Taiwan has advanced from 11th place last year to world No. 1 in the 2015 Open Data Index released today by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN). This report represents international affirmation for Taiwan's open data policies over the past year, said Executive Yuan Spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun.
The foundation surveyed 122 countries and territories and ranked each according to their performance in 13 datasets. This year, Taiwan made significant improvements in the areas of Government Budget, National Statistics, Legislation, Election Results, National Map, Pollutant Emissions, Company Register and Government Spending. In National Statistics (including gross domestic product and population information), for instance, Taiwan skyrocketed from No. 60 last year to No. 1 this year. The nation also leapt from No. 22 to first place in Government Budget, but slipped in Location Datasets. For the new datasets added this year, Taiwan placed among the top seven in Procurement Tenders, Weather Forecast and Water Quality, but showed room for improvement in Land Ownership.
The OKFN was established in the U.K. in 2004 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting all forms of open knowledge, particularly government data and public content. The Open Data Index was first published by the OKFN in 2013 to measure the state of open government data around the world and to survey the types and quality of data released by each country.