PSI Re-use Business

Topics in this theme include:

  • The role of European Associations in raising awareness of PSI re-use market potential and stimulating activity: possibilities for a Pan-European forum on PSI-re-use.
  • Factors underlying demand for and creation pan-European products.
  • Inter-sector learning and analysis: what makes some sectors more successful in PSI re-use business and what lessons can be transferred? What business models work?
  • Effective training, knowledge transfer and support mechanisms for entrepreneurs, role of organisations such as Chambers of Commerce.

Content in this Theme

Title Published Type

Data Visualisation Weekend

Pairing developers and designers for “imaginative use of open data sources” (10 -11 April 2010)

11/03/2010 News

Free Our Data: celebrates 4th Birthday!

UK Guardian Newspaper Technology Free Our Data campaign enters its fifth year

11/03/2010 News

Feedback on NZGOAL

Google comments on NZGOAL (NZ Government Open Access and Licensing framework)

10/03/2010 News

APPSI responds to Ordnance Survey consultation

APPSI’s response to the CLG consultation on Policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey: published

09/03/2010 News

OKF publishes newsletter 14

The Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter number 14 published

09/03/2010 News

Value of Geoinformation 2010

GeoValue Hamburg 2010: Call for extended abstracts

09/03/2010 News

State of the Map 2010

The 4th Annual International OpenStreetMap Conference: Call for papers published

09/03/2010 News

We have only just started!

Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide

09/03/2010 News

Poland: Exclusive Arrangement Questionnaire

Cities on the Internet Studying the potential of Polish PSI re-use Exclusive Arrangements

08/03/2010 News

‘Poland is Open’ Conference Discusses PSI Re-use

konferencja “Polska otwarta”

08/03/2010 News

Identifying PSI re-use value chains

Christopher Corbin

Sunday 07 March 2010

Number of Comments: 0

Determining the economic indicators that could be used to measure the economic activity from the re-use of public sector information is but one part of the process of preparing to undertake regular economic measurements. To undertake a measurement one needs to identify the value chain that is the subject of the intended measurement. The economic studies undertaken over the past decade have adopted the cascade approach as a way of establishing the value chain that may exist. An alternative approach is that which the European Commission intends to adopt when the Commission initiates regular economic measurements at three monthly intervals commencing in the September to October 2010 timeframe.

The approach the European Commission has adopted is to use a sampling technique whereby a subset of any particular value-chain is pre-established prior to commissioning an organisation (via an open competitive competition) to undertake regular periodic economic measurements. The European Commission led PSI Group has formed a number of economic indicator subgroups. One of the tasks these subgroups have been set is to determine the sample value-chain that relates specifically to an information sector. That is to identify the various bodies on both the supply (public sector) and the demand (the re-users) sides of the value-chain. Once the bodies in the value-chain have been identified the next task is to seek approval from each body in the chain that they are willing to participate in the periodic measurements. That is the organisation will provide information when the economic measurement is undertaken. The information to be provided will be for a small number of indicators chosen by the Commission but based on recommendations from the PSI Group.

Determining the entire length of the value chain requires an appreciation of the type of information involved and the information flows between organisations within the value chain. For example Business Registers (Company Registration information). It is for this reason that the Commission has established five subgroups each of which is handling one thematic category of public sector information. As a result the membership of each subgroup comprises of stakeholders that have knowledge pertaining to the particular information sector that the subgroup is responsible for.

One’s first thoughts when constructing the value-chain maybe that the main difficulty is determining the demand side of the value chain. In particular the organisations adding value after the first organisation down stream of the public sector information holder that added value. This is based on the premise that the value chain starts from one public sector body. This is the simplest approach to developing the value chain but in reality the value chain even on the supply side maybe far more complex. On the demand side the value chain also includes service providers that provide services to the bodies that are adding value to the information as the information passes along the value-chain. For example legal services, language translation services.

