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Best Practices/Use open software within and outside of the public administration
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Contents
Outline
Several government agencies across Europe have provided guidelines to their public administartion regarding the acquisition of software. Trying to save costs where possible, public administration on country or local level (cities) adopt policies for using open source software and implement various actions to promote the usage of open software within and outside of the public administration.
Management summary
Challenge
Compatibility problems often make it difficult to integrate data from various providers into one single system therefore the adaptation of open solutions can create good opportunities for cooperative actions.
Solution
Cooperating with universities and communities with strategic commitment for open innovation, there are examples across Europe where state or town administration decided to give a priority to the use of open software as much as possible without compromising the connectivity and compatibility with external users and partners. The data processing and management services e.g. in the town of Szeged, was transferred to a system built upon open standards and interfaces thereby all the flexibility and efficiency of a tailor-made system was obtained but the compatibility with external applications was also preserved. The end result is an efficient information system with very low requirements on the client side that also offers standard interface for external applications. Cooperation with the university ensured that the good practice of the public administration becomes a catalist for new developments that strengthened further the role of open software also among the private (commercial) users therefore the local eco-system is ready and capable for making use of openly available public data.
Best Practice identification
Why is this a Best Practice? What’s the impact of the Best Practice
Public administration can created an environment where the local public and commercial organisations have the possibility to use one single information system for publishing and consuming Open Data and thus extending the scope of open data from the public sphere to the private operators, as well.
Links to the PSI Directive
Why is there a need for this Best Practice?
Published public data are often not used extensively by private and commercial users and openly published private data are even more rare phenomena. Commercial sector is ready to accept open methods and solutions only when they identify their own interests in such applications. Examples of successful implementation of such actions can help other towns and regions to move forward in this direction.
What do you need for this Best Practice?
Commitment of public administration as well as local stakeholders to use open solutions is the primary step towards an open information system. A coordinating public body (state/own administration and/or university or other actor with public vocation) is necessary to create the information system with standard open interfaces for external applications. Finally, awareness raising and commitment building is necessary among the potential users by giving them incentives to use the public system also for their own information and data.
Applicability to other Member States
See also examples from
Contact info
- Tamas Gyulai (expert for innovation and technology transfer), tamas.gyulai@europe.com or phone +36-209-209-573
- For editorial issues: Valentina Janev, Institute Mihajlo Pupin, valentina.janev@institutepupin.com.