Open government data and the private sector: An empirical view on business models and value creation

The release of government data in an open format is broadly expected to generate innovation and economic value. However, despite the emerging public notoriety of this issue, literature is still scarce regarding the commercial application of open government data. The main goal of this study is to understand how firms use open government data to create value. More specifically, we aim to identify what types of use are currently in place and which industries are more prominent in exploiting open government data. Building on the analysis of a dataset of 178 firms that use open government data across various industries in the U.S. we find twelve different atomic models. Additionally, our findings suggest that the way in which open government is used to create value is contingent to the firms' activities. Supported by robust empirical data, we anticipate that our research produces practical insights to entrepreneurs as well as firm managers in deriving value from public datasets, and equip government officials with relevant evidence for advocacy and policy-making.     

What can open innovation be used for and how does it create value?

Societies face difficult challenges which require responses that go beyond the innovation capability of most public sector organisations. Open approaches to public sector innovation that exploits digital technologies have been proposed for some years to close this gap, but our knowledge of the use and outcome of using open innovation in this context is limited. This research takes stock of the study and use of these approaches by investigating the purposes for which public sector organisations use open innovation, and how it creates value. The research question is answered through a systematic literature review and an analysis of publicly available data about the open innovation projects referred to in that literature.The research identifies five different purposes of using open innovation. It also suggests that public sector organisations primarily use open innovation to pursue one specific purpose: innovation in society. When using open innovation for this purpose, public sector organisations attempt to create value by improving citizens' quality of life and the quality of neighbourhoods. They do this primarily by co-specialising IT and other resources in society (e.g. the transportation system) and by using the outcome of this co-specialisation process to change citizen behaviour, capabilities and experiences (e.g. encouraging citizens to use the transportation system more efficiently or making citizens feel more safe when using the transportation system).This research indicates that open innovation is generally not used to open up public sector organisations or to give citizens more influence in public sector or democratic processes. The research also indicates that open innovation, until now, has primarily been used to solve minor problems, and not large scale wicked problems in society. The research suggests a framework for value creation from open innovation initiatives that pursues innovation in society. This framework might help public sector organisations increase value creation and solve wicked problems using open innovation, and might help researchers to focus future open innovation research on essential knowledge gaps.     

Relevant social groups for open data use and engagement

The opening up of public sector data has provided a new data resource for the citizens. However, the use of open data and its consequent societal value has proved not to be as extensive as initially hoped for, although multiple innovations have emerged; rather it is still considered problematic, and knowledge about open data use is scarce. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to clarify open data use and engagement by people outside the public sector, especially what motives exists and how different user types align to these motives. To achieve this, a document analysis has been carried out of reported use cases identified in EU topic reports between 2014 and 2016. By applying the theory of Relevant Social Groups (RSG), which focuses on the people's interpretation of the purpose with the technology, we identified five RSGs representing overall motives for open data use: 1) Exploring for creativity, 2) Creating business value, 3) Enabling local citizen value, 4) Addressing global societal challenges, and 5) Advocating the open data agenda. We also discuss differences between the relevant social groups and the included user types, issues and implications for understanding the evolvement of the open data field, and suggests research ahead.     

When News is Everywhere

This article contends that not only journalism but also journalism studies can benefit from a stronger commitment to the public. While the bodies of literature on “popular journalism”, “public journalism” and “citizen/participatory journalism” have, in different contexts and from different angles, made a strong case in favour of a public-oriented approach to journalism, it is remarkable how few of the empirical studies on journalism are based on user research. As the control of media institutions over the news process is in decline, we should take the “news audience” more seriously and try to improve our understanding of (changing) news use patterns. Besides this rather obvious theoretical point, there are also societal and methodological arguments for a more user-oriented take on the study of journalism. Starting from a reflection on the key trends in news use in the digital age—participation, cross-mediality and mobility—this article attempts to show the theoretical and societal relevance of a radical user perspective on journalism and journalism research alike. Furthermore, we look at new methodological opportunities for news user research and elaborate on our arguments by way of an empirical study on changing news practices. The study uses Q-sort methodology to expose the impact a medium's affordances can have on the way we experience news in a converged and mobile media environment. The article concludes by discussing what the benefits of a radical user perspective can be both for journalism studies as for journalism.     

