Using OpenGovB Transparency Indicator to Evaluate National Open Government Data

Abstract

Transparency evaluation in open government is a process of measuring the extent of transparency against a predefined set of indicators. In this paper, we address the existing initiatives regarding data and government transparency evaluation as two separate indicators and present the analysis of their advantages and drawbacks. Based on that analysis, we extend a part of the OpenGovB benchmark related to transparency in open government. What is unique about this benchmark is that it utilizes metadata of data published on the open government data portals to calculate the majority of indicators related to data transparency indicators. For the government transparency indicator evaluation, the benchmark utilizes some of the well-known transparency indi-cators. The article shows concrete results obtained from the application of the defined transparency evaluation model on 22 open data portals, thus demonstrating the possibilities of its application as well as the gains regarding generated results. The proposed model bridges the gap between available methodologies for evaluating transparency based on collaboration and participation and methodologies for evaluating transparency based on open data.