الملخص الإنجليزي
The current study aimed at identifying the role of the Ministry of Manpower in the Sultanate of Oman to provide open access to government data in the Ministry?s electronic portal as well as to investigate the nature of these data and the system applied to access them. It also aimed to identify the use and obstacles of investing these open governmental data in reinforcing the society's knowledge from the Omani Shura Council members? point of view.
To achieve the mentioned two goals, this study adopted the mixed method approach (quantitative and qualitative). The population stated in this study includes all governmental Institutions in the Sultanate of Oman that implemented the open access to their data, while the study sample was limited to two government institutions represented in a planned sample of nine experienced employees to select, organize and make access to these open data at the Ministry of Manpower and (96) members and employees at Shura council as a sample to identify their use to open data in which the percentage of responses was almost 37%.
A semi-structured interview was used and a questionnaire to collect quality and quantity data. The study resulted that the Ministry of Manpower depends on two principles in its open data selection; first, achieving the goal of allowing the society to invest them; second, to meet the needs of these data. In terms of the use of these data, the study concluded that there is a positive and moderate awareness of the use of open data in the Omani Shura Council in the Sultanate of Oman. They confirm that it offers what they need of these data easily. The study found that the main determinants of the use were the weakness of society?s readiness to accept what is published of facts based on their understanding, realization and their interpretation of the data. The Sultanate?s policies on copyright and the band of arousing public opinion are factors to impede releasing some data through.
Accordingly, the study recommended inviting government institutions in general and the Ministry of Manpower in particular towards expanding the access of their data with easy-to-use links, with no restrictions, the speed of access, and availability of data in different formats to download