The number of public sector information holders is numerically large and these public sector bodies are distributed across different levels of government from the local level right though to the Member State level. In some European Member States the public sector information may flow across four or more levels of government. One consequence of this is that depending on the category of information there maybe within the public sector a value-chain that exists as each public sector body undertakes its assigned public task. In the process each public body in the value-chain adds value by adding further data to that passed to it by an upstream public sector body. From the public sector information re-use perspective the data can be obtained from each of the public bodies within the value-chain on the public sector (supply) side of the overall value chain. A further complexity is that each European Member State has a different organisational structure. As a consequence this will also likely to impact the value-chain. This then raises the question as to how many value-chains to measure in order to take into account these Member State differences.

One of the value-chains to be constructed by the PSI Group subgroups is that related to Address Information. In this context the work of the European Union eContentplus funded project European Address Infrastructure (EURADIN) is of interest. The EURADIN report titled: Business Model: Social and Economic Benefits, considers 5 value-chains related to address information:

  1. The Navigation and Location Based Services value-chain (Section 7.4.1, page 34)
  2. The E-Commerce value-chain (Section 7.5.1, page 46)
  3. The Geomarketing value-chain (Section 7.6.1, page 49)
  4. The Delivery Logistic value-chain (Section 7.7.1, page 51)
  5. The Telecommunications value-chain (Section 7.8.1, page 53)

The report indicates that even within an information sector various value-chains are likely to exist.

In considering the value-chain related to the re-use of public sector information it becomes apparent that this is a complex area to understand and measure. It is not surprising that the techniques for measuring economic activity with respect to the re-use of public sector information are still evolving.

Views on the above and other questions and concerns related to measurement of PSI re-use economic activity would be very welcome.

If your organisation would like to participate in the regular measurement then please contact the European Commission's facilitator for this activity by email. The resources expended by participating once every three months are considered to be minimal.

07/03/2010 Weblog

France: Exclusive Arrangement questionnaires

serdaLAB, le laboratoire du Groupe Serda gagne un contrat avec la Commission européenne

06/03/2010 News

ASEDIE: Impact on Business Registers

The Asociación Multisectorial de la Información publishes response to SME Accounting Directives

06/03/2010 News

Offentliga data som plattform för utveckling av nya tjänster

Registration Open: Swedish Seminar ‘How PSI can be re-used’ - for individuals, businesses and civil society (26 March 2010)

05/03/2010 News

le rapport Riester: Amélioration de la relation numérique à l’usager (February 2010)

French Government Commissioned Report on Improving Digital Relations for the User

05/03/2010 Report

APIE Announcement: le rapport Riester

Améliorer la relation numérique entre les administrations et les usagers: le rapport Riester

05/03/2010 News
05/03/2010 News

Substitute Map data advances!

UKMAP good for Land Registry

05/03/2010 News

A Digital Agenda for Europe

Europe 2020: Commission proposes new economic strategy in Europe

04/03/2010 News

Finnish Guide to Open Government Data

Participate in the Making of the Guidebook

04/03/2010 News

EU Legal Framework and Public Sector Spatial Data

Summary Report: Thesis examining the criteria for applying the directives on access to environmental information, the PSI directive and the INSPIRE directive to public sector spatial data within the EU legal framework

04/03/2010 News

Experience the Danish ODIS Conference now on one Video application

Få præsenteret video og slides fra ODIS konferencen i en applikation

03/03/2010 News

Summary Report: Thesis on EU legal framework for the availability of public sector spatial data (March 2010)

Thesis examining the criteria for applying the directive on access to environmental information, the PSI directive and the INSPIRE directive

03/03/2010 Report

En marcha: Desafío AbreDatos 2010

Spanish Open Data Challenge 2010

02/03/2010 News

Finding the keys to government data

Bergen seminar on open government data brought together journalists, academics, civil servants and business innovators

02/03/2010 News

PSI re-use value chains: Sensitivity to the Public task

Christopher Corbin

Sunday 28 February 2010

Number of Comments: 0

Over the past decade a number of economic studies related to public sector information have been undertaken. Some studies have adopted a top down approach, others a bottom up approach and yet others a thematic approach. A number of the studies have also included comparisons with Countries outside of Europe. The European Union (EU) by its nature embraces 27 Member States and such comparisons are inherent when assessing the economic activity at the pan European level from the re-use of public sector information.

