EGENIS seminar series: "Using open data to define problems: How residents, policymakers, and engineers approach open government data" Dr Caitlin Donahue Wylie (Virginia University)

Based on participant observation with engineers, policymakers, and residents during the first two years of an open data portal in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, I argue that one fundamental factor is how each group defines a sociotechnical problem. Their mindsets and practices of problem definition direct how they think about and work with open data. Specifically, residents identify problems based on their individual lived experiences in Charlottesville, which they want the open data to illustrate. Government workers perceive problems as community-level issues that require a solution, and they want the open data to inform specific policy decisions. Charlottesville is also home to the University of Virginia, whose engineering professors design research problems that enable the development of innovative technologies worthy of publication and funding. For example, they want the open data to justify the need for their research about “smart” cities, such as transforming Charlottesville into a testbed for experiments with autonomous vehicles. Thus, I suggest that understanding how users conceptualize sociotechnical problems should be a first step in designing open data policies and systems.