Towards enrichment of OGD: a stakeholder-centered determination of High-Value Data sets for Latvia

What is it about?

Open Government Data (OGD) are seen as one of the trends that can potentially benefit the economy. However, this fact is closely linked to the “value” of the OGD, i.e. the extent to which the data provided by the OGD portals are interesting, useful and valuable for their reuse, creating value for society and the economy. Here, the concept of “high-value datasets” comes, pointing to data that would create highest value to society and economy. Although an agreement in PSI directive has been reached on a list of six universal categories to be considered as high-value data sets, they are quite generic, i.e. consistent with the current world trends. While it is planned that a list of specific data sets will be defined in 2021, it is also known that this is a country-specific question where the nature of the specific data sets, which are considered to be of high value, depends on country-specific aspects and should therefore be determined by the countries themselves. This study is a first step in this direction by conducting a survey of individual users and small and medium-sized businesses (SME) of Latvia on their view regarding the current state of the data, i.e. in which extent they meet their needs, and what data might be useful for them, and how their availability would affect their willingness to use these data. The paper provides some first insights into the findings on how users assess the current overall value of available OGD, what data sets would give them or their businesses greater value, and how this would affect their willingness to use OGD in the future if these data would become available.

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Why is it important?

This paper sets the initial groundwork for future research on the identification of high-value data sets, both for Latvia as a main use-case, and for a common understanding of how this could be done in general terms, i.e. what possible activities will lead to better understanding and clearer vision of what are the most valuable data sets for the society and economics of particular country. The topic under consideration is very important these days, given that the opening up of data sets with high potential for their use and re-use is expected to facilitate creation of new products or services with positive economic and social impact . However, identifying these data is a complicated task, particularly where country-specific data sets should be identified. This paper therefore is a first step in this direction by conducting a survey of individual users and SME of Latvia on their view regarding the current state of the OGD and their potential. The study has answered 4 research questions raised. Firstly, an assessment of the value of the currently available OGD was identified. It was then determined which data would increase the overall OGD value for society and the economy forming an initial list to be further validated and supplemented during the study. Then, the question of how the availability of these high-value data sets would have affect the overall assessment of the value of the OGD was covered.It was revealed that this would have a strong positive impact on people who use OGD less frequently and / or tried to do but failed, thereby increasing the overall use of OGD. It would allow attracting more users for OGD portals and facilitate data reuse, which could potentially encourage new data-driven services and products, which would have a positive impact on society and the economy. In addition, the next steps of the study were identified, which will hopefully produce positive results and improve the current state of the OGD in Latvia.