the insufficient working of the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) cycle under weak electronic administration governance and assessment systems in the government, ICT-using personnel shortages and low consciousness about ICT-using reforms.

To address these challenges, the MIC proposal calls on the government (1) to introduce a framework for assessment from the viewpoint of third parties and secure specific cost-benefit performance, effectiveness and efficiency under the government's chief information officer, (2) to develop common rules as guidelines for the maintenance and operation of information systems and the management of assets to improve quality levels, and (3) to foster government officials' ICT capabilities and information system management (by training a total of 10,000 officials annually) to turn out electronic administration promoters.

In a manner to respond to the proposal, the New Strategy instructs the government (1) to prepare and promote government information system investment plans under the government's chief information officer for the steady implementation of a roadmap for government information system reforms in line with the formation of budgets starting from the FY2014 budget and to develop a new assessment arrangement under the Strategic

### 2. Promoting open data

## (1) Japan's open data promotion initiatives

### a. Initiatives at IT Headquarters

On July 4, 2012, the Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society compiled an electronic administration open data strategy including four basic principles – (1) the government should proactively release public data, (2) public data should be released in machine readable forms, (3) public data use should be promoted irrespective of whether the purposes are commercial or noncommercial, and (4) the government should promptly begin with public data release initiatives for data available for release and accumulate achievements.

A panel of electronic administration open data experts has been established at the headquarters to consider specific measures based on the strategy. The panel is dealing with basic matters including (1) developing rules required for using public data, (2) developing data catalogues, and (3) promoting the standardization of data forms and structures.

The Declaration towards Creating a World-leading IT Nation, as decided in June 2013, states that in order to promote making public data open to the private sector, the government should (1) draft and publish a roadmap based on the electronic administration open data strategy, (2) revise public data use rules to admit the free secondary use of public data from FY2013 and expand the release of data in international standard forms suitable for machine reading, and (3) launch practical versions of catalogue sites for public data opened by government agencies within FY2013 and implement their full opera-Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society, (2) to develop common rules for procuring information systems and managing projects and to create and operate databases for managing government information system assets, and (3) to implement a cross-sectional initiative for revising and expanding training programs to foster ICT personnel in the government.

### d. Enhancing future initiatives for promoting electronic administration

While appreciating traditional electronic administration initiatives as having made certain achievements in expanding computerized and one-stop services, the New Strategy points out that over-the-counter and paper-based administrative services have been given priority with online and computerized services remaining auxiliary and that the vertically divided structure of the government or each government agency has prevented convenient services for users from being provided. Regretting these problems, the government is required to provide more convenient and less expensive administrative services while building administrative infrastructure invulnerable to disasters and information security problems and implementing thorough cost cuts and efficient administrative management.

tion in FY2014. The Declaration sets a goal of realizing open data conditions equivalent to those in other developed countries by the end of FY2015.

### b. Initiatives at Open Data Promotion Consortium

On July 27, 2012, the industry, government and academia jointly founded the Open Data Promotion Consortium to promote developing infrastructure for realizing an open data distribution environment. The consortium conducts (1) research on solutions to problems with open data promotion and (2) the diffusion and enlightenment of open data promotion. The MIC is cooperating with the consortium to consider technical specifications for open data and rules for the secondary use of open data and to send information about the significance and potential of open data.

### c. MIC initiatives for open data promotion

## (a) Developing an open data distribution environment

From the viewpoint of allowing a wide range of parties to use open data and promoting the creation of various ingenuity-based ways for using such data, the information distribution priority is shifting from the vertical informatization of individual areas to horizontal or cross-sectional cooperation. Under such background, the MIC, in a bid to develop an environment where data used within organizations or industries can be exploited openly in society, has implemented (1) the development and international standardization of common APIs (application programming interfaces) for information distribution cooperation infrastructure, (2) the preparation of rules for the secondary use of data, and (3) demonstra-