Part I A Model of Data Sharing Policy Development

Information sharing is an interdisciplinary issue, with relevant theory and literature in a broad range of fields. Some scholars focus on the people and organizations involved in data sharing policy development: the structures and dynamics of government organizations or the role of national initiatives.¹ Others focus primarily on the data itself, cataloging the incentives and barriers to sharing a particular type of data, or evaluating the success or failure of sharing within a particular field.² The model presented here pulls these threads together, incorporating concepts from the literature on organizational theory, bureaucratic autonomy, international organizations, information policy, and many other areas to address both the people involved and the specific data context. The resulting model provides a holistic view of the data sharing policy development process that can provide insight into the current state of government data sharing and help explain the variation observed among different countries, fields, and agencies.

Figure I.1 Model of Data Sharing Policy Development

The key element of this model is the inclusion of both people and ideas: the structure and dynamics of the organizations and entities that control and influence policy-making and the key attributes of the data about which policy is being made. The government agency is the primary actor in data sharing policy development, emphasizing the importance of the structure, processes, culture, and norms within the organization. The agency is influenced by the actions of a range of external actors, including national-level policy-makers, nongovernmental organizations, and intergovernmental organizations. The model identifies and explores the variety of levers by which these actors may influence data sharing policy development within the agency. However, the motivations for the actions of these external actors are considered largely exogenous to the model (e.g., the model notes the ways in which the announcement of a national open data initiative by the president may influence an agency, but does not explore the reasons that an executive may choose to pursue this type of initiative).

The model also takes into account the power of ideas: the context of the data and its key attributes play an important role in the development of data sharing policies. The government collects and produces a wide range of data, from environmental observations to bus schedules to detailed accounting information. The security, economic, normative, and technical attributes of the data, and hence options and opinions regarding the appropriate data sharing policies for the data, vary significantly. This part looks at each of these elements in turn, reviewing the relevant literature and explaining the role of that element in the model.

Notes

1.  Marijn Janssen, Yannis Charalabidis, and Anneke Zuiderwijk, “Benefits, Adoption Barriers and Myths of Open Data and Open Government,” Information Systems Management 29, no. 4 (2012).Jane E Fountain, “Challenges to Organizational Change: Multi-Level Integrated Information Structures (MIIS),” Governance and information technology: from electronic government to information government (2007).Alon Peled, “When Transparency and Collaboration Collide: The USA Open Data Program,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62, no. 11 (2011).

2.  Chris Martin, “Barriers to the Open Government Data Agenda: Taking a Multi-Level Perspective,” Policy and Internet 6, no. 3 (2014).Emily Barry and Frank Bannister, “Barriers to Open Data Release: A View from the Top,” Information Polity 19, nos. 1–2 (2014).