 Shaping transparency with open administration data. Jana Palkova will look into the question, how can we shape transparency in a sustainable way and create product out of that, which is a. So, so as Jana created her bachelor major, a bachelor at at University of Applied Science in Aachen. And. And the master and the Berger University at Wuppertal, working as a UX designer and open source projects right now. She worked in digitalization of public administration. But now let's start right now, start with the things. Hi, thank you for the nice introduction and welcome to my talk. As said, I'm coming from the from design and from a user experience design area. But for quite a while now, I'm looking into the topic of open data. And I wrote my master thesis master thesis in public interest design. And today I kind of want to give a summary of my my master's thesis here. So the topic is transparent creating transparency by with open administrative data. So since I've been looking into open data, open government, open source, I've I've looked around the world transparency a lot. And in the context of my thesis, I look into a couple of details here. So the term transparency is used quite often. And right now we are looking at it in the in the societal context with a focus on of transparency of government, administration and government offices, transparency of of citizens. It doesn't play a big role right here or no role at all. Actually, in this talk here. So when it when this is about open data, especially open administration data, citizens typically demand transparency and the institutions offer transparency. Well, sounds good. So they demand this and they get this. Everybody is happy. But in in reality, this might look at us a little bit different. So to participate in an effective way and be able to to have demands to politics, people, citizens need information. Open data can provide this information. But the different thing here, data is not the same as information. Data needs to be processed to generate information from it. And from the publication of administrative data, citizens may hope to get information. Government and administration are supposed to be to get to become transparent by open data, but by open data. Citizens can get an insight into the the the areas of administration about what they're doing. But how does this happen in detail? So how can we shape transparency and how can we create transparency by open data? And one conclusion from my work is that quite quite quite typical transparency is getting promised, but there's no practical way is is is being shown how to actually create this. So let's have a look at the definition first. So transparency can be defined as see through as limpid. It can be defined as comprehensibility. And it can be can be defined as understandability. So to have a better get better idea of this term. So let's let's have let's compare this with the same term as x-ray. So x-rays can make an organism see through. But not everything gets gets transparency there, because otherwise we couldn't recognize anything at x-ray pictures. Just some parts are getting see through getting transparency so we can we can so flesh and skin I get get transparency to get to create visibility for the bones. But so by having so if we have transparency, then processes can be made transparent. So we see hidden things within these processes. And transparency always gives us insights into some organism. So transparency in the area of society and politics. All parties agree by now and all parties demand this by now. And couple of authors right now talk about the era of transparency. So if transparency is created and they hope data is given to the public in our current digital digital society, there are a couple of of challenges. So right now we are in a flood of information, a flood of data from data we need to generate information. And the information needs to be needs to be explained so that we can actually can get this transparency here. And if we don't do that, then transparency is just an empty shell. So here, for example, this is a screenshot from the council information system of of the city of Wuppertal. On this website, a citizen can can see what was talked about and decided in the in the local politics. All session council sessions are listed in a public calendar and all documents related to that people can look at. So the city of Wuppertal want to create transparency there. But can they keep their offer? Well, on the first side, yes, because here information from the administration are published for the citizens. But if you look closer to that, a couple of problems arise. So, for example, the whole thing is is not very not very easy to use to be used here. So who of you could could would understand what all these aberrations to mean? Also, the this website is very difficult to find here. So what can we learn from this example here? So it's not enough to to publish data to get to to obtain transparency content also needs to we need to be able to found citizens need to be able to count data. So there on first site, there could be a simple solution. So data need to be made made wise, made user need to be made user user friendly. And that's all that needs to be done. Well, that's a good first step. What do you need a lot more to really get to to get to transparency in in a sustainable and impactful way? So to get the transparency, we don't need superficial conventional solutions, but we need to dig deeper. Another example. So we can have these small, so-called small questions, small definition for those who don't know what it is. So a team of an initiative asks the state and this website took it upon themselves to publicize the the expertise of the surveys that were created as a response to small questions. The small questions are a tool of parliament where they can get answers to questions. And they had a tool where such a such a survey could be created with just two clicks and more than one hundred thousand one second inquiries were submitted in short in a very short amount of time. So since then, all the results from these of these small questions are and are given access to automatically. So it's called the technical term is minor parliamentary inquiry. And so this became a platform that is not only used by citizens, but also by members of parliament themselves. So it's a real success story of open data. Sounds great. But as you can see, the tool isn't active anymore. Just like similar projects from the community, this website