Governments are increasingly deploying open data portals and platforms as a technological innovation to empower citizens by providing access to data. Yet, engagement with these portals remains low, suggesting that current approaches may not adequately map the issues surrounding the adoption of these tools. Research on open data has been conducted to overcome the technical and institutional barriers to adopting open data portals and platforms. However, there is a void in the literature about research on the citizens’ motivations that support or inhibit their adoption. This study addresses this gap by drawing on the Self-Concordance Model, a motivational theory that explores the alignment of an individual’s goals and values, to explain citizens’ motivations better. Through an integrative literature review, we conceptualized citizens’ motivational factors, linked them with corresponding barriers, and organized them into a taxonomy that reflects their role across different stages of the adoption process. Our analysis reveals that identified and intrinsic motivations play distinct roles in both pre-adoption and post-adoption phases, suggesting that tailored design strategies targeting these motivations could effectively initiate and sustain citizen engagement. This study advances open data research by connecting motivation and use of motivation theory to map the citizens’ behavioral dynamics underlying their adoption. Our proposed taxonomy provides a foundation for future research into motivation-driven strategies in designing open data portals and platforms’ interventions to increase citizens’ engagement. ... Read more

Gamification may foster citizen relationships with the government but can also result in a disinterest in participation. In the context of digital government, we do not know which game elements specifically contribute to citizen engagement. In this paper, we conduct an integrative study, drawing from existing literature on citizen engagement through gamification. We examined the citizens’ motivation to engage with the government, linked it with game elements explored in the literature, and finally exhibited how these elements could support or inhibit citizens’ motivation. Using self-concordance and civic engagement models, we investigated gamification focusing on individual experiences, both personally and as citizens. The findings of this research show a link of static game elements with external and introjected forms of motivation. In contrast, dynamic game elements seem more aligned with intrinsic and identified motivation. We develop a taxonomy outlining these relationships, enabling further research on game elements and their impact on citizen engagement over time. ... Read more

Despite their pivotal role in promoting transparency, open data portals often struggle to engage citizens, functioning instead as static ‘data graveyards’. While external activities, such as hackathons, can raise awareness, they do not directly cultivate sustained engagement within the portals. One promising approach to leverage citizens’ engagement motivation is the integration of game elements to transform passive data access into interactive gamified experiences. However, despite its potential, there is limited research on gamified citizens’ motivation to engage with open data portals. This paper examines how static and dynamic game elements are implemented across 31 open data portals. Lastly, we use the Self-Concordance Model to discuss the alignment between motivation, personal values, and game elements. Our findings reveal that most portals incorporate ‘discovery’ elements into their dataset-searching features, subtly gamifying exploration. Additionally, portals emphasising external activities, such as hackathons and events, often lack integrated social features, suggesting a trade-off between external engagement and sustained in-portal interaction. These findings challenge the assumption that open data engagement relies primarily on external initiatives, emphasising in-portal gamification instead. This study provides recommendations for policymakers to engage with users within open data portals. ... Read more

Open data holds the potential for public understanding of social issues. In recent years, open data hackathons have emerged as an approach to address social issues with open data. However, hackathons focus on technical solutions and are only suitable for involving an expert audience. There is a need for an approach enabling non-experts to participate to collectively explore social issues with open data. In this research, we developed a game jam approach for beginners. The participants collectively design a video game, and in doing so they articulate social issues. To evaluate the approach, we conducted a series of three game jams, and tested them through non-participant observation, pre and posttest surveys, and analysis of the games produced by participants. We found that the use of available open datasets was limited. Participants were able to produce minimal but functional game prototypes in which the social issues were present. Participants found it difficult to set up collaborative work around the game engine, which limited social learning. ... Read more

