Business Scenario: Open Public Sector Data
Management Summary
Governments worldwide are making much of their data publicly available. They have two main reasons for this: to improve the functioning of government and society as a whole, and to stimulate economic development. These goals have so far been achieved only partially.
This Business Scenario describes the problems that are limiting the achievement of these goals, the business and technology environments and processes for publication of public sector data, and the people and computing components (called “actors”) who execute the scenario. These considerations lead to requirements for standards and best practices for publication of public sector information.
The requirements cover:
- Human readability and machine processing
- Ease of publication
- Interaction with subjects and subject owners
- Rights and concerns of stakeholders
- Optimization for search engines
- Publication with common metadata
- Catalogs and indexes
The Business Scenario is an input to the SHARE-PSI project, of which The Open Group is a member [SHARE-PSI]. The results of this project will in turn form input to the W3C Data on the Web Best Practices Working Group [W3C Web Data], which will develop standards and best practices in the light of the discussions at and conclusions reached by the SHARE-PSI workshops.
Common standards and best practices for publication of public sector information will contribute significantly to the goals of improving the functioning of government and society as a whole and stimulating economic development. It will do this by making it easier for political interest groups, social enterprises, commercial companies, and citizens generally to understand their social and political environments, and to interact with governments, and by making it easier for commercial companies to define, develop, and supply products and services that use public sector information.