Governance: Data management

To what extent do relevant laws, regulations, policies, and guidance provide a comprehensive framework for consistent data management and publication?

Definitions

Definitions and Identification

The value of data for the public good, regardless of whether it is open data or not, is increased when data is more easily discoverable, when data comes with clear documentation, when data quality has been assured, when appropriate technical standards are used, and when user feedback is sought to improve data management.

Governments may promote consistent and high quality approaches to data management through a variety of routes, including:

• National data strategies;
• Data management guidance;
• Data management standards.

Research Guidance

Look for the existence of government data management and/or publication guidelines and data standards policies. These may be found by searching the documentation of official open data catalogs, or through searching for recent government announcements on the topics.

Starting points

• Sources:
  • The qualitative data from the Open Data Barometer may provide details of policies and strategies identified prior to 2017 generally, prior to 2019 for Latin America and the Caribbean; look for sheets with primary data on ODB context and impact and filter by question ID "ODB.2015.C3."
• Search:
  • National standards for data management.
• Consult:
  • Government officials working on data management;
  • Data users.

What to look for?

Look for evidence of:

• Adoption of international data and metadata standards (e.g., DCAT, DCAT-AP, oData, Best Practices for the Publication of Data on the Web, etc.);
• Interoperability frameworks being widely adopted;
• Standardized processes for publishing and updating published government data;
• Guidance for soliciting and processing feedback from external users.

National and sub-national considerations

Research for this indicator should focus on national data management frameworks. If there has been little or no work on national frameworks, but there is a sub-national government that has a more advanced policy or law, you may carry out the assessment with respect to this example, recording this in your answer to the question regarding the scope and coverage of the framework and explaining further in the indicator's justification box.

Question sub-components

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

• What is the nature of the framework?
  • No framework exists.

    Supporting questions: In the absence of a strong legal framework, are there alternative norms or customs that play this role in the country? If so, please explain how. If there are draft laws or regulations not yet in force, but that would provide a more robust framework in future, please provide brief details here.

  • A framework exists but lacks full force of law.

    Supporting questions: In the absence of a strong legal framework, are there alternative norms or customs that play this role in the country? If so, please explain how. If there are draft laws or regulations not yet in force, but that would provide a more robust framework in future, please provide brief details here.

  • A framework exists and has the force of law.

    Supporting questions: Please identify the framework(s) you have assessed (e.g. name of law(s) or regulations)

Elements

• Rights and responsibilities:

• There are minimum standards for metadata when government data is catalogued or published. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• There is a standardised process for publishing and updating published government data. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• There are technical standards, including common data models, codelists, and identifiers for management and publication of government data. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• There are clearly documented quality control processes for government data. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• There are clearly documented processes for soliciting and integrating feedback from external users to improve data quality. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

Extent

• How broadly is good data management practice established?
  • The data management approaches assessed apply to a limited number of departments or localities.

    Supporting questions: Please explain your answer and provide supporting urls if necessary.

  • The data management approaches assessed apply to a limited number of departments or localities, but similar approaches are present across much of the public sector.

    Supporting questions: Please explain your answer and provide supporting urls if necessary.

  • The data management approaches assessed generally apply across the whole public sector.

    Supporting questions: Please explain your answer and provide supporting urls if necessary.

Indicator Justification

Maximizing the value of government data for the public good requires data to be quality controlled and made available for reuse in consistent, reliable ways.

The Open Data Barometer's 2017 Leaders Edition included an indicator (ODB.2015.C.MANAG) which asked the question, "To what extent is there a consistent (open) data management and publication approach?" This indicator is designed to provide broadly comparable data to the ODB indicator. It takes its guidance from the ODB's 0–10 scoring system, converting this into element checklist items that should yield similar scoring for similar situations.