5.6 Public Sector Transparency Board – Principles
5.6.1 Outline and Summary
The publication “Public Data Transparency Principles” by Public Sector Transparency
Board (UK), June 2012, is not a framework as it does not attempt to measure the already
existing initiative. Instead, it offers a set of principles that should accompany OGD release to
which all of the data releasing government departments should aspire. The objective of this
work to ensure that OGD is published in ways “which allow people to use it easily and
reliably” (Open Data White Paper 22). The principles developed are as follows (Open Data
White Paper 22–24):
1. Public data policy and practice will be clearly driven by the public and businesses that
want and use the data, including what data is released, when and in what form;
2. Public data will be published in re-usable, machine-readable form;
3. Public data will be released under the same open license which enables free re-use,
including commercial re-use;
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4. Public data will be available and easy to find through a single, easy-to-use, online
access point;
5. Public data will be published using open standards, and following relevant
recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium;
6. Public data from different departments about the same subject will be published in the
same, standard formats and with the same definitions;
7. Public data underlying the Government’s own websites will be published in re-usable
form;
8. Public data will be timely and fine-grained;
9. Release data quickly, and then work to make sure that it is available in open standard
formats, including linked data forms;
10. Public data will be freely available to use in any lawful way;
11. Public data will be available without application or registration, and without requiring
details of the user;
12. Public bodies should actively encourage the re-use of their public data;
13. Public bodies should maintain and publish inventories of their data holdings; and
14. Public bodies should publish relevant metadata about their datasets and this should be
available through a single online access point; and they should publish supporting
descriptions of the format provenance and meaning of the data.
The Public Sector Transparency Board also recognized that the published data should be
reusable. For assessing the degree to which individual datasets are re-usable, they proposed to
use the Five Star deployment scheme created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee which was originally
posted on author’s blog “Design Issues” (Berners-Lee). The intention is to include a star
rating attached to each data set and a gauge of the usefulness and Refer to Table 3 below.
Level Format
★ Make your data available on the web (in any format)
★★ Make it available as structured data (for example Microsoft Excel instead
of image scan of a table)
★★★ Make it available in an open, non-proprietary format (for example, CSV
or XML instead of Microsoft Excel)
★★★★ In addition to using open formats, use Uniform and Resource Locators
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(URLs) to identify things using open standards and recommendations
from W3C, so that other people can reference an individuals data
★★★★★ In addition to using open formats and using URLs to identify things, link
your data to other people’s data to provide context
Table 3 – Five Star Deployment scheme (Sir Tim Berners-Lee)
5.6.2 Critique and Assessment
The set of principles provide a clear set of goals, which, if OGD is released using this
list, ensures a degree of uniformity is met when comparing data. As this is clearly a key
requirement of any future measurement tools developed in this area of study, I have included
a number of these principles in my proposed framework.
Although the list of principles covers a wide variety of aspects relating to OGD
development and release, ensuring this level of quality is met is considered to be relatively
difficult to achieve. As such, a ranking system of importance would be useful which would
provide an increased level of guidance on what aspect of OGD development and release
should be prioritised.
The Five Star Deployment scheme provides a similar approach to Krabina’s
frameworks as it ranks or scores the format level of data sets. This offers the user a greater
ability to search for information closer to their individual needs and again, introduces a
measurement tool aimed at ensuring a degree of uniformity in the processing and cataloguing
of data. This has been included in my proposed framework.
5.7 Framework Assessment Summary
To conclude this assessment, I note the inherent difficulty in undertaking comparative
analysis of assessment tools that utilise a variety of measures and approaches. What I have
demonstrated in doing so, however is to highlight the patchwork and deficiencies of tools
available to practitioners seeking to determine the extent to which OGD meets its potential to
improve democratic practice.
This chapter provided an assessment on the available frameworks and guidance
documents measuring the impact OGD has on democracy and upholding its four pillars. In
the following chapter, I introduce my proposed framework that utilises elements of the
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evaluated frameworks, but also includes my specific recommendations and suggested
improvements to create a more robust and encompassing framework.