Identifying and Overcoming the Barriers Towards Open Data of Public Undertakings

Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 20(2), 96-111, 2022 IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS TOWARDS OPEN DATA OF PUBLIC UNDERTAKINGS* Frida Boone1 and Bastiaan van Loenen2, ** 1 Utrecht University Utrecht, the Netherlands 1 2 Delft University of Technology Delft, the Netherlands 2 DOI: 10.7906/indecs.20.2.3 Regular article Received: 24 January 2022. Accepted: 16 March 2022. ABSTRACT The creation of open data has seen a series of waves in which every growing resources of data are becoming accessible to a growing number of users from a diversifying number of public entities. The European Commission anticipates this movement by setting a new scope to the re-use of Public Sector Information Directive. Instead of exclusively focussing on Public Sector Information), the new scope of its successor, the Open Data Directive, includes data from public undertakings as well. In order for public undertakings to comply with this future legislation, research into the current openness of public undertakings and the barriers to open data is key. This research presents three different levels of openness of data: (1) data is only open for the own organisation, (2) data is open for the internal organisation and trusted parties can use the data, and (3) open data for all. In this case the public undertakings are Port of Rotterdam and Schiphol Airport. The results showed that the data policy of Port of Rotterdam matches openness level 1. The data policy of Schiphol Airport matches level two. The open data policy of Dutch grid operator, Liander, corresponds with the third level as this organisation provides open data since 2014 for everyone. It can be stated that neither Port of Rotterdam nor Schiphol Airport is ready to comply with the future rules when the Open Data Directive requirements become mandatory. Barriers that are associated with achieving a higher level of open data are related to institutional, financial, legal, and quality and technical aspects. Overcoming these barriers requires, among other things, highly motivated staff to provide open data. KEY WORDS open data, public undertakings, open data directive, European Union, barriers CLASSIFICATION JEL: C89 *This is the extended version of the abstract published in: Vujić, M. and Šalamon, D., eds.: Book of abstracts of the National Open Data Conference. University of Zagreb, Faculty of Traffic and Transport Sciences,*Zagreb, 2021. **Corresponding author, : ; ++31(0)152782554; **P.O. Box 5030, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands Identifying and overcoming the barriers towards open data of public undertakings INTRODUCTION Globally, open data has played an important role in creating social and economic opportunities, solving public problems and empowering citizens to make better decisions [1]. An example of this is the United Kingdom, where heart surgeons of the National Health Service published comparable data on individual clinical outcomes in 2004. In 2011, improvements are reported; the survival rate increased by more than a third [2]. Another example is Nepal where open data regarding aid flows – expressed in geographical information – have contributed to building a transparent and accountable public institution after the civil war [3]. Likewise, within the European Union, open data is considered important for socio-economic developments of the society [4]. Recently, the lack of effective data use to address the COVID-19 virus shows that this important development still requires further work. In April 2020, 500 data practitioners and organisations over the world engaged in the ‘Call for Action’ by GovLab, a big data think tank, to develop an open data infrastructure which is capable of challenge the pandemic and other dynamic threats [1]. The majority of the data which is considered most valuable for tackling dynamic threats in the world is generated and held by the private sector – collected and controlled behind closed doors [1]. Interestingly, most global, regional and national efforts on opening data focus on open government data (or public sector information, PSI). It is expected that the value of open public sector information in Europe will increase from € 52 million in 2018 to € 194 billion in 2030 [5]. However, in order to answer pressing public questions on dynamic threats data publicly obtained needs to be open, central and incorporated into both public and private sector [1, 4]. The growing demand for open data is starting to have an influence on the open data policy of the European Union. The scope in the new open data directive is not limited anymore to public sector organisations, but was extended to other sectors. In 2019, open data and the re-use of PSI was enacted in a new EU Directive, the Open Data Directive (ODD). The ODD provides a common legal framework for a European market for government-held data [4]. It builds on the Directives of 2003 and 2013, that focused on the re-use of records from public organisations, including national archives and libraries [6]. The new ODD also applies to documents held by public undertakings, research performing organisations and research funding organisations. These are non-government parties that collect, produce, reproduce and disseminate documents to provide services in the general interest [7]. Most often the data policies of public undertakings are restricted, not open data policies. The provisions of the new Directive are not yet mandatory for public undertakings. However, one may expect that new legislation will be more strict in the future. For the Netherlands to comply successfully with future legislation the challenge is to identify the barriers and means of tackling them for public undertakings to achieve an open data policy in the future. In this article the following research question is central: “How can public undertakings in the Netherlands overcome the barriers to opening their datasets in order to be prepared for expected future legislation towards open data for public undertakings?” We applied a mixed method research methodology. First, we conducted a comprehensive literature study on various concepts of open data and openness of data, barriers of open data, and the open data directive. This resulted in a first draft openness level model. Then we conducted interviews to review the open data status of three public undertakings and mapped their status on the openness level model and highlighted barriers to be overcome to move to the next level. In this last step, we used the experiences of a best practice open data public undertaking. 97 F. Boone and B. van Loenen In this article we first explain open data and the open data directive, and present three levels of openness. The following section addresses the barriers one may have to tackle when moving from one level of openness to a next. Then, we assess the current level of openness of three Dutch public undertakings and explore the barriers they may experience when openin (...truncated)