Tag data ecosystem

CFP for a new dg.o2024 SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC AND OPEN DATA ECOSYSTEMS track

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment

25th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o2024) is coming with the revised list of tracks, where the special attention I invite you to draw to is a new track “Sustainable Public and Open Data Ecosystems” (chairs: Anastasija Nikiforova (University of Tartu, Estonia), Anthony Simonofski (UniversitĂ© de Namur ASBL, Belgium), Anneke Zuiderwijk (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands) & Manuel Pedro RodrĂ­guez BolĂ­var (University of Granada, Spain)).

Briefly about the track… Public and open data ecosystems promise the transformation of government data-driven actions, the fostering of public sector innovations and the collaborative smartification of cities, society and life, triggering value-adding sustainable development goals-compliant smart living and society 5.0 (Nikiforova, 2021, Nikiforova et al., 2023). Recent research found that concepts affecting and shaping the ecosystem are: 1) stakeholders / actors and their roles, 2) phases of the data lifecycle, in which a stakeholder participates in the ecosystem, 3) technical and technological infrastructure, 4) generic services and platforms, 5) human capacities and skills of both providers and consumers, 6) smart city domains (thematic categories) as the targeted areas for data reuse, 7) externalities affecting goals, policy, and resources, 8) level of (de)centralization of data sources – development, restrictions, 9) perception of importance and support from public officials, and 10) user interface, user experience, and usability (Lnenicka et al., 2021). The body of knowledge in the above areas (not to say about putting them all together) is very limited. New research is needed to help public managers and politicians for (1) implementing emerging technologies and technological innovations, (2) improving the achievement of sustainable development goals for increasing transparency, participation, and cooperation, and (3) meeting the stakeholders’ expectations, needs, regulations and demands.

This track welcomes contributions covering, but not limited to:

đź’ˇ The concepts of theoretical approaches toward Public Data ecosystems, Open Data ecosystems, Data Spaces, and Data Marketplaces;

đź’ˇInfrastructures supporting Public and Open Data Ecosystems;

đź’ˇThe role of emerging technologies in Public and Open Data ecosystems;

đź’ˇInstitutional aspects of implementing sustainable Public and Open Data Ecosystems;

đź’ˇOther sustainability dimensions of Public and Open Data Ecosystems;

đź’ˇStakeholder-centric dimensions of Public and Open Data Ecosystems;

đź’ˇCase studies of Public and Open Data Ecosystems;

đź’ˇThe impact of Public and Open Data Ecosystems on Individuals, Organizations and Society.

The track welcomes both contributions covering the current state-of-the-art of public data ecosystems (what components constitute them, what are the relationships between these components, what makes an ecosystem resilient and sustainable), incl. individual case studies reflecting best or bad practices, as well as those addressing how these ecosystems can be transformed into more sustainable ecosystems that will “fuel” or “smartify” society (Information Society aka Society 4.0 to Super Smart Society aka Society 5.0 transition), cities and various areas of life.

The track is very in line with the conference theme of DGO 2024, namely: Internet of Beings – Transforming Public Governance, where, “the Internet of Beings focuses on digital technologies that enable integration, people-centric, and creation of open platforms for collaborative multi-user to co-create services and products” (as mentioned in the theme description). Public and open data ecosystems can be considered as such open platforms, where data providers and data users find each other and collaborate and co-create to develop services and products useful for society. While digital technologies enable the development of public and open data ecosystems, the adoption of such ecosystems has been fragmented.

Is your research related to any of the above topics? Then do not wait – submit!

🗓️🗓️🗓️Important Dates:

January 26, 2024: Papers, workshops, tutorials, and panels are due
Feb 1, 2021: Application deadline for doctoral colloquium
March 8, 2024: Author notifications (papers, workshops, tutorials, panels)

References:

Nikiforova, A. (2021). Smarter open government data for society 5.0: are your open data smart enough?. Sensors, 21(15), 5204.

