Table 9: Summary of access related risks
Identified risk Balance between free access and the need to know the use of data
9. Risks related to skills
Sébastien Martin et al.
Contingency actions Provide all the data through an API capable of reporting access and use
The risks entailed by the implementation of an Open Data initiative also relate to the potential users and reusers identified for the data. In particular, analysing the skills of re‐users can help understand how to facilitate the reuse and the type of services that can be developed on top of the datasets.
9.1 The language barrier
The creation of services at European level requires that the data published from different countries to be understood sufficiently by re‐users to be retrieved and used without any risk of misinterpretation. In Luxembourg, the vast majority of the datasets held by public administrations are in French. While there are only few cases where data published in German are not also available in a French version, the creation of transnational services requires implementing mechanisms to guarantee the linguistic interoperability of datasets.
9.2 Skills related to information literacy and domain knowledge
Concerns have been raised regarding the ability of Open Data to equally benefit all social categories. Benjamin, Bhuvaneswari and Rajan( 2007) suggest that in some cases opening data can lead to a deterioration of living conditions for a part of the population, while benefiting to a minority who had the necessary skills to make use of the newly released information. However this is inherent to any innovation and only reflects the extent of the digital divide.
The issue of skills is also related to the ability of stakeholders to generate profits from open datasets. It is also represented in the concerns about the privatization of public data, with a few people grabbing what should be a common wealth. In this regard, Chignard mentions genealogical data, which represent a very important market( Chignard, 2012).
These risks are to a large extent beyond the scope of Open Data, in particular risks related to the level of education and information literacy. However, they can be addressed through the development of data visualisations, which can ease the understanding and interpretation of the phenomena described in datasets. In addition, education can help improve the skills of users and re‐users through initiatives led by re‐user groups which organize training sessions to present available data and the tools and methods to work with them 20.
Table 10: Summary of skills related risks
Identified risk The language barrier Skills related to information literacy and domain knowledge Re‐users are unfamiliar with metadata
10. Conclusion
Contingency actions Publish data in multiple languages and / or fix the issue through metadata Mention the data provenance and their first use through metadata; provide training to re‐users during the events around Open Data Assessing metadata formats known by users
Many studies have analysed the benefits of Open Data and report on Open Data initiatives. Janssen, Charalabidis and Zuiderwijk( 2012) insist on the myths that have accompanied the development of Open Data. From a strategic perspective, Yu and Robinson explore the particular risks related to Open Government( Yu, 2012), while Lessig has early expressed reservations on the benefits that one can expect from transparency 21. This calls for a more pragmatic approach grounded in demonstrated benefits and a clear assessment of the risks associated with the implementation of an Open Data strategy. By analyzing the barriers and potential
20 Retrieved from http:// lemag. lacantine‐rennes. net / 2012 / 10 / atelier‐infolab‐a‐la‐chasse‐aux‐donnees‐rennaises‐de‐mobilite‐1752 21 Retrieved from http:// www. tnr. com / article / books‐and‐arts / against‐transparency? page = 0,0 #
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