The academic interest in the Open Government Data (OGD) domain has been burgeoning over the years. Conceding that the prime focus of an OGD initiative is its further re-use for value creation and innovation by stakeholders, the present study seeks to underscore the role of HEXACO personality traits on behavioral intention (BI) to adopt and use OGD in developing countries' context. We investigate the direct, indirect, and moderating effects of HEXACO personality traits provide a better understanding of how and to what extent personality traits influence future behavioral intention to use OGD. The results demonstrate that Trust and Performance Expectancy are positive predictors of BI to adopt and use OGD. Users with higher Openness to Experience tend to have higher Effort and Performance Expectancy; are characterized by exposure to Social Influence; have higher level of Trust and positive experience of Facilitating Conditions and Information Quality. Agreeable people are more likely to Voluntarily Use OGD. Conscientiousness enhances the individual's perception of OGD quality-related factors. Excessive Emotionality affects negative perception to System and Information Quality issues. Honesty–Humility and Extraversion are able to maintain the effect of OGD Information Quality and Trust on users' BI. Our findings could be useful for practitioners to level the divergence between actual and potential use of OGD by considering the user's personality traits. ... Read more

The sanitary emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a push for the adoption of teleworking in both public and private sector. In the Brazilian Federal Government, such effort was supported by a national program named Management and Performance Program - PGD (Programa de Gestão e Desempenho). The PGD enabled the country's federal civil servants from the Executive to work from home and was established with three main pillars. First, it supported new ways of contracting deliverables between management and teams. They allowed work to be monitored remotely instead of the old-fashioned procedure of controlling time sheets. Second, to unleash the possibilities of such contracting, governmental units were pushed to map their main service delivery processes and transform them into tasks that could be rationally distributed to teams. Third, new digital systems registered these agreements and monitored their execution monthly. Based on the case study of the PGD, this policy paper describes the development of the PGD within the Brazilian government and indicates challenges to progress with its implementation. We conclude that the PGD might have created the needed structure for the government to step towards new ways of managing the workforce. This policy paper presented the case study of the PGD, a transformation program within the Brazilian government that enabled remote work in public service in Brazil. The PGD study case was based on documents, websites, articles, and news from the Program's implementation process. Many of the presented discussions are ongoing and aim to support practical and academic discussions on the challenges of implementing government transformation. The PGD is the Brazilian national Program that comprises legislation, digital systems, and management practices improved during the pandemic to enable teleworking in the government. Besides remote work, it can be seen as a driver for setting new work planning and monitoring practices. The PGD demanded innovative digital systems and generated opportunities for strategic changes in the Brazilian public service. ... Read more

Open Government Data (OGD) research has focused for a long on the adoption and usage from the perspectives of users across different contexts. The underlying rationale for this specific focus is that OGD initiatives are undertaken to further citizen engagement with OGD for value generation and innovation purposes. Conceding that usage propensity is different across individuals, it is important to understand the influence of personality traits vis-à-vis OGD adoption and usage. Given that OGD has been regarded as a sophisticated "technology"and the role of personality traits has been considered as important in the adoption and usage of "technologies"in general, therefore, the present study contributes to the extant OGD-focused literature from a novel dimension. The study invokes the adapted model of the Unified Theory of Technology Adoption and Use (UTAUT) alongside the HEXACO-100 inventory constructs for studying the relationships between the constructs with a sample of 530 respondents. The results demonstrate that higher user Openness to Experience contributes to their higher Effort and Performance Expectancy; exposure to Social Influence; an increased level of Trust; and a more positive perception of Facilitating Conditions and Information Quality. Agreeable people are more likely to voluntarily use OGD. An individual's conscientiousness improves their perception of factors related to OGD quality. Excessive emotionality leads to a more critical perception of systems and information quality issues. Our findings also attest to the moderating impact of Honesty-Humility across Information Quality-Behavioral Intention positively; Extraversion across Information Quality-Behavioral Intention negatively and Extraversion across Trust-Behavioral Intention positively. Honesty turns out to be important for considering Information Quality vis-à-vis OGD adoption and usage but whilst extroverts are concerned about Information Quality, i.e. flawless information retrieval via OGD sources, Introverts are concerned about OGD trustworthiness, i.e. credible OGD for its adoption and usage and Extroverts find the OGD reliable and credible. With pointers for further research across the personality traits-OGD adoption and usage theme, the study closes with practitioner implications. ... Read more

