Stuiveling Open Data Award (NL0020)

The government will make as much data as possible freely available to the general public and the business community. If the data is in a form that permits simple re-use and processing, it becomes possible to develop useful new applications in areas such as education and healthcare, or to promote democracy and good governance. As an incentive to the development of new applications, products and services, the government is to introduce the ‘Stuiveling Open Data Award’, which will be presented to a public or private party who has used open data in an innovative manner to address current societal challenges. The award will encourage both the public and private sectors to learn from each other’s experiences. The Open Government Expertise Centre (Leer- en Expertisepunt Open Overheid; LEOO) will strengthen the learning effect by disseminating best practices and producing handbooks based on entries for the award. LEOO will also assist those organisations which are inspired to pursue their open data activities further.

The first Stuiveling Open Data Award will be presented in 2016. It is named after the former president of the Court of Audit, Saskia Stuiveling, who for many years championed effective accountability, transparency and (technological) modernisation of government.

2. Stuiveling Open Data Award (‘SODA’)

Commitment Text:

The government will make as much data as possible freely available to the general public and the business community. If the data is in a form that permits simple re-use and processing, it becomes possible to develop useful new applications in areas such as education and healthcare, or to promote democracy and good governance. As an incentive to the development of new applications, products and services, the government is to introduce the ‘Stuiveling Open Data Award’ (SODA), which will be presented to a public or private party who has used open data in an innovative manner to address current societal challenges. The award will encourage both the public and private sectors to learn from each other’s experiences.

Milestones:

1. An annual contest to promote the re-use of open data. Each year the winner will receive an amount of €20,000. The Stuiveling Open Data Award will be awarded up until 2020 (five times in total and twice during the duration of this action plan).

2. There will be an annual presentation ceremony.

3. To promote and support the competition, a website is to be launched in 2016. It will highlight best practice examples of the re-use of open data. All entries that meet the competition requirements will be shown on the website (the competition requirements are available online). And the finalists and winner will be showcased more elaborately.

Responsible institution: Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations

Supporting institution(s): LEOO, ICTU

Start date: 1 January 2016 End date: 30 June 2018

Editorial Note: This is a truncated version of the milestone text. For the full commitment text, please see The Netherlands National Action Plan (https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Netherlands_NAP-Appendix_2016-2018_EN_revised-with-changes.pdf)

Context and Objectives

The objective of this commitment is to incentivize the public and private sector to develop useful applications based on government-provided data to address societal challenges. This will be achieved by creating an annual contest –The Stuiveling Open Data Award (SODA) –that awards a €20,000 prize. The overall specificity of this commitment was high, since the deliverables (e.g. contest, ceremony, and website) are clearly measurable. However, the commitment text does not provide clear criteria on how the submission will be judged and does not highlight best practices.

While one survey respondent suggested that incentivizing new initiatives should always be welcomed, one issue raised by a member of parliament is that no one outside the ‘open data circle’ has ever heard of SODA and that it is ‘nice, but not a top priority’. XX[Note68: Kamerstukken II 2016–2017, 32802, nr. 30, p.4.]XX Other survey respondents had harsher criticism, calling it ‘nice symbolism’, ‘nonsense’, and a ‘distracting show’. In terms of potential impact, the IRM researcher found that if fully implemented, the potential impact would be minor because SODA, as an award and as a website, is not known outside the inner circle. The prize money is relatively low, which raises the question of this award’s capacity to further incentivize market parties.

As written, the commitment activities include the creation of an annual contest, an annual awards ceremony and the development of a website to raise awareness of the SODA and highlight best practices. This commitment is not directly relevant to any OGP values. Though the initiative may be helpful to consumers and contractors, the IRM researcher found no direct relation to access to information, citizen participation or public accountability. While the applications developed as part of this contest may result in some innovations that could be relevant to OGP values, SODA does not aim to open more public data in a more innovative manner. It encourages the re-use of these data. XX[Note69: Stuiveling Open Data Award 2016, opendata-award.nl/documenten/publicaties/2016/09/28/2016-09-27-jurycriteria-stuiveling-open-data-award-soda-2016.]XX

Completion

There has been substantial progress on this commitment. On 12 December 2016, the Minister of the Interior presented the SODA during the ‘How Open Festival’, which was visited by about 400 people (milestones 1 and 2). XX[Note70: Bleeve wins Open Data Award, opendata-award.nl/actueel/nieuws/2016/12/11/xxxxx-wint-eerste-stuiveling-open-data-award.]XX The website, SODA.nl, was launched in March 2016. It briefly shows the 2016 Award winners and ‘best practices,’ according to the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. Other website content mentioned in the self-assessment report, such as an interview with Prince Constantijn, is appealing, but not included in the action plan.

