The open data portal of Aragon emerged in 2012 and has not stopped growing since then. It currently has more than 2,100 datasets and a large number of applications. During these years it has incorporated new features to adapt to the real needs of citizens, such as its information structure that improves interoperability and homogenises the available data, or the incorporation of applications such as Open Analytics Data, which offers statistics related to the use of the most important portals of the Government of Aragon.

In the last few months, they have been working on the Aragon Open Data Focus Initiative, aimed at getting to know open data publishers and users better. To find out more about this interesting project and the rest of the activities they are developing, we have spoken to Julián Moyano, Technical Advisor of the General Directorate of Electronic Administration and Information Society, Department of Science, University and Knowledge Society of the Government of Aragon.

Full interview

1. What is Aragon Open Data Focus and what are its strategic points?

Aragon Open Data Focus is a way of bringing the data of the Government of Aragon's open data portal closer to society, and to those people who are not so familiar with the data, in order to encourage their use and interpretation.

Bringing together the data available in Aragon Open Data has required a better understanding of the real needs of the users and groups involved. These are the four strategic points of this work:

• Firstly, we have started with an initial analysis of the data and services available in Aragon Open Data.
• Second, through this analysis we have defined potential groups of users and agents of interest.
• Thirdly, from this point onwards, different meetings have been organised with these groups to look for synergies and establish lines of work.
• Fourthly, all this has resulted in the service called Aragon Open Data Focus with digital stories and narratives based on available open data and the concerns of the users.

Aragón Open Data Focus es una manera de acercar los datos del portal de datos abiertos del Gobierno de Aragón, Aragón Open Data, a la sociedad, y a aquellas personas que no están tan familiarizadas con los datos para favorecer su uso e interpretación.

2. To learn more about the users’ needs, you have held various virtual meetings. What groups have you met with and what conclusions have you drawn from these conversations?

The meetings have been a very important part of Aragon Open Data Focus. At the beginning of 2020, 8 meetings had been planned in person, to encourage participation and direct contact with these agents involved. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the first of those meetings had to be suspended, rescheduling the agenda of participants and calendar, to be held by videoconference. There has been a great deal of online activity and it has been very well received by the different groups of participants. The groups we have worked with have been:

• Public sector organisations: focused on companies and other public sector entities.
• Storytellers: journalists.
• Companies that reuse data.
• Students.
• Directors, managers and senior executives of private and public organisations.
• Developers and programmers from the technology sector.
• Auditors of public action, citizens' groups and social movements.
• Citizens, in general, new to open data.

The conclusions of all these meetings have been very valuable. The first of these is that it is necessary to talk and debate "one-on-one" with the agents involved, with the recipients of the services, with the possible and potential users of the data, in order to know their needs much better and share them in Aragon Open Data.

Some of the conclusions I would like to highlight that were obtained with the user groups were:  

• Those responsible for public sector bodies are demanding more cooperation within the administrations in order to correctly articulate the effort in terms of transparency and open data.
• Users with a more technical profile and familiar with the data demand more data in open formats, of better quality, improved descriptions, level of disaggregation and updated in real time.
• Interested parties and users with more general profiles want possibilities to relate data from different sources, visualisations, geopositioning of available open data, map visualisations and downloadable geographical information in open formats and with the possibility of integrating them into other websites.
• In addition, open data portals need to improve their dynamization, dissemination and constant approach to data providers and users. Permanent and rapid attention is also requested to new demands for open data or the resolution of users' doubts, linking any action to the culture of openness and transparency on the part of Public Administrations.

It should also be noted that the content, dynamics and conclusions of each of the events are available on the Government of Aragon's website: https://www.aragon.es/-/los-datos-abiertos-mas-cerca-de-la-sociedad-aragon-open-data-focus.

3. What actions are you developing to respond to user requests?

The meetings have been intense, full of ideas, proposals and debates. Now it is time to record the conclusions of these meetings in order to work on the action lines and demands suggested.

It is necessary to emphasize that these meetings and their conclusions are aligned with the Strategy of Aragon Open Data in which the evolution of the web portal of Aragon Open Data and the map of agents (journalists, researchers, citizens) that work with open data to offer an integral vision of the service are analysed. That is why Aragon Open Data Focus has a place in this Strategy.

With this, we continue profiling, working and complying with its lines of action, which allow us to promote the implication of the users and develop a data governance model that covers their demands: working on the opening of new resources, improving the existing ones and favouring their use.

4. What obstacles have you encountered when setting up Aragon Open Data Focus?

The main obstacle, as I have already pointed out, has been the coronavirus pandemic. Aragón Open Data Focus had a markedly face-to-face character, to talk and debate with those involved in a direct way with participative dynamics. We even had events planned in small villages and the rural environment of Aragon, to disseminate and share ideas about open data and to know first-hand their demands and needs. The pandemic made us change its dynamics and do it online, which has not been a problem either to hold these "meetings" and obtain conclusions.

