Presentation of OpenCoesione and OpenCoesione School at the Open Data Youth Camp 2015 (29 Aug - 2 Sep 2015 Rovinj, Croatia)

1. Open government and
innovative education in Italy:
OpenCoesione and OpenCoesione School
Carlo Amati – OpenCoesione Steering Committee
Open Data Youth Camp Croatia (#openyouth)
Rovinj, 29 August – 2 September 2015

2. Adaptation of
Open government diagram
by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lage
released under Creative Commons
Attribution terms

3. “My Administration is committed to
creating an unprecedented level of
openness in Government. We
will work together to ensure the
public trust and establish a system
of transparency, public
participation, and
collaboration.
Openness will strengthen our
democracy and promote efficiency
and effectiveness in Government.”
Memorandum on transparency and
open government (21.01.2009)
“We are sending a strong signal to
administrations today. Your data
is worth more if you give it
away. So start releasing it now:
Taxpayers have already paid for
this information, the least we can do
is give it back to those who want to
use it in new ways that help people
and create jobs and growth.”
Open Data Strategy for Europe
(12.12.2011)
Open government champions

4. G8 leaders signed the Open Data Charter on 18 June 2013.
The Open Data Charter sets out 5 strategic principles that all G8
members will act on (data published openly by default, quality
increase, re-use of data) in order to unlock the economic
potential of open data, support innovation and provide greater
accountability.
OGP was launched in 2011 to provide an international platform
for domestic reformers committed to making their
governments more open, accountable, and responsive
to citizens. In participating countries, government and civil
society are working together to develop and implement
ambitious open government reforms.
The new Public Sector Information Directive (17 July
2013)
makes accessing public data from any level within the EU:
- cheaper (with fees, if anything, set at just marginal costs)
- easy to use, with automatic right to re-use
- wider in scope (valuable cultural material, from libraries,
archives and museums)
Major international initiatives

5. European Union: strong heterogeneity
© EuroGeographics Association for the administrative boundaries
Europe 2020 index
4 EU headline targets (2012)
Source: EU DG Regio,
Regional Focus 01/2015
100 = meets or exceed all targets
UE Average = 71,4

6. Italian Constitution (art. 119):
“In order to promote economic
development and cohesion … the State
shall allocate additional resources”.
Cohesion policy aims at reducing disparities
GDP per capita Youth unemployment rate
In Italy and in Europe
2007-2013
Total ~ 100 bn€ (27 from
EU)
900K+ projects and 90K+ bodies
All over Italy (although mostly in the South)
in many different policy sectors
in order to reduce disparities, attract business and
enhance opportunities and the quality of services
EU funds + national cohesion fund
ERDF
ESF
2014-2020
More developed regions
Transition regions
Less developed regions
+ 20 bn national cofinancing€
+ national cohesion fund
~31 bn
from EU

8. • Profound awareness within administration of benefits
of open data (pre-existing examples)
• Political insight on benefits of transparency: not a challenge
but an opportunity
• Quick responsiveness of administration to political input
• A national unitary monitoring system (available since
2007)
A strong drive towards publication of open data, but
OpenCoesione is not just following the trend:
it is a major communication operation based on transparency
that calls for participation by citizens and aims at increasing
the effectiveness of cohesion policy.
Enabling factors

9. Adaptation of
Open government diagram
by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lage
released under Creative Commons
Attribution terms

10. The web portal (as of 31.8.2015)
Open data licence to support re-use
Information about
projects undertaken for
implementing regional
policies:
• description
• funding (amount and
sources)
• locations
• thematic areas
• public/private
subjects involved
• deployment timing
100+ variables for each
project in open data
section (CSV)
+ access via API
www.opencoesione.gov.it

11. Projects and funds
(total or subets accoding
to user’s queries)
Interactive graphs
for immediate distribution
of investment and number
of projects by nature and
policy theme
Interactive table
on investment by
nature and policy
theme
Direct search of public
authorities in charge
for programming and
other recipients of
projects
Direct access to
locations through
interactive maps and
search to discover
the number of projects
undertaken,
the amount of overall
investments in the place
and the list of projects
Top projects listing
in home page (most
recently completed and
largest financially)
Periodical
insights and
short focuses
What is in the web portal?
OpenCoesione homepage

12. In the footer, available throughout
the portal, links to English contents:
• Introduction to
OpenCoesione
• FAQs
Soon bilingual, for now…
Some contents in English

13. 3 years of operation (July 2012-July 2015)
• 3.1 million page views
• 930K sessions
• 740K new visitors
• 4.4% from abroad (BE, UK, DE, US, …)
• 2 minutes: average time of the visit
Access to the web portal

14. Territorial indicators to make
connections between projects and the
issues they should impact on.
Beyond project data
Short
focuses and
analyses
Survey on the
transparenc
y
of lists of
beneficiaries
of Operational
Programmes
in Europe

15. Openness and transparency: a priority in
the EU
cohesiondata.ec.europa.eu/
www.strukturnifondovi.hr
ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/map/
functions
Indices of openness and transparency of lists of
beneficiaries of the 2007-2013 Structural Funds in
Europe (source: OpenCoesione)

16. Adaptation of
Open government diagram
by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lage
released under Creative Commons
Attribution terms

17. Slow pace in implementing
cohesion policy
Low absorption rates of
the funds
Understanding whether
policy is effective
Availability of open data on public spending is the base to
successfully build transparency, increase accountability and
overcome a long history of mistrust in many different
development projects all around the world.
Why should citizens be involved?

