JeddahDashboard (JDB): Visualization of open government data in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Open data is data that anyone can freely use, access and redistribute without financial, legal or even technical restrictions. Accordingly, all governmental and non-governmental organizations may publish data that they own open for various purposes on the Internet without any restrictions such as (climate statistics, education statistics, transportation, industry, water abstraction, etc.). Further, Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives are proliferated in every country including Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). OGD should supposedly escalate the transparency, collaboration, and participation of citizens towards using OGD. However, the presentation of OGD format may not be attractive enough to users and vice-versa the data may not be easy for them to understand and interpret. These stumbling blocks may dampen the use of OGD among citizens. The problems can be resolved through visualization of the available data sets and to represent these data in accordance to user preference. This research emphasizes on visualization efforts of OGD in KSA named JeddahDashboard (JDB) website. The aim of creating JeddahDashBoard is to visualize the published government data in KSA. The idea was inspired by the DublinDashBoard in Ireland where data and real-time information, time series index data, and interactive maps on vast aspects of the city are provided mostly in an interactive ways and attractive charts that are easy to understand. In order to create JeddahDashBoard, two tools were used "the tableau" and then "chart. js" because the later was simple and flexible. Finally, this paper shares researchers experience and challenges in establishing JDB.