Beyond that, we have noticed that users have great expectations about open data, and sometimes it is not easy to respond to them in this type of conference for different reasons: the inexistence of data in the administration (it is the responsibility of another organisation), technical problems, or due to the characteristics of the open data available. Circumstances that, although they may justify, not excuse, in detail the situation, are difficult to understand by the user or data demander, when we are in the 21st century, in the era of data and the digital economy.

5. What are the benefits for public administrations of this type of initiative?

Above all, it allows us to go deeper into the real needs of users and groups with whom we have worked in order to better focus our actions and future lines of work.

6. A few years ago, you told us that the datasets most demanded by users of Aragon Open Data were those related to the budget. Has this situation changed? What type of information do re-users demand now?

The budget data is still one of the most used in Aragon Open Data, both as open datasets and in the service that reflects it: https://presupuesto.aragon.es/

Today, if we look at the number of accesses, currently, the most demanded (it doubles the second resource with the most accesses) is data related to the coronavirus in Aragon, followed by cartographic data, data on the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) and statistical data.

7. How do you see the panorama of open data in Spain? What strengths do you think there are? And weaknesses? How could they be resolved?

The outlook in Spain is promising. Much has already been done to provide data in open formats by different public administrations at all territorial levels. Now, once their offer has grown in the number of datasets, the portals are been adapting to the demands of society which not only wants quantity, but also very specific data to make the most of it, for example: data on mobility, passenger transport, telecommunications infrastructures, digital services and health, in real time. This is in line with what the European Union has legislated on its new directive on open data and the re-use of public sector information as a strength. In other words, there is an important regulatory and institutional support for open data initiatives in Europe, in order to make the continent a truly data-based digital marketplace that improves the lives of citizens.

Weak points in the opening up of open data, which has good regulatory and legal backing, may be the response times for including a set of data requested from a given portal, and it would therefore be advisable to speed up the processes of opening up the data further. And in the event that there is no supplier acting as data manager, taking advantage of the possibilities of current technologies, for example, data recognition or automatic detection of schemes with quality and security validators, to allow open data to be opened and made available with the minimum of human intervention.

If data is an asset of the public administrations that serve citizens, companies and third parties in this new digital economy, they also have to lose that aura of closure and ownership, which they sometimes give off.

The Aporta Challenge, in line with many other initiatives promoted by public administrations, could not be unaware of the great challenges we are facing in this year 2020. For this reason, its third edition, while fulfilling its usual objective of promoting the use of data and related technologies, aims to contribute to solving problems related to digital education. Without doubt, this is one of the areas in which the need to propose new innovations to ensure that the pandemic does not cause serious damage to the potential of the younger generations has been most evident.

With the slogan "The value of data in digital education", datos.gob.es is proposing an Aporta Challenge that in 2020 reward ideas and prototypes that identify new opportunities for capturing, analysing and using the intelligence of data in the development of solutions for the educational sphere at any of its stages.

Identifying a problem

If we were to approach participation in the challenge as a data science project, the first thing we would do is determine the question we would like to solve, in short, choose a problem worth working on.  In this article we propose some lines of work, but they are not restrictions, they are only intended to serve as inspiration to make it easier for us to choose an educational challenge with a great impact. We must always aspire to improve the world.

On the other hand, we can look at the large educational gaps defined by the Educa en Digital programme, which aims to complement the Digitalisation and Digital Skills Plan and to promote the digital transformation of education in Spain, making intensive use of ICT both in the classroom and in non-presential formats, and tackling specific problems thanks to developments linked to data and artificial intelligence. For each of the specific objectives we can think of a good number of issues on which we can work:

1. The provision of digital educational devices and resources. For example, how can we help ensure that access to technology is not a barrier to access to education, especially for the most vulnerable groups? how can we reduce the requirements for accessing educational programmes remotely? how can we rely on the most economical devices that are most widely available to students? etc.
2. The provision of digital educational resources, especially in relation to the previous point. On many occasions the problem we can work on does not have to be completely new, but we can find a more efficient approach to an apparently resolved issue.  For example, how can we help a teacher to better monitor a large number of students? how can we improve the security of the applications used by students through public networks? how can we guarantee the privacy of students? etc.
3. The adequacy of teachers' digital skills. In this line there are also a significant number of questions to be resolved: how can we improve the usability of tools for teachers and students? how can we promote skills related to collaboration or communication when people are not in the same physical space? how can we help STEM skills to be perceived as transversal? etc.
4. The application of artificial intelligence to personalised education, which is almost a holy grail of Education. How can we create personalised learning paths for each group of students, or better still, optimising the learning pace of each student according to their individual characteristics? how can we predict the impact of changes in programmes on the evolution of group or student learning? how can we detect and avoid gender bias in models that work on any of the above problems?