The information published by Eurostat demonstrates that the economies of the Member States within the Union vary. Other variations exist across Member States such as for example:

  • The structure of the public sector;
  • The public task of public sector information holders;
  • Whether the information is held centrally by one public sector body or is held across a range of public sector bodies;
  • The degree to which the public sector information is held electronically.

The question then arises as to whether these variations have an impact on the value added chain related to the re-use of public sector information? If the answer to this question is YES then is there a need to take this into consideration when establishing economic measurement indicators?

An interesting example of comparing value chains has been published in the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research under the heading Value of Geographic Information in November 2009. Assessing Geographic Information Enhancement, by Bastiaan van Loenen and Jaap Zevenbergen of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The paper develops a methodology for considering value adding within a value chain. The objective is to improve the understanding of the conclusions reached from economic studies undertaken on the re-use of public sector information especially when the studies have made comparisons across different jurisdictions. The methodology developed is then applied through a number of case studies that compare the value chain in three EU Member States with that in the USA.

One of the cases studies considered in the paper was that of the value chain related to Cadastral parcels the results of which are shown diagrammatically in Figures 7, 8 and 9 in the paper. The case studies show the difference between European Member States value chains with those of the value chains in the USA. In Europe the public sector Cadastral Institutes have undertaken many of the value added processes before the data becomes available for re-use where as in the USA these value added processes are provided by the private sector. In other words the data becomes available for re-use far earlier than it does in Europe. As a result one would then expect to see higher value adding processors in the value chain in Europe as the lower value adding processes have been undertaken by the public sector itself. The paper also refers to European Union activities such as the European Union Land Information Service (EULIS), which potentially enables a value chain comparison to be made between the Federal level of the USA with the European Union level.

The results of the Delft University research paper would indicate that there is a difference in the public task of each of the public sector bodies included in the case study. As a consequence this has an impact on the analysis of the results of economic measurements especially when making comparisons across different jurisdictions. The study would suggest that there maybe a need when determining the economic measurement indicators to take such variations into account. The variations may have different impacts for each thematic category of public sector information.

Views on the above and other questions and concerns related to measurement of PSI re-use economic activity would be very welcome.

If you would like to participate in round table public discussions on the PSI re-use value chains at the public meeting that will be held on the 8th June 2010 in Madrid then please contact the meeting co-ordinators (Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio, Spain (MITC) or ePSIplatform).

28/02/2010 Weblog

Free Our Data responds on Ordnance Survey

UK Guardian campaign – Free Our data has published in full their response to the Ordnance Survey consultation

26/02/2010 News

Measuring PSI acquisition costs

Christopher Corbin

Friday 26 February 2010

Number of Comments: 0

The PIRA report published almost ten years ago (October 2000) explained a number of the issues faced when undertaking the economic study that involved measuring the economic activity from the re-use of public sector information. The report then went onto explain that in the absence of hard financial information economic studies fall back to estimation techniques and that this was not unusual and cited the national statistical agencies as an example.

One of the measures that the PIRA report used was that of the transaction cost related to obtaining the public sector information. The elements of the transaction cost may include amongst others:

  • The time spent finding the information;
  • The time spent on the Internet;
  • The time spent determining whether the information met the re-users needs;
  • If the information was that sought then the time establishing the conditions under which the information maybe re-used; and
  • If the information was not free of financial charge then what was the price of the information?

The European Directive that came into effect in all Member States of the Union on the 1st July 2005 was structured to address many of these issues such that the time would be minimised. The MEPSIR economic study tested in part the compliance with the PSI re-use framework using a similar sample of public sector bodies in each Member State at the time the Directive came into force in Member States back in 2005.

If the PSI re-use framework has been implemented as intended and this is coupled with the increasing amount of public sector information held electronically together with the advances made in technology and its deployment then one would expect to observe an increase in economic activity three years later! Regrettably the MICUS economic study undertaken in 2008 did not show that there had been as yet any significant change.

An interesting example of measuring the transaction costs in 2009 has been published in the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research under the heading Value of Geographic Information in December 2009. Reference research paper titled: Methodology for Measuring the Demand Geoinformation transaction Costs: based on experiment in Berlin, Vienna and Zurich by Alenka Krek of the University of Hamburg. The paper details how the transaction cost is measured and undertakes three similar transactions in Berlin, Vienna and Zurich. The paper has published the three transaction costs together with a breakdown of the components of the cost. The total transactions costs have been reported as:

  • Berlin costs €1,195.52
  • Vienna costs €657.97
  • Zurich costs €29,831.31

Although the research paper makes no reference to the EU PSI re-use framework as set down by Directive 2003/98/EC one would have expected that compliance with the Directive would have in part reduced these costs, which remain high.

Perhaps the reason why the studies undertaken to date have not shown any material change is in part due to the transaction costs as cited above. As a result only large companies maybe have the financial strength to re-use large amounts of public sector information.

From the studies undertaken to date and the research paper it is apparent that measuring the transaction cost is time consuming and as such may not be suitable when undertaking regular measurements of economic activity arising from the re-use of public sector information as now envisaged by the European Commission.

26/02/2010 Weblog

Iceland considers European Addresses!

The materials from the Icelandic EURADIN meeting have been published

25/02/2010 News

PSI re-use value chains: Sensitivity to the Public task

Send your comments, ideas and questions on the measurement of PSI economic activity

25/02/2010 News
25/02/2010 News

Measuring PSI acquisition costs

What do you think: are acquisition costs a good indicator for measuring economic activity from re-using open data?

25/02/2010 News

Towards a set of PSI re-use economic indicators

Christopher Corbin

Thursday 25 February 2010

Number of Comments: 1

If one wishes to regularly measure the economic activity related to the re-use of public sector information there is a need to identify a set of economic indicators that can be utilised when undertaking economic measurements. So what indicators could be used?

One approach could be to consider the economic indicators that have been used in economic studies that have been already undertaken and published at the pan European and Member State levels. The task would involve reviewing each study in turn to record the economic indicators used and then to collate the individual set of indicators identified to establish a combined list of the economic indicators which in turn would provide a frequency of use. The process could then be repeated by reviewing further economic studies that cover specific jurisdictions as well as economic studies within particular public sector information domains. The process could be repeated until it is clear that there is a set of economic indicators that are regularly used irrespective of the jurisdiction or the thematic information sector measured. As a result of the process it becomes self evident after several iterations that to continue the process of reviewing economic studies is not materially changing the set of indicators that have already been identified.

If one considers that the re-use of public sector information is a new developing economic activity then it is possible that the indicators used in past economic studies may not be applicable today. As such the set of indicators derived from reviewing past studies may not be useful for measuring the economic activity today or over the short term horizon of 18 to 24 months. Why would this be the case? There may be a range of reasons for this that will include amongst others for example the:

  • Changes brought about from the implementation and compliance with the European Union PSI re-use framework;
  • Impact of other European Union Directives and frameworks that are applicable to public sector information. For example the INSPIRE Directive;
  • Impact of technological advances; and
  • Quantity of public sector information that is held electronically.
  • With this in mind the potential list of economic indicators would need to be assessed and tested in order to establish whether each economic indicator is suitable in today’s environment and for regular measurement of economic activity arising from the re-use of public sector information.

The process described above is that which the European Commission PSI Group’s Economic indicator work group has adopted. The first two iterations of reviewing past published economic studies and research papers in one particular thematic sector have been completed. The first iteration reviewed six economic studies – three at the pan European level and three at Member State level. The second iteration reviewed nine research papers from the geographic information sector. Further iterations are in process. The process so far has identified over 25 indicators of which only six have been used in three or more of the studies or research papers reviewed. The six indicators identified ranked in the order of use include:

  1. Number of staff employed (6 occurrences)
  2. The Organisations financial turnover (5 occurrences)
  3. The data supply income (4 occurrences)
  4. The number of licences (4 occurrences)
  5. The total income (3 occurrences)
  6. The PSI procurement cost (3 occurrences)

The list already raises a number of questions for which answers are now being sought:

  • Are there indictors missing that one would expect to be regularly used in measuring economic activity related to the re-use of PSI?
  • How robust are the indicators listed to change?
  • How easy will it be to use each indicator in regular measurements?
  • Are the indicators applicable to the supply side or the demand side or both in the value-chain?

