Open government and open (government) data are seen as tools to create new opportunities, eliminate or at least reduce information inequalities and improve public services. More than a decade of these efforts has provided much experience, practices, and perspectives to learn how to better deal with them. This paper focuses on benchmarking of open data initiatives over the years and attempts to identify patterns observed among European countries that could lead to disparities in the development, growth, and sustainability of open data ecosystems. To do this, we studied benchmarks and indices published over the last years (57 editions of 8 artifacts) and conducted a comparative case study of eight European countries, identifying patterns among them considering different potentially relevant contexts such as e-government, open government data, open data indices and rankings, and others relevant for the country under consideration. Using a Delphi method, we reached a consensus within a panel of experts and validated a final list of 94 patterns, including their frequency of occurrence among studied countries and their effects on the respective countries. Finally, we took a closer look at the developments in identified contexts over the years and defined 21 recommendations for more resilient and sustainable open government data initiatives and ecosystems and future steps in this area.@en

Despite an increasing interest in the strategies to promote open data use in recent years, there has been a substantial lack of empirical and theoretical analysis of the governance modes that favored different types of open data initiatives. To address this gap, this study asks: How do governance modes support open data sharing in open government data platforms? To answer this question, we assess the coherence of the open data governance contexts of France and Ireland when sharing data on open government data platforms during the Covid-19 crisis. The study uses a multi-method approach involving both interviews with experts, identified through purposive sampling, and secondary sources for triangulation purposes. Overall, the governance context supported open data sharing in France and Ireland. Both cases are characterized by a strong central coordination with a solid trust relationship and clear legal frameworks. France, more than Ireland, relied on a market governance mode, and Ireland scored higher in networked governance due to the creation of social capital. The results provide new insights on how to combine governance modes that support open government data initiatives through coordination, collaboration with the private sector, and involvement of different actors. Practitioners can use our insights as examples of governance strategies that are fit for events that need a timely open data response.

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Current open data systems lag behind in their promised value creation and sustainability. The objective of the current study is twofold: 1) to investigate whether existing open data systems meet the requirements of open data ecosystems, and 2) to develop a research agenda that discusses the gaps between current open data systems on the one hand and participatory, value-creating, sustainable open data ecosystems on the other hand. The literature reveals that the main characteristics of value-creating, sustainable open data ecosystems are user-drivenness, inclusiveness, circularity, and skill-based. Our comparative case study of five open data systems in various application domains and countries highlighted that none of these systems are real open data ecosystems: they often do not balance open data supply and demand, exclude specific user groups and domains, are linear, and lack skill-training. We elaborate on a research agenda that discusses how research should address the challenge of making open data ecosystems more value-generating and sustainable.@en