Nikiforova, A., Flores, M. A. A., & Lytras, M. D. (2023). The role of open data in transforming the society to Society 5.0: a resource or a tool for SDG-compliant Smart Living?. In Smart Cities and Digital Transformation: Empowering Communities, Limitless Innovation, Sustainable Development and the Next Generation (pp. 219-252). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Lnenicka, M., Nikiforova, A., Luterek, M., Azeroual, O., Ukpabi, D., Valtenbergs, V., & Machova, R. (2022). Transparency of open data ecosystems in smart cities: Definition and assessment of the maturity of transparency in 22 smart cities. Sustainable Cities and Society, 82, 103906.

24th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: from the former President of Poland & Nobel Prize laureate Lech WaĹ‚Ä™sa to the 3rd edition of our workshop on HVD

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment

The week was full of impressions (positive) from the the 24th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research in the charming GdaĹ„sk (Poland), which started with our workshop, followed by the keynote talk delivered by the former President of Poland & Nobel Prize laureate Lech WaĹ‚Ä™sa, until the very last session & coming to my hometown and meeting John Malkovich there! Although this was already the 3rd working trip in the last 4 weeks and the 5th from the very beginning of June, during which I delivered two keynote lectures, presented two papers (with two more papers presented by my colleagues at other conferences), chaired the workshop with several more events & activities, it was still an absolutely great experience, where we finally had the 3rd edition of our workshop “Identification of high value dataset determinants: is there a silver bullet for efficient sustainability-oriented data-driven development?” as part of dg.o2023, which brought more than 20 participants, with whom we jointly tried to understand:

💡What can be the country-specific HVD determinants (aspects)? Incl. who should be the expected beneficiary of the availability of HVD? what are the current approaches towards HVD determination?

đź’ˇWhat mechanisms or methods can be put in place to determine them?

đź’ˇCan this be done (semi-)automatically?

đź’ˇHow a framework for determining country-specific HVD could look like?

As part of the workshop, we also validated the results of our Towards High-Value Datasets determination for data-driven development: a systematic literature review (Anastasija Nikiforova, Nina Rizun, Magdalena Ciesielska, Charalampos Alexopoulos, Andrea MiletiÄŤ) paper we expect to present to EGOV community, which has been already named a “sound in the noise” (we work hard to correspond to this characteristic!). As part of the above, we verified whether the findings from the literature are relevant, valid & complete discussing:

đź’ˇWhat can be data-centered characteristic of HVD? (and should they be predefined?)
đź’ˇWhat are the expected characteristics of the HVD determination indicators, i.e. (1) ex-ante / ex-post / both?, (2) qualitative / quantitative / both? (3) Internal (such as usage statistics) / external (e.g., report, indices, charters) / both?, (4) SMART / not necessarily? Diving then into the above questions, as well as evaluating relevance of indicators identified previously (lit-re & current practices / ad-hoc approaches & previous workshops)

Many thanks to everyone who participated in the ICEGOV, ICOD or DGO workshops (more than 60 people in total), as well as thanks to Maria, who was part of the ICOD workshop!

Thanks to the organizers, including but not limited to the local organizing committee – Gdansk University, Digital Government Society, Emerald Publishing – for giving an opportunity to have a good time and to finally meet the colleagues in person (some of whom never met before despite a relatively long collaboration)!

A keynote for the Innovation and Smart Government Conference 2022 (ISGOV2022)

Anastasija Nikiforova Leave a comment

This September I was exceptionally proud to be invited to serve as one of two keynotes for the Innovation and Smart Government Conference 2022 (ISGOV2022) and open this conference, delivering my talk titled “Data as an asset for Sustainable Development of data-driven Smart Cities and Smart Society”. Another keynote was delivered by J. Ramon Gil-Garcia with the talk devoted to the use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector.

ISGOV2022 keynotes

Some key takeaways or the main points of this talk (see slides above):
đź’ˇ Open data became a daily phenomenon, but making government data publicly available is not enough – there is time and need for the next steps towards sustainable and smart data ecosystems, requiring transformations at all levels;
đź’ˇ Open data is not only about OGD (B2G, crowdsourced data, sensor generated data etc.);
đź’ˇ Open data is not about data availability and accessibility. The data should –> must be qualitative (?), well-documented, valuabl (high value data (?)), smart (?), while the entry point from which they are available should be sufficiently user-friendly and interactive. Here, the concepts after which “?” follows is a subject for another 1.5h long talk :);
💡Open data quality is not only about metadata, their completeness and accuracy, it is also about the quality of content of dataset, where completeness of data is not the only criteria to be assessed! (reliability, internal and external consistency, timeliness, currency / up-to-date’ness and many more!);
💡{open, geospatial, smart, …} data ecosystem is not only about the platform (e.g., OGD portal), from which data can be downloaded, and not only about data governance or management. It is also not only about the data, which is, however, the key asset. It is many more…
đź’ˇOpen data users – individuals, businesses (SME) etc., are not only end-users, they are (should be) an integral part of open data ecosystem. In other words, public data (eco)system is also about “public” –> stakeholders and actors of OD ecosystems should be identified (their role, needs etc.), which should then imply in requirements for newer and sustainable data ecosystems, which will facilitate interaction of (multiple) stakeholders
💡All in all, it’s all about data, portal, service, policy…
đź’ˇAt the same time users and the whole society should be educated and acquire knowledge and skills needed to interact with the OD artifacts –> digital literacy, and open data literacy, where the latter term is not well-defined at this moment, while it is obvious that we need it!

Open Data as an asset for sustainable development of data-driven smart cities and smart society (isgovc2022)Download

I am very grateful ISGOV organizers, namely, the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas (UAT), the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM), the University of Guadalajara (UDG), the I-Lab Public Innovation and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory – for having me as a part of this conference!!!

I am also grateful to all participants, especially those who participated in a discussion with so many relevant questions. Hope that this talk was interesting and contributed to the general understanding of the topic!

Editorial Board Member of eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (JeDEM)

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment

Since June 2022, I am an Editorial Board Member of the eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (JeDEM) – a platinum/diamond scholarly-led Open Access e-journal managed by an interdisciplinary team of scholars at the Department for E-Governance and Administration at Danube University Krems, Austria. Its new Chief Editor – an external scholar in the journal’s key area, who is invited every 4 years to advice on the journal’s strategy – is Anneke Zuiderwijk with whom I was proud to collaborate very actively as part of my research visit to Delft University of Technology, Faculty Technology Policy and Management.

JeDEM is interested in both theoretical, practical and empirical research in the categories Research Papers, Invited Papers, Project Descriptions and Reflections. Within this scope, JeDEM particularly welcomes, but is not limited to, submissions related to the following topics:

  • e-Democracy
    • ICT and communication technologies to promote democracy or (re-)democratization;
    • Digital Divide, social inclusion and related political strategies;
    • Data Divide and algorithmic accountability;
    • policy analysis;
    • the role of security and privacy;
    • democratic innovation, governance models and alternative solutions.
  • e-Society and e-Participation
    • civic technologies and platforms (e.g. evaluation, critical and innovative approaches, national or international solutions);
    • collaborative decision-making and participatory budgeting;
    • the role of civil society and organizations;
    • stakeholder analysis, tool assessment and evaluation (e.g. political parties, government);
    • analysis of platform engagement (e.g. semantic analysis, computational or discourse analytical approaches);
    • co-decision, co-creation, co-production, decision-making and e-voting.
  • e-Government
    • general government services, evaluation of public policies (e.g. platforms for digital communication, virtual organizations and solutions, organizational training);
    • decision-making, Artificial Intelligence and automatization;
    • environmental, social and smart governance solutions;
    • governmental innovation.
  • Open data, including both social and technical aspects and the intersection between them 
    • open data policy, governance, decision-making and co-production;
    • technical frameworks for open data and metadata (e.g. ontologies, data formats, standards and APIs; data visualization; data quality);
    • evidence and impacts of open data: on society and/or public administration; value of real-life applications based on open data, costs and benefits of providing or using open data; emerging good practices; value generation (e.g. transparency, accountability, economic value, public service provision).
  • Data sharing and use, including but not limited to:
    • data with different levels of openness;
    • the role of public, private and societal stakeholders in data sharing and use, data end-users and intermediaries;
    • challenges and solutions for data sharing and use by various actors, including governments, researchers, companies, citizens, journalists, students, NGOs, librarians and intermediaries.
  • Open science, open access and open source software, including but not limited to:
    • best practices of open science;
    • benefits and challenges of scholarly publication, publishing data, information, articles and code through portals and platforms with different levels of openness;
    • safe and responsible sharing of data, information, articles and code with others
    • communication platforms to get more exposure and enhance usability of (open) data information, publications and code.

