Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T10:26:47.404Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 18 - What Data Sharing in Government Tells Us about the Digitalization of Government Services

Lessons from the UK Digital Economy Act

from Part III - Illustrative Examples and Emergent Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

Boyka Simeonova
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
Robert D. Galliers
Affiliation:
Bentley University, Massachusetts and Warwick Business School
Get access

Summary

Qualitative research provides an excellent opportunity to study digitalization. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the digitalization of government services by studying the longitudinal development data-sharing practices across different parts of government in the United Kingdom. This chapter reports on a unique, qualitative, interpretive field study based on the author’s role as a participant observer and his analysis of the discourse and contents of the various documents presented in relation to both the creation and running of data-sharing practices in the United Kingdom. The chapter finds that despite government addressing many of the concerns identified in the literature on data sharing, practical and perceptual issues remain – issues that tell us much about the state of digitalization of government services.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alavi, M. and Leidner, D. (2001). Knowledge management and knowledge management systems. MIS Quarterly, 25(1), 107136.Google Scholar
Allum, J. (2020). Introducing GOV.UK Accounts – Government Digital Service, GOV.UK, https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2020/09/22/introducing-gov-uk-accounts/.Google Scholar
Axelsson, A.-S. and Schroeder, R. (2009). Making it open and keeping it safe: E-enabled data-sharing in Sweden. Acta Sociologica, 52(3), 213226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baskerville, R. L., Myers, M. D. and Yoo, Y. (2020). Digital first: The ontological reversal and new challenges for information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 44(2), 509523.Google Scholar
Bellamy, C., Perri 6, and Raab, C. (2005). Joined-up government and privacy in the United Kingdom: Managing tensions between data protection and social policy: Part II. Public Administration, 83(2), 393415.Google Scholar
Benkler, Y. and Nissenbaum, H. (2006). Commons-based peer production and virtue. Journal of Political Philosophy, 14(4), 394419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, knowledge work and organisations: An overview and interpretation. Organization Studies, 16(6), 10211045.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busby, A., Mason, L., St Clair, C. and Williams, L. (2020). Motivations for and barriers to data sharing. Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895505/_Kantar_research_publication.pdf.Google Scholar
Cabinet Office. (2012). Government digital strategy. GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-strategy.Google Scholar
Cabinet Office and Central Data and Digital Office. (2021). Digital Economy Act information sharing powers and objectives register. GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-information-sharing-agreements-under-chapters-1-2-3-and-4-of-part-5-of-the-digital-economy-act-2017.Google Scholar
Cabinet Office and Government Digital Service. (2016). Better use of data in government. GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/consultations/better-use-of-data-in-government.Google Scholar
Caldicott, D. F. (2016). Review of data security, consent and opt-outs. GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-data-security-consent-and-opt-outs.Google Scholar
Cheliotis, G. (2009). From open source to open content: Organization, licensing and decision processes in open cultural production. Decision Support Systems, 47(3), 229244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, R. (1988). Information technology and dataveillance. Communications of the ACM, 31(5), 498512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conservatives. (2009). Reversing the rise of the surveillance state: 11 measures to protect personal privacy and hold government to account. https://web.archive.org/web/20100328053242/http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2009/09/Reversing_the_rise_of_the_surveillance_state.aspx.Google Scholar
Davison, R. M. (2021). From ignorance to familiarity: Contextual knowledge and the field researcher. Information Systems Journal, 31(1), 16.Google Scholar
Dawes, S. S. (1996). Interagency information sharing: Expected benefits, manageable risks. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 15(3), 377394.Google Scholar
Department for Culture, Media and Sport. (2016). Digital Economy Bill: Explanatory notes. UK Parliament, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2016-2017/0080/17080en.pdf.Google Scholar
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. (2021). Increasing access to data across the economy. GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/publications/increasing-access-to-data-held-across-the-economy.Google Scholar
