Presentation at the Open Government Data Standardisation Workshop of Informatik 2013, Koblenz

1. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Improving Coordination in Swiss OGD
Focus of the eCH-Group OGD
Reinhard Riedl, Alessia C. Neuroni and Beat Estermann
17.09.2013 Workshop OGD Standardization
Source:http://www.computerworld.ch/marktanalysen/swissit/artikel/
swiss-it-2011-cloud-ready-dank-standardisierung-56329/
▶ E-Government Institute ¦ Bern University of Applied Sciences ¦ name.surname@bfh.ch

2. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ eCH: E-Government Standards in Switzerland
▶ Coordination and Standards in the Field of Open Government Data
▶ Focus of the eCH-Group OGD
▶ Discussion
Agenda

3. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Standards – Coordination - Stakeholdermanagement
Bild:Keystone
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
roberthiggins/4778664739/

4. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
In the field of OGD Switzerland
▶ There is a weak coordination among federal levels and topic areas
▶ The added value is barely given – the reuse of public data is still weak
W can encourage the reuse of government data through
▶ More motivation for public administration
▶ Less fear through strategy & policy formulation
▶ More commitment through focus on the support of core tasks
▶ More coordination to achieve better vertical and horizontal integration
▶ Kickstarting the quadruple helix process, that is the collaboration of public
administration – industry – universities – civil society
▶ Setting adequate standards (finding process as dialogue, “the path is the
goal”)
Working Axioms (based on empirical investigation)

5. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ Standards for internal affairs
▶ Gaining political support rests on four corner stones
▶ Clarifying what we are talking about
▶ Collecting and resolving concerns
▶ Defining the mind of the government through a strategy, or even
better a policy
▶ Providing tools for implementation
▶ Metadata Standards defining the fitness for open publication play a key
role
▶ They are a precondition for a policy formulation
▶ They serve as tools and they can be used by tools
▶ Standards for external and internal affairs
▶ Standards describing the context of the data make the reuse easier,
both outside and inside public administration
Two directions of standardization

6. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Internal metadata standards
ongoing debate, based on
http://www.eovernment.ch/dokumente/ogd/E-Gov-CH_OGD-Studie-2013_D.pdf
by Marianne Fraefel, Fabienne Kuhn, Alessia Neuroni, Marcel Schmid,
and Reinhard Riedl

7. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
eCH: E-Government Standards
in Switzerland

8. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Open Data Census (OKF 2013)
http://census.okfn.org/country/

9. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ eCH Association promotes and adopts eGovernment standards in
Switzerland
▶ eCH facilitates electronic cooperation among authorities and between
authorities and private individuals, companies, organisations, and research
and teaching institutions by adopting and coordinating relevant standards
▶ eCH standards have the status of
recommendations. The use of these standards on federal, cantonal or on
Federal, cantonal or communal level can
be declared bindingly
▶ Triple helix: government (3 Federal levels),
industry and academy
eCH E-Government Standards

10. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ A common standard documents a shared experience
▶ Through standardization: enabling win-win-situations, encouraging
cooperation, combining different subsystems and leading to new integrated
solutions
▶ Self regulation: standards emerge when enough people are willing to invest
time in order to develop something, that can not be achieved alone
▶ Added value: savings, data quality, time
(Spiess / Spichiger 2013: 52f.)
Moving forward together thanks to standards

11. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ Are we working on the topics with a high standardization potential?
▶ Are we working on the topics with a high utility value?
▶ What need to be standardized?
Processes, Quality, Semantic, Formats,
presentations, interfaces, services
(Spichiger/Klein/Müller 2010)
Assessing the need for standardization
Criteria Weight
Potential use high
key prerequisite
character
High
Savings potential medium
time medium
SME promotion low
Fachliche Fähigkeiten
Management
Kernfähigkeiten mit Voraussetzungscharakter
Allgemeine Dienste
Technologie
Planung ControllingStrategie Leistungen Qualität
Unternehmens
-Architektur
Prozesse
Analytik
Kernfähigkeiten
Arbeit Bauen Bildung
Aussen-
beziehungen
Kultur
Land-
wirtschaft
Sicherheit Steuern
Gesellschaft
Politische
Aktivitäten
Gesundheit
Gerichts-
barkeit
Umwelt Wirtschaft
Mobilität
Einwohner Unternehmen Behörden Objekte Tiere
Geo-
informationen
Rechts-
sammlung
Finanzen Personal Beschaffung Informatik
Geschäfts-
abwicklung
Logistik
Userinterface
Computing Datenhaltung
Netzwerk
Immobilien

12. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Coordination and Standards in the Field of
Open Government Data

13. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ Myth 1: The publicizing of data will automatically yield benefits
▶ Myth 2: All information should be unrestrictedly publicized
▶ Myth 3: It is a matter of simply publishing public data
▶ Myth 4: Every constituent can make use of open data
▶ Myth 5: Open data will result in open government
(Janssen / Charalabidis / Zuiderwijk 2012: 264)
Myths of Open Data

14. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ Horizontal and vertical coordination
▶ Coordination among different areas (e.g. geo, health, education)
▶ Dynamics of innovation: the quadruple helix
▶ Areas of activities (A): legal aspects regarding licensing, metadata, OGD-
publication process model and content cooperation (Parycek/Höchtl 2013:
80f.)
Coordination: the quadruple helix

15. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Standardization in different phases of the process
(Zuiderwijk/ Janssen 2013: 42)
Creating
Data
Publishing
Data
Finding
Data
Using Data
Legislators / Regulatory environment
Data providers
Public units on federal, cantonal and communal levels
Data users
Other public units, Business, Academia, Civil Society
(incl. Media, NGOs, Associations)
The two speheres are added, they
respresent the orientations towards internal policy and towards reuse

16. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Focus of the eCH-Group OGD

17. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
▶ Through DIALOGUE / Stakeholder involvement
Enhance the dialogue by setting up working groups and fostering coordination;
identify shared needs and develop integrated solutions
▶  PRODUCTION AND USE SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Involve data users in the creation, selection and publication of data
Involve data providers in the steps of finding and using data
▶  PROMOTION OF REUSE / BUILDING TRUST
Promote the reuse of OGD by addressing early enough in the process the
coordination challenges by standardization (incl. tools, directives)
Focus of the eCH-Group OGD
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/21/article-
2265768-1711542B000005DC-910_634x485.jpg
http://www.romangia.net/wp-
content/uploads/2013/02/cammino-de-santiago.jpg

18. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Need for Coordination Focus of Standardization Relevance for
Data Re-use
Avoiding fragmentation & duplication of work
Data model (description of objects, properties and
relationships)
Standard Information for data sets
Harmonized data selection and publication
Legal framework for publishing and reusing created
data
Responsibilities with regard to co-production (content
cooperation)
Open Data / Linked Data maturity
Declaring quality (of data, content and process)
Defining quality standards
Requirements regarding data sets and process
Timeliness & periodicity of data provision (with
regard to time-sensitive services)
Improving findability and data integration
Presenting data (human & machine readable)
Integration of distributed information (e.g. portals)
Commonly accepted methods for querying data
Internationally interoperable
metadata standards
(discovery, context and legal
metadata)
Declaration of data / content
quality as well as timeliness
and periodicity
APIs
Reduction of transaction costs to a
strict minimum
Guaranteeing a certain quality
level in the provision of services
Focus of the eCH-Group OGD – Creating & Publishing
Data

19. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Need for Coordination Focus of
Standardization
Relevance for
Creating Data
Basic assumption: market
coordination for the presentation
layer
(integration does not need further
standardization if metadata /
declaration of quality / API OK)
Monitoring data reuse
Tracking usage, added value and
beneficiaries
(can influence choice of a business
model and the allocation of
resources)
Tracking and avoiding abuse;
enforcement of legal constraints
Assessment instruments: tools to
measure usage and usefulness;
indicator systems
Information regarding optimal
allocation of resources
Secure the funding for data
production
Protect the producers’ rights
Focus of the eCH-Group OGD – Finding & Using Data

20. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
The rest is noise (Alex Ross)?
NO, rather, the rest is knowledge transfer from public
administration to those, who reuse their data!
This implies: Standardization output is rather the add-on to,
respectively the surplus goody of knowledge transfer,
preferably in both directions!

21. Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Discussion
Feedbacks and experiences in other countries
D-A-CH-LI suggestions and best practices for the eCH-group OGD