Opening Government Data through Mediation:
Exploring Roles, Practices and Strategies of (Potential) Data Intermediary Organisations in India

A study by HasGeek Media LLP
Part of the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries research network
Supported by World Wide Web Foundation and International Development Research Centre, Canada

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:

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.

A third academic paper is in the process of writing.

Posts

Resources

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.