Open government and innovative education in Italy:

OpenCoesione and OpenCoesione School

Carlo Amati – OpenCoesione Steering Committee

Open Data Youth Camp Croatia (#openyouth) Rovinj, 29 August – 2 September 2015

Adaptation ofOpen government diagram

by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lagereleased under Creative Commons

Attribution terms

“My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”Memorandum on transparency and open government (21.01.2009)

“We are sending a strong signal to administrations today. Your data is worth more if you give it away. So start releasing it now: Taxpayers have already paid for this information, the least we can do is give it back to those who want to use it in new ways that help people and create jobs and growth.”

Open Data Strategy for Europe (12.12.2011)

Open government champions

G8 leaders signed the Open Data Charter on 18 June 2013.The Open Data Charter sets out 5 strategic principles that all G8 members will act on (data published openly by default, quality increase, re-use of data) in order to unlock the economic potential of open data, support innovation and provide greater accountability.

OGP was launched in 2011 to provide an international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. In participating countries, government and civil society are working together to develop and implement ambitious open government reforms.

The new Public Sector Information Directive (17 July 2013)makes accessing public data from any level within the EU:- cheaper (with fees, if anything, set at just marginal costs)- easy to use, with automatic right to re-use- wider in scope (valuable cultural material, from libraries, archives and museums)

Major international initiatives

European Union: strong heterogeneity

© EuroGeographics Association for the administrative boundaries

Europe 2020 index4 EU headline targets (2012)

Source: EU DG Regio, Regional Focus 01/2015100 = meets or exceed all targetsUE Average = 71,4

Italian Constitution (art. 119):“In order to promote economic development and cohesion … the State shall allocate additional resources”.

Cohesion policy aims at reducing disparities GDP per capita Youth unemployment rateIn Italy and in Europe

2007-2013Total ~ 100 bn€ (27 from EU)

900K+ projects and 90K+ bodies All over Italy (although mostly in the South)in many different policy sectorsin order to reduce disparities, attract business and enhance opportunities and the quality of services

EU funds + national cohesion fund

ERDFESF

2014-2020More developed regionsTransition regionsLess developed regions

+ 20 bn€ national cofinancing+ national cohesion fund

~31 bnfrom EU

• Profound awareness within administration of benefits of open data (pre-existing examples)• Political insight on benefits of transparency: not a challenge but an opportunity• Quick responsiveness of administration to political input• A national unitary monitoring system (available since 2007)

A strong drive towards publication of open data, but OpenCoesione is not just following the trend: it is a major communication operation based on transparency that calls for participation by citizens and aims at increasing the effectiveness of cohesion policy.

Enabling factors

Adaptation ofOpen government diagram

by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lagereleased under Creative Commons

Attribution terms

The web portal (as of 31.8.2015)

Open data licence to support re-use

Information about projects undertaken for implementing regional policies:

• description• funding (amount and sources)• locations• thematic areas• public/private subjects involved• deployment timing

100+ variables for each project in open data section (CSV)+ access via API

www.opencoesione.gov.it

Projects and funds (total or subets accoding to user’s queries)Interactive graphsfor immediate distributionof investment and number of projects by nature and policy theme

Interactive tableon investment by nature and policy theme

Direct search of public authorities in charge for programming and other recipients of projectsDirect access to locations through interactive maps and search to discoverthe number of projects undertaken,the amount of overall investments in the place and the list of projects

Top projects listingin home page (most recently completed and largest financially)

Periodical insights and short focuses

What is in the web portal?OpenCoesione homepage

In the footer, available throughout the portal, links to English contents:• Introduction to OpenCoesione• FAQs

Soon bilingual, for now…

Some contents in English

3 years of operation (July 2012-July 2015)

• 3.1 million page views

• 930K sessions

• 740K new visitors

• 4.4% from abroad (BE, UK, DE, US, …) • 2 minutes: average time of the visit

Access to the web portal

Territorial indicators to make connections between projects and the issues they should impact on.

Beyond project data

Short focuses and analyses

Survey on the transparency of lists of beneficiaries of Operational Programmes in Europe

Openness and transparency: a priority in the EUcohesiondata.ec.europa.eu/

www.strukturnifondovi.hr

ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/map/

functions

Indices of openness and transparency of lists of beneficiaries of the 2007-2013 Structural Funds in Europe (source: OpenCoesione)

Adaptation ofOpen government diagram

by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lagereleased under Creative Commons

Attribution terms

Slow pace in implementing cohesion policy Low absorption rates of the fundsUnderstanding whether policy is effective

Availability of open data on public spending is the base to successfully build transparency, increase accountability and overcome a long history of mistrust in many different development projects all around the world.

Why should citizens be involved?