The winner of the SODA 2016 was Bleeve, a commercial initiative that uses several open datasets to offer homeowners information on energy-saving measures for their homes. XX[Note71: Bleeve energy-saving measures, bleeve.nl.]XX According to the jury, the application uses open data – statistics, address and building registry data – in an innovative manner. It promotes environmental friendliness and offers value to society and homeowners, by helping them find and compare building contractors that offer insulation, solar energy and other energy-related improvements. XX[Note72: SODA 2016, opendata-award.nl/documenten/rapporten/2016/12/10/juryrapport-soda2016.]XX A test by the IRM researcher of the home scan (the awarded app) gave general information on the house (age, size), and direct reference to contractors. The app is, based on this small test, useful and usable and is used by more than 30,000 people, according to the website counter. However, in terms of open government and relevance to OGP values, Bleeve does not change government practice in the area of increasing the re-usability of public data nor does it promote increased civic participation or public accountability.

Next Steps

Survey respondents, CSOs, and the IRM researcher recommend that SODA not be continued as an OGP commitment.

Commitment 2. Stuiveling Open Data Award (SODA)

Commitment Text:

The government will make as much data as possible freely available to the general public and the business community. If the data is in a form that permits simple re-use and processing, it becomes possible to develop useful new applications in areas such as education and healthcare, or to promote democracy and good governance. As an incentive to the development of new applications, products and services, the government is to introduce the ‘Stuiveling Open Data Award’ (SODA), which will be presented to a public or private party who has used open data in an innovative manner to address current societal challenges. The award will encourage both the public and private sectors to learn from each other’s experiences.

Milestones:

1. An annual contest to promote the re-use of open data. Each year the winner will receive an amount of €20,000. The Stuiveling Open Data Award will be awarded up until 2020 (five times in total and twice during the duration of this action plan).
2. There will be an annual presentation ceremony.
3. To promote and support the competition, a website is to be launched in 2016. It will highlight best practice examples of the re-use of open data. All entries that meet the competition requirements will be shown on the website (the competition requirements are available online). And the finalists and winner will be showcased more elaborately.

Editorial Note: This is a truncated version of the milestone text. For the full commitment text, please see the Netherlands national action plan (https://bit.ly/30UBDHL).

Commitment Aim

This commitment aims to incentivize the public and private sector to develop useful applications based on government-provided data to address societal challenges. It includes the creation of an annual contest, an annual awards ceremony, and the development of a website to raise awareness of the SODA and highlight best practices.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

On 12 December 2016, the Minister of the Interior presented the SODA during the How Open? Festival, which was visited by about 400 people.  The website, SODA 2016.nl, was launched in March 2016. It briefly shows the 2016 Award winners and “best practices.” The winner of the SODA 2016 was Bleeve. Bleeve developed a site, HouseScan, that allowed homeowners in Netherlands to search quick and easy to read information about energy-saving measures for their specific home.

End of term: Completed

This commitment has been completed on time. On 16 November 2017, the Consumers' Union (Consumentenbond) received the SODA and the accompanying € 20,000 for the further development of “What does my healthcare cost?” [7] With this tool, people can compare the costs of medical treatment at various hospitals and insurance companies. This data is being collected from hospitals and insurers and via website visitors that are willing to upload their billing information in an anonymized manner. The billing information can be disclosed on request by the insurance company only to the insured person. The award was presented at the Platform Information Society (ECP) annual conference. [8] All 31 candidates and 5 finalists were highlighted on the SODA website. [9] The third edition of SODA 2018 was presented on 4 October 2018. [10]

Did It Open Government?

Access to information: Major

While the mid-term report concluded that the commitment as designed was not clearly relevant to OGP values, as implemented the SODA award has promoted re-use of government held data. The winner of SODA 2016 used data from Netherlands Statistics (CBS), the Basic registrations of Addresses and Buildings (BAG) and the Actual Elevation file for the Netherlands (AHN) to feed their site HouseScan. The site is still functioning and according to the user counter on the site, 5, 537 users have benefited from tailored advise on energy saving measures for their homes. [11] The app “What does my healthcare cost?” uses data from the Netherland’s Health Authority. The jury report also mentions that it uses data generated by publicly-funded organizations (hospitals). [12] Both hospitals and health insurance companies are private organizations, even though health care is legally regulated. This award has helped to bring private sector and government together using government open data and privately generated data to provide citizens with useful applications that are relevant to their daily lives.

Open State Foundation was the winner of the third edition of SODA in late 2018. According to the President of Netherland’s Court of Audit, who was part of the jury in the latest edition of SODA, the app PoliFLW “makes following local politics easier and fun.” [13] The app PoliFLW is powered by over 500,000 articles and 3,000 sources, including social media and government open data available through Almanak.Overheid.nl. Users can search information by date, location, source or by text.

Although this commitment did not disclose more or improve quality of existing information, it did create a new approach for government to engage with private and social sector in Netherlands. The government itself is promoting, proactively encouraging and supporting innovative uses of government open data so it can be turned into useful information for a wider audience and with public value. The limitation of this commitment is in the continuity of the initiative and of the government’s practice to promote re-use of its open data beyond 2020.

Carried Forward?

SODA was not carried over to the 2018–2020 action plan.