In short, with the suggestions published in the bases and a little research, it is easy to locate a good number of issues on which we can do our bit to improve digital education. Without forgetting our own experience. We have all been at least students, and perhaps also teachers, at some point.

Examining the prior art

Before we begin our work, we must consider that it is very likely that, with or without success, others have identified and proposed solutions to the problem we have chosen. From their success or failure, we can also draw lessons so reviewing the state of the art is key to focusing our project well. In relation to educational technology it is interesting to review resources such as

• The activity of educational technology start-ups in repositories such as EU-startups or the WISE accelerator.
• Awards focused on educational technology such as the prestigious Global Learning XPRIZE or the WISE Prize for Education.
• The list of more than 2.500 educational innovation projects from around the world contained in the Leapfrogging Inequality: Remaking Education to Help Young People Thrive.
• The solutions that reuse open data in the area of education and that highlight portals such as the European data portal or datos.gob.es.

As you will see, many of the projects are focused on solving problems that are mostly present in countries less developed than ours. However, the pandemic has changed the rules of the game from what we could have foreseen and is challenging us again with problems that under normal circumstances we would consider to be overcome.

Locating datasets

Open data is present in almost every problem that is solved by data related technologies and it is usually one ingredient, not the only one. The foundations of the Aporta Challenge reflect this reality and impose very few restrictions on creators, using data sources listed in datos.gob.es is not even mandatory, despite being the driving force behind the challenge. At least one set of data generated by the public administrations must be used, but it can come from any source and can play any role within the project.

To locate data related to our project we can start with the more than 1,700 datasets of the datos.gob.es data catalogue, which federates a good part of the data available in Spanish portals. In the European Data Portal we can find more than 8,000 datasets related to education from all EU countries and another 3,000 datasets from the catalogue of the European Union open data portal.

International institutions that work for the development of education such as UNICEF or the World Bank also have open data catalogues in which we can locate resources that help us in some part of our project.

The Google dataset search engine, the AWS open data registry or the Microsoft Azure datasets are resources in which we can also find datasets to enrich any data-based project.

The data catalogue of institutions such as the US Government's Institute of Education Sciences, which although focused on the United States, undoubtedly contains data of great value for measuring and understanding the impact of initiatives developed to improve education and which can enrich many projects.

Another option that we should bear in mind is that it may not be enough to solve the problem we have chosen to clean up, reconcile and transform datasets from any of the sources that are publicly and openly available. Sometimes we need to work on generating or building our own dataset. And in that case a very good option is to make it publicly and openly available so that it can be reused and improved by others.

Defining the product

Finally, we have to think about the best way to deliver the result of our work so that it can be used by its recipients and have the impact we want. The options are multiple and again the bases do not impose restrictions. Some possibilities could be:

• Mobile Apps: The enormous penetration of the iOS and Android platforms means that any product we build for these platforms and publish in their respective stores is guaranteed to have a huge potential diffusion. In addition, there are options to carry out multiplatform developments and even to carry out developments with little (low-code) or no (non-code) software development knowledge.
• Websites: Web applications are probably still the most common mechanism for making a project of any kind available to society in general. The advances in managed services of the large cloud providers and the facilities they offer to make infrastructure available for free mean that it has never been easier to start a project. It is also possible to use non-code platforms such as appypie or low-code platforms such as Appian to reduce the initial barrier if we do not have a software developer on the team.
• Artificial Intelligence Algorithms: It is increasingly common for a data-based project to be delivered in the form of an automatic learning model or artificial intelligence. For example, Amazon AWS offers the possibility to list algorithms like Microsoft Azure in its Machine Learning Marketplace so that they can be consumed by other applications.
•  Stories and Visualizations: Sometimes the best way to deliver results is through a visualization or a DataStory that allows you to communicate the result of your work. For this purpose, there are multiple options that range from the utilities that incorporate most of the generic Business Intelligence tools such as Tableau to others specialised in spatial location such as the Spanish Carto.

We wish all participants good luck and encourage you to work on a challenge that has a great impact on society.

Content prepared by Jose Luis Marín, Senior Consultant in Data, Strategy, Innovation & Digitalization.

The contents and points of view reflected in this publication are the sole responsibility of its author.

In the Action Plan of the International Open Data Conference, capacity development has become a priority within the international open data movement. After all, the need for training tools is essential for leaders responsible for PSI policies, data producers and reusers, public and private sector, and even citizens. For this reason, providing training tools that allow the different agents to advance in the openness and re-use of public data is a priority task.

