9th International Conference on ICT for Sustainable Development

Authors - Alka Misra, Durga Prasad Misra, Usha Saxena, Ritu Ghai, Sanjay Mahendru, Sitansu Sekhar Mahapatra, Sumandro Chattapadhyay
Abstract - The landscape of datasets across government entities is not only divided in domain- and entity-wise silos but there are also significant challenges of technical and semantic interoperability. Standardisation of vocabulary for common data/metadata fields across data resources shared by various sources is key for ensuring semantic interoperability of such resources. Further, seamless and trusted data sharing requires standardisation of legal framework, data management operations as well as user experience for data contributors and consumers. This paper describes how such challenges and opportunities of enforcing standards were navigated during the journey of the Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India. Over the last decade or so, shareable non-personal non-sensitive data collected, compiled or generated by various Central and State/Union Territory government entities of India have been made available on the OGD platform under Open Access. Moreover, many government and non-government stakeholders have played crucial roles in analysing available data, demanding datasets of national or sectoral importance and sharing insights harnessed from the shared OGD in public interest. The aim of this paper is to present the OGD platform initiative against the background of the OGD ecosystem in India; its technical architecture and software components; and the challenges experienced and opportunities explored to improve proactive disclosure practices of Indian Government entities by enforcing standards on various aspects of data sharing.