OECD Report: “Data portability has become an essential tool for enhancing access to and sharing of data across digital services and platforms. This report explores to what extent data portability can empower users (natural and legal persons) to play a more active role in the re-use of their data across digital services and platforms. It also examines how data portability can help increase interoperability and data flows and thus enhance competition and innovation by reducing switching costs and lock-in effects….(More)”.
The argument against property rights in data
Report by Open Future: “25 years after the adoption of the Database Directive, there is mounting evidence that the introduction of the sui generis right did not lead to increased data access and use–instead, an additional intellectual property layer became one more obstacle.
Today, the European Commission, as it drafts the new Data Act, faces a fundamental choice both regarding the existing sui generis database rights and the introduction of a similar right to raw, machine-generated data. There is a risk that an approach that treats data as property will be further strengthened through a new data producer’s right. The idea of such a new exclusive right was introduced by the European Commission in 2017. This proposed right was to be based on the same template as the sui generis database right.
A new property right will not secure the goals defined in the European data strategy: those of ensuring access and use of data, in a data economy built around common data spaces. Instead, they will strengthen existing monopolies in the data economy.
Instead of introducing new property rights, greater access to and use of data should be achieved by introducing–in the Data Act, and in other currently debated legal acts–access rights that treat data as a commons.
In this policy brief, we present the current policy debate on access and use of data, as well as the history of proposals for property rights in data – including the sui generis database right. We present arguments against the introduction of new property rights, and in favor of strengthening data access rights….(More)”.
The State of Open Data 2021
Report by Digital Science (Australia): “Since 2016, we have monitored levels of data sharing and usage. Over the years, we have had 21,000 responses from researchers worldwide providing unparalleled insight into their motivations, challenges, perceptions, and behaviours toward open data.
In our sixth survey, we asked about motivations as well as perceived discoverability and credibility of data that is shared openly. The State of Open Data is a critical piece of information that enables us to identify the barriers to open data from a researcher perspective, laying the foundation for future action.
Key findings from this year’s survey
- 73% support the idea of a national mandate for making research data openly available
- 52% said funders should make the sharing of research data part of their requirements for awarding grants
- 47% said they would be motivated to share their data if there was a journal or publisher requirement to do so
- About a third of respondents indicated that they have reused their own or someone else’s openly accessible data more during the pandemic than before
- There are growing concerns over misuse and lack of credit for open sharing…(More)”
‘Anyway, the dashboard is dead’: On trying to build urban informatics
Paper by Jathan Sadowski: “How do the idealised promises and purposes of urban informatics compare to the material politics and practices of their implementation? To answer this question, I ethnographically trace the development of two data dashboards by strategic planners in an Australian city over the course of 2 years. By studying this techno-political process from its origins onward, I uncovered an interesting story of obdurate institutions, bureaucratic momentum, unexpected troubles, and, ultimately, frustration and failure. These kinds of stories, which often go untold in the annals of innovation, contrast starkly with more common framings of technological triumph and transformation. They also, I argue, reveal much more about how techno-political systems are actualised in the world…(More)”.
Open Data Standard and Analysis Framework: Towards Response Equity in Local Governments
Paper by Joy Hsu, Ramya Ravichandran, Edwin Zhang, and Christine Keung: “There is an increasing need for open data in governments and systems to analyze equity at large scale. Local governments often lack the necessary technical tools to identify and tackle inequities in their communities. Moreover, these tools may not generalize across departments and cities nor be accessible to the public. To this end, we propose a system that facilitates centralized analyses of publicly available government datasets through 1) a US Census-linked API, 2) an equity analysis playbook, and 3) an open data standard to regulate data intake and support equitable policymaking….(More)”.
The Census Mapper
Google blog: “…The U.S. Census is one of the largest data sets journalists can access. It has layers and layers of important data that can help reporters tell detailed stories about their own communities. But the challenge is sorting through that data and visualizing it in a way that helps readers understand trends and the bigger picture.
