Creating New Knowledge through Open Data: New Zealand’s Open Data Strategies

This paper provides details of how the New Zealand Government has launched a successful set of strategies to encourage government agencies to make their data open for public and private sector organisations and for individual citizens to reuse to create new knowledge. New Zealand recently was ranked 4th among 77 countries in the 2013 Global Open Data Barometer, released in London by the World Wide Web Foundation and Open Data Institute. Other countries can learn from the New Zealand example. Through a discussion of the New Zealand Government's open data strategies and three case studies, this paper illustrates how the Government is capturing, distributing and effectively using its knowledge by breaking down data silos and encouraging the reuse of its open data by public and private sector organisations and individuals. The case studies illustrate how the re-use of the open government data is leading to new knowledge that is generating economic and social benefits for all New Zealanders. The content of this paper will be of value to government agencies, private sector institutions, as well as to the public at large.