Introducing the Project
In early 2012, Government of India approved the first policy in the country governing proactive disclosure of government data, and especially of born-digital and digitised data. This National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) extends the mandate of the Right to Information (RTI) Act to establish policy and administrative support to enable informed citizenship, better decision-making and heightened transparency and accountability.
The proposed study attempts to map the actual practices around government data by various (non-governmental) data/information intermediary organisations on one hand, and implementation challenges faced by and usage scenarios imagined by the policy-makers and data portal implementors on the other, to identify possible areas of policy modification, capacity building, community organisation, and alignment of efforts.
Further, the issue of the different (and fairly disparate) communities of RTI activists and open data advocates bring in a very country-specific concern about the challenges of organising activism around government data/information. We expect that exploring the differences and commonalities among the two groups will throw a critical perspective on the open data movement in India.
The proposed study aims to achieve the following goals:
- Inducing collaborative efforts within data/information intermediary ecologies by identifying and highlighting the potentials within the existing network, as well as the specific needs for capacity development and resource sharing;
- Enriching government data/information policy discussion in India by gathering evidence and grounded experience of (non-governmental) data/information intermediaries about their actual practices of accessing and using government data, and their utilisation of the provisions of NDSAP and RTI act; and
- Critically reflecting on the nature of open data movement and policy-making in India.
Final Report
We are in the process of writing the final report. Once completed, it will be published here.
Papers
Two academic papers have been written as part of this study. The first was presented at the Seventh International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV) held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in October 2013. It has been published as part of the Conference Proceedings by ACM Digital Library. The second paper has been submitted for the Eighth ICEGOV to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, in October 2014.
- Towards an Expanded and Integrated Open Government Data Agenda for India (Presented at ICEGOV 2013)
- Access and Use of Government Data by Research and Advocacy Organisations in India: A Survey of (Potential) Open Data Ecosystem (Submitted for ICEGOV 2014)
A third academic paper is in the process of writing.
Posts
- Poster and Slides from the Final Network Meeting, Berlin, July 2014 (July 14, 2014)
- Policy, Ecosystem and Impact: Discussions of Open Government Data at ICEGOV 2013 (May 05, 2014)
- Can Open Data Open Up Internet Governance? (November 03, 2013)
- Towards an Expanded and Integrated Open Government Data Agenda for India (November 03, 2013)
- Research Notes from the Asian Regional Meeting of ODDC Network, New Delhi, 16-18 July 2013 (August 21, 2013)
- Invitation to the Survey of Open Data Practices in India (June 25, 2013)
- Mediating Access and Use of Open Data in India: Reformulating the Research Plan (June 23, 2013)
- Tweets, Photographs and Slides from the ODDC Network Meeting, 24-26 April 2013 (April 28, 2013)
- Word Cloud of #ODDC Tweets (April 26, 2013)
- ODDC Network Meeting, London, April 2013 - Slides and Hand-Out (April 25, 2013)
- Notes from Workshop organised by NDSAP-PMU, NIC on 4th April 2013 (April 21, 2013)
- Introducing the Project (April 21, 2013)
Resources
- Mapping Access, Use and Sharing of Government Data in India
- Timeline of Open Government Data in India
About the Study
HasGeek Media LLP undertook this study on mapping the practices of accessing, using and sharing government and non-government data by various 'data intermediary organisations' in India as part of the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC) research network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation and supported by grant 107075 from the International Development Research Centre, Canada.
A technology company in the media business, HasGeek helps people in technology meet each other, collaborate on new opportunities and advance the state of the art. It organizes conferences, hacknights, workshops and geekups, and provide tools for communities to self-organize. It has created conferences around the themes of front end engineering, big data and cloud computing, JavaScript, Android, location-aware services and devops. The HasGeek Job Board is used by thousands of geeks every month to find new opportunities.
The study is undertaken and authored by Sumandro Chattapadhyay. The project team includes Zainab Bawa and Radha Rao. The study is mentored by Michael Gurstein.
