Promotion of knowledge-sharing in the open data environment (DE0035)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? The Open Data Act (Section 12a eGovernment Act, EGovG) provides an important legal basis for the active provision of open data by the authorities of the federal administration. Its success will depend to a significant extent on effective nationwide implementation. The aim is for open data publication to become routine. In addition to a common understand-ing of open data, this requires continuous knowledge-building. Ongoing knowledge-sharing across a broad range of different stakeholders in the open data environment is an impor-tant part of this. To date, this exchange has taken place in a variety of negotiating arenas and among discrete groups of actors. A sensible approach is needed to link these different actors and networks and place them in relation to each other, thereby helping to achieve an overall understanding of this area and its needs.

What is the commitment?A recurrent event format will be established to improve the coordinated provision of open government data. As the network moderator, the CCOD will be responsible for giving the dif-ferent actors an opportunity for regular exchange. Taking the form of a roundtable, there will also be an annual open data conference. This honours a commitment from the second NAP. In addition, expert forums will be held to hear and include the relevant stakeholder groups in each case, be they providers or users. The annual roundtables will identify and prioritise focus topics in open data, which will then be examined in more detail in three expert forums the following year. The first such roundtable took place in October 2020, and the process was continued in 2021 with regular expert forums. The idea here is to bring together the Federal, Länder, local authorities, civil society, associations, data journalists, business, the scientific and academic community and other relevant groups as appropriate to the topic at hand. At the end of each year, a further open data conference is then held between the Federal Government and the Länder to identify and prioritise topics of discussion.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem?The planned open data conferences and expert forums are intended to facilitate broad, ongoing knowledge-sharing between different user groups. This should support the following aspects, in particular: 1) awareness-raising, general skills development and the cultural change surrounding open data; 2) facilitating the development and enhancement of standards and future technical solutions; 3) optimising the volume and quality of the data provided; 4) improving the information available to decision-makers; 5) supporting the coordinated provision of open government data. The rapid development in the interconnect-ed issues surrounding open data will also be taken into account. The aim here, in addition to networking knowledge and experience, is to improve understanding of the issues facing the various user groups. This approach furthers the needs-based development of open data while equally dismantling knowledge silos and barriers between users and providers.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?The measure will do much to expand understanding and knowledge of open data in a trans-parent and sustainable way. The keystone is the inclusion of various user groups from Federal, Länder and possibly also local governments, as well as civil society. The commit-ment is therefore relevant to transparency, collaboration and participation and inclusion.

Additional information Direct iteration of Commitment 6, “Further development and promotion of the open data environment” from the second NAP for 2019 – 2021, in connection with participation in the OGP.

Milestones Start Date Implementation by Expert forum no. 2 on standardisation Q2 2021 Q3 2021 Expert forum no. 3 on training and courses Q3 2021 Q4 2021 2nd Open Data Conference, incl. workshops with the Federal, Länder and local governments Q2 2021 Q4 2021 Expert forum no. 4 Q4 2021 Q1 2022 Expert forum no. 5 Q1 2022 Q2 2022 Expert forum no. 6 Q2 2022 Q3 2022 3rd Open Data Conference, incl. workshops with the Federal, Länder and local governments Q2 2022 Q4 2022 Expert forum no. 7 Q4 2022 Q1 2023 Expert forum no. 8 Q1 2023 Q2 2023

Action Plan Review

Commitment 6.6: Promotion of knowledge-sharing in the open data environment