ABSTRACT
Open government onlinemust engage with earning public trust in an era of innovative information and communication technologies (ICTs). According to a survey distributed in 2015 to city and county chief information officers (CIOs) in theUnited States, open government/data has been ranked as one of the survey respondents’ top five priorities (Government Technology 2015). From the citizen perspective, about two-thirds of Americans use the internet to interact with government online (Pew Research Center 2015). Slightly over 40 percent of Americans consider that current government data-sharing efforts are at least somewhat effective (PewResearch Center 2015). Advances in ICTs like socialmedia (for example, the use of a government
Facebook page) and mobile devices afford low-cost opportunities for governments to inform and engage citizens online. Social media and other Web 2.0 tools make it convenient for citizens to report public service issues and offer innovative policy ideas. A landmark legislative effort in the United States (the passage of the Data Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act)) has ushered in machine-readable federal government spending data for advancing accountability and transparency. The rapid development of big, open, and linked data provides opportunities for new online public services, citizen engagement, and digital collaboration among stakeholders (Janssen, Matheus, and Zuiderwijk 2015). Online transparency also has the potential to strengthen citizens’ trust in government; with open government, citizens can be active participants in public policy-making and public services provision rather thanmere customers of governmental services. Governments can provide information about how tax dollars are spent, so citizens can monitor governments as well as help shape policy priorities. At the same time, there are challenges associated with open government
concerning the goal of earning citizen trust. The protection of privacy and security becomes more complex when more online channels and services are deployed since such proliferation increases the need for coordination
across platforms to ensure consistentmessages and also heightens demands on technical and management staff. Opening government data may have unintended consequences that do not match the intent of promoting transparency (Bannister and Connolly 2011). Moreover, ensuring meaningful participation is an enduring issue as citizen expectations continue to rise with the increasing amount of information available and the sophistication of online venues for engagement. This chapter provides an overview of the concepts and issues related
to open government. Such an overview covers the three pillars of open government as proposed by theObamaAdministration in theUnited States and the institutions that support it. Moreover, this chapter introduces a strategy to achieve the goal of open government amid the challenges identified. Lastly, an integrated practical implementation approach is introduced to guide public administrators in taking advantage of online opportunities for open government.
