Dealing with open data: measuring the performance of public higher education institutions using open government data

Abstract

This chapter discusses the Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives that have sprung up around the world to make public data available to everyone for free, without limiting restrictions. This public sector information is a primary material for OGD reuse in the development of value-added products. Despite the potential, public administration has not assumed itself to be a stakeholder in the value creation process, only taking responsibility and commitment to make data available, leaving virtually unexplored the use of OGD as performance indicators in a data-driven management approach. The chapter is based on two parts. First the method of using open data in government is presented, Second, an example on using open data in the Brazilian setting is suggested of reusing open data to measure the performance of public higher education institutions. In doing so, it uses government open data portals and exemplifies using it as the best practice tool for public higher education institutions (PHEIs). Preliminary results indicate that open data reuse can be successfully employed to measure performance as well as benchmarking exercises using a user-friendly way of visualization. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the future direction of research in this study, in particular, the potential for using open data in the composition of a multidimensional assessment system.