Purpose: The opening of government data is high on the policy agenda of governments worldwide. However, data release faces barriers due to limited support of civil servants, whereas the literature neglects civil servants' role in opening data. This paper aims at understanding why civil servants can be reluctant to support the disclosure of data. The authors developed a model to explain civil servants' behavioral intention to open data. Design/methodology/approach: The authors test a series of hypotheses by collecting and analyzing survey data from 387 civil servants and by applying multivariate hierarchical regression. Findings: The results indicate the factors influencing the behavior of civil servants. Social influences, performance expectancy, data management knowledge and risks have a significant influence. Personal characteristics control these effects. Research limitations/implications: Caution is needed to generalize the findings towards the support to open data provision by civil servants. Though the analyzed sample was limited to Brazil, other countries and cultures might yield different outcomes. Larger and more diversified samples might indicate significant effects on variables not found in this research. Practical implications: The insights can be used to develop policies for increasing the support of civil servants towards governmental data disclosure. Originality/value: This study suggests factors of influence to civil servants' behavior intentions to disclose governmental data. It results in a model of factors, specifically for their behavioral intention at the individual level. ... Read more

Les administrations adoptent de plus en plus des politiques d’ouverture des données. Toutefois, les agents publics jugent difficile de respecter ces nouvelles politiques. Les jeux peuvent les aider à pratiquer l’ouverture des données et à modifier leur comportement en faveur d’une plus grande ouverture. Dans cet article, nous évaluons l’effet d’un jeu dans le cadre d’une expérimentation qui compare, avant et après l’intervention, plusieurs facteurs ayant une incidence sur l’ouverture des données. Les bénéfices observés sont inattendus à plusieurs égards. Le jeu a permis de partager des connaissances dans les domaines de la gestion, de la confidentialité et de la sécurité des données, de modifier de manière significative les bénéfices perçus, et de faire évoluer de manière positive l’intention de comportement. Remarques à l’intention des praticiens Le comportement des agents publics a une incidence sur la façon dont les politiques publiques sont mises en œuvre. Pour beaucoup, la diffusion de données publiques par les administrations est fondamentale pour accroître la transparence publique et la participation des citoyens, et pour ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives économiques. Les jeux peuvent influer sur l’attitude des agents publics, et donc modifier les décisions des administrations. Transmettre des connaissances et fournir des enseignements tirés de nouvelles expériences peut influencer l’attitude des agents publics à l’égard des données ouvertes. Les administrations peuvent également utiliser les jeux à cette fin. ... Read more

Governments are increasingly using games for civic engagement, decision making, and education. Serious gaming is a type of game that has often been advocated as a means for changing the attitude of its players and can be used for changing the attitude of civil servants. However, the relationship between games and attitude change in civil servants remains unexplored. This paper aims at identifying factors leading to attitude change of civil servants. As hardly any paper is focused on civil servants' attitude change through games, the authors broaden their research to attitude change through games in general. Out of 483 documents, 19 reference papers were analyzed in detail. Eighty-one games were found, and more than 13 different theories were identified containing 30 different influencing factors, which were found mostly to be unrelated and context-dependent. The conceptual dispersion between studies indicates that the resulting overview of factors is a first step towards creating a uniform theory. The results can help governments to design better games. ... Read more

Open data can support the creation of new services, facilitate research, and provide insights into everyday issues affecting citizens. Although public administrations are making efforts to create sustainable and inclusive open data systems, there is limited capacity to identify suitable datasets, clean, release, and reuse them. Serious games offer a possible solution for data capacity building and have already been used to train civil servants and citizens on the topic of open data. This research presents a review of serious games and discusses their potential for data capacity building. The games selected in the review are classified and described according to their different learning outcomes, formats, and type of media. Most serious games found in this review can be categorized as teaching games and are designed to raise data awareness, which is only a limited aspect of building data capacity. We found a lack of design games, research games, and policy games. Given their success for ideation in other fields, design games offer a particular opportunity to build data capacity by generating new ideas about how to reuse open datasets. ... Read more

