Building communities around open data use

It can be difficult for new data publishers to know where to look for data users, or to start building their own communities of practice around the data they publish.

The ODI’s work with organisations which collect, maintain and publish data openly has taught us the importance of good community engagement. Often people who are working towards addressing socially important issues are working collectively, which means that data publishers need to understand how communities of users are formed and how those users work together, in order to effectively support them, and data users need to know where to find others who are working towards similar goals.

As part of our work in supporting user-centric data publishing, we have undertaken research to better understand the characteristics of different open data user communities. We have started mapping out the landscape of existing communities, to help data publishers and users find communities that align with their individual goals.