Skip to content

Governance: Data management

The following indicator is under consideration for this pilot edition of the Barometer: To what extent has government established a consistent data management and publication approach?

Feedback on draft Global Data Barometer Indicators

You are looking at a draft indicator to be included in the expert survey of the Global Data Barometer. Between now and May 10th we are inviting your feedback on this indicator and the elements it contains. You can provide your feedback by (a) completing the feedback form below; or (b) adding in-line annotations.

Feedback form

You can share your feedback on the Governance: Data Management indicator here, or make use of Hypothes.is annotations

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

  • Is there evidence of established guidance or rules for consistent data management of data in the public sector?
    • There is no evidence of a consistent approach to data management in the public sector
    • There is guidance in place to support consistent data management in the public sector
    • There are rules in place to support consistent data management in the public sector

Elements

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

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

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

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

  • Feedback from external users is gathered to help improve data quality. (No, Partially, Yes)

Extent

  • How broadly is good data management practice established?
    • The data management approaches assessed apply to a limited number of departments or localities
    • 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
    • The data management approaches assessed generally apply across the whole public sector

Definitions and Identification

The value of data for the public good is increased when data is more easily discovered, when there is clear documentation, when there are assurances of data quality, when appropriate technical standards are used, and when users 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

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

Starting points

  • Sources:

    • We have not located a starting point source for this question.

  • Search:

    • National standards for data management
  • Consult:
    • Government officials working on data management
    • Data users

What to look for?

Look for:

National and sub-national considerations

Maximising the value of government data for the public good requires data to be quality controlled and made available for re-use in consistent, reliable ways.

The Open Data Barometer 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.