September 12, 2021 Hatem

Report : State of the Open Data Ecosystem in Tunisia

cafdo-opendata

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of the second edition of the State of the Open Data Ecosystem in Tunisia 2021 (available in French only). This is new edition released with the support of the CAFDO, and Leaders Nexus, analysed the Open Data Ecosystem in the country through the analysis of nine (9) open data portals.

The methodology also published with the report is based on a score of 100, as follow :

Criteria Description Note
Publication by Default Score out of 20; 0 for no publication and 20 for the max. The score of 20 is only given with a justification of the publication by default of all datasets in the possession of the organization, the lower score is given by referring to the capacity of publication of the data of the organization. 20
Meta Data Availability of metadata for each dataset (1-5) indicating at least: the date of publication, update, frequency of update, description of the dataset, (5-8) and fields used (8-12). Dcat support (-> 15) 15
Open Data License 10 if the open data license exists and compatible, 0 if no license exists, 5 if a non-proprietary license exists but not fully open data compatible. 10
Access to information Information access section indicating the procedures to be followed (5) with form and contact for access to information managers (10). Regular publication of statistics on access to information (-> 15) 15
Impact Reuse of data: availability of examples of applications using the organization’s data (15), organization of events to encourage reuse of data (5) 20
Personal data protection Protection of personal data mentioned (5) and respected in publications (5) 10
Accessibility and ergonomic General note on the ergonomics and accessibility of the site (5) If the site is well indexed in search engines with the most frequently used keywords (5) 10

We have maintained the same criteria as the first edition in 2018, also the report include some comparison between the two editions to see if there is any progress or decline.

Not Surprising Results…

Unfortunately the results are not surprising at all, decline noticed on most open data initiatives in the country. The number one portal received a score of 47/100, not even the average ! Worst, this portal is not even accessible outside the country !

The second surprise is the national open data portal which was not working during the research, and seems to be not maintained anymore since long time find itself in the 8th rank.

Some positive vibes, even with the lack of data, most portals (67%) use an open data license , and publish meta data.

Open data portals in Tunisia

The report is available in 23 pages, with an orientation note of 6 pages including practical recommendations and suggestions to improve not only the portals but also the way we use open data in the country.

 

This report was first published in 2018 analyzing open data portals in Tunisia during 2017. This second edition analyse the state of open data portals during 2020. Having such report on a yearly basis could help creating competition between national open data portals and why not establish collaboration between them.

The new edition include also a section on COVID19, with practical recommendation of datasets to publish. The national COVID19 portal include an open data section, but as a dashboard without having any dataset published. Having datasets available can help civil society and activists getting involved to analyse Covid data and help finding solutions to the pandemic in the country.

Download the report OpenData Ecosystem in Tunisia.

Download the orientation notes.

 

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(HBY) Consultancy