The public sector, business community, and civil society are producing data that are high in volume, veracity, and velocity and come from diverse sources. Today, this type of data is known as big data. Public administrations (PAs) regard big data as the ‘new oil’ and embrace data-driven policies to gather, analyze, share, leverage, and safeguard data to advance good governance, transparency, innovative digital services, and citizen engagement in public policy. The emergence of the Government Big Data Ecosystem (GBDE) is evident from the above. Despite the great interest in this ecosystem, there is a lack of clear definition; the overall data lifecycle is not well understood, the different actors and their roles are not well defined, and the impact in key public administration sectors is not yet assessed. Public sector organizations face a challenging task in managing big data throughout its data lifecycle. An appropriate conceptual framework for data-driven government is missing. Such literature gaps impose a crucial obstacle to better understanding the prospects and nascent issues in promoting, developing, and leveraging the GBDE. Through this study, we aim to start filling the above-mentioned gaps following a Design Science Research Approach. We propose a definition for the GBDE, a data lifecycle framework for data-driven governments (DaLiF) based on analysis of existing data lifecycle models, and a holistic conceptual framework for the Government Data Ecosystem (DataGov.eco). This framework can support different audiences and stakeholders, including public authorities such as systems and data technologies owners, engineers, analysts, scientists, and stewards. We aim to contribute to this fast-evolving area by increasing clarity and establishing a common understanding of key elements of the emerging GBDE.
(EN)
International Hellenic University
