2. Motivation and organisation
Benefits of opening data
This part describes the benefits of sharing data as open data for different parties and society.
Open data is machine-readable data in digital format that is freely available to everyone for any purpose as long as its original source is acknowledged. Examples of open data are census data, map data or real-time information about bus locations.
Why should you share data with parties outside your organisation?
Rather than reducing in value, digital data becomes more valuable, the more it is used. When an organisation openly shares its data for wider use, parties outside the organisation, such as companies and citizens, can use the same data for their own purposes.
As a rule, public administration organisations collect and manage data for the purpose of their statutory tasks. This means that large information resources may be accumulated for a single purpose or a handful of tasks. By making this data more widely available to others, significant productivity growth and increased operational efficiency can be achieved. In addition, opening the data may create new opportunities for its wider use in society.
Open access datasets
- promote democracy and transparency of administration
- engage citizens and encourage their activity
- increase the efficiency of organisations’ activities and improve their performance, and
- enable business and financial development through innovations and new services.
Everyone has the right to obtain information about public documents and other recordings. Under section 12 of the Constitution of Finland (731/1999), documents and recordings in the possession of the authorities are public, unless their publication has for compelling reasons been specifically restricted by an Act. According to the principle of openness (Act on the Openness of Government Activities 621/1999), official documents shall be in the public domain, unless specifically provided otherwise in this Act or another Act. An organisation may also choose to provide wider access to its data if this is not prevented by such reasons as contractual terms, copyrights, data protection regulations, data security issues or other factors.
What are the benefits of sharing information as open data?
The benefits of open data can be examined in different ways, such as from an economic, social, ecological or political perspective, or in terms of performance. For example, the opening of environmental data promotes the circular economy, more efficient use of natural resources and biodiversity, whereas transparency regarding the central government’s budget and procurement data improves efficient use of tax revenue and supports the fight against corruption.
In the model provided on data.europa.eu, the benefits are examined from the viewpoint of performance and the perspectives of economic and societal benefits, in particular.
Read more about the benefits of opening data on the data.europa.eu service.
To assess the potential benefits of sharing data, organisations can use the method described in detail in step 4 Benefits, risks and costs.
How can you use open data?
Open data can be used by anyone. Many companies and developers make use of open data in various services, applications and studies, for instance.
The following offer examples of ways in which open data can be used:
- Showcases on opendata.fi.
- The showcase gallery of the opendata.fi provides examples of services and applications from all around Finland.
- Showcases on hri.fi.
- The showcase gallery of Helsinki Region Infoshare provides examples of applications that use data concerning the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
To assess the potential benefits of sharing data, organisations can use the method described in detail in chapter 4 Benefits, risks and costs.
Benefits of opening data to public administration
In public administration, the opening of data and its use improve information management and knowledge management, decision-making and performance as well as promote the planning and implementation of public services.
Providing access to public sector information resources as widely and openly as possible across sectoral boundaries may
- save resources
- develop and improve the efficiency of the administration's internal processes
- improve the quality, descriptions and discoverability of data.
Mapping the data to be opened and planning the opening processes alone may help the organisation to develop.
Information on open data in public administration on the data.europa.eu service.
Examples of the use and benefits of open data
Business benefits of opening data
Open datasets are highly beneficial to companies' business. Open access datasets can significantly reduce a company's investment needs and save its resources. By using open data, companies can develop their existing operations and create completely new business. This may produce new added value to the company's customers or expand the customer base further. The company can also recruit new employees, which is of high value for society.
In addition, open data can help the company to improve its
- knowledge management,
- decision-making,
- performance, and
- the efficiency of its service design and delivery.
The business benefits generated by open data are both direct and indirect. The direct benefits are economic benefits that, for example, increase the company's capital, create new jobs, or bring cost savings. Indirect benefits refer to the creation of new services, increased efficiency of organisations 'operations and business growth, for instance.
Benefits of opening data for society
For example, open access datasets increase the transparency of public administration and build trust. Open data is used in such areas as research, education and the mass media.
Networks that promote cooperation
This step describes what open data cooperation networks mean and what types of networks are already in existence.
A network consisting of organisations that open their datasets and parties using this data can be called an open data ecosystem and a cooperation network. It comprises all actors and systems involved in opening, publishing, maintaining and using data. In the best-case scenario, an ecosystem of data sharing and use benefits all parties involved in it.
Data collected and managed by the public sector is often only used for a few statutory tasks. Cooperation networks can help identify more data needs, and data can be used more comprehensively.
