Lorinc Thurnay, Researcher, Danube University Krems, AU

1. ERASMUS+
Knowledge Alliance
Scientific foundations training and
entrepreneurship activities in the domain of ICT
– enabled Governance
Open Government Data
for transparency, innovation and public
engagement
Lőrinc Thurnay

2. AGENDA
• What is Open Data (OD) and Open Governmental Data (OGD)
• Brief History
• Objectives and Benefits
• Barriers and Risks
• Quality of Open Data
• Linked Data
• Data Portals
• Lifecycle
• Use Cases
• Ideas for assignment

3. WHO AM I?
Lőrinc Thurnay, MSc BA
Research fellow
Department for E-Governance and Administration
Danube University Krems, Austria
Background:
- e-Governance Technologies and Services MSc, Tallinn
University of Technology
- Communication and Media Studies BA, Metropolitan
University, Budapest HU
- Developer
Interests: open data, digital identity, blockchain,
participatory budgeting, web technologies, social
sciences

5. DEFINITIONS
Technical: OD is „freely accessible data on the Internet, reusable under
open licenses, provided in appropriate machine-readable formats” (Dietrich
2012)
Purpose: OD is „accessible public data that people, companies, and
organizations can use to launch new ventures, analyze patterns and trends,
make data-driven decisions, and solve complex problems” (Gurin 2014)
What makes data Open Data:
Data must be primary, complete, timely, accessible, machine
processable, available online, accessible non-discriminatory, in non-
proprietary formats, with non-restrictive license, no (or minimal) cost,
as accurate as possible
Gurin, J. (2014). Open data now: the secret to hot startups, smart investing, savvy marketing, and fast innovation. McGraw Hill Professional.
Dietrich, D., et al.: Open data handbook documentation, p. 11 (2012)

6. OPEN DATA AND THE OTHERS
Charalabidis, Y., Zuiderwijk, A., Alexopoulos, C., Janssen, M., Lampoltshammer, T., & Ferro, E. (2017). The World of Open Data. Springer.
Too big to handle
Extra value
Typically passive, private
Eg: FB, retailer DBs
Different sources
Structured, m.readable
Semantic querying
Free access on Internet
Licence allows reuse
Machine-readable, etc.
Produced by govt
Obligation per FoIAs

7. BRIEF HISTORY OF OGD
Freedom of Information Acts (FoIA) (UnDHR 1948)
GPS, Weather ’80s
Obama memo on „Transparency and Open Govt” 🡪 2009 🡪 Open Data
Portals
EU Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive (2013)

8. OBJECTIVES AND BENEFITS OF OGD
OD 🡨🡨 OG: related in these, but not sufficient.
Institutional measures. Public policy-making.
Prof. Wimmer, Monday „Policy informatics”
Policy making:multiple stakeholders, data-driven
decision making.
Charalabidis, Y., Zuiderwijk, A., Alexopoulos, C., Janssen, M., Lampoltshammer, T., & Ferro, E. (2017). The World of Open Data. Springer.

9. BARRIERS AND RISKS OF OPEN DATA
Creation needs to be highly related to data publication 🡪 metadata
Quality of data
Lack of willingness to publish (cost, risks (privacy), restructuring
needed, lack of understanding)
Identifying what is useful
Poor description
Weak search capabiliteis
Linking is hard
Quality of data
Support and collaboration
🡪 Wasted efforts
Create&
collectPublishFindUse
Collab&
feedback

10. QUALITY OF OPEN DATA
Data sets
Content and format: accurate, standard, consistent, complete, timely,
unique, safe, etc.
Metadata
Exists, understandable, relevant, accurate, contact, date, license, etc.
Linking
Available, standard, rich, etc.
PDF-to-plaintext
latin letters to greek letters
each country different portal, file structure, metadata
schema...
BOLD
Big Open
Legal Data

11. QUALITY OF OPEN DATA
Data set formatting issue example:
Non-standard CSV file separator
CSV: comma-eparated values
CSV Source:
In Excel:
; separator , separator

12. 12https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee#/media/File:Sir_Tim_Berners-Lee_(cropped).jpg
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
- Propose of 5★ OD rating
- Invented WWW in 1989
5stardata.info
5 STAR RATING OF
OPEN DATA

13. Upload your stuff on the Web
Whatever format
Open license
13
Look - store - share - manually copy
data
Simple to publish: save or scan,
upload
https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://5stardata.info/en/

14. Structured, machine-readable data
14
Use proprietary software to:
- perform calculations
- visualize
- aggregate
- export to other format0
https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://5stardata.info/en/

15. 15https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://5stardata.info/en/

16. Turkey, Orange, Taxi
Resource Description Framework
Semantic Web
Triples: Subject 🡪 Predicate 🡪 Object
16https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://5stardata.info/en/
Subject
Predicate
Object
Object
Predicate
Subject
Object
Predicate

17. https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://5stardata.info/en/
Person
Name: Paul Schuster Place: Q1731
Name: Dresden
hasNAme
17

18. Linked to schemas and Databases
Schema.org
18
https://webfoundation.org/2011/11/5-star-open-data-initiatives/
https://5stardata.info/en/
http://techland.time.com/2012/09/05/10-questions-for-sir-tim-berners-lee/

20. OPEN DATA PORTALS
Organizational, sectoral, national, international, etc.
CKAN

24. USE CASE: RIIGIRAHA

25. USE CASE: RIIGIRAHA

26. USE CASE: OPENLAWS

27. EUROPEANDATAPORTAL.EU/EN/USING-DATA/USE-CASES

28. Take two datasets
- Link them (map formats and schemas)
- Visualize and learn something new (data journalism?)
- Write essay about your findings, methods, quality issues that you
encountered (as recommendations for the data provider).
- Create a business idea / business model based on an Open Data you find.
You can combine it with your (fictional) business’ internal data/functions!
Check the Open Data use case database at the European Open Data Portal!

29. Contact us:
✔ Website: https://gov30.eu
✔ Twitter: @Government_30
Thank you!
Lőrinc Thurnay
Danube University Krems