Open Government Data Publication Methodology

Public sector bodies hold a significant amount of data that might be of potential interest to citizens and businesses. However the re-use potential of this data is still largely untapped because the data is not always published in a way that would allow its easy discovery, understanding and re-use. Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives aim at increasing availability of machine-readable data provided under an open license and therefore these initiatives might facilitate re-use of the government data which in turn might lead to increased transparency and economic growth. However the recent studies show that still only a portion of data provided by the public sector bodies is truly open. Public sector bodies face a number of challenges when publishing OGD and they need to address the relevant risks. Therefore there is a need for best practices and methodologies for publication of OGD that would provide the responsible persons with a clear guidance on how the OGD initiatives should be implemented and how the known challenges and risks should be addressed.