Toward a Conceptual Model for Users' Online Open Government Data Interaction

ABSTRACTThe rapid development of open government data and the increasing attention on data use/reuse have stimulated many studies on data-related issues. The extant studies show that even though OGD portals have been rapidly developed in this age of data, there are still various challenges when users interact with data. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to identify the contextualized user challenges, understand user behaviors when interacting with OGD, and ultimately, propose solutions that can assist users in using OGD. Furthermore, aiming to ameliorate the issues that data is hard to find and to be understood, a mixed-method design will be employed, including a transaction log analysis, a content analysis, and semistructured interviews. Also, the research sites accessed are two local-level OGD portals: OpenDataPhilly and Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center. Local-level portals are closely connected with local communities and neighborhoods, which have a direct impact on a citizen's daily life. The results of this dissertation are expected to contribute to the fields of Human Information/Data Interaction, Human Computer Interaction and OGD Use.