Presentation from the dg.o 2018: 19th Annual International Conference on Digital Government in Delft, Netherlands on June 1st, 2018

1. Culture of Openness
The Beginning of Open Government in Municipalities in Germany
dg.o 2018 :: Delft, Netherlands :: Tobias Siebenlist, Agnes Mainka
Department of Information Science :: Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany

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Introduction
§ Case study to get an overview of the state of Open
Government in North Rhine-Westphalia
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Culture of Openness: Open Government in NRW
We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish
a system of transparency, public participation, and
collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and
promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Barack Obama (2009)

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Introduction
§ North Rhine-Westphalia
§ Population: 17,894,182
§ (Most populous state of
Germany, fourth largest by
area)
§ 396 municipalities
§ Capital: Düsseldorf
§ About 250 km from Düsseldorf
to Delft (by car)
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The federal state North Rhine-Westphalia

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Introduction
§ General agreement to implement Open Government in all
municipalities till 2020 in North Rhine-Westphalia
§ Has been signed in 2016
§ Regional scope
§ 3 pillars: collaborative work, transparency, participation
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The „Open Government Pakt NRW“
By 2020, open government in the
administrations of North Rhine-Westphalia is
anchored as a common practice and geared to
the benefit of the public.

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Introduction
§ RQ1: Is there a common understanding of Open
Government in the municipalities in North Rhine-
Westphalia?
(1. Common Understanding of Open Government)
§ RQ2: How is Open Government realized in municipalities in
North Rhine-Westphalia?
(2. Current State of Realization)
§ RQ 3: What do municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia
expect of future Open Government cooperations on the
regional level?
(3. Expectations of Future Regional Cooperations)
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Research Questions

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Introduction
§ RQ1: Is there a common understanding of Open
Government in the municipalities in North Rhine-
Westphalia?
(1. Common Understanding of Open Government)
§ RQ2: How is Open Government realized in municipalities in
North Rhine-Westphalia?
(2. Current State of Realization)
§ RQ 3: What do municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia
expect of future Open Government cooperations on the
regional level?
(3. Expectations of Future Regional Cooperations)
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Research Questions
What and how?

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Methodology
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Expert Survey and Online Content Analysis

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Methodology
§ Online survey with 8 questions
§ Addressed the majors who forwarded it to the right people
§ 2 parts
§ 39 municipalities that already had published open data sets
§ Blog entry about this („Offene Kommunen NRW“)
§ 4 weeks (February, 6th – March, 6th 2017)
§ 396 municipalities (all in NRW, minus already answered)
§ 6 weeks (April, 25th – June, 7th 2017)
§ How to contact those people? And how many answered?
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Experts?

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Methodology
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Contacting municipalities in 2018

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Methodology
§ Part 1: 39 municipalities with open data sets
§ 13 municipalities answered
§ Blog entry about that should motivate all other participants
§ Part 2: 383 municipalities
§ 66 municipalities answered
§ In total:
§ 79 of 396 municipalities ~ 19,95%
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Number of participants

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Methodology
Question Answer options
Are you familiar with the term Open Government? polar
What does Open Government mean to you? multiple choice
How has your municipality dealt with Open Government
so far?
free text
Do you know the "Open Government Pakt für NRW"? polar
What do you hope to gain from this Open Government Pakt? free text
How is the topic of open government organizationally
anchored in your municipality?
free text
Which partners outside your administration do you work
with at Open Government?
multiple choice
What is your recipe for success? free text
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Expert Survey Questions

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Methodology
§ Open Data Portals / Websites of 39 municipalities
§ Criteria
§ Number of open data sets
§ Software used
§ Data categories
§ File formats
§ Licenses
§ Manual data collection, 11 sources, 1702 datasets
§ 3rd June – 7th June 2017
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Content Analysis

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Results
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Research Question 1
Is there a common understanding of Open
Government in the municipalities in North
Rhine-Westphalia?

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Results
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RQ1: Common Understanding of Open Gov

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Results
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Research Question 2
How is Open Government realized in
municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia?

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Results
§ Content analysis: categories of data sets
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RQ2: Current State of Realization

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Results
§ Content analysis: categories of data sets
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RQ2: Current State of Realization
35 different formats

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Results
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RQ2: Current State of Realization

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Results
§ Content analysis:
§ Common strategy on regional level is missing
§ Categories: Geography and Population at the top
§ File formats: no agreement, not always open data (in the
form of machine-readable data)
§ Licenses: CC and DLD, various versions
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RQ2: Current State of Realization

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Results
§ Expert survey
§ Examples for transparency through online information (28)
§ No open government project started till now (24) ~ 30%
§ Citizen participation planned or introduced (15)
§ Open data portal in progress (3)
§ Talked about in theory (2)
§ Pilot projects (2)
§ Digitization projects and open data examples: digital council
meetings, administration files and forms, online traffic
information, citizen management tool, informative website
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RQ2: Current State of Realization II

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Results
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Research Question 3
What do municipalities in North Rhine-
Westphalia expect of future Open Government
cooperations on the regional level?