Views on the above and other questions and concerns related to measurement of PSI re-use economic activity would be very welcome.

If you would like to participate in round table public discussions on the PSI re-use indicators at the public meeting that will be held on the 8th June 2010 in Madrid then please contact the meeting co-ordinators (Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio, Spain (MITC) or ePSIplatform).

25/02/2010 Weblog

PSI Alliance Conference 2010 Speakers

Professor Nigel Shadbolt in Brussels for PSI Alliance Conference

24/02/2010 News

Measuring Economic PSI Re-use activity

Christopher Corbin

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Number of Comments: 0

The European Commission has over the past decade commissioned at least three economic studies that have measured the economic activity from the re-use of public sector information (PSI) within the Europe namely: the PIRA, MEPSIR, and the MICUS studies. Each of these studies have employed to varying extents the cascade methodology supported by a questionnaire. The process slowly builds up the actual value added chain (separate bodies in the value chain that add value to the PSI) for each PSI holder incorporated within the study.

The cascade methodology first asks the PSI holder about their down stream PSI re-use customers. The identified customers are then asked about their down stream customers hence the term cascade. The PSI re-users immediately down stream of the PSI holder are also asked about how cost effective they have found the upstream PSI holder from whom they have obtained the PSI that they re-use. The methodology also involves either face-to-face interviews or telephone interviews to gather information.

Overall the cascade process is expensive and time consuming especially if the study embraces all PSI thematic sectors and 31 Member States of the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). This then raises the question as to whether an alternative method could be deployed that could be run swiftly on a periodic basis – for example at six monthly intervals?

The European Commission put this proposal to the PSI Group working group on PSI indicators during November 2009. To meet the requirement the working group agreed to test the economic measurement of five thematic PSI re-use value chains. Each of the five value added chains would involve a small number of public and private sector bodies across a small number of Member States in order to make the measurements manageable. The results of these tests will be presented at the public meeting that will be held in Madrid on the 8th June 2010.

The five value chains chosen were:

  1. Cadastral Information
  2. Case Law information
  3. Company information
  4. Postcode Information
  5. Weather Observation Information

The working groups are now seeking EU Member State based organisations that would be willing to share their information and to participate in the test runs of the economic indicators that could be used in regular measurements of these value chains at six monthly intervals commencing from the summer of 2010.

If you would like to participate then please contact the European Commission's facilitator for this activity by email.

23/02/2010 Weblog

APIE Reports on EC PSI Group’s Economic Indicators Work

Commission européenne - Actualité du PSI Group

23/02/2010 News

Datakilder.no

Initiative Opening up Norwegian Government Data Sources

21/02/2010 News

Digital Experts call for French State Lab to Develop Services from Government Data

Créer une plateforme d’innovatio n de services « Etat Lab » permettant aux acteurs tiers de développer des services innovants à partir de données publiques

21/02/2010 News

Towards a set of PSI re-use economic indicators

Your comments and ideas about which indicators?

21/02/2010 News

5th Anniversary of the PSI Re-use framework

Christopher Corbin

Saturday 20 February 2010

Number of Comments: 0

The 1st July 2010 will be the 5th anniversary of the implementation of the European Union Directive 2003/98/EC in Member States. (The Directive of the 17th November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information (PSI)) The recitals in the Directive state that the objective is to stimulate economic activity within the Union and that this is likely to be further stimulated by technological developments over time. (Reference: recitals 3 and 5). The recitals mention growth in jobs (people employed) in the digital content sector and a growth of Small and Medium sized enterprises - two potential economic indicators!

The European Union Committee of the Regions during the February 2010 Plenary Session adopted a global response (The Opinion) to the European Commission’s Communication published in May 2009 that reviewed the implementation of the Directive. The Opinion confirms the objective of the Directive and points out that it is essential to determine a way of measuring the economic value of the information in an objective manner. (Reference: Clause 14) The Opinion has in effect backed the Commission's action plan announced in the May 2009 Communication to undertake further economic studies and regular measurements of economic activity over the period up to the 1st July 2012.

