The Open Data Movement
The roots of the open data movement can be understood as the intersection of scientific culture with the internet and information technology society. Scientists have long considered that data generated as product of scientific research should be shared freely for the common good. Similarly, the open-source software movement and the proponents of crowdsourcing saw data, and in particular government-generated data, as a public good that could be freely distributed via the internet.
The open data movement is a techno-political idea in which the principles of open-source working methodologies are applied to public affairs, and thus obey to technical, economic and legal criteria. Raw data is conceived as source code that can be shared openly, allowing others to implement their own analysis and interpretation, and at the same time generate new knowledge from it.
Proponents of this movement recognize that data needs to be processed and/or refined in order to be easily understood and create actionable knowledge for citizens. Thus, activists of this movement officiate as ‘data intermediaries’ for the public and are behind many data journalism projects; with the aim to encourage agency and political participation through data-literacy.
By applying the open-source model of participation to political participation, the freely sharing of raw data generated by governments should break their interpretative monopoly and allow citizens to come about their own interpretation of data regarding public issues, and possibly identifying biases in government policy making. This has sprung the development of civic technologies based on open data. The creation of new public value through the utilization of datasets provided by the government has been one of the intended outcomes of the Open Data Movement.
Data is defined as open when it can be accessed, modified and shared by anyone for any purpose and without restrictions; and thus its value rests on the ability to be made available to third parties.
Open Data Businesses
New business models are arising that integrates open data into their products and services in a useful and profitable approach. Google takes advantage of open transport data to enhance their Google Maps applications; Yelp utilizes open data from municipalities regarding the hygienic quality of restaurants; and the real estate site Zillow access open data on crime rates, education levels and transportation to better assess price estimates of homes for sale.
There are businesses that make their data open for others to use as well; think of Uber, The New York Times, and Facebook (now Meta) for instance.
Call to Action
Can you explain the relationship between open data and democracy? Do you think data literacy contributes to empowered citizens? What are techno-political ideas? Can you identify concrete examples of civic technologies?
References
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951715594634
About the author: Martin Calvino is a Visiting Professor at Torcuato Di Tella University; a Computational Biologist at The Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey — Rutgers University; and a Multimedia Artist. You can follow him on Instagram @from.data.to.art