Determinants of digital innovation in the public sector

This study explores the determinants of digital innovation in the public sector. Focusing specifically on new digital technologies, such as big data, artificial intelligence, Internet of things, and augmented reality, we explained the wide variation in how Korean local governments used these technologies to transform their services. We found support for four theoretical mechanisms. First, our findings support the existence of demand-pull innovation in the public sector: public organizations respond to citizen demands or needs for innovation. Second, we also find support for an electoral incentive hypothesis, which posits that local governments' motivation for digital innovation is influenced by local politicians' electoral incentives. Third, our results show the existence of isomorphic pressure as a driver for public sector innovation: public organizations emulate their neighbors in adopting innovative practices. Fourth, the results support the upper echelons theory, as younger policymakers are more active innovators.     

Open data innovation: Visualizations and process redesign as a way to bridge the transparency-accountability gap

Open government data has led to public policy innovation in pursuit of various expected benefits. One of the intended goals of open data innovation to improve transparency and accountability. However, our current understanding of open data innovation and its ability to generate transparency and accountability is limited, particularly with regard to empirical evidence. In this paper, we describe how a state agency redesigned its organizational processes around visualization tools and how such efforts helped bridge the transparency-accountability gap by enhancing the understandability and usability of open government data. We conclude that open data innovation does not stop with the adoption of an open data policy, but rather involves an ongoing cycle of improvements through which the organization responds to its various stakeholders' use of open data, thereby increasing usefulness of those datasets and, subsequently, improving overall accountability.     

“We've no problem inheriting that knowledge on to other people”: Exploring the characteristics of motivation for attending a participatory archives event

While cultural heritage institutions increasingly use participatory events to draw in new audiences, little is known about what motivates participants to attend these events. Twenty semi-structured interviews with 29 individuals who attended one of three Inspiring Ireland 1916 public collection days were conducted in order to explore participants' motivations for attending the event and perceived benefits. A participatory archives event, the collection days invited members of the public to bring relevant possessions to be digitally captured and have their story of the item recorded. The stories and items were then made available on the Inspiring Ireland website commemorating the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland. While participatory initiatives have enjoyed increasing attention in the archives literature of late, much of this work attempts to define terms or model behaviours from the perspective of the archivists. Little existing work attempts to explore the motivations of individuals to participate in these events using empirical methods. Findings suggest motivations for attending a collection day can be characterised across four characteristics that can be categorised as aligning with individual or communal perception of benefits: A) to share their story and provide evidence in order to influence the contemporary narrative of the Rising (individual benefit), B) to relieve the burdens of preservation and remembering (individual benefit), C) to find out more about the object or context of the object (individual benefit), and D) to share their object via the open access features of the Inspiring Ireland website as a way to fulfil a civic duty and support a public good (communal benefit). These findings contradict existing literature about the purpose for engaging in participatory initiatives (to pluralise collections) and assumptions about why individuals are motivated to engage (altruistic, intrinsic motivation). Further exploration of the concept of communal versus individual perceived benefit could influence the ways in which cultural heritage institutions justify their role in society. The concept of an archival user is evolving. Understanding how participation can be considered use will help institutions develop a more holistic understanding of use in contemporary settings.     

高校图书馆向社会开放的策略研究

高校图书馆对社会开放是高校图书馆的发展趋势,很多高校馆已经在不同程度上开展了这项工作,但由于认识上的偏差,总体进展缓慢。高校图书馆应当在满足本校需求的基础上对社会进行有限制的、有选择的开放,并积极寻求同社会协同合作的开放途径。开放过程中涉及到的时间问题、收费问题、文献保护问题、安全问题和效益问题等都需要高校馆采取适当的措施予以解决,以保证其工作的正常进行。     

Resisting by workarounds: Unraveling the barriers of implementing open government data policy

All public values (transparency, accountability, civic participation, and collaboration) of open government could be difficult to achieve without administrators' good implementation. This paper raises concern that perceived risks to OGD accountability lead to undesired strategic resistance. Using a nation-wide government survey data of Taiwanese public servants, this study empirically tests for differences in OGD behaviors between two types of perceived risks (individual accountability vs. organizational accountability). Results find the existence of perceived risks to accountability in the process of data release and positive effects on inducing strategic workaround when implementing OGD policies. These findings shed light on the understanding of practices of open government and contributes to knowledge of administrative behavior.     

