On Friday 15 December 2017, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) organised another ‘Data.overheid.nl’ User Meeting. Aim of these User Meetings is to allow users and providers of open data in the Netherlands to exchange ideas and experiences. More than one hundred participants attended the meeting in December. During this meeting, KCOD researcher Frederika Welle Donker presented the results of her research on the costs and benefits of open data. In her presentation, Frederika showed that costs of open data are different between organizations and between types of data. Benefits of open data mainly include efficiency gains, in both the public sector and in businesses. There are also societal benefits of open data, which, however, are difficult to measure.
A book chapter on the ‘Governance of open spatial data infrastructures in Europe‘ by Glenn Vancauwenberghe en Bastiaan van Loenen was published in the book ‘The Social Dynamics of Open Data’. The chapter provides an analysis of how several European member states have been dealing with the governance of their open spatial data infrastructures since the adoption of the INSPIRE Directive in 2007. In recent years several countries and public administrations started to make a shift towards the establishment of a more ‘open’ spatial data infrastructure, in which also businesses, citizens and non-governmental actors are considered as key stakeholders and beneficiaries of the infrastructure. This move towards more open spatial data infrastructures also created additional challenges related to the governance of the SDI, as new and additional governance approaches and instruments had to be implemented. In order to engage different stakeholder groups, including data users and producers outside the public sector, and take into account their needs and requirements, the scope of traditional governance structures, mechanisms and processes had to be expanded.
To switch to an open data policy may pose a challenge to the business model of National Mapping & Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs), especially if they are required to generate sufficient revenue to cover a substantial part of their operating costs. This research, carried out for EuroSDR, aims to assess the effects of open data policies on the business models of NMCAs and which adaptations have been made to cope with revenue losses due to open data supply. In March and April 2017, we surveyed European NMCAs to find out which strategies NMCAs employ to be able to (re)finance operational costs and to ensure long-term sustainability of (open) data. This report provides the initial outcomes of the survey.
Researchers of the Knowledge Centre have contributed to the book ‘GEOValue: The Socioeconomic Value of Geospatial Information’, edited by Jamie B. Kruse, Joep Crompvoets and Francoise Pearlman and published by CRC Press. The book explores the different steps in the geospatial information value chain from the viewpoint of domain experts spanning various disciplines.
In their chapter on business models for geographic information (GI), Glenn Vancauwenberghe, Frederika Welle Donker, and Bastiaan van Loenen examine the process of creating value from geographic information using the foundational format of business model theory. The chapter investigates how organizations use a broad variety of models to create, deliver, and capture value, and contributes to the understanding of the diversity of business models of organizations dealing with GI.
GeoBuzz is the annual conference and exhibition organised by GeoBusiness Netherlands (umbrella organisation of geosector companies) and GIN – Geo-Information Netherlands. This year, GeoBuzz was held on 21st and 22nd of November in Den Bosch. On 22 November, Frederika Welle Donker of the Open Data Knowledge Centre led a session on effective governance of open geodata at municipal level. This session was held as part of the E-GOS Local project. The E-GOS Local project, co-funded by AMS – Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, is an extension of the E-GOS project carried out by Glenn Vancauwenberghe. The E-GOS Local will investigate the governance and performance of open geodata policies at organizational (or micro) level, as well as the link between national and organizational policies (or between macro and micro). A detailed investigation will be made of the open geodata policy of the City of Amsterdam, in which the governance instruments and mechanisms adopted by the City will be assessed as well as the impact of these instruments and mechanisms on the performance of the open geodata policy of the City. In addition, a comparative analysis will be made of the governance model applied in the City of Amsterdam and the governance models of four other municipalities in the Netherlands.
In this GSDI Association’s webinar on Geospatial Open Data on November 16, attended by almost a hundred participants, Knowledge center’s Bastiaan van Loenen provided a web presentation on the basics of open data, its scope, benefits and a snapshot of open data research challenges. See Bastiaan’s presentation. See here for the Seminar report.
On Wednesday 27 September the PhD Afternoon OTB took place, during which 19 PhD researchers of OTB presented their work. Also two KCOD researchers, Lorenzo Dalla Corte and Agung Indrajit , participated in this event.
Lorenzo presented his research on Balancing the Right to Data Protection with Open Data. The central research question of his PhD research is ‘How may the interests of the right to data protection be balanced with the interests underlying open data regulations?’. His research so far shows that open data is not a right in itself, but access to and re-use of data are rights. Lorenzo also revealed the general incompatibility between data protection and open data, and shows that in most cases data protection trumps open data.
On Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 September the EuroSDR workshop on Sustainable Open Data Business Models for NMCAs was organized at Delft University of Technology. Representatives from the national mapping mapping and cadastral agencies (NMCAs) but also from other public and private organizations participated in this two-day workshop on open data business models and the impact of open data.
On Monday 18 September, participants were welcomed by professor Willem Korthals Altes, head of the section Geoinformation and Land Development within the Faculty of Architecture. Joep Crompvoets, Secretary-General of EuroSDR, gave a presentation of the mission, structure and activities of EuroSDR and provided an introduction to the workshop. The keynote presentation of Thorhildur Jetzek (Activity Stream) provided some interesting insights and research results on the process of creating value from open data. The final presentation on Monday was from Frederika Welle Donker (TU Delft), who presented the results of the EuroSDR survey on the effects of open data on the business models of NMCAs. After the presentations, several discussions sessions were organized in which participants could share their view and experiences on the sustainability of open data, the impact of open data, and the challenges of implementing open data.
Glenn Vancauwenberghe and Bastiaan van Loenen have co-authored a book chapter on the Emergence of Open Spatial Data Infrastructures in the book ‘User Centric E-Government: Challenges and Opportunities‘, edited by Saqib Saeed, T. Ramayah and Zaigham Mahmood. The book provides user studies and theories related to user-centered technology design processes for e-government projects. The book mainly discusses inherent issues of technology design implications, user experiences, and guidelines for technology appropriation. Ethnographic studies focusing on real life examples enable readers to understand the problems in an effective way. Furthermore, the theories and results presented in the book should help researchers and practitioners to handle these challenges in an efficient way.
On Thursday 21 September, KCOD researcher Glenn Vancauwenberghe participated in the ‘Smart ideas, smart solutions’ seminar organised by FLAGIS, the Flemish Association for Geographic Information Systems. The seminar brought together practitioners from the public and the private sector and researchers to discuss about the key challenges in the domain of geospatial information in Flanders.
Glenn Vancauwenberghe was moderator of two discussion sessions on the topic of open geospatial data. In these sessions, both providers and users of open geospatial data shared their views on the status of open data In Flanders. While the data providers mainly talked about barriers that still hinder them to make their data available, the users explained how open data already helped them in developing and providing services and products. Most participants in the discussion sessions agreed with the need for more collaboration in the open data ecosystem: collaboration among data providers at different administrative levels, but especially collaboration between data providers and data users. Other suggested approaches and instruments for improving the Flemish open data ecosystem were the definition of high value ‘local’ datasets and the use of quality labels to clearly indicate the quality of a particular dataset.