Data is needed for a government to function, and civil servants generate data that can be opened. However, this data is not always publicly available. Governments open their data to meet societal needs to increase transparency, accountability, stimulate participation and innovation. The opening of governmental data can be seen as a source of uncertainty for public servants, or it can even be legally prohibited, depending on how the regulation is interpreted. For instance, open data might be experienced as a burden or not easy to practice, whereas the opening might create societal relevance. This research focuses on overcoming behavioral barriers for civil servants to manage data release at the individual level by using a serious game. Open data relates to any data produced by any device or person, which is publicly shared for free or at a minimal cost, and that can be accessed by anyone. These behavioral barriers for civil servants influence governments’ decisions to make data available to the public. Behavioral barriers are the impediments for governments to release open data which originates from human behaviors. The literature suggests that behaviors are difficult to measure, and therefore, we focus on attitudes, which are measurable through declared perception. Attitude refers to a set of beliefs and feelings which is a common predictor of behavior. In this research, we use governmental civil servants’ behavioral intention to support open data to measure attitudes and the change in behavior intentions of civil servants as a proxy to analyze attitude change. Serious games are game-based interventions designed for other goals than (only) entertaining the players. They offer a safe and controlled environment for experimentation and experiential learning. The research objective of this thesis is to develop and test a game to influence the attitudes of civil servants towards the release of open data by governments, by enabling them to experience the positive and negative sides of open data in the game. Design science research was used for prototyping development and testing a game in a quasi-experimental set-up. Four research questions guided the study: RQ1. What are the behavioral barriers for civil servants to support the opening of governmental data? RQ2. What are the requirements to design a game to change civil servants’ attitudes towards supporting the opening of governmental data? RQ3. Which game design mechanisms enable the change of civil servants’ attitudes towards opening governmental data? RQ4. What are the effects of the open data game on civil servant’s attitudes towards supporting the opening of data? Each research question demanded the application of specific research methods. As the first step, systematic literature reviews were performed in the field of 1) open data provision behavioral barriers, 2) games for civil servants, 3) games for open data, and 4) games designed for attitude change. The first literature review was used to answer RQ1, whereas the other aimed at RQ2. For RQ1 (What are the behavioral barriers for civil servants to support the opening of governmental data?), the literature review identified a list of 38 behavioral barriers for civil servants influencing the opening of data. These behavioral barriers discussed in this thesis should be considered to change civil servants’ attitudes to support the opening of governmental data. For RQ2 (What are the requirements to design a game to change civil servants’ attitudes towards supporting the opening of governmental data?), three literature reviews were conducted to find game design requirements from previous research. They targeted at specific aspects of proven serious games: 1) for civil servants, to better understand the audience characteristics which could influence gameplay; 2) using open data content to inspire metaphors and operational representation of data release in the game; and 3) to change attitudes of players, targeting at successful use of game use towards attitude change. For civil servants, many games exist, whereas, for open data provision, no games were found. Even though many mechanisms exist in the literature, they did not prescribe an operationalization for an open data game. To evolve towards the most suitable game, we followed an iterative process to better understand how the game could be realized. Games are context-dependent, particularly to our specific case, open data governmental provision. Likewise, the iterative process enabled testing the operationalization of such requirements into game mechanisms. Four prototypes resulted from this game design process. Each designed prototype was evaluated, updating the lists of requirements and mechanisms for the final version of the game. •Prototype 1: Cards for open data debriefing showed that engaging mechanics could help connecting players to the open data challenges, but a card game resulted in lower levels of knowledge transfer about open data; •Prototype 2. Solvd, a group debate play-setting, resulted in interactive content from group interactions. However, the game was not entertaining, resulting in a loss of engagement; •Prototype 3. Job-matching simulator, a decision-making labor-market digital game, helped to map the real-life public service data production and use routines. This prototype highlighted the need to represent situations encountered by public servants in reality, including risks and ways to prevent them; and •Prototype 4. Open data office, a role-playing game aimed at engagement and learning for attitude change. Still, it lacked a more precise metaphor for routines and the office environment. Likewise, playing roles with humans was found to be important for our learning goals, in addition to adjusting the number of players and rounds. The prototypes resulted in the following main requirements on a serious game to influence civil servants support to the opening of data: •Requirement 1. Open government data content used in the game should be highlighted; •Requirement 2. The focus should be on a game experience that enables experiential learning; •Requirement 3. Civil servants’ practical knowledge should be reflected in the game; •Requirement 4. The game should be used as a safe environment for experimentation; •Requirement 5. The game setting should be realistic; •Requirement 6. Game dynamics should be organized as a role-playing game; and •Requirement 7. The number of roles, players, and rounds should be limited. Additionally, the literature findings combined with the outcomes of the iterative design cycles, pilot-testing, and debriefing, enabled the answering of RQ3 (Which game design mechanisms enable the change of civil servants’ attitudes towards opening governmental data?). The final version of the game, named WINNING DATA, operationalized the requirements into mechanisms that enabled players to change their attitudes towards open data. These mechanisms emerged from the design process, where each prototype debriefing informed the next round of iteration and new prototype. For instance, the needs for open data content and