An evaluation of U.S. municipal open data portals: A user interaction framework

As an increasing number of open government data (OGD) portals are created, an evaluation method is needed to assess these portals. In this study, we drew from the existing principles and evaluation methods to develop a User Interaction Framework, with concrete criteria in five dimensions: Access, Tr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 2019-01, Vol.70 (1), p.27-37
Main Authors: Zhu, Xiaohua, Freeman, Mark Antony
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electronic government
Government agencies
Information professionals
Municipal government
Open data
Web portals
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Summary:As an increasing number of open government data (OGD) portals are created, an evaluation method is needed to assess these portals. In this study, we drew from the existing principles and evaluation methods to develop a User Interaction Framework, with concrete criteria in five dimensions: Access, Trust, Understand, Engage‐integrate, and Participate. The framework was then used to evaluate the current OGD sites created and maintained by 34 U.S. municipal government agencies. The results show that, overall, portals perform well in terms of providing access, but not so well in helping users understand and engage with data. These findings indicate room for improvement in multiple areas and suggest potential roles for information professionals as data mediators. The study also reveals that portals using the Socrata platform performed better, regarding user access, trust, engagement, and participation. However, the variability among portals indicates that some portals should improve their platforms to achieve greater user engagement and participation. In addition, city governments need to develop clear plans about what data should be available and how to make them available to their public.
ISSN:2330-1635
2330-1643
DOI:10.1002/asi.24081