was She has shut down recently. Why? What has led up to this? There are many reasons. And one of the reasons is that volunteering volunteer projects are supposed to behave like professional projects and also financial financialization is quite difficult because also public money is difficult to get in Germany. Though yesterday I saw a talk or the day before about a study of the sovereign tech fund. And maybe that's the first step to improve the situation to also show the situation or the problematic situation in another way. This is a whole process by Wolfgang Soll. This graphics shows the process from the initial collection of data until it's finally used the ideal process and volunteer projects usually never reach a sustainable usage. They usually only reach the stage second usage spontaneous and it's not used long term. They always stay in the prototype stage. And that's also one problem in relation to transparency. So data is there and it's used and provided, but it's not long term. It doesn't become comprehensible and understandable in the long term. It remains a prototype. At the beginning I asked, how can we shape transparency? How can we create transparency using open data? Administrations provide data and by that way try to become more transparent. And in my opinion, the current situation is not what I would hope or what I wish to have about transparency. Just providing data is not enough. Hacket terms and short term financing of startups is not enough. So we need comprehensive bill works and not just prototypes that scratch the surface. So how can we create transparency in the long term using open data? How can we shape transparency? How can we go beyond conventional solutions? I found some some point at Walter Wenssepoot. And so if you really want to if you really want to change a city or want a real struggle, a real filed, then it would require we engaging with things like public planning, for example, or we engaging with government or we engaging with large scale institutional developers. I think that's where the real struggle lies. That we engage with these structures and these institutions. This horrible complex, dark matter. That's where it becomes really interesting. So altogether, this means to create real change. We have to work with the dark matter. And now it gets a bit more complex for a moment. And I hope you can follow me. What's dark matter? Dark matter in this context is just a metaphor. It's something from physics. Dark matter is very fundamental. It's about 83 percent of all matter in our universe. But we can't directly see it. We can just guess how important it is for our existence. And similarly, we can say that dark matter is also some symbol for invisibility. And Wenssepoot also connects dark matter with public administration and government. Citizens do not know what happens in administrations. So administrations are like dark matter. And we need to work with it with this dark matter to to create change. And this work can be a first step for a strategy of change. So dark matter is not visible, but it's a fundamental stepping stone for change. So another word, system. Now we enter system theory after bookart. Systems after bookart consist of visible and invisible parts. The visible parts of a system can be products. The invisible part are connections between those products. Designing products can by designing products, the invisible part of a system can be manipulated. And this idea of system is connected to the idea of dark matter in my work. I consider administration as dark matter and we try to shape it. So the dark matter part of a system can be fundamental for how it works. And here's the difference to conventional solution ideas. So they don't consider all these parts of a system connected to transparency. It means to shape transparency effectively. We have to work with the invisible, the dark matter to really change something with all the data to make things visible and to connect it with citizens. We really need to work with it on a deeper level with the systems of administrations and political systems. So an example by bookart again, I have the goal to cut an onion efficiently. And I have the idea to build a machine for cutting onions. And this machine is great. It's one minute faster than cutting an onion by hand. But it needs 10 minutes for clean up. Obviously, the solving the problem would be to create a machine to clean the cutting machine. But we are just solving one problem after the other in this conventional approach. So then I would need a cleaning machine for the cleaning machine. Another idea would be to change the system. The solution could be a kitchen or the system of a kitchen that enables or encourages guests with helping with the cutting of the onion. It's of course a simple example, but it shows the difference between the conventional method and a new thinking of systems. So instead of the conventional idea or way of accessing a problem, I can use the system. And so I have first to work with the invisible, with the dark matter. For example, the dark matter of public institutions. How can we change such systems? For this, we need to ask the question of the why again and again, not just how. Like that, we can work and we can attack the problem at the root. Let's go back to the example, the small inquiries or the minor inquiries. There is a weakness in the system of administration and they attacked it by sending in a lot of inquiries. The accessibility of all small minor inquiries could be achieved. And so by now until today, all minor inquiries are provided without having to have a lot of work with it. For example, we can reach a lot of we can provide money with this. Let's draw some conclusion out of that. So how can we shape transparency? So the main core of my master thesis is looking at two tasks on how to shape transparency. And I want to present to them. The first one is shape visibility. What does it mean? So first of all, open data in the sense of visualized data, readable data, making data interpretable and readable. So data must become information. And some data for some data, this needs a bit more work, like budget data, other needs less. Like the reparts from the inquiries. So we can either look at the open data, but we can also look at the system that provides this data. So the organization structures behind the data can be made visible and transparent and created. And to obtain a good visibility, the data need to be target group oriented. So the correlation here is the making