Collaborative measurement of data opening policy in China’s municipal government data management system: Taking a regional central city as an example

In the current era of big data, the exponential increase in the volume of social data has exerted a significant influence on the government and all sectors of society, with the opening of government data becoming an irresistible trend. In this paper, several regional central cities are selected as the representatives of municipal governments to analyze the characteristics and weaknesses of their data-opening policies from various perspectives including policy effectiveness, policy tools, and policy targets. This is of reference significance for the municipal governments of an individual country in the formulation of data opening policies. To be specific, with 2015–2021 as the timeline, based on the six regions of the country, the central cities of each region are selected as representatives of municipal cities, and the text coding of 85 data opening policies implemented in regional central cities are performed. On this basis, a “policy tool-policy targets-policy effectiveness” collaborative measurement model is constructed through the policy tool theory, and the co-evolution analysis of the relevant policies is conducted. The research results are as follows. Firstly, there is a positive correlation between the total policy effectiveness and its quantity, indicating that the number of data-opening policies plays a positive role to a certain extent. However, the average effectiveness shows no significant increase, indicating the inadequate specificity of each policy. Secondly, the degree of synergy between policy tools fluctuates periodically, indicating that the government is constantly trying new methods, with more importance attached to the synergy between government capacity cultivation and positive incentive tools. Thirdly, policy targets continue to show new connotations over time, and there has been new progress made in the coordination between the other three objectives driven by data opening. However, it is imperative to enhance the synergy between the objectives of building a smart city and improving the services related to livelihood. Finally, some targeted suggestions are put forward on how to further improve the data opening policy implemented by municipal governments from three perspectives.