To this end, eight training units have been developed within the dissemination, awareness raising and training line of Iniciativa Aporta, aimed at all types of public: from citizens who read for the first time about open data to public employees, responsible for open information initiatives who want to expand their knowledge in the field. 

The training units are designed to understand the basic concepts of the open data movement, to know best practices in the implementation of open data policies and their re-use, methodological guidelines for open data, technical regulations such as DCAT-AP and NTI-RISP, in addition to the use of data processing tools, among other aspects.

In the development of resources, two types of learning have been taken into account. Learning by discovery, oriented to extend the knowledge to solve the doubts and reflections raised, and significant learning based on prior knowledge, through the use of practical examples to contextualize and apply the concepts treated.

In addition, the training modules contain complementary materials through links to external pages and documents to be downloaded without connection. In this way, the student is given the opportunity to enhance his knowledge and familiarize himself with relevant sources to obtain reliable and up-to-date information about the open data sector.

All units are distributed under the Creative Commons Share-Alike Attribution Licence (CC-BY-SA) which allows copying, distributing the material in any medium or format and adapting it to create new resources from it.

The training material developed by Iniciativa Aporta consists of eight didactic units that address the following contents of the open data sector: 

1. Basic concepts, benefits and barriers of open data
2. Legal framework
3. Trends and best practices on the implementation of open data practices
4. The re-use of public data on its transformative role
5. Methodological guidelines for open data
6. DCAT-AP and NTI-RISP
7. Use of basic tools for data treatment
8. Best practices in the design of APIs and Linked Data

Each unit is designed in a way the student expands his knowledge on the open data sector. In order to facilitate their understanding, all of them have a similar structure that includes objectives, contents, evaluation activities, practical examples, complementary information and conclusions.

All the training units can be done online, directly from the datos.gob.es or, in its absence, it is also possible to download them on the user's device and even load it on an LMS platform.

Each unit is independent; enabling the student to acquire the necessary knowledge in a specific subject according to their training needs. However, those students who wish to have a more complete view of the PSI sector have the opportunity to perform the complete series of eight training units in order to know in depth the most relevant aspects of open data initiatives.

The training units are available in the "Documentation" section under the category "Training materials" to be carried out through the online portal or to be downloaded. 

Training materials of the Aporta Initiative

 

Measuring the impact of open data is not always easy. As we saw a few weeks ago, there are several theoretical models that are not easy to implement, so we have to look for different approaches. In the Aporta Initiative we use a mixed approach, as explained here: a quantitative analysis through indicators on data publication and its characteristics, and a qualitative one through the collection of cases of data use.

This approach is also used by various local, regional and state initiatives in our country. In today's article, we will focus on concrete examples of mechanisms implemented by Spanish open data initiatives to monitor and measure the impact of the use of their data.

Quantitative analysis

One of the first steps in monitoring impact is to know quantitatively if users are accessing the published data. To do this we can use different tools.

Dashboards

Thanks to the incorporation of web analytics tools in open data platforms, such as Google Analytics or Motomo (which until 2018 was called PIWIK), a series of indicators can be set around data consumption variables, such as how many users visit the web, what is their origin, which data sets are most in demand or in what format they are downloaded. All of this information is of great value when it comes to making decisions that imply improvements to continue promoting the reuse of public information.

With this data, dashboards can be created so that users can also know this information. This is the case of the Castellón Provincial Council, the Madrid City Council, the Catalan Government, Renfe, the Basque Government or the datos.gob.es itself.

Conducting surveys and periodic studies

In addition, it is advisable to carry out frequent public consultations and studies that allow us to know directly the impact of our data. The ONTSI periodically carries out a characterization study of the sector, and an analysis of the Public Administrations as reusers of their own data and that of third parties. Another example is the report on the Infomediary Sector of ASEDIE, now in its 8th edition. This report measures the products and services based on open data that have been generated. Both reports use a stable methodology that allows comparisons between different years. 

Qualitative analysis

It consists of the identification of use cases through different mechanisms, such as

Application and enterprise tracking

Thanks to the mapping of open data use cases, we can know what the impact of a certain data set is. In many open data platforms, whether local, regional or state, we can find a section of applications or companies with examples and reuse success stories that in turn serve as reference and inspiration for the creation of new value services. In the case of datos.gob.es, we have a form for companies or applications that wish to register their information, but we also carry out a proactive search, through contact with the main actors in the ecosystem and media alerts.

Other examples of portals that have applications sections are Andalusia, Castilla y Leon, Navarra, Barcelona, Santander, Malaga, Zaragoza, Valencia, Vitoria or Bilbao, although there are many more.