An organisation opening its data should identify parties interested in the data to be shared and existing networks focusing on this theme around it in which it could join. If necessary, the organisation can create new networks to promote dialogue with stakeholders. Potential data users can help organisations specify the data to be opened and the method used to share it, for example an API.
Organisations can activate data users by means of surveys, interviews, workshops, training, lectures or hackathons.
Some of the best-known ecosystems and networks promoting open data
Examples and support for developing ecosystems and organising hackathons
As an example, you can find help for developing ecosystems and organising hackathons in the following sources:
- Ecosystem handbook (in English)
- Open Daas project handbook (in Finnish, pdf)
- Quick start guide to organising a hackathon (in Finnish)
Parties that organise hackathons in Finland include Ultrahack and Junction.
Examples of open data events and ecosystems in Finland
Goals, indicators and incentives
This part describes how the goals, indicators and incentives related to opening data can be defined and realised.
No official recommendations exist on these objectives, indicators and incentives.
Organisations that have already opened their data have included their goals in the organisation's (for instance, agency’s or municipality’s) strategy, operating and financial plan or performance agreements. In addition to setting goals, indicators should also be identified for the goals, for example for the organisation at large or its separate units, to monitor and verify goal achievement.
Examples of goal setting
Indicators and incentives for opening data
Commissioned by the Ministry of Finance's Opening up and using public data project, Deloitte carried out a current status mapping in early 2021, in which it analysed the operating models and guidelines related to opening public data of several public sector organisations. The current status mapping shows that indicators and incentives are used very little to support the opening of data and, in general, in open data management. A summary of the background study for the current status mapping (in Finnish, pdf) is available on the Ministry of Finance’s website.
The mapping only identified a single actor who had a publicly available indicator in place for monitoring the opening of data: the City of Oulu, which measures the number of open datasets. In reality, it may be expected that more indicators exist in internal use, but indicators and monitoring are clearly used too little to support the opening of data.
In addition to measuring the opening of data, it is also possible to measure open data itself from several different perspectives.
For more information, see the publication Introduction to opening information reserves (in Finnish, pdf), Ministry of Transport and Communications 2010.
The key challenges associated with indicators and incentives are:
- The difficulty of identifying clear and effective indicators
- Rather than linking the indicators to measures, organisations see them as additional information
- Open data is not linked to the organisation’s or employees’ goals
- Opening of data is not associated with incentives or requirements for the organisation or its employees
In the absence of incentives and requirements, the opening of data can quite easily be seen as an additional burden whose value for end users and, even more so, the organisation is difficult to measure. Many organisations rarely use the open data interfaces for their own purposes, and organisations do not necessarily even use the data to be opened themselves. This is why the opening of data does not create operational benefits for organisations.
Organisation and resource allocations
This part describes what the organisation should take into account when organising and allocating resources to the opening of data.
The Information Management Board has issued a recommendation on fulfilling the management’s information management responsibilities (in Finnish, pdf), (Ministry of Finance publications 2020:18), according to which it is advisable to define these responsibilities in the rules of procedure, administrative or service regulations or similar, depending on the organisation. The information management model also serves as an internal regulation of the information management entity, which is why descriptions of responsibilities can also be included in it. Decisions on the responsibilities for information management are made by the authority or official who is competent in the information management entity to make decisions related to administration and organisation or to decide on the contents of the rules of procedure, administrative regulations, service regulations or similar.
Under section 13 of the Public Information Management Act, the information management entity must monitor the state of information security in their operating environments and ensure the information security of their datasets and information systems throughout their life cycle. The information management entity shall determine the material risks to data processing and dimension the data security measures in accordance with the risk assessment. In connection with this task, the risks associated with opening and sharing data must be identified and assessed, and risk management measures must be implemented. The information management entity must approve the residual risks in writing.
Key risks related to opening and sharing data include the possible use of shared data, or shared data and data obtained by combining it with other data, in a manner that is harmful or damaging to society, citizens or authorities, such as identity theft, blackmail or scams, or causes physical damage to society's infrastructure, such as the electricity or telecommunications network or transport networks and buildings. The organisation is advised to assign responsibility for risk management, information security and data protection related to the opening of data to one or more persons.
Roles in the data opening process are often divided into four main ones:
- data producers
- data administrators
- data sharers
- data users
The four main roles can be subdivided further (For more information see the publication Public data – Introduction to opening data repositories (in Finnish, pdf).
The current status mapping completed by Deloitte and commissioned by the Ministry of Finance's Opening up and using data project in 2021 identified different approaches to defining roles in the context of open information. These roles may vary significantly between organisations, depending on their structure and the nature of the data to be opened. Read a summary of the current status mapping (in Finnish, pdf).
