Assessing and building municipal open data capability

In the past decade, cities around the world have published their open data as a new service. Some have used this service innovatively, as a vehicle to improve service quality, efficiency, accountability, and transparency. While some studies highlight open data success stories, others show a lack of supporting evidence. In either case, cities currently face such challenges as: How can cities and organizations measure their open data capability? How does assessment allow enhancement of open data capability? The purpose of our study is to demonstrate applied open government data evaluation using the theoretical lens of dynamic capability. An assessment based on a framework called Open Data Roadmap (ODR) is performed on Denton, TX, a mid-sized U.S. city. Data is then integrated through a mixed-method analysis involving two publicly available OD models (CODC and Thorsby, respectively) and a crowdsourced resident evaluation, and the results are presented of the effects of this assessment in relation to dynamic capabilities involving a third model (Chong et al. 2018). We conclude that ODR has the potential to assist governments and other organizations in boosting community engagement, introducing innovative services, and presenting OD as one component of their organization’s competitiveness.