Abstract
Conceptually, data can be found at the lowest level of abstraction from where information and knowledge are being extracted. Furthermore, data itself has no meaning, unless it's being interpreted and transferred into information and knowledge. Thus, all governments have come to appreciate the relevance between releasing data and obtaining information and knowledge in return. However, the abstract nature of data with the undefined benefits to everyday life has slowed down the awareness of public to open data and its relevance. Thus, the increasing efforts by governments in embracing open data agendas may not be clear and shared among people. Most of the open government data initiatives focus on the technology needed to support the usability and accessibility of data. However, this focus has not been proven to increase citizens' awareness. Citizens' awareness of open data practices must be carefully measured as without citizen engagement, open government data is useless.
The purpose of this research is to measure data openness level of Saudi Arabia e-Government Data Portal. Moreover, a proposed model by the researcher, which is based on a scoring model by Global Open data index, is used to measure data openness level of Saudi Arabia e-Government Data Portal.