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Results
§ Practical assistance
§ Definite plans for all municipalities (12)
§ How-to guideline (11)
§ Agreement on common standards (10)
§ Financial support (4)
§ Free software solutions (2)
§ Best practice examples (7)
§ Open exchange (7)
§ Citizen participation in future (9)
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RQ3: Expectations of future cooperations

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Results
§ In general
§ Increase of digitization of the administration, innovation,
synergy effects, and a positive effect on the economy
§ Negative expectations
§ no effect on smaller municipalities (2)
§ pressure to adopt Open Government to not lag behind (1)
§ more work (1)
§ smaller municipalities should gain more assistance from bigger
ones (3)
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RQ3: Expectations of future cooperations II

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Results
§ Don‘t know; have no answer; there is no
§ Be transparent with information and goals
§ Communication
§ Start small, learning by doing
§ Just start and talk about it
§ Financial aspects, especially in small municipalities
§ Participation (internal and external)
§ Have and show best practices
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Answers to „recipe for success“-question

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Conclusion
§ Common understanding of Open Government
§ Transparency and open data (+ digization / modernization)
§ Only few experts mentioned participation and collaboration
§ Culture of transparency, participation and collaboration not
yet established
§ What is needed?
§ A kind of masterplan or guideline how to implement Open
Government (as often requested)
§ 4 pillars of success as a first step towards enhancement of
understanding Open Government
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Conclusion

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Conclusion
§ Pillar 1: Available Website
§ Pillar 2: Open Data Portal
§ Pillar 3: Accessibility of Information on Decision-Making
Processes
§ Pillar 4: Impact of Participation in Decision-Making
Processes
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Open Municipality: 4 pillars to success
Available
Website
Open Data
Portal
Information
on Decision-
Making
Processes
Participation
in Decision-
Making
Processes

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Conclusion
§ Statements cannot be generalized or even compared
§ Small number of responses (~20%)
§ Different population sizes
§ But: a good indicator for future research
§ Other federal states will be different
§ Different expectations and projects
§ Municipal vs. federal vs. national level
§ Not yet considered (but on our agenda)
§ Technical systems
§ Laws
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Limitations

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Conclusion
§ Case study lead to first impression and insights
§ Way to 2020 should be monitored regularly
§ Motivate more municipalities to participate
§ Questionnaire has to be extended
§ Maybe some kind of self-assessment for municipalities
§ Working towards a framework for the adoption and
implementation of Open Government in municipalities
§ Other federal states, all german municipalities?
§ Would be great, but ...
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Discussion and Future Work

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Conclusion
§ 11,059 Municipalities as
of December 31, 2016
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Municipalities in Germany

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Thank you
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Questions or comments?
Presented by:
Tobias Siebenlist
Email: tobias.siebenlist@hhu.de
Twitter: @t7l
Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/tobias.siebenlist

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Appendix
URL Municipalities # of Data sets Software
http://offenedaten.kdvz-frechen.de Bad Münstereifel, Bergheim, Brühl,
Elsdorf, Euskirchen, Heimbach,
Hürtgenwald, Jülich, Kall, Kerpen,
Kreuzau, Langerwehe, Linnich,
Merzenich, Titz, Vettweiß,
Wesseling
237 DKAN
https://www.offenesdatenportal.de Brüggen, Grefrath, Kempen, Kleve,
Moers, Nettetal, Niederkrüchten,
Schwalmtal, Tönisvorst, Viersen,
Wachtendonk, Wesel,
Willich
432* CKAN
http://offenedaten.aachen.de Aachen 72 CKAN
http://www.arnsberg.de/open-data/index.php Arnsberg 86 None
(Website)
http://www.bochum.de/opendata Bochum 53 None
(Website)
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Table of open data portals in NRW 1/2
* Some of the municipalities belong to Viersen and share the datasets. Duplicates have been deleted.

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Appendix
URL Municipalities # of Data sets Software
http://opendata.bonn.de Bonn 231 DKAN
http://www.offenedaten-koeln.de Köln 228 DKAN
https://opendata.meerbusch.de Meerbusch 38 CKAN
http://offenedaten.moenchengladbach.de Mönchengladbach 213** None
(Website)
https://geo.muelheim-ruhr.de/open-data/13819 Mülheim an der Ruhr 51 DKAN
http://www.offenedaten-wuppertal.de Wuppertal 61 DKAN
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Table of open data portals in NRW 2/2
** Results had to be constructed from webpages in the Google Cache as the webpages were not available at the time
the data was collected.

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Appendix
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Appendix
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Appendix
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Appendix
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References

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Appendix
§ Slide 1: https://unsplash.com/photos/GWe0dlVD9e0
§ Slide 3: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Deutschland_Lage_von_Nordrhein-Westfalen.svg by David Liuzzo under CC-BY 2.0
§ Slide 6: https://unsplash.com/photos/i--IN3cvEjg
§ Slide 7: https://unsplash.com/photos/lPQIndZz8Mo
§ Slide 7: https://unsplash.com/photos/BbQLHCpVUqA
§ Slide 7: https://unsplash.com/photos/dBI_My696Rk
§ Slide 9: https://unsplash.com/photos/qFjNym95t7E
§ Slide 25: https://unsplash.com/photos/ZLytzsbjnfU
§ Slide 28: https://unsplash.com/photos/i--IN3cvEjg
§ Slide 30: https://unsplash.com/photos/hmn_4sUFyzY
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Media sources