Implementation of data communities

In order to be aware of new developments in the field of reuse and to exchange knowledge and experiences to align the data publication strategy with the needs of reusers, some initiatives have opted for the implementation of communities. This is the case of the Basque Country, which has created a space to centralize everything that happens around the reuse of its data. This community has been especially useful to collect and measure the work that has been developed on COVID-19 using open data. Under its umbrella there are also activities and competitions that encourage reuse.

For its part, the Castellón Provincial Council has created a Provincial Council of Reusers, a mixed public-private body made up of technicians from the provincial institution itself, and people with recognized professional backgrounds in different economic sectors. These professionals meet once a quarter to hold a conversation to monitor use cases and which favours constant feedback and the enrichment of the Provincial Council's open data strategy. 

The National Library of Spain is working along the same lines and has launched a collaborative work platform so that those citizens who wish to do so can participate in specific projects to enrich the Library's data, making it more accessible and easier to reuse.

In short, all these activities allow monitoring the activity of an open data initiative and its impact on society. They help us to know what challenges we are solving in fields as important for humanity as the environment, health or education. In this way, we will be able to know its evolution over time and easily detect trends and possible areas of improvement, which will lead us to distribute the efforts and resources available in a more effective way.  

Content elaborated by datos.gob.es team.

The OECD's work on open data began in 2013, but has steadily expanded to reflect its growing importance in member and partner countries. The OECD sees open data as a key asset for economic development, digital innovation and good governance, while always paying special attention to privacy, transparency and ethics. 

The OECD includes the need to create a culture based on data as one of the principles needed to promote the digital transformation of the public sector. In its own words "open government data is a public good, which must be delivered with a purpose, in a proactive manner and with a focus on reuse, in line with user needs and its potential contribution to the joint creation of value". In this sense, he has developed a series of indicators to evaluate the digital transformation of countries, based on 6 key dimensions:

The OURdata index: a way to measure the availability, accessibility and reuse of government data

The OURdata index, which evaluates the progress and challenges of open government data policies using 3 pillars, is based on this theoretical framework:

1. Data Availability: measures the degree to which governments have adopted and implemented official requirements to promote open government data at the central level.
2. Data Accessibility: measures the availability of formal requirements designed to promote unrestricted access to data.
3. Government support for data reuse: measures the extent to which governments are playing a proactive role in promoting the reuse of government data within and outside of government.

These pillars are summarized in the table below: 

The results of the OURdata 2019 index

The latest edition of the OURdata index published by the OECD is 2019. This report compares the results obtained with those of 2017, with the aim of finding out the state of maturity of the countries analyzed in order to promote improvements that will increase data flows.

The 2019 results show general improvements in all countries. Most countries have adopted the "open by default" approach, including formal requirements not only in the open data strategies, but also in laws and regulations. In addition, more and more governments are enabling their open data portals as communication and feedback tools. These portals are not intended to be mere "data catalogs" but rather platforms to foster innovative, collaborative and knowledge-sharing practices.

Despite these improvements, however, there are still areas for improvement at the general level. More sustainable, long-term approaches are needed, with more defined governance frameworks. There is also a need to boost the training of public officials and encourage high-level political commitment to help recognize the value of data. It is therefore necessary to focus not only on supply, but to put in place mechanisms that stimulate demand and reuse.

In this regard, the report provides a series of recommendations to OECD governments:

• Ensure political support for open data and establish enabling environments to sustain implementation efforts over the long term.
• Build a common approach with a focus on sustainable development and gender issues, among other areas.
• Create Open Government Data portals by adopting an "Open by Default" and "Government as a Platform" approach.
• Ensure that data publication is proactive, timely, and understandable to both humans and machines (using metadata, common standards, etc.), as well as addressing quality issues and biases in data collection and generation.
• Maintain practices that ensure the publication of high-value data taxonomies and their integration across different sectors, driving greater social, government and business innovation.
• Ensure open data policies and establish governance frameworks that facilitate data monitoring and are aligned with data protection regulations In this sense, the OECD has developed a framework for public sector data governance that includes good practices to be followed based on strategic, tactical and data availability components, detailed in its report The Path to Becoming a Data-Driven Public Sector.
• Establish federated models that facilitate data discovery, while maintaining the right levels of autonomy at the local level, and ensure quality at the central level.
• Make the necessary arrangements to enable the delivery of public value through open data in order to maintain and multiply its benefits and impact.
• Maintain efforts that aim to promote the reuse of open government data outside the public sector, as well as its real-time integration into the value chain of relevant actors (e.g., through APIs).
• Increase measurement efforts focused on understanding the effects of data reuse within the public sector.

