Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ODECO (Towards a sustainable Open Data ECOsystem)
Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2023-09-30
The overall objective of ODECO is to train a new generation of early-stage open data researchers, able to face current and future challenges, in the establishment of sustainable open data ecosystems supporting the EU ambitions to become a worldwide leading information economy. Current developments in the field of open data are characterised as highly fragmented. Open data ecosystems are often developed in different domains in isolation of each other and with little involvement of potential users, resulting in approaches that significantly limit open data reusability for users. This reduces innovation and the ability to create new valued added goods and services. Isolated domains also undermine interoperability for users acting as a barrier to data sharing. Efforts are also uncoordinated in open data training and research, where multidisciplinary approaches are scant. Bringing together different sectors (research, private sector, government, non-profit) and different perspectives (public administration, law, business, engineering), ODECO aims to address the central challenge of realizing a user driven, circular and inclusive open data ecosystem. Through its novel research and training programme, ODECO provides early stage researchers (ESRs) with relevant open data knowledge, skills and research experiences that cut across disciplines, domains and sectors. ODECO pays particular attention to the role and involvement of the multiple user groups in the open data ecosystem. The thirteen specialist partner organizations in the consortium help researchers better understand the needs of citizens, journalists, students, large companies and SMEs, NGOs, governments and other stakeholders in the open data ecosystem, as well as guide the team in evaluating from a practical lens the developed directions to arrive at a user driven, circular and inclusive open data ecosystem.
The consortium performed the work as specified in the Grant Agreement. This concerns the personal career development plans, the online training program on open data ecosystems, and three ODECO training weeks. The fellows jointly mapped open data user needs for seven different user types and developed strategies to address these user needs from a technical perspective. Also, the consortium drafted a Communication and public engagement plan, implemented the ODECO Platform, website and web 2.0 channels, developed the Recruitment strategy, and Ethical requirements were developed and agreed upon.
In summary, the consortium performed the preparatory work needed to start the project. The ESRs authored key reports for their research and career. Further, the ESRs did obtain their training in research related (i.e. open data ecosystems) and transferable skills provided by their home university graduate school programmes and through the ODECO training activities. The ODECO training program kicked-off with the Online Training Program on (the technical and non-technical elements of) open data ecosystems and continued with the organisation of three training weeks: (1) understanding open data as an open data ecosystem, (2) towards an user driven open data ecosystem, and (3) towards a circular open data ecosystem.
In addition to the work for their individual research project, the ESRs together with the consortium researched and authored two reports
The first report “Open data user needs: seven flavours”, is co-authored by ESRs Mr Di Staso, Ms Pilshchikova, Mr Shaharudin, Ms López Reyes, MrPapageorgiou, Ms Celis Vargas, and Ms Santoro. It addresses the project objective to untangle the diverse needs of different types of users. The research results showed the complexity and variety of user groups and types, which might vary according to task, roles, and the specific context in an open data ecosystem.
Category of needs identified are:
1) data literacy,
2) access to open data,
3) quality data,
4) open data infrastructure,
5) access to funding,
6) knowledge of ethical data practices and impacts,
7) regulation related to open data,
8) governance and coordination, and
9) communication.
The second report, “User needs from a technical perspective” is co-authored by ESRs Mr Aziz, Mr Ali, Mr Herrera-Murillo, Mr Ahmed and Ms Maratsi. It has its origins in the lack of a systematic integration of technical perspectives into understanding user needs related to open data. It addresses project objective to identify the technological requirements for the provision of FAIR data. The report highlighted the interdependence of the technical requirements in terms of the overall user experience of open data users. It also acknowledged that data and metadata quality is a cross-cutting enabler to realise the functional and non-functional requirements listed. Finally, the researchers emphasize the critical role of a reliable data infrastructure (usually open data portals).
The consortium communicated the research results in a total of 285 dissemination activities. We published 25 (non) scientific articles, organised 7 workshops, participated in 19 conferences, 5 workshops and 35 other events. The project (results) was presented in 169 social media posts, 1 video, 1 website, 1 pitch event, and 8 training events. With these activities the ODECO project has reached out to more than 20.000 people.
In summary, the consortium performed the preparatory work needed to start the project. The ESRs authored key reports for their research and career. Further, the ESRs did obtain their training in research related (i.e. open data ecosystems) and transferable skills provided by their home university graduate school programmes and through the ODECO training activities. The ODECO training program kicked-off with the Online Training Program on (the technical and non-technical elements of) open data ecosystems and continued with the organisation of three training weeks: (1) understanding open data as an open data ecosystem, (2) towards an user driven open data ecosystem, and (3) towards a circular open data ecosystem.
