Openness in Practice: Understanding Attitudes to Open Government Data

This book looks at open data practices historically and from the perspective of those currently involved in advocating for making government data freely available. Based on interviews with practitioners, users and evangelists across three Australian-based case studies illustrating contemporary open data practices, this book discusses how open data has evolved, why certain barriers to openness exist and what the future of open data might look like. It highlights both the challenges and approaches to ‘best practice’ in government departments and agencies as they adapt to changing data ecosystems and public expectations around access, transparency, risk and responsible stewardship.

Suneel Jethani is a Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney. His research centers on embodied technology, datafication and issues of technology ethics, governance, and design. He is the author of The Politics and Possibilities of Self-Tracking (Emerald, 2021).

Dale Leorke is a Senior Research Fellow at Tampere University, Finland. His research examines the impact of digital technologies on public space. His previous books include Location-based Gaming: Play in Public Space (Palgrave, 2018), Public Libraries in the Smart City (Palgrave, 2018) and Games and Play in the Creative, Smart and Ecological City (Routledge, 2020).