Spain's position

In the 2019 index, Spain is in eighth position, above the average of the countries analyzed, although with a slight decrease compared to 2017. The indicator where our country scores best is in data accessibility. Among other issues, the report highlights as a good practice the creation of the series of reports "Emerging Technologies and Open Data", which helps the reader to understand how different disruptive technologies work, what the role of (open) data is in them and what their impact on our society will be. Currently available are the volumes dedicated to Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.

The OECD is already working on the next edition of the index, which is expected to be released in 2021. We will then be able to analyze whether countries have followed the recommendations of this body and have promoted improvements in their open data policies.

At the end of 2018, Renfe launched its open data portal, a space to share information and key indicators with citizens. The launch of this portal was part of its digital transformation strategy to, in its own words, "put the customer at the center of all its services". 

With the continuous maintenance of this portal, the operator seeks to improve services and attention to users, as well as to promote transparency and accountability. But, as is always the case with open data, the aim is not only to make the data accessible to citizens, but also to encourage its dissemination and use. Renfe's open data federation with datos.gob.es and consequently also its federation with the European Data Portal enhance its visibility both nationally and internationally.

63 sets of data on rail transport

Renfe currently has 63 datasets, which provide information on stations, schedules and notices in 6 formats, as shown in the image below.

Since its inception, the portal has focused on providing operational data, such as general and suburban timetables, geolocated stations or notices of service changes. All of this, giving priority to machine-readable formats to facilitate their reuse. 

Of all the datasets currently available, the most visited, according to their own control panel, are:

• High-speed, long-distance and medium-distance schedules.
• Local timetables.
• Stations. Complete list.
• Number of employees.
• List of High Speed, Long Distance and Medium Distance stations.

Renfe's idea is to continue expanding the datasets on a regular basis and taking into account the contributions of citizens. For example, on April 1 of this year they incorporated new data on Cercanías passengers by time slots, as well as train sheets.

Why are open transport data important?

Open data actions such as Renfe's help democratize information, so that it can be consumed free of charge and reused to create valuable products and services.

Transport data is one of the most reused data categories, which is why the European Commission (EC) has identified it as high-value data. In the datos.gob.es data applications section, you can find multiple examples of products and services that are based on this type of information.

The most popular applications created on the basis of this type of data are those that provide information on the arrival time and routes of the various trains or that integrate different transport methods to determine the easiest and quickest way to reach a destination, such as this example. But transport data also provide us with information to better understand our environment and make decisions. For example, we can know how the empty Spain moves, an important information for the development of policies to help us fight this problem. Or know the services of a particular metropolitan area, something fundamental when deciding where to buy a house.

These examples highlight the importance of transport data and why it is necessary to promote its openness and reuse. With the launch of its portal and its continuous updating, Renfe subscribes to its commitment to this type of data, and is aligned with the strategy set out by the European Union in its new directive, which highlights the need to open up transport data due to its great benefits for society, the environment and the economy.

Making a city "smart" is not easy. According to the report Smart cities: understanding the challenges and opportunities, the budget constraints and the lack of infrastructure are the two main barriers for populations wanting to implement Smart cities initiatives. In this context, interoperability and collaborative platforms that allow the sharing of resources are key to success.

It was with this idea that the Ciudades Abiertas (Open Cities) project emerged 3 years ago, an open, collaborative and interoperable government platform, which was a beneficiary of the II Call for Smart Cities.

Collaboration between municipalities based on 4 lines of action

The Ciudades Abiertas project is led by Red.es and four city councils: A Coruña, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela and Zaragoza. Together, these city councils are developing various initiatives that can be reused by other bodies.

Recently, Ciudades Abiertas has updated its website, incorporating a new design, a highlights section with the latest news of the project and additional functionalities such as execution indicators.

The actions have been developed around 4 pillars:

• Open data: Open data is the most critical requirement of Smart Cities, as the above-mentioned study rightly pointed out. In this sense, the Open Cities project provides the technical and conceptual means necessary for the "management of unique shared data, open by default, georeferenced and semantically annotated by the city". Work is currently underway on the publication of a generic data REST API - or the development of a SPARQL access point to perform complex queries on several datasets at once, among other actions.
• Vocabulariums: The platform offers a catalogue of common and open vocabularies and data structures on Github for use by participating municipalities or any other entity. You can already access the vocabularies on the Municipal Agenda, Population Register or Public Bicycle, the last one to be incorporated in April of this year. They are currently working on other vocabularies such as Traffic or Budget and Budgetary Execution. Within this framework, a couple of videos have also been created to inform about what the vocabularies are and how they are generated and to raise awareness about the advantages of their use, in a simple and didactic way.
• Participation:  The project seeks to promote citizen participation in several of the legislative, implementation and control activities carried out by the municipalities, in areas such as participatory budgets or day-to-day management. To this end, a methodology has been developed and two catalogues are provided, one of participatory processes and the other of instruments for participation. A list has also been included with specific examples of participatory processes that can be taken as a reference when setting up an initiative of this type.
• Transparency: Accountability is also a fundamental area of Smart Cities, so mechanisms are needed to ensure that all activities carried out by the council are provided with full transparency. One way to provide this information is through simple visualizations, easy to understand by citizens without technical knowledge. The project explores different ways to facilitate these visualisations. Two interesting reports have been prepared: Report with the Analysis of External Visualisation Systems and the Report with the Analysis of Visualisation Extensions for CKAN.