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, Cabinet Office, Home Office, and UK Statistics Authority. (2018). Digital Economy Act 2017 Part 5: Codes of Practice. GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-economy-act-2017-part-5-codes-of-practice.Google Scholar
Douglass, K., Allard, S., Tenopir, C., Wu, L. and Frame, M. (2014). Managing scientific data as public assets: Data sharing practices and policies among full-time government employees. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(2), 251262.Google Scholar
Ducuing, C. (2020). Data as infrastructure? A study of data sharing legal regimes. Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, 21(2), 124142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duguid, P. (2005). ‘The art of knowing’: Social and tacit dimensions of knowledge and the limits of the community of practice. Information Society: An International Journal, 21(2), 109118.Google Scholar
Feller, J. and Fitzgerald, B. (2002). Understanding Open Source Software Development. London: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Fusi, F. (2020). When local governments request access to data: Power and coordination mechanisms across stakeholders. Public Administration Review, 81(1), 2337.Google Scholar
Ghobadi, S. and Mathiassen, L. (2017). Risks to effective knowledge sharing in agile software teams: A model for assessing and mitigating risks. Information Systems Journal, 27(6), 699731.Google Scholar
Gil-Garcia, J. R., Chengalur-Smith, I. and Duchessi, P. (2007). Collaborative e-Government: Impediments and benefits of information-sharing projects in the public sector. European Journal of Information Systems, 16(2), 121133.Google Scholar
Goldman, R. and Gabriel, R. P. (2005). Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy. London and San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
González, A. G. (2006). Open science: Open source licences in scientific research. North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology, 7(Spring), 321366.Google Scholar
Graham, F. S., Gooden, S. T. and Martin, K. J. (2016). Navigating the transparency–privacy paradox in public sector data sharing. American Review of Public Administration, 46(5), 569591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruss, P. (2003). Berlin declaration on open access to knowledge in the sciences and humanities. Conference on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration.Google Scholar
Harris, T. L. and Wyndham, J. M. (2015). Data rights and responsibilities: A human rights perspective on data sharing. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 10(3), 334337.Google Scholar
Involve. (2018b). Conclusions of civil society and public sector policy discussions on data use in government. https://web.archive.org/web/20180220012818/http://datasharing.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/20150327_Conclusions_OPM_paper_Data_final.pdf.Google Scholar
Involve. (2016a). What data should government bodies be allowed to share about us? www.involve.org.uk/our-work/our-projects/practice/what-data-should-government-bodies-be-allowed-share-about-us.Google Scholar
Involve. (2016c). Report from the External Advisory Group for the Better Use of Data in Government Consultation. https://web.archive.org/web/20161219034648/https://datasharing.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/07/External-Advisory-Group-Report-1.pdf.Google Scholar
Jetzek, T., Avital, M. and Bjorn-Andersen, N. (2019). The sustainable value of open government data. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 20(6), 702734.Google Scholar
Kalkman, S., Mostert, M., Udo-Beauvisage, N., van Delden, J. J. and van Thiel, G. J. (2019). Responsible data sharing in a big data-driven translational research platform: Lessons learned. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 19(1), 283.Google Scholar
Kaye, J., Whitley, E. A., Lund, D., Morrison, M., Teare, H. and Melham, K. (2015). Dynamic consent: A patient interface for twenty-first century research networks. European Journal of Human Genetics, 23(2), 141146.Google Scholar
Ljunberg, J. (2000). Open source movements as a model for organising. European Journal of Information Systems, 9(4), 208216.Google Scholar
Mayernik, M. S. (2017). Open data: Accountability and transparency. Big Data & Society, 4(2), Article 2053951717718853.Google Scholar
Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 1437.Google Scholar
Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), aac4716-1–aac4716-8.Google Scholar
Parliament. (2017). Digital Economy Act 2017. GOV.UK, www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/contents/enacted/data.htm.Google Scholar
Perri 6, , Raab, C. and Bellamy, C. (2005). Joined-up government and privacy in the United Kingdom: Managing tensions between data protection and social policy: Part I. Public Administration, 83(1), 111133.Google Scholar
