Civic Switchboard Guide
  • Introduction
  • About
  • Context and Concepts
    • An incredibly condensed look at the development of open civic data in the United States
    • Ways of thinking about data: Open data, civic data
    • Defining a data intermediary
    • Where do libraries fit in?
    • Selected Resources
  • Engaging Partners
    • Building libraries into civic data partnerships
    • Finding partners in your ecosystem
    • Common barriers to getting started
    • Selected Resources
  • Understanding Your Ecosystem
    • Mapping your Ecosystem
    • Measuring Health and Capacity
    • Understanding Community Data Needs
    • Selected Resources
  • Library Roles
    • Connecting data users
    • Connecting data producers
    • Showing the importance of civic data
    • Developing civic data literacy
    • Advocating for ethical, responsible, and accessible civic data
    • Making civic data more usable
    • Providing expertise on data management
    • Creating civic data
    • Using civic data
    • Publishing civic data
    • Archiving civic data
    • Increasing the library's capacity to do all of the above
    • Selected Resources
  • Maintaining Momentum
    • Finding resources to support civic data work
    • Support networks and communities of practice
    • Institutionalizing
    • Selected Resources
  • Case Studies 2019
    • Alaska State Library, Juneau, AK
    • Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, Charlotte, NC
    • Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX
    • Pioneer Library System, Ontario County, NY
    • Providence Public Library, Providence, RI
    • Queens Public Library, Queens, NY
    • Robert L. Bogomolny Library at the University of Baltimore, MD
    • Saint Paul Public Library, St. Paul, MN
    • Western New York Library Resources Council, Western NY
  • Case Studies 2020
    • The School of Library and Information Sciences Library at NCCU, Durham, NC
    • The University of Chicago Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship, Chicago, IL
    • Indianapolis Public Library, Indianapolis, IN
    • Spokane Public Library, Spokane, WA
    • St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, IN
  • Additional Resources
    • Civic Switchboard Workshop Materials
    • Open Data
    • Data Literacies
    • Partnerships and Community-Building
    • Library Roles in Civic Data Ecosystems
    • Guidelines for Creating Open Educational Resources
    • Archiving and Preservation of Civic and Government Data
    • Glossary
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  1. Understanding Your Ecosystem

Selected Resources

PreviousUnderstanding Community Data NeedsNextLibrary Roles

Last updated 4 years ago

On this page, we've selected and described some resources that we think are relevant to the "Understanding Your Ecosystem" section.

Donker, Frederika Well and Bastiaan van Loenen. "How to Assess the Success of the Open Data Ecosystem?" International Journal of Digital Earth 10, no. 3 (2017): 284-306.

Donker and van Loenen review existing frameworks for assessing the health and efficacy of open data initiatives and identify a need to capture greater data user feedback through assessment. They offer a "holistic open data assessment framework" that examines data supply ("the way in which data are provided as open data"), data governance ("the way in which government aspects are organised") and user characteristics ("the way in which the user characteristics enable the user to innovate with open data") (p. 288).

Malinsky, Eli and Chad Lubelsky. "Network Evaluation: Cultivating Healthy Networks for Social Change." Toronto: Centre for Social Innovation.

Malinsky and Lubelsky define networks as "systems of relatively autonomous actors that are working in concern to achieve shared goals or pursuing individual goals within a shared system" (p. 8). Their text offers strategies for evaluating the performance and success of networks.

The Open Data Barometer.

A project of the World Wide Web Foundation, the Open Data Barometer assesses the "prevalence and impact of open data initiatives around the world," ranking national governments on the implementation and effects of their programs.

Open Data Institute (UK). "Mapping Data Ecosystems." March 23, 2018.

This resource offers guidance on mapping an ecosystem in a workshop setting or by oneself or with a small number of colleagues. It identifies common players in a data ecosystems, provides prompts for creating a map, and highlights examples of data ecosystem maps.

Arena, Olivia and Crystal Li. Guide to Civic Tech & Data Ecosystem Mapping. June 2018.

This guide is the product of an initiative by the Civic Tech and Data Collaborative (CTDC) in which seven local communities used ecosystem mapping to identify their local existing data networks and roles. The resource "provides guidance and examples from these cities on the value of mapping, key questions when getting started, different methods to collect the data, and how to use and analyze ecosystem maps to strengthen community relationships."

https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2016.1224938
http://socialinnovation.ca/sites/socialinnovation.ca/files/NetworkEvaluation_Pocket_english.pdf
https://opendatabarometer.org
https://theodi.org/article/mapping-data-ecosystems/
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/98649/guide_to_civic_tech_and_data_ecosystem_mapping.pdf