two of the main reasons for the slow pace in implementing public projects, frequently causing inefficiencies of all kinds (e.g., time and cost inefficiencies). Moreover citizens are frequently not involved and are not aware about projects that are taking place in the area where they live.

2.2 SOLUTION

Open data about projects’ financings in conjunction with a platform that enables projects’ on-site monitoring (and sharing of the results) can help solve the problems mentioned above.

3 BEST PRACTICE IDENTIFICATION

3.1 WHY IS THIS A BEST PRACTICE? WHAT'S THE IMPACT OF THE BEST PRACTICE?

Exposing open data about public projects financing and offering to the citizens a collaborative platform for controlling those projects, helps to eliminate some inefficiency in public spending and helps citizen to be actively involved in public projects. The platform for monitoring public projects is a method and a model whereby citizen monitoring may be initiated and a tool for civic partners to: press forward, report on malpractice, but also collaborate in making all these projects work, in accelerating their completion and understanding whether they actually respond to local demand. This approach fosters a civic use of open data, so that citizens can feel a closer connection with the ways in which public money is being employed and ultimately with public policies and decisions.

3.2 LINK TO THE PSI DIRECTIVE

(Please use one or more of the categories listed on the last page of this document, as many as relevant)

• Open Data platform(s) / Publication and deployment of information/data and metadata
• Data quality issues and solutions / Quality assurance, feedback channels and evaluation

3.3 WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR THIS BEST PRACTICE?

It fosters participation of the citizens and efficiency of the public sector bodies. In Italy, several cases of malpractice and issues of various types have already emerged thanks to this approach. Making the citizens and the policy makers aware about a problem is the first step for solving it and improving the efficiency of public expenditures.

4 WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR THIS BEST PRACTICE?

A few things are needed for this to happen:

• Good quality open data (that in the case explained in the paper4 are published on OpenCoesione), they must be at least:
  • Understandable (through use of good metadata)
  • Machine processable
  • Complete
  • Up to Date
• A portal, like Monithon (that is an independently developed initiative), that permits active involvement of communities and furnishes a shared methodology for checking the actual state of the projects described by the open data on the portal described above.

5 APPLICABILITY BY OTHER MEMBER STATES?

Every member state can adopt this approach.

6 CONTACT INFO - RECORD OF THE PERSON TO BE CONTACTED FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR ADVICE.

Luigi Reggi - Technology Policy Analyst at the Department for Economic Cohesion and Development, Rome, Italy. Open Government specialist and researcher. Member of the scientific committee of OpenCoesione. Co-founder of Monithon. E-mail: luigi.reggi@gmail.com Twitter: @luigireggi Website: http://luigireggi.eu/about/

Lorenzo Canova – Research Fellow at Nexa Center for Internet and Society at Politecnico di Torino, wrote his master thesis on open data quality focusing on the case study of OpenCoesione. e-mail: lorenzo.canova@polito.it Twitter: @lorenzocnv Website: http://nexa.polito.it/people/lcanova/

1 A portal about the fulfilment of investments and projects planned by the Italian central government and by the Italian Regions with the 2007­2013 European Cohesion funds, see: http://www.opencoesione.gov.it/progetto/en/

2 http://www.ushahidi.com/

3 http://www.monithon.it/

4 For further information refer to the original article: http://porto.polito.it/2561746/1/OpenCoesioneAndMonithon_Samos_Final.pdf