Research On The U.S.Open Government Data Policy

With the continuous development of information technology and e-government,governments in many countries have accumulated lots of government data,which makes them turn into domestic biggest producer and owner on data resources.As we know,government data resources have a great value and a wide range of use.How to release the potentials of government data and satisfy citizens' demands on acquiring and applying government data,has been the greatest challenge facing government agencies.In January 2009,U.S.president Barack Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government which requires establishing a government with the principles of transparency,participation,and collaboration;Followed in December 2009,the Office of Management and Budget(OMB)issued an Open Government Directive in order to take specific actions to implement the Memorandum,requiring executive departments to provide data for U.S.citizens.This is when U.S.Open Government Data Movement began,followed by many other countries around the world.In this movement,promoting the openness of government data by policy making and implementing has been common practice of many countries.U.S.is the leading country in opening government data in the world.It is not only the first country making the open government data policy,but also the first one creating the open government data portal(data.gov).While China just started the movement recently.The central government expressed a strong desire in opening government dada,and the platforms of Open Government Data have been established in many regions,such as Shanghai,Beijing,Hongkong,Qingdao,and so on.There is a big gap between China and U.S.in opening government data.We may regard this as a chance to learn the lessons on open government data from U.S.so as to develop China's open government data policy.In order to answer the question—what lessons can China learn from U.S.open government policy,with the guidance of policy system theory and policy cycle theory,the paper puts forward some suggestions in developing China open government data policy by conducting detailed and extensive research,and applying literature analysis,textual analysis,case study,website survey,and comparative analysis,in order to offer some references for making and implementing open government data policy.It mainly focuses on:(1)establishing policy analysis framework on open government data;(2)analyzing the nature of U.S.open government data policy,including the context of open government data policy making,the features of policy text,the construction of open data portals and policy effects;(3)the lessons for China from U.S.practices on open government data.The main content of the paper includes:First,U.S.open government data policy is a product of many different factors interacting.In the aspects of technical environment,advanced informatization level provides supports for making open government data policy.In the aspects of legal environment,the Freedom of Information Act,the Privacy Act,and the Copyright Law constitutes relatively complete legal systems,which provides legal protection for the issue and implementation of open government data policy.In the aspects of politics,the federal government and local governments show positive attitudes in opening government data.In the aspects of social culture environment,American have the tradition of believing and using data.The government information disclosure has a long history,and openness has enjoyed popular support.Open government technical program data has existed since the birth of e-government.In the aspects of financial environment,U.S.federal government has the specific funds for establishing open government data and e-government.Some organizations also provides funds for opening data.With the development of information technology,the capacity and value of government data increase sharply,which leads to the strong and continuous desire of citizen hackers,innovators,enterprises and government.The conflict between the strong desires of government,enterprises,and citizens on open government data and the monopoly of government on government data is the direct reason of the issue of open government data policy.In the context of clearly defined policy problems,well planned policy framework and energetic political drive forces,Obama moved forward open government data movement after he took the post of the 44 th U.S.president.U.S.open government data policy began to enter the policy agenda.Subsequently Federal departments,state governments and city governments did lots of works in opening government data.Second,the policy text of U.S.government open data policy mainly focused on: the relationship between open government information and open government data,the key problems facing government in the process of transition from open government information to open government data,and multiple actors' interest coordinating and social benefits promoting.There are only small differences on the content completeness of open government data policy between the federal government,state governments and city governments: the basic contents are basically same,but detailed contents especially in the aspects of data management are a little different.U.S.federal government made series of policy texts of open government data,and did a good job in the completeness of policy.All the policy texts contain: policy goals,agency setting and staff coordinating,data management and policy implementation plans and evaluation strategies.Specifically,they contain: policy goals,the functions of professional agencies and staff,data types,data formats and standards,data quality,metadata management,interoperability with other data,the accessibility of data,the reapplication of data,the scope of open data,data license,data charges,data presentation,the relationship with data user,data size published,the processing before data opening,the cost of open data,the time schedule and task assignment of policy implementation plan,the quantitative standards evaluation policy implementation effects,the effective supervise guaranteeing policy implementation,accountability mechanism,motivation and punishment mechanism,and so on.Third,U.S.open government portals are the outputs of open government data policy implementation.The federal open data portal is the product of federal open government data policy implementation;while the state open data portals and the city open data portals are the outputs of local open government data policy implementation.In order to open government data and make data fully used,the portals adopt some data collection management mechanism with the guidance of open data policy and the requirement of open data policy goals.Through designing the specific portal function,the complete openness of data gets achieved.The functions of open data portals,such as the introduction of portals,data management strategies,data using approach and user participation,make sure the scientific solving of open government data policy problems,and check,correct,and supplement the related policy contents.Fourth,U.S.open government data policy has produced certain effects.However,It is relatively difficult to evaluate the effects of open data policy because open government data is a relatively new area and strong evidences of long-term effects of the policy are very inadequate,plus how to measure effective governance and social change is an inherent difficulty.What's more,accountability,social participation,and trust change also lead to the difficulty of evaluation.The direct output of U.S.open government data policy — open data portals does promote citizens' browse,acquirement and utilization for government data.Governments make lots of efforts in making government datasets public to support portal construction.However,the evaluation on the influences of open government data policy on economy,society and politics shows certain positive results,but the evidences are still not enough.The influences of one policy on economy,society and politics are very complicated.Open government data is a tool,a supplement,not the substitutes of institution change.Whatever,open government data is a correct path.with the development of time,most of the goals set by open government data policy may be achieved in future.Fifth,China only has a macro-policy on open government data.The paper offers some references for China by studying U.S.open government data policy features,and analyzing the environment,contents,and portal construction of China open government data policy,including:(1)create China's mission on open government data;(2)establish and improve open government data management system;(3)optimize the environment of China open government data: nurturing the culture of open government data,making relatively complete laws and policies,doing basic works well,building IT infrastructure,investing more funds and getting leaders' supports;(4)perfect the text contents of China open government data policy,and put forward specific framework on policy goals,agency setting and staff coordinating,data management,and policy implementation plan and evaluation strategy;(5)enrich the contents of open data portals s,and improve the functions of portals;(6)conduct pre-evaluation of open government data policy,increase the benefits of open government data,and avoid the risks of open government data.The future research will continue tracking the development of open government data policy of U.S.and other countries where open government data policy are leading in the world,like UK and Australia,learn lessons from these countries' experiences,do detailed research on the development problems on open government data,conduct the investigation on the awareness of citizens,enterprises and public servants on open government data,and carry on pre-evaluation on China open government data,especially the data openness and data sharing in different areas,such as education,healthcare,crisis management and so on.