The Project
As part of the fulfillment of the MLIS requirements at UCLA, I wrote a paper focused on issues of access and use of Open Government Data (OGD). I argued that although these datasets are made available to assist in the elimination of urban problems, the design of the databases that store them often ignores the capacities of the intended users, thus limiting civic participation. This argument was supported through academic research and usability tests performed across the UCLA campus.
Open Government Data
For the purposes of this paper, all datasets made publicly available through government websites were considered open government data. This included data collected through various methods (produced by governments to being collected by civilian organizations), used for various purposes (improving city services to the development of applications), and of varying content (government expense reports to locations of street lamps). While this paper examined OGD websites at large, it also contained a direct study of the Los Angeles Open Data website.
A map produced from Open Government Data displaying foreclosures across Los Angeles, CA. May, 2016.
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Benefits of Open Government Data
City, county, state, and federal governments are currently making data more accessible to increase transparency, promote citizen engagement, and increase the possibility of solving problems that have long gone unnoticed and/or unattended. Additionally, government data are also being published through third part actors, such as the civic hackers. Through both forms, developers can create applications and systems to better address urban and governmental problems. Developers can use government data to create algorithms and predictions that can be improved with real-time data, thus resolving urban issues and possibly pre-empting some. Development of applications can lead to things such as better organized commutes, public works concerns, and community organizing. The goal of engaging the public in this process is to tap into many innovative strategies and solutions that are rarely included in these types of discussions. With input from the public, solutions would not be solely developed by government and private companies, and would thus create less of a top-down approach to solutions.
Marjin Janssen, et. al., “Benefits, Adoption Barriers and Myths of Open Data and
Open Government,” Information Systems Management, 29 (2012): 258-268.
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Shortcomings
Although there are benefits of open government data, it also has many issues and shortcomings. Even if one is able to effectively access the datasets, these websites often ignore the fact that all users do not have the resources, expertise, and/or capabilities to make use of the data. To manipulate and understand most datasets, the use of statistical techniques and a deep understanding of the data is often required. These types of knowledges and resources are not immediately available to everyone, and may require considerable time and effort to obtain, which acts as a barrier to access. Thus, only persons who have an understanding of statistical techniques and other knowledge needed for processing date are able to contribute to data-driven solutions. This contrasts many of claims made to support open government data, mainly being that they are for use by the general public. These problems essentially counter the aspirations and alleged intentions of open government data by limiting the democratic participation and civic engagement in solutions. To demonstrate how the general public is unable to engage with OGD, I performed usability tests across the UCLA campus on the Los Angeles Open Data website.
Results from five usability tests performed on the Los Angeles Open Data website.
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Improvements
Research and usability tests demonstrated that Open Government Data websites, if truly intended to include the general public in solutions processes, could greatly benefit from design thinking and user research. This would increase access and use of open government datasets, increase citizen participation in government and solutions, and promote data-driven solutions. Usability tests demonstrated that many people have issues discovering and reading datasets. To combat this, the general public should be considered a stakeholder in the design process - which would contribute to metadata and other descriptive practices within datasets. Tests also revealed that OGD sites lack proper signifiers, leading to confusion on how to access datasets. Yet, perhaps the larger issue is that the general public lacks the knowledge that OGD sites exist. This demonstrates the current design problems of OGD sites being that if the general public was truly valued in the process, and considered an important stakeholder, more people (more than zero) would have known about it.
The only way municipal, state, and federal governments can tap into innovative strategies and solutions, and combat traditional top-down approaches, is to employ design thinking and user research into the design of their Open Government Data websites
