The value of open data in Ukraine is growing, as it is an effective and irreplaceable tool in many areas of activity. Already today, thanks to access to data, Ukrainians are able to monitor potential corruption risks, analyze trends, produce research, and make decisions for their businesses.
In the summer, the BRDO team and partners launched an online survey of open data users to assess their level of satisfaction and the need for additional information. Accordingly, most respondents use the data to prepare analytics and research, as well as to develop products and services for external users. However, many more datasets remain inaccessible to a wide audience in the form of open data, which is a key challenge for this area.
What are the results of the study?
- 36% of respondents are representatives of the public sector who are most interested in open data;
- analytics, product development, and decision-making are the leading areas of dataset use;
- the most popular datasets are: local government data (31% of respondents), judicial data (29%), and data from the Unified State Register (24%);
- 26% of respondents are interested in opening the USR data;
- 13% of respondents have completely suspended their work due to limited access to data, and 60% cannot provide certain services or information to clients;
- 56% of respondents are satisfied with the access to the Open Data Portal, 40% with the availability of data on request, and 24% with the frequency of data updates.
Additionally, the survey was aimed at collecting suggestions from open data users on the development of the sphere. Thus, the proposals of the respondents can be divided into two blocks, concerning the Open Data Portal and the sphere in general.
What should be done to improve the Open Data Portal?
- create integrated community pages with relevant data sets;
- reconfigure the Portal’s registration card to allow communities to belong to rayons;
- improve the search on the Portal;
- improve cooperation with data managers.
How to improve the open data sphere in general?
- Adopt amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers’ Resolution No. 835 “On Approval of the Regulation on Data Sets to be Disclosed in the Form of Open Data”;
- regulate the publication of community data in regions where some of the territories are under temporary occupation.
As part of the open data initiatives, the development of the Data+ communication platform continues, which has become a platform for discussing important news, disseminating information and interacting with participants – NGOs, activists and government officials. Thus, virtually all respondents are ready to participate in the work of the Data+ platform, and half of them are ready to be regular participants of the platform.
The key results of the survey of open data users can be found on the BRDO website in short and extended forms.
The survey was conducted with the assistance of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Digital Transformation Activity with support from USAID and UK Dev. The implementing partner is the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO).