Sharing government-owned data with the public: a cross-country analysis of open data practice in the Middle East

Since 2009, open government policies, open data, and social media use in government have been actively promoted by democratic governments around the world to promote the goals of government transparency, citizen engagement, and collaboration. To date, however, there is a lack of empirical research into open government practice. This knowledge gap has managerial and public policy implications for democratic governments and, importantly, for the governments in the Middle East in which explosive growth has occurred in the number of users of the Internet and social media. This research attempts to reduce this gap by examining the maturity level in open data implementation across the governments in the Middle East. In this research the maturity level was measured using the eight principles for open government data implementation practice proposed by the 2007 Open Data Working Group. The key findings from website survey analysis on open data practices and plausible reasons are discussed.