AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
make data accessible, but only used it. Other responses also
included contracts, employment, social services and security or
investment. One of the respondents stated that they only made
accessible those data that were legally required by law.
Table 4: Areas of data use and data accession
Data areas
Data use (no. of
replies)
Data accession (no.
of replies)
Maps
19
10
Land
4
1
Statistics
24
19
State budget/budget
13
22
Government
expenditures
9
0
Business register
18
2
Legislation
15
5
Public
transportation
8
2
Business
3
1
Healthcare
2
0
Education
9
4
Crime
2
2
Environment
13
4
Election results
11
11
Public procurement
19
19
Others
9
17
Source: author´s own processing
Applying open data in the process of management, planning, and
decision making is fairly common among active users of open
data. 33.4% of the respondents applied open data in
the management and planning process continuously or very
frequently. In the decision-making process, representation was
slightly lower, 28.9%. In selected areas of management and
planning, open data were used by 35.6% of the companies and
the organizations. Only 17.8% of the respondents never used
open data in the management and planning process. Others, who
know open data, only used them in exceptional cases. In selected
decision-making processes, 37.8% of the respondents used open
data. 17.8% of the decision-makers also stated that open data
never helped them. Only in exceptional cases, 15.5% of
the companies and the organizations used open data in
the decision-making process. Using the Chi-Square Test of
Independence of Variables, it was proven that the companies that
used open data in the management and planning process usually
did so for decision-making (statistical value – 77.976, P-Value –
0.0000). The conclusions are shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Proof of dependence between the use of open data in
the management process and planning and decision- making
YES, we use them constantly
YES, we use them often
YES, we use them in selected areas of management and planning
YES, but only exceptionally
NO, never
Decision-making
YES, we use them constantly
YES, we use them often
YES, we use them in selected areas of decision-making process
YES, but only exceptionally
NO, never
Source: author´s own processing
Three open questions were used in the questionnaire. For
example, in response to the purpose/method of using open data,
these responses were as follows:
for the need of self-government and state administration,
in the performance of public administration,
for the company´s own and public information,
for education,
in the decision-making process,
transparency.
It is clear from the answers that the companies and
the organizations use data primarily to increase transparency and
awareness. They do so to improve processes within the company
and to share data with the public more effectively. However,
there were also replies that the respondents do so for legislative
reasons. These entities publish the data only because the law
imposes it and because they had not revealed their benefits yet.
Another open question confirms the conclusions of the previous
question. Respondents gave the answer to the question of
the open data benefits. The companies and the organizations see
the biggest benefit in transparency and awareness. Open data
provide quick and almost immediate information. Another
repeated response was to simplify the processing of requests for
information under the current legislation. This fact shows that
they publish the data because they are required to do so by one
of the laws. A very frequent answer was that the companies and
the organizations see no benefit in open data. This response
clearly prevailed in the private sector. This may be caused by
insufficient experience with open data. On the other hand,
a positive opinion that open data are crucial for some businesses
and organizations prevailed in the public sector organizations.
The last of the open questions addressed data issues that
the companies and the organizations do not use or cannot use.
The most common answer was that the companies and
the organizations did not know about such data or that such data
did not exist. The fairly common answer was that all the data
they needed and wanted to use were available to them. Other
businesses and organizations would appreciate more accessible
information on public and state administration, public
procurement, timetables, legislation, hazardous waste, labour
offices, education, and crime. Some companies would also like
to use more data from their customers, suppliers, subscribers and
competitors.
At the end of the questionnaire, a question was laid to evaluate
the main obstacles in gaining and the use of open data.
The answers are summarized in Table 5. It shows the number of
answers and the percentage out of 76 respondents who know
open data and chose the given answer. The biggest problem is
that the data are not regularly updated. Another obstacle can be
seen in public and online data availability. A positive fact is that
the least number of responses were given to the question of
whether data is not in the required quality and format. This
suggests that the companies and the organizations learn to
publish data in a better form than just scanned documents, as is
often the case today. Among other responses, for example, there
appeared the view that an obstacle to open data is the general
awareness of the possibility of their use and public awareness.
The problem is also the lack of opening data anchoring in
the valid legislation. At present, opening data is mostly
a voluntary matter. However, there were also respondents who
did not know any obstacles in obtaining or using the necessary
open data or they were not aware of it.
Table 5:
Obstacles in gaining and using the necessary open data
Answers
No. of
answers
% of answers by
respondents who know
open data
Data do not exist
11
14.5 %
Data are not in
an electronic form
18
23.7 %
Data are not
publicly accessible
27
35.5 %
Data are not
available online
24
31.6 %
Data are not current
and regularly
updated
31
40.8 %
Data are not
consistent
15
19.7 %
Data are not in
a required quality
10
13.2 %
Data do not have
10
13.2 %
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