We encourage a diversity of methods and theoretical lenses, including critical studies in the above-mentioned thematic fields. It is the journal’s mission to encourage interdisciplinarity, unconventional ideas and multiple perspectives, and to connect leading thinkers and young scholars in inspiring reflections. JeDEM is an innovative journal that welcomes submissions from all disciplines and approaches. We publish both theoretical and empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative.

For the types of contribution, they are:

  • Research papers (double blind peer-review):
    • Regular submissions (submitted throughout the year, unrelated to a specific call for papers);
    • Special issue submissions (related to a call for papers);
    • Enhanced conference papers;
  • Reflections (reviews, comments, discussions, interviews, project descriptions) (editorial review).

JeDEM provides full open access to its authors and readers. Publishing with and reading JeDEM is free of charge. We ask authors to register with JeDEM to manage the publishing process. To gain all the benefits of the JeDEM community we recommend authors, readers, editors and reviewers to register their interest with JeDEM. JeDEM is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal (ISSN: 2075-9517). All journal content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence.

Editorial JeDEM Vol. 14, No. 1 (2022)Download

Read more about JeDEM and consider submitting you contribution in it!

Europe Biobank Week 2021

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment
Source: Europe Biobank Week 2021

This is a short note about Europe Biobank Week 2021, which took place in an online mode this year during 8-10 November. EBW is jointly organized by ESBB (European, Middle Eastern & African Society for Biopreservation and Biobanking) and BBMRI-ERIC with this year’s theme â€śBiobanking for our Future – Opportunities Unlocked”. The programme was plenty of very different events and opportunities, including rich programme of live presentations from high-level experts, and a collection of selected posters, where I was honored to be represented in two of them (14 main topics) as part of the Latvian Biomedical Research & Study centre team, where I work as an IT-expert.

One of them authored by me was presented within “Novel IT solutions, effective data storage, processing and analysis” section. This poster titled “Towards efficient data management of biobank, health register and research data: the use-case of BBMRI-ERIC Latvian National Node” (authors: Anastasija Nikiforova, Vita RovÄ«te, Laura Ansone) was devoted to the ongoing project (funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020) called INTEGROMED – Integration of knowledge and biobank resources in comprehensive translational approach for personalized prevention and treatment of metabolic disorders, where some preliminary results of my activities on the inspecting and improving the ecosystem of the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study centre and then summarized and transformed into the set of guidelines towards efficient data management for heterogeneous data holders and exchangers, were presented.

European Biobank Week 2021, poster
“Towards efficient data management of biobank, health register and research data: the use-case of BBMRI-ERIC Latvian National Node” (authors: A. Nikiforova, V. RovÄ«te, L. Ansone)

Another poster titled “Development of a dynamic informed consent system for Latvian national biobank and citizen science data management, quality control and integration” (authors: Kante N., Nikiforova A., KalÄ“ja J., Svandere A., Mezinska S., RovÄ«te V.) was presented under “Population-based cohorts – addressing global challenges for future generations” section and was dedicated to another project, which is funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) – “DECIDE – Development of a dynamic informed consent system for biobank and citizen science data management, quality control and integration“.

“Development of a dynamic informed consent system for Latvian national biobank and citizen science data management, quality control and integration” (authors: Kante N., Nikiforova A., KalÄ“ja J., Svandere A., Mezinska S., RovÄ«te V.)

This was another very nice experience!