Ranking Countries Data Openness
January 5, 2015
OpenSource.com is one of the largest bastions for the open source community and they recently published an article that ranks countries around the world in how much of their data is open for public access: “The Global ‘Open’” Pulse From The 2014 Open Data Index.” The information is pulled from Open Knowledge’s 2014 Open Data Index. According to the numbers, governments are not being as open as they should, because the level is down to 11% from 15%.
“The OKF defines “open” in the context of this report as a data set which adheres to the open definition standard as open. The current definition of “open” per OpenDefinition.org can be summarized as ‘open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose.’ “
There was progress in 2014, however. The United Kingdom is the most open. France and India rose on the list of openness. The number of countries who are open went from sixty to ninety-seven. The Is 70% open, dropping to 8th place over second in 2013. Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are improving their numbers.
Open Knowledge’s entire goal is to increase the amount of information about government activities, so people can exercise their rights. What is disappointing is that while many more countries are showing up on the list, they are not living up the definition of “open.”
Whitney Grace, January 05, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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