18. OPEN DATA, DATA JOURNALISM,
CIVIC MONITORING AND COHESION
POLICY.
SINCE 2013 IN ITALIAN HIGH-
SCHOOLS.
Partnership with EC Representation in
Italy and Europe Direct Information
Centres
Collaboration with “ASOC Friends”
(selected civil society organisations)
www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it
OpenCoesione School: the project
OpenCoesione School (ASOC) is an
innovative interdisciplinary educational
project aimed at high school students. By
working on a storytelling research based on
cohesion projects, they experience how
cohesion policy affects their own
neighbourhoods.
METHOD
● Online MOOC with support materials and
community
● Distance learning for teachers
● Territorial networks of experts on cohesion policy
thematic areas or transversal issues
OBJECTIVES
● Promote the principles of aware citizenship
● Encourage responsible use of ICT, including
open data, and social media
● Foster civic monitoring of public funding
Raising a new generation of civic awareness

19. OpenCoesione School in six steps
plan
focus
analyse explore
tell
engage

20. SCHOOLS
ASSOCIATIONS
~ 80 schools ~ 2000 students Winner team
OpenCoesione School 2014/2015

21. High school students as
civic reporters
Students monitor the time
schedule of local trains
Sicily’s regional agency
opens up the transport
data for all!
Local transportation in Palermo:
from citizen monitoring to open data

22. Readaptation of an old palace

23. Government
Open Data
Portals
Citizen
monitoring
Administrative
data
Open Data +
visualizations
Evidence,
Ideas,
suggestions
Media
A paradigm for citizen monitoring

24. top-down
bottom-up
meso-level
GOVERNMENT
CIVIL SOCIETY
Monithon is an
independent initiative for
citizen monitoring of
cohesion policy projects
in Italy based on the
open data from
OpenCoesione
www.monithon.it
Monithon: Fostering civic monitoring

25. Moni-thon (from mara-thon and hacka-thon) is a civic
monitoring marathon: groups of citizens map out the projects
funded by cohesion policy in their town or area, select a theme
or another specific feature and they go on the spot to see what
the project in really about and check on its implmentation. The
evidence is uploaded into a common platform.
Monithon: citizens at work

26. Managing
Authorities
Citizen
monitorin
g
Monitoring
data
APIs
Citizen
Monitoring
Reports
Media
Citizen monitoring on
cohesion policy in Italy

27. The community “Monithon Piemonte” is watching the
progress of the renovation of the museum
The Director has met the crew and has implemented
some the suggestions received
Now working on a documentary on the improvements
realized through the EU funding
Monitoring the renovation of the
Egyptian Museum in Turin

28. The association “Libera”
promotes citizen
monitoring of the projects
aimed at re-using for
social purposes assets
confiscated to organised
crime
Today ~ 7000 assets
A working group of central
and local administrations
is active to use the data to
design specific actions
Co-decisions on reuse of confiscated assets

29. Uni-directional Multi-directional
(processing feedback)
The authority
tells the story
The citizens
tell the story
Selecting
good practices
Solving problems
together
Publicity Collaboration. Involving
local communities
Aggregated
facts & figures
Going into the details:
Reinforcing trust
through real openness
A different way of communicating

30. Open government and open data: where we
are now in Italy
Flagship open data projects Other projects

31. Open Government Partnership
The final ranking
OpenCoesione – Monithon scores
1. Credibility of partnerships: 24.4/30 (top initiative)
2. Evidence of results: 22.0/30 (top initiative)
3. Sustainability: 19.9/30
4. Depth of engagement: 19.2/30
OGP pledge to support other countries on civic engagement
Positive evaluation of civil society, positive IRM evaluation

32. G8 Open Data Charter
Source: Open Data in the G8 – A review of Progress on the G8 Open Data Charter
A report published by www2.datainnovation.org/2015-open-data-g8.pdf
Country Total Score OGP membership
United Kingdom 90
Canada 80
United States 80
France 65
Italy 35
Japan 30 No
Germany 25 No
Russia 5 No Weak
Strong
Intermediate
Italy’s score breakdown
1. Open data by default: 10/20 (on average)
2. Ensure high quality and quantity of data: 10/20 (on average)
3. Make data usable by all: 15/20 (on average)
4. Release data for improved governance: 0/20 (poor performance)
5. Release data for innovation: 0/20 (poor performance)

33. Published by
(January 2015)

35. … a long way to go
Open data and open government …

36. 198
7

37. We know the future of mobile phones… and
OG?
You can send text messages of up
to 160 characters between mobile phones1987
2015

38. Web portal, open data and APIs:
www.opencoesione.gov.it
Documents and videos:
http://opencoesione.gov.it/scopri/
OpenCoesione school project:
www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it
Citizen monitoring platform:
www.monithon.it
Links to try for yourselves

39. For updates on OpenCoesione
you can subscribe to the mailing list:
www.opencoesione.gov.it/segui
www.opencoesione.gov.it
opencoesione@dps.gov.it