From Access to Accountability: A Case for Critically Contextualizing Open Government Data

In this research paper, I assessed the extent to which open government data portals meet their stated goal of supporting government accountability. Through critical engagement with scholarly work and an analysis of contributions to NYC Open Data’s Project Gallery, I demonstrated that open government data portals are currently geared towards technical users in the private sector and academia. I explored the potential for such portals to increase their accessibility and support critical data literacy by contextualizing open datasets with information about data collection methods and internal uses, culminating in a conceptual model for advancing transparency in open data publishing.

Methods

My primary research method was review of literature from the fields of information science, government information studies, and critical literacies, and critical data studies. In addition, I manually collected and analyzed information about contributors to NYC Open Data’s Project Gallery in order to get a sense of who is making use of government data.

My role

I am the sole author of this project.

Learning Outcome Achieved: Research

In this paper, I investigated my thesis that critically contextualizing open datasets can increase the accessibility of open government data portals through engagement with and citation of quality sources from a variety of fields. I collected original quantitative data and generated summary statistics and graphics that supported my thesis, culminating in recommendations for portal features that could expand the audience of open government portals to non-expert users and thus support their goal of transparency for accountability.