the data available alone and the information visible alone isn't enough. So the content needs to be made understandable and searchable. So next one, shape products. So again, let's have a look at the Council Information System from Wuppertal City. Let's call this a product for now. So with product, information can be brought to the customers. By this, we can create a brand and a place, for example, a website that a citizen could remember when they are looking for specific information. Products can contain the specific features that made obtaining the information easier to use. So to get from the first prototypes to a sustainable used products, we need to do an analysis of the invisible systems around the product. But in this case, it's less. This is the dark matter here is well, this is about more of the context in which the product is being used. So to be able to scale these apps, so we need an intensive analysis of the environment of the product. So with the systems around that product. So finally, we also need to shape the systems. So as described, dark matter can be influenced, for example, by finding the right levers in the existing systems. And to identify such levers, we need to really look in detail into this dark matter. So for that, we always need to ask the question, why? Not only the question, how? So that systems cannot only influence impacted in a disruptive way, but they can also be shaped proactively. For example, directly from the public institutions. So, for example, the processes to publish open data can be improved. If you look into the think processes from the perspective of the users. So together with the administration, we can find ways on shaping the offering the open data that it can be used by citizens in a better way, in an easier way. So with new products, we can also create new systems and we identify the right levels. We can either by new or by existing structures, we can impact a change. So we can get at the root how we can look at data and information. So to come to the conclusion, transparency gets demanded by citizens and is promised by public institutions without them giving a an actual way on how to provide that one. So and the existing approaches are not enough to create to get sustainable and long term projects from the prototypes. But we don't have but we can we can do we can do better than that. So how can we shape transparency and how can we create transparency with open data? So by by looking behind the systems, by by looking deeply into those, we can create we can use open data to create better visibility, understandability and comprehensibility of of data. We can create better open data products and we can really get to the root of the systems looking from them from other perspectives and look at the big problems that that prevents us from from getting to our goals. So in today's today, we are in an era of transparency with lots of challenges with that in a well in a world of larger and large amounts of data. We need to look into this in a clever way to get an overview of everything and to really explain our contents. So this presentation, I try to show away on the how the promise of transparency can really brought into a product. And of course, that's just a theoretical approach here. And many questions are still open here. So on whether this really can be done in practice, well, we have to see in this area of in this this topic, a topical area of transparency and open administrative data, there are still lots of challenges there. So let's see which projects and which ideas on on this on looking into the state meta could actually create being great here. Yeah, it didn't take as much time. So there is time for questions. I think thank you, Jana, for the talk. Yeah, we have one question so far for more please use Twitter. Per Twitter, at war stage or via Macedon at R3S at chaos.social or in the IC and the channels hashtag R3S or RC3R3S as on a scene on screen. So first question. The talk focuses on a society or uses a perspective of society and design. Where is the technology in there? How can, for example, designers and programmers work together to reach those goals? Well, as mentioned before, I am coming from a design perspective. And design means for me, not just making it pretty. And I hope that came through in the talk. But also thinking deeper in the structures and changing how you think and also using problem solving strategies and using those on social problems. And in over time, I made some interesting observations. There is a lot of that already going on with programmers. They have amazing projects and we see a lot of that in on the Congress, of course, during Congress, and that's fascinating. It's great. But I also see at some certain points that this project's crash. And I can see where they crash and that's when they are not cooperating well with design and programming. So my observation programmers think, yeah, I can do that. Technology works and I create the website and put it out there. And that's it. But in the end, it's not as usable or you can't find it because the design is neglected. So the user focused thinking. Or also marketing because also open source needs some form of marketing or PR work, so people can find it. And on the other side, I see my environment, the design is, they also have great ideas and really want to do things. But they are not technically competent enough, especially for digital projects. And I would really wish and I'm trying to work on that myself to bring people together and create synergies. Because if we can create overlaps together, we can do more. Yeah, especially in the field of open data. Yeah, that was my focus for the talk. Yeah, also going to the open data. Yeah, also I think you made it very clear that it's about system design and understanding things and being able to use it in clever ways. But also the importance of UI and UX design together with technical capabilities of people and on Congress, there's a lot of that, of course. OK, further questions. Are administrations even far enough to before to offer transparency via open governments? Aren't we a step further behind before we can publish data? They have to be in existence digitally. I think we are in a good way. There are some open data platforms already. Some communities have that. Some states have that. I don't have the numbers in my head, but and there is much room for improvement. But I think we are in a lower three digit number of communities that provide open data from the administration. I