OPEN DATA, DATA JOURNALISM, CIVIC MONITORING AND COHESION POLICY.SINCE 2013 IN ITALIAN HIGH-SCHOOLS.

Partnership with EC Representation in Italy and Europe Direct Information CentresCollaboration with “ASOC Friends” (selected civil society organisations)

www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it

OpenCoesione School: the project

OpenCoesione School (ASOC) is an innovative interdisciplinary educational project aimed at high school students. By working on a storytelling research based on cohesion projects, they experience how cohesion policy affects their own neighbourhoods.

METHOD● Online MOOC with support materials and community● Distance learning for teachers● Territorial networks of experts on cohesion policy thematic areas or transversal issues

OBJECTIVES● Promote the principles of aware citizenship ● Encourage responsible use of ICT, including open data, and social media● Foster civic monitoring of public funding

Raising a new generation of civic awareness

OpenCoesione School in six steps

plan

focus

analyse explore

tell

engage

SCHOOLS

ASSOCIATIONS

~ 80 schools ~ 2000 students Winner teamOpenCoesione School 2014/2015

High school students as civic reporters

Students monitor the time schedule of local trains

Sicily’s regional agency opens up the transport data for all!

Local transportation in Palermo:from citizen monitoring to open data

Readaptation of an old palace

Government

Open Data

Portals

Citizen monitorin

g

Administrative data

Open Data +visualizations

Evidence,Ideas,

suggestions

Media

A paradigm for citizen monitoring

top-down

bottom-up

meso-level

GOVERNMENT

CIVIL SOCIETY

Monithon is an independent initiative for citizen monitoring of cohesion policy projects in Italy based on the open data from OpenCoesione

www.monithon.it

Monithon: Fostering civic monitoring

Moni-thon (from mara-thon and hacka-thon) is a civic monitoring marathon: groups of citizens map out the projects funded by cohesion policy in their town or area, select a theme or another specific feature and they go on the spot to see what the project in really about and check on its implmentation. The evidence is uploaded into a common platform.

Monithon: citizens at work

Managing Authorities

Citizen monitori

ng

Monitoring data

APIs

Citizen Monitoring

Reports

Media

Citizen monitoring oncohesion policy in Italy

The community “Monithon Piemonte” is watching the progress of the renovation of the museum

The Director has met the crew and has implemented some the suggestions receivedNow working on a documentary on the improvements realized through the EU funding

Monitoring the renovation of the Egyptian Museum in Turin

The association “Libera” promotes citizen monitoring of the projects aimed at re-using for social purposes assets confiscated to organised crime

Today ~ 7000 assets

A working group of central and local administrations is active to use the data to design specific actions

Co-decisions on reuse of confiscated assets

Uni-directional Multi-directional(processing feedback)

The authoritytells the story

The citizenstell the story

Selectinggood practices

Solving problemstogether

Publicity Collaboration. Involving local communities

Aggregated facts & figures

Going into the details:Reinforcing trustthrough real openness

A different way of communicating

Open government and open data: where we are now in ItalyFlagship open data projects Other projects

Open Government PartnershipThe final ranking

OpenCoesione – Monithon scores 1. Credibility of partnerships: 24.4/30 (top initiative)2. Evidence of results: 22.0/30 (top initiative)3. Sustainability: 19.9/304. Depth of engagement: 19.2/30

OGP pledge to support other countries on civic engagement Positive evaluation of civil society, positive IRM evaluation

G8 Open Data Charter

Source: Open Data in the G8 – A review of Progress on the G8 Open Data CharterA report published by www2.datainnovation.org/2015-open-data-g8.pdf

Country Total Score OGP membershipUnited Kingdom 90Canada 80United States 80France 65Italy 35Japan 30 NoGermany 25 NoRussia 5 No Weak

Strong

Intermediate

Italy’s score breakdown 1. Open data by default: 10/20 (on average)2. Ensure high quality and quantity of data: 10/20 (on average)3. Make data usable by all: 15/20 (on average)4. Release data for improved governance: 0/20 (poor performance)5. Release data for innovation: 0/20 (poor performance)

Published by

(January 2015)

… a long way to go

Open data and open government …

1987

We know the future of mobile phones… and OG?

You can send text messages of up to 160 characters between mobile phones1987

2015

Web portal, open data and APIs: www.opencoesione.gov.it

Documents and videos: http://opencoesione.gov.it/scopri/

OpenCoesione school project:www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it

Citizen monitoring platform:www.monithon.it

Links to try for yourselves

For updates on OpenCoesioneyou can subscribe to the mailing

list:

www.opencoesione.gov.it/segui

www.opencoesione.gov.it opencoesione@dps.gov.it