An evaluation of U.S. municipal open data portals: A user interaction framework

Xiaohua Zhu and Mark Antony Freeman

Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 2019, vol. 70, issue 1, 27-37

Abstract: As an increasing number of open government data (OGD) portals are created, an evaluation method is needed to assess these portals. In this study, we drew from the existing principles and evaluation methods to develop a User Interaction Framework, with concrete criteria in five dimensions: Access, Trust, Understand, Engage‐integrate, and Participate. The framework was then used to evaluate the current OGD sites created and maintained by 34 U.S. municipal government agencies. The results show that, overall, portals perform well in terms of providing access, but not so well in helping users understand and engage with data. These findings indicate room for improvement in multiple areas and suggest potential roles for information professionals as data mediators. The study also reveals that portals using the Socrata platform performed better, regarding user access, trust, engagement, and participation. However, the variability among portals indicates that some portals should improve their platforms to achieve greater user engagement and participation. In addition, city governments need to develop clear plans about what data should be available and how to make them available to their public.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24081

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:70:y:2019:i:1:p:27-37

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=2330-1635

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().