Mapping the challenges of Artificial Intelligence in the public sector: Evidence from public healthcare

The nascent adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the public sector is being assessed in contradictory ways. But while there is increasing speculation about both its dangers and its benefits, there is very little empirical research to substantiate them. This study aims at mapping the challenges in the adoption of AI in the public sector as perceived by key stakeholders. Drawing on the theoretical lens of framing, we analyse a case of adoption of the AI system IBM Watson in public healthcare in China, to map how three groups of stakeholders (government policy-makers, hospital managers/doctors, and Information Technology (IT) firm managers) perceive the challenges of AI adoption in the public sector. Findings show that different stakeholders have diverse, and sometimes contradictory, framings of the challenges. We contribute to research by providing an empirical basis to claims of AI challenges in the public sector, and to practice by providing four sets of guidelines for the governance of AI adoption in the public sector.     

Accounting for citizens when explaining open government effectiveness

Open government initiatives attempt to strengthen the relationship between public information disclosure and citizen engagement. Yet empirical assessments suggest they frequently miss their mark, thus highlighting a gap in open government knowledge: while a strong emphasis is placed on institutions in shaping the flow of government information and creating opportunities for engagement, there has been very little emphasis on understanding citizens and ways of communicating government information to draw them to engagement opportunities. To address this gap, we design a randomized survey experiment to demonstrate how the choice of reference points – cognitive anchors that innately influence the way individuals approach decisions – used to communicate government information can strengthen the relationship between public information disclosure and citizen engagement, and in turn the effectiveness of open government initiatives. We explain how these findings offer novel theoretical and practical insights into ways open government could be leveraged for purposes of enhancing citizen engagement.     

美国科技博物馆展览开发中公众参与的研究及启示

展览开发是博物馆展览的基础问题,随着公众参与逐渐被提上研究议程,也促使我们去思考展览开发过程中如何引入公众参与。美国的科技博物馆展览开发已经建立了较为完善的公众参与体系:明确的参与者角色、系统的参与理念和阶段式的参与行为,已经获得了普遍的应用。借鉴美国博物馆的经验,我国博物馆展览的开发,应在构建展览评估体系的基础上,进一步了解和认识公众,拓展公众参与的方式,并不断寻求公众的声音。     

Characterizing the importance of clarity of roles and responsibilities in government inter-organizational collaboration and information sharing initiatives

Previous research has shown that clarity of roles and responsibilities (CRR) influences the performance of individual organizations as well as inter-organizational efforts. In the context of cross-boundary information sharing (CBIS), CRR has been found to enable other important determinants of success, such as building trust among members, increasing their willingness to participate, and mitigating some of their concerns about security, among others. However, few studies have attempted to understand the determinants of CRR in government CBIS initiatives. Sayogo, Gil-Garcia, and Cronemberger's (2016) analysis of results of a national survey identified three significant determinants of CRR in CBIS, (1) the extent participants use boundary objects, (2) participant skills in terms of collaboration, coordination, and communication, and (3) the diversity of the participating organizations and their goals. Seeking to expand on their findings in terms of new understanding about the influence of significant determinants of CRR in CBIS, this study draws on findings from eight U.S. state and local government public health and criminal justice CBIS cases. This study contributes to existing knowledge about CBIS in the public sector by characterizing the determinants and providing new understanding of the nature of the influence of the determinants of CRR on CBIS. In particular, it shows how the extent of boundary object use, collaboration, and the diversity of participants affect CBIS initiatives in different contexts. In practical terms, creating new understanding of the determinants of CRR has value for public managers and their leadership as they must increasingly collaborate and share information across the boundaries of organizations in the process solving increasingly complex public problems.     

公共部门信息再利用的企业定位及认知调查

文章阐述了公共部门信息再利用中的企业功能及其信息增值方式,调查了我国企业如何使用公共部门信息以及企业和公共部门在使用或提供公共部门信息过程中可能出现的问题,提出了促进企业再利用公共部门信息的相应对策。     

Public engagement and AI: A values analysis of national strategies

Calls for public engagement and participation in AI governance align strongly with a public value management approach to public administration. Simultaneously, the prominence of commercial vendors and consultants in AI discourse emphasizes market value and efficiency in a way often associated with the private sector and New Public Management. To understand how this might influence the consolidation of AI governance regimes and decision-making by public administrators, 16 national strategies for AI are subjected to content analysis. References to the public's role and public engagement mechanisms are mapped across national strategies, as is the articulation of values related to professionalism, efficiency, service, engagement, and the private sector. Though engagement rhetoric is common, references to specific engagement mechanisms and activities are rare. Analysis of value relationships highlights congruence of engagement values with professionalism and private sector values, and raises concerns about neoliberal technology frames that normalize AI, obscuring policy complexity and trade-offs.     

