Roundtrip feedback in open data portals: analysis of input and output channels

Purpose Open Government Data (OGD) portals aim to enhance accountability and transparency by serving as central access points for all government data at local, regional and national levels. To enhance user engagement with OGD portals, it is essential to optimize feedback mechanisms within these portals. This work aims to analyse the current status of feedback mechanisms as a foundation for their future improvement to strengthen user engagement and to advance in accountability and transparency. Design/methodology/approach This research conceptualizes feedback mechanisms in OGD portals, followed by case studies and extrapolation through the analysis to a wider range of OGD portals by means of an automated detection of input channels, output channels and the connecting flows. Findings The study reveals significant variability in the structure and formality of input and output feedback channels. Feedback mechanisms range from highly informal channels, such as social media, to formal structured channels, such as dedicated feedback forms. Our data analysis identifies three distinct clusters of countries based on the characteristics of feedback mechanisms in their OGD portals. Originality/value While existing research highlights the importance of feedback in OGD portals, it mainly focuses on the flow from users to data publishers through input channels. The novelty of this work lies in examining not only input channels but also the return flow from data publishers to users through output channels.