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The 'eGovernance' hype around the potential of mobile phone and geoweb technologies for enhancing 'good governance' is soaring. In East Africa, the extensive use of mobile telephony adds to the imagined promises of ICT. We reflect on the assumptions made by the proponents of such tools, using our own action research project as an example. We took great care to consider context in the development of software for enhancing empowerment and accountability in rural water supply in Tanzania. However, we found that the rural water supply context in Tanzania is much more complex than the contexts for which successful mApps have been developed previously. Institutional analysis and public administration theory help to understand why. Rural water supply shows institutional hybridity, with water being at the same time a private, public and common-pool good. In addition, in accountability relations, many informal mechanisms prevail where explicit reporting is not relevant. Finally, our proposal sat uneasily with other ongoing iGovernment initiatives. We conclude that we need to consider eGovernance tools as political Apps that can be expected to trigger political responses

Linked Data is an innovative approach for publishing heterogeneous data sources on the web. As such, it can transcend the traditional confines of separate databases, as well as the confines of separate institutions. At the same time, businesses and governmental organizations alike are trying to cope with ever-increasing quantities of heterogeneous data that must be used across multiple departments, manufacturing locations, and governmental bodies. Linked Data would, therefore, be a great technological solution for today's organizational problems. However, we observe that a serious gap exists between Linked Data research and business research. While Linked Data research is almost exclusively technologically oriented, the business research literature has not devoted much attention to the use of Linked Data solutions yet. In this paper, we seek to bridge this gap, by introducing a real-world use case where Linked Data technologies are applied in large-scale government settings. We argue in detail that Linked Data provides a major contribution to the business vision of a modern governmental institution based on the experience of the Netherlands' Cadastre Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster), so far, the largest implementation of Linked Data in the governments of the Netherlands.

After more than a decade, the supply-driven approach to publishing public (open) data has resulted in an ever-growing number of data silos. Hundreds of thousands of datasets have been catalogued and can be accessed at data portals at different administrative levels. However, usually, users do not think in terms of datasets when they search for information. Instead, they are interested in information that is most likely scattered across several datasets. In the world of proprietary incompany data, organizations invest heavily in connecting data in knowledge graphs and/or store data in data lakes with the intention of having an integrated view of the data for analysis. With the rise of machine learning, it is a common belief that governments can improve their services, for example, by allowing citizens to get answers related to government information from virtual assistants like Alexa or Siri. To provide high-quality answers, these systems need to be fed with knowledge graphs. In this paper, we share our experience of constructing and using the first open government knowledge graph in the Netherlands. Based on the developed demonstrators, we elaborate on the value of having such a graph and demonstrate its use in the context of improved data browsing, multicriteria analysis for urban planning, and the development of location-aware chat bots.

This book is the culmination of the COST Action CA15212 Citizen Science to Promote Creativity, Scientific Literacy, and Innovation throughout Europe. It represents the final stage of a shared journey taken over the last 4 years. During this relatively short period, our citizen science practices and perspectives have rapidly evolved. In this chapter we discuss what we have learnt about the recent past of citizen science and what we expect and hope for the future.

Editorial – The Science of Citizen Science Evolves -- Chapter 1: What Is Citizen Science? The Challenges of Definition -- Chapter 2: Citizen Science in Europe -- Part I: Citizen Science as Science -- Chapter 3: Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge through Citizen Science -- Chapter 4: Citizen Science in the Natural Sciences -- Chapter 5: Citizen Humanities -- Chapter 6: Citizen Social Science: New and Established Approaches to Participation in Social Research -- Chapter 7: Data Quality in Citizen Science -- Chapter 8: A Conceptual Model for Participants and Activities in Citizen Science Projects -- Chapter 9: Machine Learning in Citizen Science: Promises and Implications -- Chapter 10: Participation and Co-creation in Citizen Science -- Chapter 11: Citizen Science, Health, and Environmental Justice -- Part II: Citizen Science in Society -- Chapter 12: Participants in Citizen Science -- Chapter 13: Inclusiveness and Diversity in Citizen Science -- Chapter 14: Learning in Citizen Science Chapter -- Chapter 15: Citizen Science Case Studies and Their Impacts on Social Innovation -- Chapter 16: Science as a Lever: The Roles and Power of Civil Society Organisations in Citizen Science -- Chapter 17: Citizen Science and Policy -- Chapter 18: Creating Positive Environmental Impact through Citizen Science -- Chapter 19: Ethical Challenges and Dynamic Informed Consent -- Part III: Citizen Science in Practice -- Chapter 20: Finding What You Need: A Guide to Citizen Science Guidelines -- Chapter 21: Citizen Science Platforms -- Chapter 22: Citizen Science in the Digital World of Apps -- Chapter 23: Communication and Dissemination in Citizen Science -- Chapter 24: Evaluation in Citizen Science: The Art of Tracing a Moving Target Part IV: Conclusions / Lessons Learnt -- Chapter 25: The Recent Past and Possible Futures of Citizen Science: Final Remarks. .

This open access book discusses how the involvement of citizens into scientific endeavors is expected to contribute to solve the big challenges of our time, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities within and between societies, and the sustainability turn. The field of citizen science has been growing in recent decades. Many different stakeholders from scientists to citizens and from policy makers to environmental organisations have been involved in its practice. In addition, many scientists also study citizen science as a research approach and as a way for science and society to interact and collaborate. This book provides a representation of the practices as well as scientific and societal outcomes in different disciplines. It reflects the contribution of citizen science to societal development, education, or innovation and provides and overview of the field of actors as well as on tools and guidelines. It serves as an introduction for anyone who wants to get involved in and learn more about the science of citizen science.

Interest in the formal representation of citizen science comes from portals, platforms, and catalogues of citizen science projects; scientists using citizen science data for their research; and funding agencies and governments interested in the impact of citizen science initiatives. Having a common understanding and representation of citizen science projects, their participants, and their outcomes is key to enabling seamless knowledge and data sharing. In this chapter, we provide a conceptual model comprised of the core citizen science concepts with which projects and data can be described in a standardised manner, focusing on the description of the participants and their activities. The conceptual model is the outcome of a working group from the COST Action CA15212 Citizen Science to Promote Creativity, Scientific Literacy, and Innovation throughout Europe, established to improve data standardisation and interoperability in citizen science activities. It utilises past models and contributes to current standardisation efforts, such as the Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) Common Conceptual Model and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. Its design is intended to fulfil the needs of different stakeholders, as illustrated by several case studies which demonstrate the model's applicability.

24 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables ; Interest in the formal representation of citizen science comes from portals, platforms, and catalogues of citizen science projects; scientists using citizen science data for their research; and funding agencies and governments interested in the impact of citizen science initiatives. Having a common understanding and representation of citizen science projects, their participants, and their outcomes is key to enabling seamless knowledge and data sharing. In this chapter, we provide a conceptual model comprised of the core citizen science concepts with which projects and data can be described in a standardised manner, focusing on the description of the participants and their activities. The conceptual model is the outcome of a working group from the COST Action CA15212 Citizen Science to Promote Creativity, Scientific Literacy, and Innovation throughout Europe, established to improve data standardisation and interoperability in citizen science activities. It utilises past models and contributes to current standardisation efforts, such as the Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) Common Conceptual Model and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. Its design is intended to fulfil the needs of different stakeholders, as illustrated by several case studies which demonstrate the model's applicability ; Peer reviewed