realism are represented through assets such as forms, files, and demand cards; demand cards express pre-defined routines: service requests. Demands are identified by specific card codes, which enable an automatic scoring system for the game facilitation; the service delivery, processed by rolling sets of dice, results in the creation of datasets. Depending on the dice combinations, privacy and security crises can occur, affecting the challenges of the game. The following final list of mechanisms resulted from this process: •Mechanism 1: Dataset description and labeling; •Mechanism 2: Card codes; •Mechanism 3: Pre-defined demands (not random); •Mechanism 4: Forms, Files and Demand cards; •Mechanism 5: Service delivery goal; •Mechanism 6: Upgrades; •Mechanism 7: Facilitation; •Mechanism 8: Crisis board; •Mechanism 9: Dice as processing machine; •Mechanism 10: Multi-player (with different roles); and •Mechanism 11: Time-limited rounds. Based on these requirements and mechanisms, WINNING DATA was designed as a four-player role-playing in-person game that can be played in a two-hour session. The game was evaluated for its effects on the attitudes of civil servants towards supporting the opening of governmental data. Playing the game consists of five rounds in which participants switch roles. The roles are citizen, two civil servants, and a manager. The player, playing the role of a citizen, demands services to the one playing the role of a civil servant; the player playing the role of civil servant has to work together with the colleague and boss to deliver the service back. Each service delivered results in a dataset which is discussed by the team and labeled by the boss. Labeling decisions influence the chances of having a privacy or security crisis in the coming rounds, resulting from specific dice combinations. Lastly, game play, data collection, and statistical analysis were used to answer the RQ4 (What are the effects of the open data game on civil servant’s attitudes towards supporting the opening of data?). Our main hypothesis is that the attitudes of civil servants can be changed by using a serious game. From the list of behavior barriers (RQ1), an initial list of factors influencing civil servants’ attitudes emerged. Four influencing factors were defined to influence Behavioral Intention, the dependent variable representing civil servants’ attitudes: lack of knowledge, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence. Explorative testing was conducted to determine which factors are at work and how the game affected them. The factors were hypothesized for testing game effects on civil servants’ attitudes to supporting open data. All factors were measured using a 33-item 7-point Likert scale questionnaire. The survey was used to measure the players’ attitudes before and after the game was played. Comparison enabled the assessment of the effects of change in their attitudes. In a quasi-experimental set-up, 77 civil servants played the game and filled in the pre- and post-test survey. Another 35 civil servants filled in the survey on two different occasions, without the gaming intervention, as a control group. The data was analyzed. Firstly, the internal reliability of the factors was checked, followed by explorative testing on the factors that did not load. The resulting factors were organized into a model which included Behavioral Intention as the dependent factor, measuring multiple dimensions of civil servants’ attitudes towards open data. Other seven factors were defined: Data Management Knowledge (DK), Performance Expectancy (PE), Risks (RK), Social Influence (SI), Knowledge of Data Production (DP), Data Sharing Knowledge (DS), and Data Costs (DC). The eight resulting hypotheses were tested using the 112 completed surveys: Hypothesis 1: Behavioral intention increases after playing the game; Hypothesis 2: The game results in more knowledge about ways to open data; Hypothesis 3: The game results in a better understanding of the expected benefits of opening data; Hypothesis 4: The game decreases expectations of the risks related to making data available; Hypothesis 5: The game reduces civil servants’ perceptions of open data practice difficulties, as exerted by hierarchies and legal frameworks; Hypothesis 6: The game increases civil servants’ knowledge of data production; Hypothesis 7: The game increases civil servants’ knowledge of the possibility of sharing data; and Hypothesis 8: The game increases civil servants’ perception of data provision costs. Through a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test, we assessed the main hypothesis and concluded that the game is likely to have a statistically significant effect on the dependent variable of Behavior Intention. As we did not find significant effects on behavior intention in the control group, our conclusion that civil servants who played the game are likely to have their attitudes towards open data increased by the game was strengthened. After that, the WINNING DATA’s gameplay additional seven hypotheses were tested. The game had a significant positive effect on Risks and Performance Expectancy. Though there were differences in the pre- and post-test scores of Data management knowledge, Social Influence, Knowledge of Data Production, Data Sharing Knowledge, and Data Costs, none of them were statistically significant. Our research has limitations resulting from (1) the limited number of participants and their distributions’ characteristics; (2) the absence of alternative strategies to which our results could be compared; and (3) the feasibility of more complex statistical analyses that were limited due to the available sample. Furthermore, this research (4) could not explore other diverse outcomes, such as a more complex model discussion on the factors influencing civil servants’ attitudes to support the opening of governmental data, which is needed and still to be done. Additionally, these limitations shed light on other improvements for new versions of the game. Future research is recommended to test the game with larger samples, players having a more diverse background, and coming from different countries. Using the same survey questions to different passive interventions, such as text and lectures, can also contribute to comparing the results. The long-term effects of the game were not investigated and recommended as a further research direction. Another further research direction is the digitalization of the game. Particularly in the light of the recent crisis of COVID-19, this is needed as playing the game with many persons in one room is not a good option. Likewise, advancing with the model discussions, including more open data elements, and extending the topics to other fields is also recommended by this thesis. Concluding, the game developed and tested during this project has proven its effects on changing civil servants’ attitudes towards the opening of governmental data. This thesis’s results can be used to design better interventions to make more governmental data available to the public. ... Read more

