About the Open Data Index
<em>About the Open Data Index</em>

The last few years has seen an explosion of activity around open data and especially open government data. Following initiatives like data.gov and data.gov.uk, numerous local, regional and national bodies have started open government data initiatives and created open data portals (from a handful three years ago there are now nearly 400 open data portals worldwide).

But simply putting a few spreadsheets online under an open license is obviously not enough. Doing open government data well depends on releasing key datasets in the right way.

Moreover, with the proliferation of sites it has become increasingly hard to track what is happening: which countries, or municipalities, are actually releasing open data and which aren&rsquo;t? Which countries are releasing data that matters? Which countries are releasing data in the right way and in a timely way?

The Global Open Data Index was created to answer these sorts of questions, providing an up-to-date and reliable guide to the state of global open data for policy-makers, researchers, journalists, activists and citizens.

The first initiative of its kind, the Global Open Data Index is regularly updated and provides the most comprehensive snapshot available of the global state of open data. The Index is underpinned by a detailed annual survey of the state of open data run by Open Knowledge in collaboration with open data experts and communities around the world.
