Open data hackathon as a tool for increased engagement of Generation Z: to hack or not to hack?

A hackathon is known as a form of civic innovation in which participants representing citizens can point out existing problems or social needs and propose a solution. Given the high social, technical, and economic potential of open government data, the concept of open data hackathons is becoming popular around the world. This concept has become popular in Latvia with the annual hackathons organized for a specific cluster of citizens called Generation Z. Contrary to the general opinion, the organizer suggests that the main goal of open data hackathons to raise an awareness of OGD has been achieved, and there has been a debate about the need to continue them. This study presents the latest findings on the role of open data hackathons and the benefits that they can bring to both the society, participants, and government

Open Data Quality Evaluation: A Comparative Analysis of Open Data in Latvia

Nowadays open data is entering the mainstream - it is free available for every stakeholder and is often used in business decision-making. It is important to be sure data is trustable and error-free as its quality problems can lead to huge losses. The research discusses how (open) data quality could be assessed. It also covers main points which should be considered developing a data quality management solution. One specific approach is applied to several Latvian open data sets. The research provides a step-by-step open data sets analysis guide and summarizes its results. It is also shown there could exist differences in data quality depending on data supplier (centralized and decentralized data releases) and, unfortunately, trustable data supplier cannot guarantee data quality problems absence. There are also underlined common data quality problems detected not only in Latvian open data but also in open data of 3 European countries.Comment: 24 pages, 2 tables, 3 figures, Baltic J. Modern Computin

Open Data Quality

The research discusses how (open) data quality could be described, what should be considered developing a data quality management solution and how it could be applied to open data to check its quality. The proposed approach focuses on development of data quality specification which can be executed to get data quality evaluation results, find errors in data and possible problems which must be solved. The proposed approach is applied to several open data sets to evaluate their quality. Open data is very popular, free available for every stakeholder - it is often used to make business decisions. It is important to be sure that this data is trustable and error-free as its quality problems can lead to huge losses.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 13th International Baltic Conference on Databases and Information Systems & The Baltic DB&IS 2018 Doctoral Consortium (Baltic DB&IS 2018) At: Lithuania, Trakai, Volume: 2158. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2007.0469

The role of open data in the transformation to Society 5.0: a resource or a tool for SDG-compliant Smart Living?

Open data are characterized by a number of economic, technological, innovative and social benefits. They are seen as a significant contributor to the city's transformation into Smart City. This is all the more so when the society is on the border of Society 5.0, i.e., shift from the information society to a super smart society or society of imagination takes place. However, the question constantly asked by open data experts is, what are the key factors to be met and satisfied in order to achieve promised benefits? The current trend of openness suggests that the principle of openness should be followed not only by data but also research, education, software, standard, hardware etc., it should become a philosophy to be followed at different levels, in different domains. This should ensure greater transparency, eliminating inequalities, promoting, and achieving sustainable development goals. Therefore, many agendas now have openness as a prerequisite. This chapter deals with concepts of open (government) data and Society 5.0 pointing to their common objectives, providing some success stories of open data use in smart cities or transformation of cities towards smart cities, mapping them to the features of the Society 5.0. We believe that this trend develops a new form of society, which we refer to as "open data-driven society". It forms a bridge from Society 4.0 to Society 5.0. This Chapter attempts to identify the role of openness in promoting human-centric Smart Society, Smart city, and Smart Living.Comment: Cite as: Nikiforova, A., Alor Flores M. A., & Lytras, M. D. (2023). The Role Of Open Data In The Transformation To Society 5.0: A Resource Or A Tool For SDG-Compliant Smart Living?. In Smart Cities and Digital Transformation Empowering Communities, Limitless Innovation, Sustainable Development and the Next Generation (pp. 219-252). Emerald Publishing Limited, ISBN: 978180455995

Identifying patterns and recommendations of and for sustainable open data initiatives: a benchmarking-driven analysis of open government data initiatives among European countries

Open government and open (government) data are seen as tools to create new opportunities, eliminate or at least reduce information inequalities and improve public services. More than a decade of these efforts has provided much experience, practices, and perspectives to learn how to better deal with them. This paper focuses on benchmarking of open data initiatives over the years and attempts to identify patterns observed among European countries that could lead to disparities in the development, growth, and sustainability of open data ecosystems. To do this, we studied benchmarks and indices published over the last years (57 editions of 8 artifacts) and conducted a comparative case study of eight European countries, identifying patterns among them considering different potentially relevant contexts such as e-government, open government data, open data indices and rankings, and others relevant for the country under consideration. Using a Delphi method, we reached a consensus within a panel of experts and validated a final list of 94 patterns, including their frequency of occurrence among studied countries and their effects on the respective countries. Finally, we took a closer look at the developments in identified contexts over the years and defined 21 recommendations for more resilient and sustainable open government data initiatives and ecosystems and future steps in this area.Regional Government of Andalusia, Spain (Research projects number P20_00314 and B-SEJ-556-UGR20).Institutional support of the University of Pardubice and by European Social Fund via IT Academy programme, University of Tartu (Estonia

Community-driven governance of FAIRness assessment: an open issue, an open discussion

publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Transparency-by-design: Jaká je role open data portálů?