The implementation of open data policies requires the efforts of many public employees across different levels of government, who may be unaware of the benefits and risks of open data. Serious games have demonstrated potential for training in a professional environment. For this research, a collaborative digital serious game about open data was developed. A sample of 24 civil servants played the game. Pre-test and post-test surveys were used to evaluate the effects of the game on participants’ perception of open data. Likert score changes between pre-test and post-test indicated that the game had a positive effect on the willingness to share public sector data. By simulating the setting of a public office and by having players make decisions about whether to open certain datasets, the game facilitated learning about the benefits and disadvantages of opening data. ... Read more

The adoption of open data policy-making by governments is limited due to different types of constraints. Civil servants are reluctant to open their data to the public for many reasons. The lack of knowledge of benefits that can be produced by the release of data and the overestimation of risks and operational complexity seems to decrease their willingness to support the opening of data. The idea that a serious game intervention can change awareness of participants in different domains is already known. Yet, games are domain dependent and concepts differ per domain. A game has never been used for the emerging domain of open data in which civil servants are operating in a bureaucratic environment having a risk-averse culture and strict institutional rules. A role-playing game prototype was designed for civil servants to experience open data policy-making. This paper analyses its first results aiming at changes of perception for the participants of the game and aims to understand the changes in behavior of civil servants that played it. For some participants, the game influenced their attitude, whereas others were not influenced. Suggesting that different approaches might be necessary for changing the attitude of different groups. ... Read more

According to open government principles, public administration should make its data available to the public to create transparency, accountability, and to facilitate participation in public decision-making. Open-Data Policies (ODPs) were developed to encourage the opening of governmental data to the public, but require collaboration and awareness from all levels of government. Gaming has proved to be successful for creating awareness. Yet the pandemic hinders in-person gameplay, and there is a need for an online game that can be played remotely. This research uses an in-person game as the starting point to develop an online collaborative digital game. The feature and design choices of the digital game are described, along with its main differences when compared to the in-person one. The essential features include interaction and discussion about open data among players, the assignment of different roles, and points awarded when making the right decision to open, partially share, or close a dataset. ... Read more