However the Opinion also pointed out that in order to develop the market in PSI re-use it was important to implement policies that apply licensing and charging models to facilitate and maximise the re-use of PSI (notably through the application of marginal costs) (Reference: Clause 12). The Opinion at the same time welcomes the Directive's objective to minimise the administrative overhead placed on public bodies by the availability of the information. The Opinion thus hints at the way that the PSI re-use framework should be implemented such that these two requirements can both be met. Translating this into practice requires Member State PSI policies and public sector bodies to adopt:

  • Non transactional licences recognised globally; (the use of Creative Commons type licensing so no burden in generating, describing and entering into licences with other parties)
  • No financial charges (so no burden of collection of the financial charges);
  • The information to be available online and electronic; (no prior communication with the public sector body so no burden – a move towards data.gov type services)

The above-mentioned implementation methods at the same time remove the economic indicators that have been used traditionally in economic studies and measurements. There is little point in implementing the minimised overhead framework only to then start to implement economic activity meters to support economic measurement. As a result the determination of the economic activity has become a challenge in itself!

Over the past five years a number of Member States have made good progress towards implementing the minimum overhead framework and this is likely to accelerate over the period running up to the 1st July 2012.

The Opinion also stresses regarding the principle of a competitive PSI market that it is essential to ensure that private service providers face the same conditions as public institutions, to enable access to public data by private users. (Reference: Clause 13). To comply with this requirement means that Member States must adopt PSI policies that do not permit their public sector information holders to act commercially or if they do that they ensure that the public bodies that do act commercially are physically separated from the public task activity. From the economic measurement perspective a clear separation supports the measurement of economic activity from PSI re-use as the public sector commercial activities can be grouped with other economic actors that are engaged in PSI re-use or benefit indirectly from PSI re-use services. If there is no separation then this gives rise to a further challenge when undertaking measurements of economic activity. Economic studies over the past five years have been faced with a reluctance of both the public and private actors to release financial information related to PSI re-use.

The PSI re-use framework as set down by the Directive supports both commercial and non-commercial re-use. The latter sets yet a further challenge to measuring and estimating the economic value from re-using PSI.

Facing such a challenge then leads to the question: Why bother to undertake such economic measurements? Especially if it is likely to lead to economic estimates that are immediately challenged!

Putting aside human curiosity one reason why economic evidence is required is that those that set and implement policy would like to know whether the policy is meeting the high and lower level objectives or not. Hence the reason that the European Commission supported by the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions wishes to undertake further economic studies and measurements.

The European Commission during the latter half of 2009 has commenced the preliminary steps that are preparing the way for undertaking these measurements and commissioning economic studies. During November 2009 the Commission through the auspices of the PSI Group has commenced work on these preparations.

To support the Commission preparatory actions to collect further economic evidence a public meeting will be held in Madrid on the 8th June 2010. The objective of the meeting is to bring together those that have an interest in measuring economic activity to consider economic indicators. The desired outcome from the meeting is to agree a small number of indicators that can be used at regular intervals to determine the trend in economic activity related to PSI re-use. Further more whether the indicators need to vary depending on the thematic domain of the information (or sector) or there can be one set of indictors that can be used across all thematic domains?

If you wish to actively take part in proposing and justifying such indicators at the meeting then please contact the European Public Sector Information Platform meeting co-ordinator as soon as possible as the program for the June meeting is now under formation.

  1. What indicators would you use if you were set the task of measuring the economic activity from PSI-re-use?
  2. Would the indicators that you have chosen be sustainable overtime? Or pose the question another way could the indicators that you have selected be used at six monthly intervals over the five-year period from 1st July 2010 to 1st July 2015 without change?
  3. Are the indicators that you have chosen applicable to only one thematic information domain or all information domains?
  4. In your opinion has the PSI re-use framework in its first five years stimulated economic activity? If so what is the evidence that supports your opinion?
20/02/2010 Weblog