Affiliations: [a] School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity
College, Dublin 2, Ireland | Faculty of Business Administration, Information
Systems Department, Université Laval, PQ, Canada | Fundacion Universidad de las Americas Puebla, Business
School, Santa Catarina Martir, San Andres Cholula, Puebla, Mexico | Graduate School of Management, Clark University,
Worcester, MA, USA
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Frank Bannister, School of Computer
Science and Statistics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel.: +353 1 896
2186; Fax: +353 1 677 0711; E-mail: Frank.Bannister@tcd.ie
Abstract: The pressure for governments to release much of the vast reservoir
of data that they collectively hold continues to grow. This pressure is
grounded not just in principles such as the right of the public to know or
freedom of information, but in beliefs about the economic, social,
administrative and political benefits that will flow from the wide availability
of such data. However it is also acknowledged that there is a considerable gap
between such expectations and current realities one component of which is the
many barriers to open data release. This paper examines these barriers from the
perspective of senior managers in Irish central and local government. A
taxonomy of such barriers is proposed and compared with other classifications
of barriers in the literature. The paper concludes with some reflections on the
implications for the opening up of government data.
Keywords: Open data, barriers, transparency, local government, central government
