Gulf Cooperation Council Countries and Urbanisation: Are Open Government Data Portals Helping?

Today, the concepts of the smart city and smart government are well established, and have become key in dealing with the challenges faced by rapidly increasing urbanisation across the world. One of the many ways in which smart cities and government can help meet these challenges is by empowering citizens to take more and better control of their own decisions, by giving them access to open (i.e., public and unrestricted) data via online portals. These portals can enable citizens and professionals to make more informed decisions across a wide variety of areas, from health and traffic issues to developing new businesses. They can also encourage citizens to become more involved in the making of more effective social policy. Open data is increasingly seen as a key enabler in designing and implementing knowledge-based solutions for more sustainable urban development. For these reasons, as well as others, OGD (Open Government Data) portals are already being implemented in many countries. However, if smart cities are to maximise their potential, OGD portals must be understood, accepted and—crucially—used by the public. The extent to which this is the case is not clear, as there have been few studies that have specifically examined the impact of open data in a smart city context. This is particularly true in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries. This research uses a mixed methods (questionnaires and interviews) approach to examine this issue by carrying out a comparative study of the use of portals across the region and, therefore, whether these countries are making optimum use of open data. An existing evaluation framework was used with a group of evaluators representing professional users who are not experienced in using data portals. The findings of the research suggest that these countries are not yet realising the full potential of their portals, and more effective support for the transition to smart cities could be achieved with fuller and better cross-national cooperation.