Information Production and Social Value for Public Policy: A Conceptual Modeling Perspective

The article investigates the potential role of conceptual modeling for policymaking. It argues that the use of conceptual schemas may provide an effective understanding of public sector information assets, and how they might be used to satisfy the needs of constituencies, thus having a public as well as social value. The article first defines the information assets of public administration, and goes on to consider the role of conceptual modeling for eliciting social value with regard to open data, using as a case study open data concerning hospitals in the United States, Canada, and Italy. An interpretive framework is outlined to support public managers for choosing the data sets to be “opened,” thereby exploiting public sector information assets under a social value perspective.