Understanding the Demand for Open Financial Data

When it comes to open data, much has been done around what we can publish, but much more can be done on identifying what others might need and want. Many open data initiatives have been started as supply-driven efforts seeking to increase transparency and leverage new information dissemination technologies - and that’s been a good way to start. However, being supply-driven is not the only way forward – a genuinely demand-driven approach would allow data providers to respond to, rather than anticipate, the data needs of users.    So what is the demand for open data? This is a simple question that is difficult to answer.  Because people can typically access open data without registration, and use it without attribution (when attribution requirements do exist, they are rarely enforced) it has been a challenge to understand who is using data, what data is in demand and how data is being used. The occasional link-back offers anecdotes, but it’s difficult to grasp how far and to what ends open data travels.  Another challenge for open data initiatives in an international development context is that many efforts exist online while many beneficiaries of development assistance live in 'offline' communities. Some estimate this group to include around 65 percent of the world's population. Even with 'infomediaries' to contextualize data for specific audiences, understanding what information is relevant at the ground level, in offline communities, is important to unlocking the potential of open data in development.  Page views, downloads, and API calls are a few ways to measure and quantify demand, but they don’t tell us much about how data are used or what data users want but can’t find. Tracking social media chatter and ripples also offer insights into the reach of open data, particularly awareness. Efforts like the World Bank's Open Government Data Toolkit look at measuring and increasing the demand for data by looking at data consumption in events such as hackathons, bootcamps, and media workshops. Additionally, the Open Data Readiness Assessment Tool uses interviews to assess the levels of data demand and engagement within civil society, the private sector, and governments.  With a focus on the demand side of open financial data, we hope to build on this work and seek insight into two questions: What financial data are people using? What is being done with that data? ...  The initial survey will be conducted online (it’s accessible through bit.ly/OpenDataDemand and embedded below) and targets the global community of users and publishers of open financial data ... "