Fact Sheet

Barriers to PSI Re-Use and Open Data

What is this fact sheet about? Opening up data for re-use can seem both simple and complex at the same time. Questions to answer and barriers to overcome can feel overwhelming. This fact sheet aims to help you nd your way in the maze. A still very new eld As opening up data for re-use by default is not yet an established process in the public sector, there is no easy to follow recipe yet on how to start making government data available for re-use. Across Europe public sector bodies as well as citizens and organisations, are together building the experiences and practices needed. The Open Data Handbook gives an useful overview of what is important to take into account. Feared barriers, real barriers In discussions about opening up data for re-use, usually two groups of barriers become visible. First a group that contains the barriers envisioned or feared before attempts are made to make data available for re-use, and a second group that is formed by the barriers actually experienced when data is being made available and gets re-used. Feared barriers, and how to address them The rst group of barriers, that are envisioned before any steps are taken to publish or re-use data, contain generic questions that are formulated on a highly abstract level: What is the business case for Open Data?, How do we establish the quality of government data?. These barriers are hard, if not impossible, to deal with at such a generic level, and there is a risk that they are used as the reason for not acting (not opening up data, not attempting to re-use data). Solving issues around this rst group of barriers, is usually possible or at least easier to do if the questions are framed in a much more specic context: the

Version March 2012

context of a specic data set, a specic data holder, and a specic re-use situation. What is the quality of this data set, in relation to the way we intend to re-use it?, Is this data set with these elds public or not? Real barriers, experienced in practice Barriers as they are encountered by open data projects across the EU have been discussed in the SharePSI workshop in May 2011. Several groups of barriers emerged: The transition for government (from political will to open up data, to arranging it legally, technically and organisationally, and covering the costs involved). The transition for re-users (from gaining access to data, to interpreting and understanding the data, to nding ways to re-use the data and establishing organisational structure and business models for re-use) Disruption of existing re-use markets and existing revenue models of public sector bodies. Legal issues, concerning licenses, competition law, copyright and database rights. Privacy questions Technical issues, standards, linked data Solutions are found in practice along several axis: Addressing the top, middle and bottom of government organisations Addressing short-, mid- and longterm issues Doing small scale things, while keeping an eye on large scale issues that are also relevant Organising for the transition to default open data, and organising new standard procedures On all these issues dialogue, network and community, involving both public sector bodies and citizens and organisations are being used as a way forward. See SharePSI for more details.