Open Data Policy Improves Democracy

Global organizations are increasingly adopting technology lessons from the commercial sector—in particular, technology that facilitates “openness.” In a tangible sense, this openness could be misunderstood as a global increase in government-managed websites. In reality, governments all over the world are empowering people with greater access to public information while also helping citizens extract value from this data. The popularity of data liberation has been reflected in a portfolio of new policies that are increasingly being coordinated among nations. In this article, one of the global leaders in open innovation, Socrata, identifies where these open data initiatives are working well, the common trends between them, and how government leaders and policymakers could replicate the success for their own constituencies.