An organisation should have a person/persons to whom responsibility for opening data is clearly assigned and who coordinate the opening of data in the organisation and provide advice if necessary. Not all organisations have specifically defined roles in their operating models. On the other hand, despite the identification of roles, the current status mapping exercise based on the publicly available documents struggled to determine how well the different roles have actually been implemented in organisations. For example, it is possible that no human resources have been allocated to the roles.
The same observation mainly also applies to organisation structures. Some of the actors have defined the organisation structures associated with open data relatively clearly, while in others they are lacking completely. A good example of this is the City of Turku, in which the organisation is based on open and modular digital development.
Based on Deloitte’s current status mapping, most organisations have opted for a decentralised organisation regarding open data, whereas partly centralised solutions are also in use. In the City of Espoo, for example, centralised support functions have been established for the administration of certain tasks (including data processing and risk assessment). The HRI service, on the other hand, is supported by the centralised Clearing house function in the City Executive Office of Helsinki, the purpose of which is to assist and coordinate the opening of data.
Examples of the organisation of data opening processes
Process definition
This part describes how the data opening process can be defined and realised in the organisation.
No official recommendations exist for defining the data opening process.
Organisations that have already opened their data have progressed in this process as follows: the data that could be opened is identified, the possibilities of sharing it and potential risks arising from opening the data are assessed, a decision is made to publish (or not to publish) the dataset, the dataset is published, the dataset is maintained and it is communicated about.
On a practical level, organisations have defined and carried out their data opening processes in different ways. The opening of data has, in various organisations, taken place as an internal process, or coherently in collaboration with other organisations. While a large proportion of the datasets that are shared openly have been defined and shared from an individual organisation’s starting points, data sharing is increasingly examined and defined in cooperation with other parties that administrate similar data.
The opening of datasets should be thought of as a recurring and constantly evolving process. The process must address the entire life cycle from opening the data to preserving any historical data. As far as possible, it is advisable to start the process of opening the data with simple sets, later progressing to more extensive and complex datasets. The process should be created and developed openly in cooperation with stakeholders. Once the organisation has laid the foundations for opening data and generated the competence required for this, the data opening process may require less resources in the future.
In most cases, the opening of data starts with existing information systems, some of which may be quite old. Sharing data residing in old information systems can be difficult because the system was not designed for data sharing from the outset. When putting new information systems out to tender, upgrading systems or renewing contracts, the requirements of the Public Information Management Act and the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts should be met, whereas accounting for the possibility of opening data and open interfaces is also important. For example, identifying and defining the ownership of the data contents in the information system or the API is crucial.
Information Management Board recommendation on the management’s responsibilities (in Finnish, pdf) (Ministry of Finance publications 2020:18) notes that in procurements, implementing the interoperability of information systems and information reserves as well as opening of technical interfaces should be ensured, at least in situations where this is required under the Public Information Management Act. The API principles provide useful support for defining or developing an API.
Examples of organisation-specific process descriptions for opening data
Examples of joint data opening processes
Competence development
This part describes why and how competence related to opening data should be built up and developed.
Under section 4, subsection 2 of the Information Management Act, the information management entity's management body shall ensure that the entity has up-to-date instructions for the processing of datasets, the use of information systems, the data processing rights, the implementation of the information management responsibilities and for the rights of access to information, data security measures and preparedness for exceptional circumstances. The management body determines how the instructions are kept up to date and which actors are responsible for ensuring that they are up to date.
The management body must also make sure that the entity has training available to ensure that the personnel and those acting on behalf of the information management entity have adequate knowledge of the provisions, regulations and instructions of the information management entity in force relating to information management, data processing and publicity and secrecy of documents.
The Information Management Board has issued a recommendation on fulfilling the management’s responsibilities in information management (in Finnish, pdf) (Ministry of Finance publications 2020:18), according to which it is advisable to assign responsibility for keeping the instructions up to date to the actors who have overall responsibility for information security, information systems, information resources, controlling registers, decision-making related to document access requests, case management and archiving.
It is important for an organisation planning to open its data to ensure that the individuals participating in this process in the organisation have sufficient understanding and competence related to the stages and responsibilities associated with opening data and, in particular, the information security and data protection risks of this process. This makes it possible to ensure that the data can be opened securely, user-centrically, consistently and also resource-efficiently. Competence related to the opening of data may also be outsourced, but it is important that the organisation has sufficient competence internally, as the sharing of data is basically a continuous operating method, not a one-off event.
Chapter 4, Ensuring data protection, describes data protection and information security guidelines which may be helpful when considering if opening a certain dataset is possible in general.