Smart rural: the open data gap
Smart rural: the open data gap
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.
open data; rural data; digital divide
Walker, Johanna Catherine
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Thuermer, Gefion
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Simperl, Elena
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Carr, Leslie
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Walker, Johanna Catherine
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Thuermer, Gefion
4d516dd0-840a-4ae0-a3f1-cda3d5614e03
Simperl, Elena
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Carr, Leslie
0572b10e-039d-46c6-bf05-57cce71d3936
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)
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
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.
Text
106_Walker
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 15 September 2020
Venue - Dates:
Data for Policy 2020, Online,, 2020-09-15 - 2020-09-17
Keywords:
open data; rural data; digital divide
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 443866
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/443866
PURE UUID: 6fbe9db3-413b-4152-b827-7f5fdd301a01
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Date deposited: 15 Sep 2020 16:32
Last modified: 18 Feb 2021 17:39
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Contributors
Author:
Johanna Catherine Walker
Author:
Gefion Thuermer
University divisions
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