Providing society with free and accessible information becomes a fundamental value during times of global crises. The primary purpose of disclosing government data is to encourage citizens to reuse it, to give them the tool to create and develop public goods so that the commercial sector can competitively offer innovative products. This is necessary to form an environment of active civic criticism. Anyone with technical skills could create a socially useful service with their hands. For several years now, the statistical departments of states and international organizations, particularly the European Union, have published statistical reports and bulletins and posted on their websites all the statistics they have accumulated in a reusable form – special formats for the so-called machine processing.
During the pandemic, sources of information and data on the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19 have become a precious resource that is used in their activities not only by citizens but also by the media, NGOs, government agencies (Dwivedi 15). Data is collected both by official research communities and statistical services and informal groups of activists. The following requirements are imposed on the information: relevance – regular updates; correctness – data must be collected from trusted official sources or verified by activists of significant communities, such as Open Data Science.
Data on COVID-19 is classified as sensitive since the forecasting scenarios of the epidemiological situation cause a public outcry. Therefore, the analysis of these data requires accuracy. The results’ interpretation involves several assumptions since the following features are initially inherent in different types of data. First, the fragmentation of sources and data formats is essential. The lack of a single spreadsheet, which everyone fills out following a single methodology, and which would easily make it possible to compare cases of infection and death around the world. 16 Second, there is a large difference between prevention and control measures against coronavirus and their disparity across countries and cities, which affects the data and general knowledge of how many people became infected with COVID-19.
Work Cited
Dwivedi, Yogesh K., et al. “Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Information Management Research and Practice: Transforming Education, Work and Life.” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 55, 2020, pp. 1-25.