The actual opening of government data is done by civil servants operating within their institutional environment. As such, the institutional environment and their behavior towards the opening of data is key to increase the quality and quantity of open data. However, few studies have analyzed the behavior of government professionals towards open data policy. The objective of this paper is to review the existing literature to find the factors that influences civil servants behaviors towards open data. To identify the drivers and barriers, a literature review was performed listing the most cited papers with "open government data"and "barriers"focusing specific at the behavioral related factors. Even with the increasing of research on the topic of open data, still most of the papers focus on user drivers and barriers rather than on provider challenges. Even less studies focus on the civil servants' individual level of factors influencing their support to the release of governmental data. Most barriers found in the literature are related to infrastructural or technical issues. Whereas some individual level behavioral barriers could be found, including culture, lack of individual incentives and misunderstanding the impact of opening data, broader discussions on social norms, lack of education and experience are still missing in the literature. This paper contributes to the need for deeper understanding of the behavioral factors that influences the civil servants to support the opening of data. ... Read more

Paul Singer (1932-2018) was most of his life a direct part of the twentieth-century social movements and those at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He is one of the most renowned and respected democratic left-wing activists of his time in Brazil. Paul Singer was born in Vienna (Austria) in a Jewish family, and he went to Brazil at 8 years old in 1940, escaping from the Nazis. He started his political education when he was a young boy. By the end of Getulio Vargas’ dictatorship in 1945, the Brazilian Communist Party was legally registered and attracting a large part of the country’s left-wing activists. Singer discovers that many of his friends are communists, but he decides to join the socialists, opposing the Stalinists. At the age of 15, he discovers a text from Rosa Luxemburg on the Russian Revolution (Luxemburg 2008). From then on, Rosa Luxemburg becomes a frequent reference for Singer’s activism and intellectual reflections, making him one of the first “Luxemburgists” in the country. ... Read more

The recent need for social-distancing caused by COVID-19 resulted in working remotely, which can cause loneliness and disconnect from the organization. The pandemic stimulated people to look for novel ways to interact and, at the same time, socialize with each other. The change to home office increased the number of people using digital video calls; however, these impose restrictions on social bonding. In this commentary, we argue that the social bonding capacity of video calls can be increased by using games. Playing games can create a common object with shared goals, which can give players the feeling of being in the same environment, belonging to the same organization, working on joint objectives, and give an enjoyable experience. All work activities will unlikely return to the office after the pandemic is over, and preparing for remote working and socialization is needed. We recommend several avenues for research, including researching the concepts of online socialization and evaluating the effectiveness of gaming. ... Read more

Open data policies are increasingly being adopted by governments. However, civil servants find it challenging to comply with open data policies. Gaming can help civil servants to practise opening data and can change their behaviour to support the opening of more data. In this article, the effect of playing a game is evaluated in an experiment in which several factors that influence the opening of data are compared before and after the game. The benefits appeared in unexpected ways and areas. Data management, privacy and security knowledge was transferred using the game, the perception of benefits showed significant changes, and behavioural intention was positively affected. Points for practitioners: Civil servants’ behaviour influences how public policies are enacted. The release of open data by governments is related by many as crucial for increasing public transparency and civic participation, and generating new economic opportunities. Games can influence the attitude of civil servants and, consequently, change governments’ decisions. Transferring knowledge and providing insights from new experiences can influence civil servants’ attitudes to open data. Moreover, governments can use games to influence civil servants’ attitudes. ... Read more

Governments are increasingly using games for civic engagement, decision making, and education. Serious gaming is a type of game that has often been advocated as a means for changing the attitude of its players and can be used for changing the attitude of civil servants. However, the relationship between games and attitude change in civil servants remains unexplored. This paper aims at identifying factors leading to attitude change of civil servants. As hardly any paper is focused on civil servants' attitude change through games, the authors broaden their research to attitude change through games in general. Out of 483 documents, 19 reference papers were analyzed in detail. Eighty-one games were found, and more than 13 different theories were identified containing 30 different influencing factors, which were found mostly to be unrelated and context-dependent. The conceptual dispersion between studies indicates that the resulting overview of factors is a first step towards creating a uniform theory. The results can help governments to design better games. ... Read more