The acceleration of open data practices in Ukraine
Publication Date/Time
2022-04-07T08:20:35+00:00
Country
Europe, Ukraine
The case of Ukraine as one of the open data best practices in Europe
The 2021 edition of the Open Data Maturity assessment
[https://data.europa.eu/en/dashboard/2021] has shown peak performances
across all European countries, with the EU27 average maturity score
reaching 81%, i.e., 3 percentage points more than in 2020. Among the
top performers of this edition, Estonia, Slovenia, and Ukraine were
highlighted in the 2022 report “Open Data Best Practices
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/report/Open_Data_Best_Practices_in_Europe_Estonia_Slovenia_and_Ukraine.pdf]:
Estonia, Slovenia & Ukraine”. To explore their impressive growth in
maturity score and encourage knowledge sharing across countries, a
data.europe.eu academy webinar
[https://data.europa.eu/en/academy/open-data-best-practices-and-monitoring-use-cases]
was recently organised. Although the Ukrainian open data team was not
able to attend the webinar due to the current situation in the
country, their efforts to move towards open data deserve a special
mention on this data story. 

UKRAINE AS AN OPEN DATA TREND-SETTER
Despite being a particularly new member in the Open Data Maturity
assessment, over 2020-2021 Ukraine has realised an exponential growth
in its open data maturity score within these two years. While in 2020
it ranked 17th, in 2021 Ukraine has positioned itself 6th out of 34
participating European countries (Figure 1). 
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/Datastory1.png]
 

UKRAINE’S STRONG PERFORMANCE ACROSS ALL DIMENSION
These results rely on important improvements across all 4 open data
dimensions: policy, impact, portal and quality (Figure 2). 
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/Datastory2.png]
 

_Policy dimension - Increasing transparency through legislation and an
open data strategy__ _

Over the years, Ukraine has taken important POLICY steps to increase
the transparency of government activities, prevent and detect
corruption, as well as develop innovations based on open data.  

In 2015, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the DECREE 835
“On approval of the Regulations on data sets to be published in the
form of open data
[https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/835-2015-%D0%BF]”. This
legislation, which is regularly revised and updated, lies at the
centre of the Ukrainian open data policy.

In 2018 the first open data strategy was adopted and for early 2022
the Ministry of Digital Transformation - responsible for the Ukrainian
open data policy – has planned to publish a new version of the
strategy based on the six principles of the “International Open Data
Charter [https://opendatacharter.net/]”.  

 

_Impact dimension - Understanding and monitoring the reuse of open
data_

While measuring the IMPACT of open data remains very difficult also
for key performers like Ukraine, understanding the level of re-use of
Ukrainian open data has been the key highlight of 2021. 

Firstly, as established by the Decree 835, all public bodies in
Ukraine are obligated to monitor their open data programs, including
the re-use of their own or other public bodies' open data.

Secondly, within the national data portal, the “Diia Open Data
[https://diia.data.gov.ua/]”* (Action Open Data) offers a dedicated
“impact of open data” section on various areas (e.g. ecology,
construction, health etc.), which increases the level of transparency
and knowledge about open data and its benefits.

Finally, to support interested parties in conducting research on the
topic, the Ukrainian open data team has drafted regular guidelines for
both a qualitative and quantitative approach to assessing the impact
of open data. A new economic impact study, based on the
data.europe.eu´s report “The Economic Impact of Open Data:
Opportunities for value creation in Europe
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/the-economic-impact-of-open-data.pdf]”,
was initially planned for March 2022.

 

_Portal dimension - Enriching their data catalogue with user-centric
approach_

With a data catalogue containing more than 42.000 datasets and with
around 5-7 million users´ visits every month, the open data PORTAL of
Ukraine [https://diia.data.gov.ua] performs well across all assessed
categories.  Key to this success is certainly the use-centric
approach used by the Ukrainian open data team. Updates are always
based on user feedback and usage insights gained from user statistics.
For the future of the portal, the challenge remains to overcome
technical incompatibilities of publishers and lack of human resources
that sometimes prevent the publication of all required datasets.

 

_Quality dimension - Working on metadata and data compliance_

Regarding the QUALITY of open data in Ukraine, more than 90% of the
portal’s metadata is compliant with the mandatory and recommended
classes of DCAT-AP. Moreover, all metadata is regularly checked for
accuracy and in case of errors, data providers are notified. Finally,
an extensive analytics module [https://data.gov.ua/pages/analityka] is
in place to control the quality of datasets and its metadata using
interactive visualisations. 

To achieve better open data quality, for 2022 the Ukrainian open data
team has planned to develop new standards for typical and high-value
datasets, while continuing to ensure close communication with data
providers.

 

A SUCCESSFUL STORY DRIVEN BY AN OPEN MIND-SET AND WILLINGNESS TO
COMPLY WITH EU STANDARDS

The successful performance of Ukraine was built in two main steps.

 	* CATCHING UP ON OPEN DATA POLICY BY LOOKING AT BEST PRACTICES IN
EUROPE - Although Ukraine is not an EU Member State and therefore is
not obliged to comply with EU legislation, Ukraine has analysed some
best practices and initiatives from Europe and transposed features
such as the Open Data Directive into their open data strategy. 
 	* BECOMING A TREND-SETTER BY GOING BEYOND THE BENEFITS OF OPEN DATA
- Instead of solely focussing on open data to fight corruption, the
Ukrainian open data team decided between 2020 and 2021 to switch to a
more overarching perspective, targeting a broader set of policy
challenges and involving users across all sectors. 

In a nutshell, after analysing and implementing key learnings drawn
from the experience of other European countries, Ukraine´s change in
mindset and greater attention to the sustainability of open data
activities were essential to accelerate its open data practice. In
particular, putting citizens at the centre of service improvement
represented a decisive move for Ukraine to become one of Europe´s
frontrunners in the promotion and use of open data. 

 

* At the moment of writing the Diia Open Data portal cannot be
accessed 
