Nahon, Karine, Peled, Alon, Shkabatur, Jennifer. 2015. Cities’ Open Government Data Heart Beat

This paper develops and tests a theoretical model, which assesses the commitment of cities to the concept of open government data (OGD), according to three levels. Level 1, ‘Way of life,’ reflects a high commitment to OGD; Level 2, ‘On the Fence,’ represents either a low or erratic commitment to OGD; Level 3, ‘Lip Service,’ refers to either scarce or no commitment to OGD. These levels draw on four key dimensions: 1) Rhythm; 2) Span of Issues; 3) Disclosure; and 4) Feedback. We empirically examine this theoretical framework using longitudinal mixed-method analysis of the OGD behavior of 16 US cities for a period of four years, using a large novel corpus of municipal OGD metadata, as well as primary qualitative and secondary quantitative indicators. This methodology allows us to represent, for the first time, the evolving OGD commitment—or “OGD heart beat”—of cities. 

Award video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XVp4HZeB0o

Paper:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273263082_Cities%27_Open_Government_Data_Heart_Beat [accessed Nov 23 2017].

What the reviewers wrote about the winners' paper

"….it is clearly written, notable urges the right questions in current International transparency debates, has a clear written methodology and addresses interesting insights and discussion points."

"….lies on real research and has a practical value……"

"….an innovative and really practical approach to measuring Openness….."

"….provided a very valuable new methodology for measuring open government data at the level where it arguably matters most i.e. local"

".....not only interesting but extremely useful in terms of advancing best practice in the Open Data field."