Agencies struggling with open data transition: OAIC

Government agencies of all sizes are struggling to build internal discipline around the management and publication of open-data resources, according to a recent survey from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Speaking at GTR's Digital Information Management and Security 2013 conference, Kelly Hart – a director of the Regulation and Strategy Branch of the OAIC – cited the results of a recent survey of 191 government agencies that found most were struggling with the idea of making public information more accessible and discoverable for publication to the public.

Fully 30% of respondents identified this as the most challenging of eight open public sector information (PSI) management goals that have broadly outlined by OAIC as necessary for promoting open-government strategies.

Other obstacles included adapting that information to new publication standards such as WECAG accessibility requirements (87.8%); establishment and maintenance of an information asset register (76.9%); adequate budget (29.2%); a lack of technical capability; the need to harness “vast stores” of legacy documents in paper and digital format; and challenges in building an open data-focused culture.

“Applying metadata to information is considered to distract from the core business,” Hart said, noting that two out of every five agencies do not routinely apply metadata to the information they publish.

Fully 28% of respondents said the first OAIC principle – to make open access to information a default position – was proving challenging, with less than one in ten agencies adopting such a position.

“We found it rather remarkable that agencies are still having difficulties transitioning from a culture of secrecy, to a culture of openness as a default,” Hart said.

“Many agencies’ existing recordkeeping systems have not been designed for the new era of open PSI. But there is a need for cultural change, more active sponsorship of open PSI by agency leaders, and clarity and awareness on open-government policies.”

Many agencies were holding back on open PSI initiatives because they feared legal liability from incomplete or inaccurate data, or inappropriate use of the data by citizens or private interests. Despite their prudence, Hart said the Creative Commons license – recommended as a default information-publication license for government agencies – already limited that liability.

“We’ve seen them balancing risk with the need to make information available,” she said. “That has had the unfortunate consequence of some agencies taking the risk-averse approach and publishing less rather than more.”

“However, we feel the CC license does include limitations of liability and clauses that are appropriate. The fact that data is incomplete, or may have errors, should not be a barrier for publishing it. Agencies can take steps to clearly explain the data they’ve published, and to inform people if it is incomplete or has errors.”

Hart pointed to the example of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which stopped charging for its publications in years ago in a move that cost it $4.5m in revenue and generated cost savings of around $945,000. Releasing the data under CC licensing caused an annual loss of approximately $3.5m – but a 2011 Australian National Data Service analysis found the move had generated between $6m and $25m in other annual benefits.

“PSI is a public resource that should be available to the private sector to increase economic growth,” she said. “If the private sector is able to extract value by value-adding to that data, that meets the overall policy objective.” – David Braue