Understanding the impact of releasing and re-using open government data

New Report by the European Public Sector Information Platform: “While there has been a proliferation of open data portals and data re-using tools and applications of tremendous speed in the last decade, research and understanding about the impact of opening up public sector information and open government data (OGD hereinafter) has been lacking behind.
Until now, there have been some research efforts to structure the concept of the impact of OGD suggesting various theories of change, their measuring methodologies or in some cases, concrete calculations as to what financial benefits opening government data brings on a table. For instance, the European Commission conducted a study on pricing of public sector information, which attempted evaluating direct and indirect economic impact of opening public data and identified key indicators to monitor the effects of open data portals. Also, Open Data Research Network issued a background report in April 2012 suggesting a general framework of key indicators to measure the impact of open data initiatives both on a provision and re-use stages.
Building on the research efforts up to date, this report will reflect upon the main types of impacts OGD may have and will also present key measuring frameworks to observe the change OGD initiatives may bring about.”