The Data Sharing Economy and Open Governance of Big Data as Public Good

Data-driven markets depend on access to data as a resource for products and services. Since the quality of information that can be drawn from data increases with the available amount and quality of the data, businesses involved in the data economy have a great interest in accessing data from other market players and sharing data with other stakeholders. Despite the growing need for access to data and evidence of the economic and social benefits, data access and sharing remains below its potential. Individuals, businesses, and governments often face barriers to data access, which may be compounded by the reluctance to share, including within and across sectors. To address these challenges, this paper focuses on finding possible solutions for a better data-sharing economy. This paper 1) Discusses opportunities and challenges of open data and the data-sharing economy, limitations of private sector data, and issues with open government data. 2) Introduces open government data initiatives and open governance networks initiatives. 3) Suggests possible solutions, including the governance and management, the legal and policy frameworks, and the technical standards for open data with proposing an open data governance model for the data-sharing economy.