Today we’re launching a new tool to help reporters dig through all that data to find stories and embed visualizations on their sites. The Census Mapper project is an embeddable map that displays Census data at the national, state and county level, as well as census tracts. It was produced in partnership with Pitch Interactive and Big Local News, as part of the 2020 Census Co-op (supported by the Google News Initiative and in cooperation with the JSK Journalism Fellowships).
Census Mapper shows where populations have grown over time.
The Census data is pulled from the data collected and processed by The Associated Press, one of the Census Co-op partners. Census Mapper then lets local journalists easily embed maps showing population change at any level, helping them tell powerful stories in a more visual way about their communities.
With the tool, you can zoom into states and below, such as North Carolina, shown here.
As part of our investment in data journalism we’re also making improvements to our Common Knowledge Project, a data explorer and visual journalism project to allow US journalists to explore local data. Built with journalists for journalists, the new version of Common Knowledge integrates journalist feedback and new features including geographic comparisons, new charts and visuals…(More)”.
Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?
Report by Ciara Staunton et al: “Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL)….(More)”.
Open health data: Mapping the ecosystem
Paper by Roel Heijlen and Joep Crompvoets: “Governments around the world own multiple datasets related to the policy domain of health. Datasets range from vaccination rates to the availability of health care practitioners in a region to the outcomes of certain surgeries. Health is believed to be a promising subject in the case of open government data policies. However, the specific properties of health data such as its sensibilities regarding privacy, ethics, and ownership encompass particular conditions either enabling or preventing datasets to become freely and easily accessible for everyone…
This paper aims to map the ecosystem of open health data. By analyzing the foundations of health data and the commonalities of open data ecosystems via literature analysis, the socio-technical environment in which health data managed by governments are opened up or potentially stay closed is created. After its theoretical development, the open health data ecosystem is tested via a case study concerning the Data for Better Health initiative from the government of Belgium…
The policy domain of health includes de-identification activities, bioethical assessments, and the specific role of data providers within its open data ecosystem. However, the concept of open data does not always fully apply to the topic of health. Such several health datasets may be findable via government portals but not directly accessible. Differentiation within types of health data and data user capacities are recommendable for future research….(More)”
Under What Conditions Are Data Valuable for Development?
Paper by Dean Jolliffe et al: “Data produced by the public sector can have transformational impacts on development outcomes through better targeting of resources, improved service delivery, cost savings in policy implementation, increased accountability, and more. Around the world, the amount of data produced by the public sector is increasing at a rapid pace, yet their transformational impacts have not been realized fully. Why has the full value of these data not been realized yet? This paper outlines 12 conditions needed for the production and use of public sector data to generate value for development and presents case studies substantiating these conditions. The conditions are that data need to have adequate spatial and temporal coverage (are complete, frequent, and timely), are of high quality (are accurate, comparable, and granular), are easy to use (are accessible, understandable, and interoperable), and are safe to use (are impartial, confidential, and appropriate)…(More)”.
A Proposal for Researcher Access to Platform Data: The Platform Transparency and Accountability Act
Paper by Nathaniel Persily: “We should not need to wait for whistleblowers to blow their whistles, however, before we can understand what is actually happening on these extremely powerful digital platforms. Congress needs to act immediately to ensure that a steady stream of rigorous research reaches the public on the most pressing issues concerning digital technology. No one trusts the representations made by the platforms themselves, though, given their conflict of interest and understandable caution in releasing information that might spook shareholders. We need to develop an unprecedented system of corporate datasharing, mandated by government for independent research in the public interest.
This is easier said than done. Not only do the details matter, they are the only thing that matters. It is all well and good to call for “transparency” or “datasharing,” as an uncountable number of academics have, but the way government might setup this unprecedented regime will determine whether it can serve the grandiose purposes techcritics hope it will….(More)”.