Open data are currently a “hot” topic and are linked to greater openness and transparency in a country. Nowadays governments around the world are posting their datasets on online portals so they can become accessible from anyone. These online portals provide information from areas such as: health, transport, education, environment, politics etc. The rapid development of open data portals makes it necessary to evaluate their accessibility and ease of use. One of the biggest challenges that Open Data Portals face when being evaluated, is delivering a better user experience. Based on what other authors have said in relation to this, these portals still do not provide a good support for non-technical users resulting in an unpleasant experience for them.        Aims: This paper aims to discover problems that users come across when they navigate in a specific open data portal in terms of the feelings and emotions they receive from it. A number of evaluations found within related literature are discussed and then an assessment framework is developed to evaluate the user experience of Open Data Portals. Methodology: Based on the research question, an interpretive paradigm and a qualitative approach have been used to conduct the study. Interviews, observations and questionnaires represent the methods for data collection. An inductive content analysis is applied for the analysis of the qualitative data.  Empirical findings: After interviewing 2 technical users and observing or sending questionnaires to 11 students, 5 dimensions are recognized as having an influence on the experience that a user get when navigating an Open Data Portal. They include: Quality of Data, Accessibility, Interactivity, Complexity and Trust.  Conclusions: The study showed that people encounter difficulties on performing specific tasks because of the lack of support. The data has to be updated and modified to provide quality and accuracy. Improvements are requisite in user engagement and privacy issues. Further research is needed to be done for the application of the proposed framework in a specific Open Data Portal.

There is currently an effort within the European Union and Sweden to make data produced by government agencies available for reuse to citizens and organizations. While Sweden has had a long history of sharing information with its citizens the country is currently behind its northern neighboring countries when it comes to publishing government data openly. In this study, the author seeks to find if there are types of governmental agencies whose work makes it easier or harder to make it available for reuse. This was done in two phases; in the first phase, the author identified overrepresented and underrepresented agency types on Sweden’s open data portal. In the second phase, the author interviewed two agencies from an overrepresented agency type and two agencies from an underrepresented agency type, to learn what has enabled the overrepresented agencies and what has prevented the underrepresented agencies to publish data openly. The results show that agencies that have sensitive data, in general, had a harder time publishing their data openly than those which did not. The agencies that were underrepresented on the Swedish data portal also had decentralized data generation methods and ways of storage that negatively impacted their ability to publish data openly. What enabled the overrepresented agencies to publish data, beyond having a low amount of sensitive data was the tangible benefits of publishing data openly and the organizational willingness that came with these benefits.

With a constant increase of the datasphere so does the need for proper management of this data in order to minimise potential inefficiencies when it comes to the usage of this data. Geodata is no exception to the need of management.  The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the current challenges of geodata management in Swedish companies and public authorities through qualitative analysis by interviews. Geodata- and GIS-users from the public and private sector made up the pool of interviewees and a total of 20 interviews were conducted. Despite a large diversity of daily tasks at hand, from data transfer for a customer in a system change process to updating attributes in NIS tools, all of the interviewees had some degree of challenges with respect to management of geodata. The results showed that the main challenges regarded inadequate or lack of quality geodata and its metadata as well as clarity of the location of these datasets. Scarcity of common understanding of geodata and GIS-systems among colleagues of geodata- and GIS-users causes these colleagues to often deliver incorrect, poorly formatted or low quality geodata and metadata. A large number of geodata file formats also contributes to confusion amongst geodata- and GIS-users and non-users which directly and indirectly causes some inefficiency. It was determined that the challenges of geodata management are highly abundant in the Swedish public and private sector. Furthermore, it was evaluated that the possible solutions would be to simplify geodata with less file formats as well as better and more clear coordination at organisational levels. Educating non-geodata and GIS-users in the workforce as well as in higher educational institutions that have majors related to geodata was also suggested as a possible solution to minimise challenges.