Walker, Johanna Catherine, Thuermer, Gefion, Simperl, Elena and Carr, Leslie (2020) Smart rural: the open data gap. Data for Policy 2020, Online,. 15 - 17 Sep 2020. 5 pp . (In Press)
Abstract
The smart city paradigm has underpinned a great deal of the use and production of open data for the benefit of policy makers and citizens. This paper posits that this further enhances the existing urban rural divide. It investigates the availability and use of rural open data along two parameters: pertaining to rural populations, and to key parts of the rural economy (agriculture, fisheries and forestry). It explores the relationship between key statistics of national / rural economies and rural open data; and the use and users of rural open data where it is available. It finds that although countries with more rural populations are not necessarily earlier in their Open Data Maturity journey, there is still a lack of institutionalisation of open data in rural areas; that there is an apparent gap between the importance of agriculture to a country’s GDP and the amount of agricultural data published openly; and lastly, that the smart city paradigm cannot simply be transferred to the rural setting. It suggests instead the adoption of the emerging ‘smart region’ paradigm as that most likely to support the specific data needs of rural areas.
More information
Identifiers
Catalogue record
Export record
Contributors
University divisions
- Current Faculties > Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economic Social and Political Science > Politics and International Relations > Centre for Democratic Futures
School of Economic Social and Political Science > Politics and International Relations > Centre for Democratic Futures - Current Faculties > Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > School of Electronics and Computer Science
School of Electronics and Computer Science - Current Faculties > Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > School of Electronics and Computer Science > Web and Internet Science
School of Electronics and Computer Science > Web and Internet Science - Current Faculties > Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > Web Science Institute > DTC Web Science
Web Science Institute > DTC Web Science
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.