End of Commitment Report – Establishment of a “data school”

Name of Evaluator

Sabine Gabriel-Stahl

Email

[email protected]

Member Name

Detmold, Germany

Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... Title

Action plan – Detmold, Germany, 2022 – 2025

CommitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action...

Establishment of a “data school” as an educational offer on open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... and data use with the help of regional educational partners

Title

Establishment of a “data school”

1.1 What was the overall level of progress in the commitment implementation at the time of this assessment?

not started

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

As part of the commitment, preliminary talks were held with the Detmold-Lemgo adult educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ... center. It turned out that although the topic could be included in the program by the VHS as the main adult education provider, the interests of the participants are currently more focused on more specific topics such as work and IT in general, environment, society, and culture. It seemed premature to include the topic of open data and the use of data as a separate educational offer. At the same time, a survey of interest was carried out in schools, which led to rather moderate success and many inquiries because the topic of data literacy was perceived by the majority as too abstract for classroom use.

For reasons of personnel capacity, the commitment was not pursued further.

1.2 Describe the main external or internal factors that impacted implementation of this commitment and how they were addressed (or not).

At the beginning of the commitment, there was initially a lack of a clear vision as to whether and which data the city of Detmold itself wanted to publish as open data. The challenges in Commitments 1 (“Open interfaces and open standards for transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More in urban sustainability data”) and 2 (“Sustainability data as open data”) regarding the clarity of existing data and the creation of a data strategy had a negative impact on the commitment “Establishment of a data school”.

The next step is therefore to address the completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More of data mapping and the creation of a data strategy. Based on this, training courses can be designed and offered. However, it remains to be determined whether these should be on the scale of a data school or rather be created as individual offers in adult education and as teaching concepts for schools.

1.3 Was the commitment implemented as originally planned?

The commitment implemented was completely different from the plan

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Apart from preliminary talks on setting up the partner network, no further activities have taken place.

2.1.1. – Did the government disclose more information; improve the quality of the information (new or existing); improve the value of the information; improve the channels to disclose or request information or improve accessibility to information?

Not Applicable

2.1.2. – Did the government create new opportunities to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation inform or influence decisions; improve existing channels or spaces to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation/ inform or influence decisions; create or improve capabilities in the government or the public aimed to improve how the government seeks feedback from citizens/enables participation/ or allows for the public to inform or influence decisions?

Not Applicable

2.1.3 Did the government create or improve channels, opportunities or capabilities to hold officials answerable to their actions?

Not Applicable

2.1.4 Other Results

Not Applicable

2.2 Did the commitment address the public policy problem that it intended to address as described in the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

It has been confirmed that there is hardly any data literacy in urban society as a whole. Although a certain awareness of data protection issues has developed to date, this has been achieved primarily through the implementation of the European General Data Protection RegulationGovernment reformers are developing regulations that enshrine values of transparency, participation, and accountability in government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or reforming ... (GDPR) into national law.

Positive, activating, and business-enhancing approaches to data use and data analysis remain expert knowledge and are often not easily available to civil society. There is still a need for action here at a low-threshold level, which is why the approach pursued to easily available and visualizable sustainability and climate data has been confirmed.

3. Provide at least one lesson or reflection relating to the implementation of this commitment. It can be the identification of key barriers to implementation, an unexpected help/hindrance, recommendations for future commitments, or if the commitment should be taken forward to the next action plan.

Data literacy can only be successfully communicated in urban society if the city itself pursues a clear strategy and vision for dealing with data and makes open data available itself according to a flexible concept.

These basic requirements still need to be fulfilled to a large extent in the city of Detmold. The introduction of an urban data platform planned by 2026, in which city and externally collected data will flow together, will play a key role. Based on this, it will be possible to visualize and ultimately communicate use cases for data usage. Only afterwards can this commitment be meaningfully pursued further.