Assessing the availability and interoperability of open government data (OGD) supporting sustainable development goals (SDGs) and value creation in the gulf cooperation council (GCC)

Charalampos Alexopoulos (), Mohsan Ali (), Maria Ioanna Maratsi (), Nina Rizun (), Yannis Charalabidis (), Euripidis Loukis () and Stuti Saxena ()
Additional contact information
Charalampos Alexopoulos: University of the Aegean
Mohsan Ali: University of the Aegean
Maria Ioanna Maratsi: University of the Aegean
Nina Rizun: Gdańsk University of Technology
Yannis Charalabidis: University of the Aegean
Euripidis Loukis: University of the Aegean
Stuti Saxena: Graphic Era University

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2025, vol. 59, issue 2, No 23, 1573-1593

Abstract: Abstract Value creation and innovation by a range of stakeholders, including citizens, analysts, journalists, non-profit entities, etc. are the hallmarks of Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives. At the same time, availability and interoperability of datasets are determined as two of the most important factors for value creation. In parallel, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are meant to be realized to attain quality of life through the development of initiatives based on the value creation and innovation provided by the afore-identified stakeholders. Thus, the information provided from the public sector (OGD) regarding SDGs would help the monitoring of current and the identification of next actions and initiatives. The examination of SDG datasets availability and the assessment of their interoperability would provide valuable insights regarding the extent to which the data are of high-value. In that vein, the availability and the interoperability dimensions of the OGD provisioned via the national OGD portals of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) constituents; viz., Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, are studied based on a semi-automatic methodological approach. In this light, the present study seeks to answer the following research question: “To what extent are the national OGD portals of the GCC region catering for the interoperability dimensions, more specifically, the semantic interoperability, to facilitate value creation and innovation?” To drive home the arguments, semantic interoperability dimensions were investigated via the cosine similarity calculations in Python to understand the extent to which the availability of OGD via the national OGD portals facilitates their interoperability. Findings show that the value creation and innovation initiatives to realize the SDGs’ attainment is dependent upon both the availability and the extent of interoperability for all SDGs. GCC countries present different levels of both factors. This is suggestive of the mismatch of the OGD provision and their attributes which results in low interoperability. Findings from the study are indicators that the GCC countries should develop different strategies regarding the availability and the interoperability of SDG-related OGD in order to stimulate innovation and value creation.

Keywords: Open Government Data; OGD; Semantic interoperability; Data availability; Value creation; Sustainable Development Goals; SDGs; Gulf Cooperation Council; GCC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-024-02025-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:qualqt:v:59:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s11135-024-02025-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11135-024-02025-2

Access Statistics for this article

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi

More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().