Citizen Participation In Open Data:an Empirical Study Of Ghana

Assiduously,governments are engaging in a wide array of initiatives including making public information transparent and open as well as enlisting platforms for collaborative activities to enhance citizen government relationship.Open government data as an emerging trend of an e-government initiative holds several benefits such as ensuring transparency,collaboration and citizen participation although beseeched with challenges.Ghana as one of the first movers in Africa adopted the concept of open government data into governance in 2011 and agreed to release timely information without restrictions.The Ghana Open Data Initiative has received a great amount of investment as seen in other countries with much focus on transparency as well.Politically,the use of open government data is not only to ensure transparency but enhanced participation that has a ripple effect of translating into improved citizen relationship and trust.Because works on open government data has often revolved on open government data adoption,benefits with particular emphases on transparency and challenges,very few have focused on its actual utilization and impact empirically.The aim of this research,therefore,is to assess citizen participation in open government data on government citizen interaction and trust in Ghana.To this effect,a conceptual model and research hypothesis was developed influenced by various literatures on citizen participation in open data,electronic participation,government citizen interaction and trust to affirm and test the relationships established.The quantitative approach was adopted and questionnaires distributed to the sample group comprising of students from three tertiary universities in Ghana.A total of 232 respondents took part in the survey.A structural equation modelling was done using statistical tools of AMOS complemented by the use of IBM SPSS and Excel Statistical package for the descriptive statistics,exploratory factor analysis and regression.The findings of the study revealed that citizen participation in open data was on the low side.Also based on hypotheses tested,there was a positive influence of the e-decision making on government citizen interaction.In addition,the study showed a negative but significant relationship of e-information on government citizen interaction.It is important to emphasis that,the relationship between e-information and government citizen interaction became positive and significant with the moderating factor of ICT.Based on the findings,it is recommended that policy makers pay particular attention to the demand side of open government data to ensure high level of engagement on government citizen interaction and trust.Again,further research involving multi stakeholders of open government data to assess it impact on participation levels.