Ανοιχτά Δημόσια Δεδομένα
Creators: name: Theodoros, Papadopoulos
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Open data
Open Governance
Open access
Public data

description: Public Administration (PA) gathers, produces, reproduces and disseminates a wide range of data and<br> information in many areas of public social and economic life. The vast majority of this huge volume of data<br> is either not accessible by citizens, or published in ways that do not facilitate or even hinder its reuse. The<br> openness and free availability of such data is one of the dominant themes in public debate and now<br> supported by international examples.<br> The possibility of further use of this information can help both to transparency and accountability of<br> government to citizens, as well as, to the overall improvement in the level of participation of the latter in<br> democratic structures. It also creates conditions for economic development by allowing value added<br> services to be created and helping to disseminate scientific knowledge.<br> There are two basic movements demanding greater access to information, documents and datasets<br> held by public authorities. The first one is the movement for Access to Public Information, which defends<br> the right of access to information from the perspective of a liberal right of the citizen to be informed about<br> public affairs. The second one is the movement for Open Public Data which emphasizes on social and<br> economic benefits that can be derived from freely available public data.<br> Although the two movements have several common goals, there are significant differences in the<br> approach and the methods used. One of these is that the movement for the Access to Information focuses<br> on providing access to documents upon request, whereas the movement for Open Public Data focuses on<br> universal access to government databases and data sets available online. Moreover, while the first focuses<br> exclusively on the legal aspect of the right explained, the second one deals also with the technical and<br> technological parameters ensuring the whole process.<br> The purpose of the movement of Open Data is to make public data freely available to everyone<br> without restrictions on intellectual or industrial property rights, and using open, structured and machine<br> readable standards. The dissemination of public data should always include publishing on the internet as it<br> makes them more accessible and useful for citizens comparing to any other method. Online publishing<br> however, is only the beginning, not the end, on a series of important choices to be made.<br> In this study we examine the economic, social, legal and technical aspects of access to public<br> information and data from the perspective of both movements. We also look at the access policies both<br> internationally and in Greece, and propose organizational and technological interventions to strengthen<br> them.<br> Lately, several governments (with leading UK and U.S.), realized the need for openness and free<br> availability of public data. In this regard, institutional initiatives and collaborations with leading research<br> institutions have already begun in order to adopt appropriate strategies and legal frameworks and to<br> propose specific technological solutions in this direction.<br> In Greece, although the Constitutional basis for proactive and freely available data electronically has<br> existed since 2001, it was only recently that the legal framework implementing such a feature has been<br> instituted. The Law 3979/2011 (Act on Electronic Government) provides free disposal of the data without<br> substantial limitations, in a way that allows their reuse from everyone. But what finally finds the essence of<br> the right is not only the legal framework introduced, but also, organizational and technological options<br> implementing it. In this area, further steps and coordination are necessary.<br> In General, there is no given methodology to assess the policies of open access to public data. In the<br> present paper we attempt to outline the key indicators an evaluation methodology of openness should<br> include. The investigation is on country-level. While developing the methodology, we propose a set of<br> indicators that represent specific aspects of policy on Open Data. Their selection is based on the theoretical<br> framework explained in previous chapters of this work. We continue by weighting and grouping the<br> previous indicators and we compose composite indices that combine factors that are decisive for the<br> conclusions derived.<br>