A comparison of open data policies and their implementation in two Dutch ministries

Abstract

Opening up public data is stimulated and guided by open data policies. In Europe policies at the European, national, ministerial and local level exist. Although plans of the Dutch government are in the making, the Netherlands is still lacking a clear and detailed national open data policy. Furthermore, most of the existing international directives for open public data policies are general by nature. Hence, there may be large differences among open data policies. Up to now there is limited systematic and structured research conducted on differences of open data policies. In this policy paper, a comparison is made of the open data policies of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Interviews and a review of reports showed that there are differences between the open data policies of the two Dutch ministries with regard to guidelines for opening up data, the type and amount of data that were actually opened up and the way this was done. Gaining more insight into the differences of open data policies may be useful to help formulating open data policies.