292

Inf Syst Front (2017) 19:285–300

Table 5 Citizen participation and
interaction

Frequency

Percent

Public participation improves the quality of policy making
Government ensures citizens have tools/training to understand & use open data

211
80

40.9
15.5

No clear means of providing citizen feedback or input on these open data

225

43.6

Total

516

100.0

picking any clue of the different constructs being measured (Ex: Previously compatibility was coded as COMPAT,
and was later changed to CP).

5 Findings
5.1 Data analysis
Data analysis was carried out using regression analysis to test
the hypotheses proposed in this study. SPSS 20 was the statistical tool employed for undertaking regression analysis. The
consistency of attributes in the model being analysed was
measured using Cronbach’s alpha. Coming to the desirable
sample size, Stevens (1996) suggests that good statistical estimates and results can be achieved with a sample size of 300
and above. Literature also houses evidence, which vouch for a
sample size of 300 to be a respectable number for achieving
reliable results (Comrey and Lee 1992).
Summarized herein are the demographic statistics of respondents who undertook the survey on open data (Table 1).
Overall, 516 valid responses were gathered. Respondents
were fairly evenly distributed across different age groups.
The highest number of respondents (102) belonged to the
65–74 years age group, followed closely by 96 people from
the 35–44 years age group. About 85 respondents were between 25 and 34 years of age, and 83 respondents fell in the
45–54 years age group. The gender distribution was fairly
even with 267 female respondents and slightly less male respondents (249 of 516).
Respondents were presented with a specific set of questions to gather their basic understanding of open data
(Table 2). Of 516 respondents, 352 people were interested in
finding out how different government department work, and
87 people were not sure if such piece of information interested
them. Majority respondents (359 of 516) agreed that the

availability of open data about public services (Example: education, health and social care, transport, etc.) helped them
take more informed decisions. Only 155 respondents said they
have used open data websites, with 279 respondents admitting
to never having used them and 82 respondents not being sure,
owing to their lack of knowledge of open data and different
platforms offering such data. The proportion of respondents
thinking they knew the type of information that the open data
websites offer (206), and the proportion of respondents refusing any awareness about the information available of such
sites (207) was almost the same. While more than half of the
respondents (271) were of the opinion that open data helped
them understand government functions and the idea behind
different policies being made, the rest either disagreed (64),
with most of them being unsure if open data offered any such
insights at all (181). Given that most open data is available in
the raw format, most respondents (213) found it difficult to
interpret and understand, saying they would prefer more structured and easily understandable data.
Respondent views were also gathered on their perspectives
of open data across the accountability in government functions, citizen participation and interaction, citizens’ insight
into government spending, and the overall impact of open
data. The following set of tables contains statistics concerning
these different aspects of open data.
When questioned about their perceptions of open data,
most citizens (220 of 516) believed that open data should
not only reveal transitions in policy decisions, but should also
offer insights into why and how policy changes are made with
evidence that trigger such changes (Table 3). Another major
chunk of respondents (189 of 516) believed that Governments
are opening up meaningful data (finance, housing etc.) to facilitate the fight against corruption. There were about 107
people standing by the fact that lack of clarity in the availability of open data is still concealing the full truth behind government operations, leaving opportunities for manipulation.

Table 6 Citizen exposure to
Government spending
Spending data has allowed people to see more of Government’s accounts
Government’s internal spending and management information can
be interrogated based on available open data
Government spending data is used to highlight government decisions
Total

Frequency

Percent

205
118

39.7
22.9

193
516

37.4
100.0

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