Socioeconomic Effects of Public Sector Information on Digital Networks

摘要

Governments are the compilers and owners of a great deal of digital information, from geospatial data to statistical compilations and real estate records. In particular, the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have made huge investments in generating and disseminating public sector information (PSI), in large part because of the recognition that there are very significant socioeconomic values of and effects from this information. This is recognized to be especially true for PSI on the Internet. Unfortunately, however, there is relatively little empirical data available on the effects of PSI disseminated online or on the various policy approaches that are now being taken to this dissemination, and what data that do exist are generally neither detailed nor comprehensive. This state of affairs leaves policy makers and information managers without the facts they need to assess and improve these policies. Thus there is a clear and compelling need to better understand what the large public investment in the creation of public sector information can produce or is already producing. Because of the important potential economic and social benefits of PSI activities in the United States and in other OECD countries, the U.S. National Committee for CODATA and the OECD organized an international workshop on February 4-5, 2008, aimed at obtaining an improved understanding of the methods, models, and techniques used to assess the specific effects of different access and reuse policies for PSI disseminated online.