think around a thousand communities are in Germany. So there is room for improvement. But more and more focus comes on this and more and more communities do this on their own and more communities in cities do that as well. And I see a lot of improvement and I talk to a lot of administers and the will is there. But sometimes their structures are in their own way. So a lot has to happen. But a lot already has happened. Yeah, Wuppertal, the city already has a portal, for example. And if I hear what they're doing, it doesn't sound bad. There are some nice examples here in the chat. I'm the court. I'm the author of an open source weather app. It uses open data of the German weather service. The technical side is well documented by them and they help answer questions. And the data is very dependable. So then the link. Then there is a communal politician who said the administers and digitizing them will be more difficult than digitizing the data or the data collection. Yeah, maybe the first one first, it was more of a commentary. I'm very, very happy that you have a nice project. Sounds great. I'll check it out. So yeah, there are good examples. So the talk was maybe painting with a too narrow brush. So maybe it was a bit too focused. But I think the direction is as described. So there are more problems than nice examples. Yeah, also sustainability, I think, is very difficult. This project that is created by enthusiasts how can we make that sustainable to keep it open? I think that's an important question. Yeah, maybe the second one now. So the administers, the administrators, the workers there, I would probably agree. It isn't very simple. And I see it in my professional work life as well, where I have to work with certain people. It's not simple, it's not easy, but it's a challenge that we have to face. And without them we, well, it's not possible. So I believe it gets easier and I am optimistic for the future. We have to be patient and endure, but I think it's going to be great. Yeah, and a great UX can help, of course, to make it accessible. Yeah, definitely. In administration, they often forget about that. Unfortunately, they just think of the technology and, yeah, it looks okay, but everyone spits into the design. Well, many cooks ruin the... But yeah, but then it fails. We need more designers in all projects, administration and software. That's underestimated, yeah, also in companies. Next question. How does copyright hinder open data? Data is not public because it's not public. Open data is not public because administration does not buy out the copyright for it. Well, I can't really comment on that. Well, it's also more of a comment. Definitely a challenge, but I think there are also other spots where there are data, it is just provided and could be published, but that just doesn't happen because they don't have the competencies, they don't have the time, they don't have the resources. And yeah, it just didn't start. And then a very emotional comment. The talk angers the person. You probably have your reasons to be politically correct, but I find it heavy that the reason that the demand of this date to be transparent becomes the problem of volunteers. Yeah, I can understand that. I didn't really talk about that a lot because it wasn't the core of my work. It's connected to the point, who is responsible? Is it the community or administration? And I think it's difficult. Who is responsible? And in the end, I would say both sides have to work together, have to become active. And this cooperation is, I think, the key because administration on its own doesn't manage, not alone, from there with their history, with their structures, also missing competencies. But of course, it's not just, it can't just be the job of the community because of the problems I already mentioned. So that also isn't fair in many ways. If something that important, like transparency, is just done by individual people and communities. So administration has to work definitely. And also money has to be involved. What do you say about judicial administration? There are two big portals for court cases that lawyers and similar people are depending on. What could we do about that? Unfortunately, I don't know about any of them. So I can't really say. What do you, in your everyday work, to bring people together? Well, for one, I'm active in the project data. That's an open data initiative in Wuppertal. We start a lot of projects. I can't mention anything concrete right now. Anything specific? Anything specific? But yeah, I try to develop that in that direction professionally to find synergies. But right now I'm on other projects. OK, thank you. How do you start talking to offices to get help and freeing data or to find out what data is available at all? Well, ask them nicely. I don't have much experience myself. In Wuppertal, we have a very good connection to the city administration and to people there. And they are at the source of open data, of course. First contact wasn't done by me. But yeah, just be nice. Write them an email, phone them. You probably need a lot of patience, but yeah. Seek communication. Yeah, and the web page Fragt in Start asked the state, probably. I don't know a specific website or source. But yeah, there are instructions by people who did that already. Probably also talks. Just just Google it a bit. Yeah, there are instructions and how tos and tutorials and tips. And yeah, from my side, Fragt in Start, German for ask the state, they will help you. What can you suggest for a community? How to publish data? Are there systems? How did Wuppertal do it technically? Consult, maybe. Did they create something themselves? So consult is probably a software solution. I can't really say how they did it in Wuppertal. I'm not deep enough in the topic. As far as I know, there is no standard as of now. Well, no, nothing obligatory at least. I think the development, I don't know. It's dangerous, half-knowledge. Yeah, but I think that's a good stop point because that was the last question. I think it became obvious that you are not a very technical person. And so yeah, you would like help by technical people and contact with more volunteers. So yeah, use the contact options that are on screen right now. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jana. Hopefully that can help finding new creative ways to free up data and that in a sustainable way. And thank you for your attention as well. It was nice being here. And also thank you very much from your translation booth.