Next steps

The Open Cities project is still in full development. Among the activities to be developed in the coming months is the definition of new vocabularies until completing those recommended by the UNE 178301:2015 standard, or the creation of a general scorecard that allows comparisons of all the transparency indicators between cities, thanks to the homogenization of the data and its availability in reusable formats. They are also working, through collaborative workshops with citizens, on the design of visualizations that allow to offer information on transparency in an interactive way and with a simple language.

All these actions will facilitate the creation of new Smart Cities projects not only in these cities but in various territories throughout the country.

The difficulties in adequately measuring the impact of open data initiatives are widely known, as it is a global debate that has been with us practically since the beginning of the first open data initiatives, more than ten years ago. The problem is that it is relatively easy to find isolated examples of how various benefits and improvements have been achieved through open data, but in general - and unless we are talking about very specific areas such as economic impact - it is not common to find complete and structured measurements of the impact that has been achieved through open data initiatives in order to demonstrate their full value.

A review of the various initiatives and methods that exist to measure the impact of open data also shows that there is no clear consensus among researchers on how best to capture the results and impact of these initiatives. 

In view of this scenario, we share here the approach to impact measurement that we have been following from the Spanish Government's open data and public information reuse initiative and that is inspired by the recommendations provided by several guides that we consider to be reference in this aspect: the UNE 178301:2015 standard, the framework of common methods for the evaluation of open data, the guide for the empirical analysis of open government data initiatives and the taxonomy of the impact of open data.

Within our personal approach to the problem we must first clarify what we understand “impact” as – “any positive effect or benefit obtained directly or indirectly for individuals, communities or society as a whole, which occurs over a certain period of time and which results from the development of different activities in a given field characterized by the use of open data as a means to an end”. 

Thus, the method we use to measure such impact is based on two main components: a quantitative analysis through indicators on data publication and its characteristics, and a qualitative one through the collection of data use cases.

Quantitative analysis

The objective of quantitative analysis is to offer a series of indicators in a quick and simple way that provide us with an overview of the data publication activity. In this way, we can track its evolution over time and easily detect trends and possible areas for improvement. This will help us to distribute available efforts and resources more effectively. 

The datos.gob.es initiative has its own public control panel that provides quantitative indicators on the following aspects:

Qualitative analysis

Through the qualitative approach, use cases are identified from different sources that can include personalized interviews, content available online, information provided by different media or academic publications. 

These use cases help us to understand the extent to which open data can be considered to have led to positive changes in three main areas described below:

Government level

Including the possible impact on the transparency and accountability of governments, as well as on improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Some of the issues that can be raised in this area are:

• How does openness of data help to improve government efficiency?
• How is data used to examine government resource use and improve existing public services?
• How is open data used to create new public services?
• How does open data contribute to increased transparency and accountability through public scrutiny?

Examples of measurements that are also useful in measuring the impact of open data actions in this area are:

•     Increased collaboration between different government departments and agencies.
•     Creation of platforms and applications that allow citizens to report on their experience in government services.
•     Greater participation of citizens in the formulation of public policies.
•     Improved public resource planning.
•     Reduction in citizens' perception of corruption.

Social area

Including the environmental aspects and the improvements obtained in the inclusion of minority groups in society. Some of the issues that can be raised in this area are:

•     What are the social benefits obtained through the use of open data?
•     How is open data used to improve equality and direct public resources to the citizens who need them most at any given time?
•     What are the benefits of open data in the area of the environment, climate change, pollution, or sustainability?

Examples of indicators that are also useful when measuring the impact of open data actions in this area are:

•     Evidence of greater equality in terms of age, gender, race, social class, disability, geographical location or poverty level.
•     Evidence of improvement in social policies.
•     Number and effectiveness of sustainability programs implemented as a result of the open data
•     Increased attention to environmental factors in project planning.
•     Awareness and sensitization of citizens about their own environmental impacts.

