Presented by Joseph Wafula during the African Open Science Platform Side Event for Science Forum South Africa, on 7 Dec. 2016

1. 1
Emerald Room, CSIR International Convention Centre, South Africa
Benefits of Open Data and Policy Developments,
perspectives from
research institutions and universities
December 7th, 2016
Muliaro Wafula and Obwaya Mogire

2. Open Data Policy
Key Objectives:
1.Promote Data publication, preservation and reuse.
2.Promote multi-disciplined research capabilities and activities that are
ICT enabled
3.Accelerate ICT innovation through equipping innovators with requisite
skills and credible and quality data
4.Change culture of keeping data private to public by default

3. The long end of the tail…..has individual scientists data
• Much of this revolution is taking place at the top end
– at the head and neck
• Although ‘big data’ is all the rage….the vast majority
of data sets created through research fall into the
“Long Tail”
Source – Wagging the Long Tail, Kathleen Shearer et al, 2014

4. Review
• To guarantee availability of open data over long-term and impact oriented, it must be
rooted in a clear policies, Strategies and consistent global data management
approach.
• Good policies should take into account context, content, and impact of open data .
• Open data impact is not yet fully felt (Granickas 2013).
• While UK ,USA, Canada, France, Denmark, Australia, Spain are advanced in
developing open data policies (Huijboom and Van den Broek 2011); mid-ranking
countries continue to embraced open data initiative of open data portals and
neglecting open data policies, strategies, regulations and legal frameworks.
(Kaplan 2015).
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5. Review …2
• According to WBG 2015, Funding and technical capacity are not the only
challenges to be overcome but also lack of clear legal and policy guidelines.
• ODB 2015 observes that in Africa, most countries have not demonstrated
clear political leadership with defined policies and strategies on open data.
• Mokua, E., & Chiliswa Z. 2013 claims there is a risk of most open data
initiatives presently resting on superficial foundations, and therefore at risk
of stalling or falling backwards if top strong political leadership or
community pressure subsides on open data ecosystem.
• Open data is still in its very early stages in developing countries
(Schwegmann, 2012).
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6. 6
Best practices for open research data adopted by JKUAT

7. Open Data Policy Development
• Open Data policy development need to be based on the following
three pillars:
1. C-context
2. C-content
3. I-impact
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8. Policy Context Pillar
Key factors include:
Level of Gov organization
Key motivations, policy objectives
Open data platform launch
Resource allocation & economic context
Legislation
Social, cultural & Political context
Drivers for open data
Forces against Opening data
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9. Policy Content Pillar
Key factors include:
Licensing
Access fee
Data restriction
Data presentation
Contact with user
Amount published
Processing before publishing
Cost of opening
Types of Data
Data Formats & stds
Data quality
Provision of metadata
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10. Policy Impact Pillar
Key factors include:
Re-use of published data
Possible predicted risks
Benefits aligned with motivation
Public value
Transparency & accountability
Economic growth
Entrepreneurial open data use/ innovation
Efficiency
Environmental sustainability
Inclusion of marginalized
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11. Key Strategic Pillars of Sustainable Open Data Programs
1. Support open data infrastructure build based on open data policies
standards and supportive legal and licensing frameworks
2. Make data publishing and access available and easy
3. Create feedback channels for data users
4. Prioritize dataset that users want
5. Address quality issues of datasets
6. Protect privacy rights
7. Provide clear, consistent, and useful metadata
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12. JORD Policy
 JKUAT in consultation with CODATA, developed and implemented an
open research data policy (JORD) Policy (February 2016)
 JORD expected benefits include
1. ROI
2. Encouragement of diverse studies and opinion
3. Promotion of new areas of work not envisioned by the initial investigators.
4. Strengthen the credibility of scholarly publications
5. Development of new products and services
6. Support JKUAT open data platform (https://opendata.jkuat.ac.ke
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13. 13
Open Data Barriers (Zuiderwijk et al., 2013)

14. Conclusion
• Open Data as a resource can increase trust in governments, boost
economic growth, create jobs, and improve essential products and
services.
• To harness open data, proper policies and strategies need to be in place.
• Dialogue within the open data ecosystem needs to be promoted so as to
create open data programs with a balanced supply and demand.
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15. References
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economic, and social development”, Data Science Journal, Vol. 3.
CODATA, 2013 CODATA Strategic Plan 2013-2018. Available at: http://www http://www.codata.org/uploads/CODATA_Strategic_Plan-2013-2018-FINAL.pdf [Last accessed 8 July 2016]
DCC, 2016 Digital Curation Centre. Available at: http://http://www.dcc.ac.uk/ [Last accessed 8 July 2016]
Davies, T and Bawa, ZA 2012 Editorial: the promises and perils of open government data (OGD). Journal of Community Informatics, Vol. 8 No. 2.
Huijboom, N. and Van Den Broek, T. (2011). Open data: an international comparison of strategies. European Journal of e-Practice, Vol. 12.
Iryna, SAGM and Janssen, 2015 Organizational measures to stimulate user engagement with open data. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 9 Iss 2 pp.181 – 206.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/TG-05-2014-0016
JORD, 2016 JKUAT Open Research Data Policy. Available at: http:// http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/directorates/iceod/ [Last Accessed 8 July 2016]
Kenya Ict Board (2012). Kenya Open Data Initiative: Strengthening Social Service Delivery.
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fromKODI.pdf
Lee, G and Kwak, YH 2011 An open government implementation model: moving to increased public engagement, IBM Center for The Business of Government, Washington, DC, Available
at: http://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/An%20Open%20Government%20Implementation%20Model.pdf [Last accessed 9 July 2016].
Mokua, E., & Chiliswa, Z. (2013). Strengthening bottom-up social accountability: citizen participation in national & county governance. Nairobi, Kenya.
Mutuku, Leonida N, and Jessica Colaco. (2012). Increasing Kenyan Open Data Consumption : A Design Thinking Approach. ICEGOV. New York: ACM.
Open Government Partnership (2011). United States Country Commitment, available at: www. opengovpartnership.org/countries/united-states
ODI, 2016 Guide – Engaging with reusers. Available at: http://theodi.org/guides/engagingreusers. [Accesed 9 July 2016]
Peled, A. (2011). When Transparency and Collaboration Collide: The USA Open Data Program. Journal Of The American Society For Information Science And Technology [JASIST], 62(11)
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Rininta Putri Nugroho Anneke Zuiderwijk Marijn Janssen Martin de Jong (2015). A comparison of national open data policies: lessons learned;
Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 9 Iss 3 .
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pp. 286 – 308 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/TG-03-2014-0008
Rosie, HSP 2015 Research data management and openness. Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 49 Iss 4 pp. 364 – 381 DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/PROG-01-2015-0005
Schwegmann, C. (2012). Open data in developing countries”, in Platform, E. (Ed.), European Public Sector Information Platform Topic Report, Epsi
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17. Thank You!
Asante !