Transparency in the public sector is one of the most important topics of the current debates on accountable, participatory, and responsive governance. An open government addresses these major topics and aims to encourage the relationships and flows of information between involved stakeholders. This article explores the role of open data portals in supporting these efforts and provides findings regarding the features in the design of these data infrastructures. On the basis of evidence from the concept of transparency-by-design, we argue that transparency is facilitated by open data portals and their features enabling to work with datasets. We therefore propose the list of the categories and corresponding features of open data portals that should constitute the checklist of the portal aiming to achieve the highest level of transparency. The mapping of existing features found in literature to the phases of the transparency cycle demonstrates that open data portals meet the transparency requirements.Transparentnost ve veřejném sektoru je jedním z nejdůležitějších témat současných debat o odpovědné, participativní a responzivní správě věcí veřejných. Otevřené vládnutí se zabývá těmito hlavními tématy a jejím cílem je podpořit vztahy a toky informací mezi zúčastněnými stranami. Tento článek zkoumá úlohu open data portálů při podpoře těchto snah a přináší zjištění týkající se funkcí, které je nutné brát v úvahu při návrhu těchto datových infrastruktur. Na základě zjištění z konceptu transparency-by-design lze tvrdit, že transparentnost je podporována open data portály a jejich funkcemi umožňujícími práci s datovými sadami. Proto navrhujeme seznam kategorií a odpovídajících funkcí open data portálů, které by měly být brány v úvahu portálem, jehož cílem je dosáhnout nejvyšší úrovně transparentnosti. Mapování funkcí nalezených v literatuře na fáze cyklu transparentnosti dokazuje, že open data portály splňují požadavky na transparentnost

Vícehlediskový přístup založený na znalostech pro analýzu poptávkové strany Open Government Data portálu

Open data are freely available and can be used by every stakeholder for its own purposes. However, the practice demonstrates that it is important to ensure that the source from which they are available is usable and facilitates the re-use of data to the widest possible range of stakeholders. This task is carried out by open government data (OGD) portals. Therefore, this study proposes a multi-perspective approach where an OGD portal is analyzed from (1) citizens’ perspective, (2) users’ perspective, (3) experts’ perspective, and (4) state of the art. By considering these perspectives, we can define how to improve the portal in question by focusing on its demand side. In view of the complexity of the analysis, we look for ways to simplify it by reusing data and knowledge on the subject, thereby proposing a knowledge-driven analysis that supports the idea under OGD – their reuse. Latvian open data portal is used as an example demonstrating how this analysis should be carried out, validating the proposed approach at the same time. We are aiming to find (1) the level of the citizens’ awareness of the portal existence and its quality by means of the simple survey, (2) the key challenges that may negatively affect users’ experience identified in the course of the usability analysis carried out by both users and experts, (3) combine these results with those already known from the external sources. These data serve as an input, while the output is the assessment of the current situation allowing defining corrective actions. Since the debates on the Latvian OGD portal serving as the use-case appear more frequently, this study also brings significant benefit at national level.Otevřená data jsou volně dostupná a každá zúčastněná strana je může použít pro své vlastní účely. Praxe však ukazuje, že je důležité zajistit, aby byl zdroj, ze kterého jsou tato data dostupná, použitelný a usnadňoval opětovné použití dat pro co nejširší okruhu zúčastněných stran. Tento úkol se provádí prostřednictvím OGD (open government data) portálů. Tato studie proto navrhuje vícehlediskový přístup, kde je OGD portál analyzován z (1) pohledu občanů, (2) pohledu uživatelů, (3) pohledu odborníků a (4) současného stavu poznání. Při zvažování těchto perspektiv můžeme definovat, jak daný portál zlepšit tím, že se zaměříme na jeho poptávkovou stranu. S ohledem na složitost analýzy hledáme způsoby, jak ji zjednodušit opětovným použitím dat a znalostí na toto téma, a proto navrhujeme analýzu založenou na znalostech, která podporuje myšlenku v rámci OGD – jejich opětovné použití. Jako příklad je zvolen lotyšský open data portál, na kterém je demonstrováno, jak by měla být tato analýza provedena, a současně je ověřen navrhovaný přístup. Naším cílem je zjistit (1) úroveň informovanosti občanů o existenci portálu a jeho kvalitě prostřednictvím jednoduchého průzkumu, (2) klíčové výzvy, které mohou negativně ovlivnit zkušenosti uživatelů identifikované v průběhu analýzy použitelnosti provedené uživateli i odborníky, (3) propojit tyto výsledky s těmi, které jsou již známy z externích zdrojů a současného stavu poznání. Tyto údaje slouží jako vstup, zatímco výstupem je posouzení aktuální situace umožňující definovat nápravná opatření. Jelikož se debaty týkající se lotyšského OGD portálu, které slouží jako případ použití, objevují stále častěji, přináší tato studie také značný přínos na národní úrovni

Apache Spark and MLlib-Based Intrusion Detection System or How the Big Data Technologies Can Secure the Data

Since the turn of the millennium, the volume of data has increased significantly in both industries and scientific institutions. The processing of these volumes and variety of data we are dealing with are unlikely to be accomplished with conventional software solutions. Thus, new technologies belonging to the big data processing area, able to distribute and process data in a scalable way, are integrated into classical Business Intelligence (BI) systems or replace them. Furthermore, we can benefit from big data technologies to gain knowledge about security, which can be obtained from massive databases. The paper presents a security-relevant data analysis based on the big data analytics engine Apache Spark. A prototype intrusion detection system is developed aimed at detecting data anomalies through machine learning by using the k-means algorithm for clustering analysis implemented in Sparks MLlib. The extraction of features to detect anomalies is currently challenging because the problem of detecting anomalies is not actively and exhaustively monitored. The detection of abnormal data can be effectuated by using relevant data that are already in companies’ and scientific organizations’ possession. Their interpretation and further processing in a continuous manner can sufficiently contribute to anomaly and intrusion detection