Economic area

Through the influence of open data in supporting existing businesses or creating new business models. Some of the issues we address in this area are:

•     What is the impact of open data on economic growth and innovation?
•     How is open data used to reduce costs in companies and help them become more efficient?
•     What new business models are being developed around open data?

Examples of indicators that are also useful when measuring the impact of data openness actions in this area are:

•     Companies and/or jobs created from the new economy of data openness.
•     New products or services using the open data.
•     Contribution of open data to the growth of the economy in terms of better macroeconomic planning.

 Future areas of improvement

While the method applied may not be perfect - as it may have limitations in terms of the ability to adequately capture desired changes -, in the absence of other reference methodologies, it allows us to explore the emerging impact of ongoing open data initiatives and provide some substantial evidence regarding their impact, at least.

Thus, it would also be desirable to explore new methods in the future that allow for evidence of impact obtained in a more systematic way through the measurement of specific goals and objectives with respect to the initial starting point, and that could also be replicated among the different initiatives, also considering the entire data value chain in the measurements carried out. Some interesting options to be able to put these objectives into practice could be the methods of outcome mapping or social return on investment (SROI) -both already proposed previously in the field of open data but with very limited or no acceptance so far, due most probably to the higher added cost that their implementation would imply.

Content prepared by Carlos Iglesias, Open data Researcher and consultan, World Wide Web Foundation.

Contents and points of view expressed in this publication are the exclusive responsibility of its author.

The Multisectorial Information Association (ASEDIE), which brings together the infomediary companies of our country, has, among its objectives, to promote the use, reuse and distribution of information, both public and private, creating value-added products. In this sense, it has launched an initiative to promote the complete opening of three datasets by all the Autonomous Communities (ACs), following unified criteria that facilitate their reuse.

Specifically, the idea is to open three databases, including the tax identification number of each of the entities. These databases are:

• Cooperatives
• Associations
• Foundations

These datasets have been called the "Top 3 ASEDIE 2019". This action was presented in last year''s edition of the Infomediary Sector Report and the evolution of its result has been included in the latest edition of this year''s report. It is worth noting that 764 companies participated in the 2020 edition, an increase of 10% over the previous edition. This increase in participation reflects the growth of the sector in Spain, both in the number of companies and employees working in this activity, and in its turnover, with an aggregate turnover of more than 2 billion euros.

Driving the opening of three new data sets

Since 2018, ASEDIE has been urging those responsible for the databases of cooperatives, associations and foundations in the 17 Autonomous Communities to make an effort to:

1. Identify and open the 3 requested databases
2. Unify download formats
3. Unify the forms to be filled in when registering

These actions mean going one step further in the commitment to information quality, facilitating its standardization. According to ASEDIE studies, 60% of infomediary companies highlight that the main barrier to the reuse of information is that it is only available in some Autonomous Communities or Town Councils. With actions such as the one developed by ASEDIE, it would be possible to homogenize the available information helping to break down this barrier.

2019: a not very encouraging situation, but with a great margin for improvement and projection

During 2019, ASEDIE only found this type of data open in very localized areas of Spain, such as the two mesetas, the coastal areas and the two archipelagos (Balearic and Canary Islands). The overall picture reflected that, in many Communities, most of these three databases remained closed or open without CIF.

2020: great improvements achieved in the sector in recent months.

In this case, the Asedie 2020 Report shows that the situation has improved considerably compared to the previous year, as new areas can be seen where the Autonomous Communities have opened these three databases.

At the date of the presentation of the Report, there were already eight Communities with open databases of Associations, Cooperatives and Foundations. In Navarra, two databases that was closed the previous year were opened in 2020, although without a tax identification number. The Basque Country has two completely open databases and one in the absence of a tax identification number. In Catalonia, these three databases are now completely open with a tax identification number, while in Aragon, the database for cooperatives has been opened in the absence of a tax identification number.

The autonomous community that has had the greatest performance over the last year has been the Balearic Islands, as it has shifted from having the three closed to opening them completely in just one year. The community of Castilla y León is another of those that have all three databases completely open.

The situation will also continue to improve over the coming months, as it is estimated, according to the report, that 88% of the Autonomous Communities are considering action plans to open or improve the publicity of registers of this type.

Next steps: continue to push for the opening of homogenized data

Once ASEDIE has achieved the necessary momentum and after the good reception by the Autonomous Regions, on 18 March the "Top 3 Asedie 2020" was presented, so that this work of opening and homogenization does not stop and the Autonomous Regions that already have the first Top 3 open, will continue with their work:

• Commercial establishments
• Industrial parks
• SAT records

In short, thanks to these initiatives, public-private collaboration will be boosted by making it easier for companies to reuse public information, which will have a great impact on the generation of new business and wealth.