The messy reality of open data and politics | Public Leaders Network | Guardian Professional

abernard102@gmail.com 2013-04-09

Summary:

"It is perhaps unsurprising that there is growing awareness of the political nature of open data policies. It is only by ignoring the messy reality of both data and politics that positivists can suggest the release of data will inevitably lead to more 'rational' and evidence-based government. In practice, datasets themselves are political objects, and policies to open up datasets are the product of politics. If you look beyond the binary fight over whether government data should be open or not, then you will find a far more subtle set of political questions over the what and the how of opening data. Datasets are built from the categories and relationships that the database designer (or their political masters) decide are important. In their book, Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences, Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star describe how the international classification of disease, the basis for worldwide mortality statistics, has historically under-represented tropical diseases in its code lists. The result is that global health policy has been less able to see, distinguish and target certain conditions. The design of a dataset has a big impact on the policy that can be made with it. The practical and political decisions that went into constructing a dataset do not disappear when that dataset is opened, but are instead carried with it. This is particularly relevant as not only are the embedded politics of government datasets being thrust into the open, but many 'open datasets' are being constructed in order to be made open. Local authority spending data has never existed as a single dataset before – but a central edict that this should be published, itself a decision with a political edge, has generated new standards for representing local spend, that have to decide what sort of information about spend is important. Should the data contain company identifiers to let us see which firms get public money? And should spend data be linked to results and categorisation of public services? These decisions can have big impacts on how data can be used, what it can tell us, and what impacts open data will have. With current UK government agendas emphasising support for entrepreneurial, rather than civic, re-use of open data, a strong critical focus is needed on the choices over which datasets are published, how they are shaped, and how they are put to use for transparency, accountability and social change."

Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2013/apr/08/messy-reality-open-data-politics

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.psi oa.policies oa.comment oa.crowd oa.quality oa.standards oa.lay oa.definitions oa.economic_impact oa.government oa.data

Date tagged:

04/09/2013, 10:59

Date published:

04/09/2013, 06:59