Museum Monsters and Victorious Viruses: Improving Public Understanding of Emerging Biomedical Research

Although microbes directly impact everyone's health, most people have limited knowledge about them. In this article, we describe a museum and media public education campaign aimed at helping diverse audiences better understand emerging knowledge about microbes and infectious disease. Funded primarily by the Science Education Partnership (SEPA) program of the National Institutes of Health, this campaign involved crosscutting programs designed to extend impacts throughout a broad public audience. Collaborations with partners from public media, libraries, science education, the social sciences, and biomedical research centers extended our outreach to local and national audiences of adults and youth. Our campaign developed programs for radio broadcast, schools, libraries, museums, and publishers to ultimately reach over eight million people. In addition, we conducted a series of research studies focused on understanding the mental models that people create of the complex concepts of microbes and infectious disease and on how to engage hard‐to‐reach adolescents with this science content. These studies furthered our understanding of how people reason about unseen phenomena, the kinds of materials that might intrigue youth who claim little interest in science, and how to begin to combat misinformation pervasive in this field. Our comparisons of expert, teacher, and teen reasoning about microbes revealed their distinct mental models on the topics of infection, vaccination, and immune response. Our investigation of comics confirmed their power to motivate teenagers to want to read more about science. Across all levels of science identity, we found that youth were more engaged with the comics than with comparable essays. Together, these findings provide insights into how to educate a diverse public about emerging biomedical research.     

Headlines from the discovery files: Key publications on scholarly content discoverability

This article reviewed 13 research papers and industry publications from 2015 and 2016 to present a broad view of today's scholarly content discovery landscape. The featured publications strive to address limitations in scholarly content discovery and access experiences to expand our understanding of the researcher experience and to influence positive change for all stakeholders. With original research findings or well‐cited expert analysis, the reviewed papers outline the dominant channels of scholarly content discovery channels and demonstrate how trends fluctuate by the type of user and their information needs, as well as a wide variety of demographics. Best practices in metadata management, standards, and cross‐sector collaboration are also discussed. Together, the publications reviewed here validate the importance of user‐centric, evidence‐based, and standards‐compliant approaches to learned resource development and dissemination.     

Being smart: Emerging technologies and innovation in the public sector

Smart government is used to characterize activities that creatively invest in emergent technologies coupled with innovative strategies to achieve more agile and resilient government structures and governance infrastructures. However, there is no consensus in terms of what this term includes and how it is related to emergent technologies and innovation in the public sector. This introductory paper provides readers with ways to think about smart government and summarizes findings from twelve articles included in this special issue. These articles, which are the best papers of the 6th International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2012), contribute to emerging understanding of being smart in government settings. The articles span a great diversity of related topics such as smart cities, open government, and participation mechanisms. Collectively, the articles provide perspectives on the nature of smart governments and illustrate exemplar practices and initiatives on how governments are opening up and transforming service delivery to become smarter. The special issue in its entirety contributes to understanding governance structures, technical infrastructures, and other requirements geared toward supporting the operations of smarter governments around the world.     

Social media use in local government: Linkage of technology,task, and organizational context

Social media technologies have begun to enter the governmental workplace as tools to accomplish improved public service and engagement. Widespread recognition of the potential of social media technology for achieving public outcomes does not match our understanding about how and why specific tools are being used for specific purposes. This paper makes use of newly collected national survey data from local government managers in five different agencies to address the questions: which social media tools are being used, for which tasks or purposes; and what organizational characteristics influence the coupling of task and technology. Findings reveal patterns of social media tool application for particular purposes, although organizations do not all use social media tools in the same way. Moreover, regression analysis shows that different organizational factors – work characteristics, innovativeness, technology and management capacity and stakeholder influence – predict each of the four technology–task couplings — social media for dissemination, social media for feedback on service quality, social media for participation, and social media for internal work collaboration. This study demonstrates that social media tools are not a monolithic group and calls for greater research attention to the complex interactions among social media technology, task and organizational context.     

开放获取研究综述

目前，我国图书情报界对于开放获取的重视程度越来越高，对于开放获取的认识也逐渐加深，本文主要对开放获取的定义、实现方式、研究阵营及其影响等国内外的研究进行总结和分析，以期对开放获取有全面的了解。