In addition to the work for their individual research project, the ESRs together with the consortium researched and authored two reports
The first report “Open data user needs: seven flavours”, is co-authored by ESRs Mr Di Staso, Ms Pilshchikova, Mr Shaharudin, Ms López Reyes, MrPapageorgiou, Ms Celis Vargas, and Ms Santoro. It addresses the project objective to untangle the diverse needs of different types of users. The research results showed the complexity and variety of user groups and types, which might vary according to task, roles, and the specific context in an open data ecosystem.
Category of needs identified are:
1) data literacy,
2) access to open data,
3) quality data,
4) open data infrastructure,
5) access to funding,
6) knowledge of ethical data practices and impacts,
7) regulation related to open data,
8) governance and coordination, and
9) communication.
The second report, “User needs from a technical perspective” is co-authored by ESRs Mr Aziz, Mr Ali, Mr Herrera-Murillo, Mr Ahmed and Ms Maratsi. It has its origins in the lack of a systematic integration of technical perspectives into understanding user needs related to open data. It addresses project objective to identify the technological requirements for the provision of FAIR data. The report highlighted the interdependence of the technical requirements in terms of the overall user experience of open data users. It also acknowledged that data and metadata quality is a cross-cutting enabler to realise the functional and non-functional requirements listed. Finally, the researchers emphasize the critical role of a reliable data infrastructure (usually open data portals).
The consortium communicated the research results in a total of 285 dissemination activities. We published 25 (non) scientific articles, organised 7 workshops, participated in 19 conferences, 5 workshops and 35 other events. The project (results) was presented in 169 social media posts, 1 video, 1 website, 1 pitch event, and 8 training events. With these activities the ODECO project has reached out to more than 20.000 people.
The research performed builds on the existing body of knowledge. However, the interdisciplinary and interdomain set-up of the project allowed us to cross disciplines and domains showing the importance of context. For example, context in user types (i.e. various levels of expertise within a user type; different user type at a same level of expertise with similar needs,), context in socio-economic levels of countries, or context in domains (a user type need in one domain may not be the same for user types in another domain).
Although the project is only halfway, on the individual ESR projects there are several innovations to be reported that add on to the open data ecosystem body of knowledge. For example, ODECO fellows performed systematic literature reviews on open data intermediaries (Ashraf Shaharudin), on the influence of non-profit organisations’ activities on the usability barriers for open data users in the open data ecosystem (Liubov Pilshchikova ), on unlocking the social value of open government data in open data ecosystems (Maria Elena López Reyes), on a game-based approach for open data in education (Alejandra Celis Vargas), and on open data social equity (Caterina Santoro).
They also developed a common definition of open data intermediaries (Ashraf Shaharudin), identified semantic interoperability challenges for open (government) data (Maria Ioanna Maratsi), improved the understanding of how interaction mining techniques can be applied to discover mental models of the user in the process of designing a geospatial search engine (Dagoberto Jose Herrera-Murillo), revealed the role values play in developing data ecosystems (Silvia Cazacu), explored the intersection of journalism with open data (Giorgos Papageorgiou), reviewed the performance of open data platforms (Mohsan Ali), developed strategies for optimizing findability of open data (Abdul Aziz), explored serious games for building open data capacity (Davide Di Staso), and developed a practical approach using Artificial Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, and Knowledge Graphs to reimagine open data ecosystems (Umair Ahmed).
Although the project is only halfway, on the individual ESR projects there are several innovations to be reported that add on to the open data ecosystem body of knowledge. For example, ODECO fellows performed systematic literature reviews on open data intermediaries (Ashraf Shaharudin), on the influence of non-profit organisations’ activities on the usability barriers for open data users in the open data ecosystem (Liubov Pilshchikova ), on unlocking the social value of open government data in open data ecosystems (Maria Elena López Reyes), on a game-based approach for open data in education (Alejandra Celis Vargas), and on open data social equity (Caterina Santoro).
They also developed a common definition of open data intermediaries (Ashraf Shaharudin), identified semantic interoperability challenges for open (government) data (Maria Ioanna Maratsi), improved the understanding of how interaction mining techniques can be applied to discover mental models of the user in the process of designing a geospatial search engine (Dagoberto Jose Herrera-Murillo), revealed the role values play in developing data ecosystems (Silvia Cazacu), explored the intersection of journalism with open data (Giorgos Papageorgiou), reviewed the performance of open data platforms (Mohsan Ali), developed strategies for optimizing findability of open data (Abdul Aziz), explored serious games for building open data capacity (Davide Di Staso), and developed a practical approach using Artificial Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, and Knowledge Graphs to reimagine open data ecosystems (Umair Ahmed).