Phippen, A., Raza, A., Butel, L. and Southern, R. (2011). Impacting methodological innovation in a local government context – data sharing rewards and barriers. Methodological Innovations Online, 6(1), 5872.Google Scholar
Public Accounts Committee. (2019). Challenges in using data across government. GOV.UK, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/2492/2492.pdf.Google Scholar
Schultze, U. and Leidner, D. E. (2002). Studying knowledge management in information systems research: Discourses and theoretical assumptions. MIS Quarterly, 26(3), 213242.Google Scholar
Sexton, A., Shepherd, E., Duke-Williams, O. and Eveleigh, A. (2017). A balance of trust in the use of government administrative data. Archival Science, 17(4), 305330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalla-Bourdillon, S., Carmichael, L. and Wintour, A. (2021). Fostering trustworthy data sharing: Establishing data foundations in practice. Data & Policy, 3, e4.Google Scholar
Stalla-Bourdillon, S., Thuermer, G., Walker, J., Carmichael, L. and Simperl, E. (2020). Data protection by design: Building the foundations of trustworthy data sharing, Data & Policy, 2, e4.Google Scholar
Stamper, R. (1985). Management epistemology: Garbage in, garbage out (and what about deontology and axiology). In Methlie, L. and Sprague, R. (eds), Knowledge Representation for Decision Support Systems. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Springer, pp. 5577.Google Scholar
Stewart, K. J., Ammeter, A. P. and Maruping, L. M. (2006). Impacts of license choice and organizational sponsorship on user interest and development activity in open source software projects. Information Systems Research, 17(2), 126144.Google Scholar
Susha, I., Rukanova, B., Ramon Gil-Garcia, J., Tan, Y.-H. and Hernandez, M. G. (2019). Identifying mechanisms for achieving voluntary data sharing in cross-sector partnerships for public good. Presented at the ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.Google Scholar
Tsiavos, P. and Whitley, E. A. (2010). Open sourcing regulation: The development of the creative commons licences as a form of commons based peer production. In Bourcier, D., Casanovas, P., Rosnay, M. D. and Maracke, C. (eds), Intelligent Multimedia: Managing Creative Works in a Digital World. Florence, Italy: European Press Academic Publishing, pp. 89114.Google Scholar
Turnbull, B. H. and Marks, D. S. (2000). Technical protection measures: The intersection of technology, law and commercial licenses. European Intellectual Property Review, 22(5), 198213.Google Scholar
Verhulst, S. G., Young, A., Zahuranec, A. J., Aaronson, S. A., Calderon, A. and Gee, M. (2020). The emergence of a third wave of open data. Open Data Policy Lab, https://opendatapolicylab.org/images/odpl/third-wave-of-opendata.pdf.Google Scholar
Vezyridis, P. and Timmons, S. (2017). Understanding the care.data conundrum: New information flows for economic growth. Big Data & Society, 4(1), Article 2053951716688490.Google Scholar
von Krogh, G. and Spaeth, S. (2007). The open source software phenomenon: Characteristics that promote research. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 16(3), 236253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, F. (2018). Understanding the dynamic mechanism of interagency government data sharing. Government Information Quarterly, 35(4), 536546.Google Scholar
Weber, S. (2004). The Success of Open Source. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Welch, E. W., Feeney, M. K. and Park, C. H. (2016). Determinants of data sharing in U.S. city governments. Government Information Quarterly, 33(3), 393403.Google Scholar
Whitley, E. A. (2016). Can data-sharing improve public services? Lessons for Parliament. LSE blog, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/can-data-sharing-improve-public-services-some-lessons-for-parliament/.Google Scholar
Whitley, E. A. (2014a). REF impact case study: Scrapping costly and controversial proposals for identity cards. London School of Economics and Political Science, www.lse.ac.uk/Research/research-impact-case-studies/scrapping-costly-controversial-proposals-identity-cards.Google Scholar
Whitley, E. A. (2014b). The Privacy Impact Assessment undertaken for care.data isn’t clear on what opting out would mean for our data. LSE blog, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-impact-of-privacy-impact-assessments/.Google Scholar
Whitley, E. A. (2009). Informational privacy, consent and the ‘control’ of personal data. Information Security Technical Report, 14(3), 154159.Google Scholar
Whitley, E. A., Martin, A. K. and Hosein, G. (2014). From surveillance-by-design to privacy-by-design: Evolving identity policy in the UK. In Boersma, K., Brakel, R., Fonio, C. and Wagenaar, P. (eds), Histories of State Surveillance in Europe and Beyond. London: Routledge, pp. 205219.Google Scholar
Zhang, J., Dawes, S. S. and Sarkis, J. (2005). Exploring stakeholders’ expectations of the benefits and barriers of e‐government knowledge sharing. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 18(5), 548567.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×