Enhancing Open Government Data Quality: A Quantitative Evaluation Assessment for Cross- Jurisdictional Open Data Programs in Waterloo Region

Abstract

This study builds on the previous research for identifying the current issues and gaps existing for the cross-jurisdictional data quality of the open data programs in the Waterloo region, not only as the governments in the Waterloo region have a unique two-tier municipalities structure, but also how the four municipalities the City of Waterloo, the City of Kitchener, the City of Cambridge and the Region of Waterloo shares one same data portal. The goals of this study are to understand what data quality metrics are important for the quality of open data, and how an evaluation tool can be created to effectively measure the data quality for the open data in the Region of Waterloo. A quantitative approach was used for measuring individual metrics of the data quality dimensions such as completeness, timeliness, metadata, and usability. The results show there are still a lot of improvements that can be made by the lower-tier municipalities on quality assurance, regular maintenance, and updates of data policies. The results also indicated that upper-tier municipalities like the regional government of Waterloo can take the leading role in improving the overall data quality of open data programs by creating open metadata and data standards. Additionally, the results also note the insufficient of both current and previous research and provide suggestions for future studies in similar settings.