Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba Gómez
@udg.mx
Professor, Public Policy
Professor
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gómez is an Associate Research Professor at the University of Guadalajara (UDG), Department of Public Policies. He has a PhD in Law, Government and Public Policy from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Spain (Cum Laude and International Mention). Edgar conducts research on open government, transparency, citizen participation, open data, digital government, anti-corruption policies, and artificial intelligence in the public sector.
He has more than 50 academic publications, most of them in international quality and high-impact journals (JCR Q1 and Q2), as well as in prestigious publishers (Routledge, Taylor and Francis, Elsevier, SAGE, IOS press, IGI Global, Tirant Lo Blanch, etc. More than 800 citations to his work-research in Google Scholar, cited in various countries and by international authors.
He teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He teaches at different universities and institutions in various countries. He has received awards and distinc
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
Public Administration, Political Science and International Relations, Social Sciences, Artificial Intelligence
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez and Javier Cifuentes-Faura
SAGE Publications
The advancement and continuous development of information and communication technologies highlights the importance of analysing and monitoring the development and capabilities of governments to use and exploit the potential of new technologies. Digital government and artificial intelligence in the public sector are two trends associated with technological development. This research conducts an analysis of these elements from the perspective of public officials by conducting a factor analysis. The study is based on a survey administered to civil servants in the state of Jalisco in Mexico. An analysis was made of their training and knowledge of these aspects and whether there are significant differences according to gender, age, level of studies, area of knowledge and place of work. The results obtained show divergences and coincidences between variables and factors. The findings are useful as a reference for the government of Jalisco to promote measures aimed at improving the situation of digital government and artificial intelligence in the short to medium term, in order to optimize administrative management. Points for practitioners Knowing the perspective of public officials on digital government and artificial intelligence is important to evaluate and design a digital strategy in governments. Public officials in charge of technology areas in governments need constant training on emerging technological tools, mainly those related to artificial intelligence. There is a lack of knowledge about the use and implications of artificial intelligence in the public sector by public servants. Data interoperability and coordination between government agencies are relevant to the development of digital government.
Juan Pablo Barrientos Matute and Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcava-Gómez
El Colegio Mexiquense, A. C.
En esta investigación se analiza el valor público que poseen los datos abiertos en portales web gubernamentales y no gubernamentales en materia de vivienda para Guadalajara. El objetivo es identificar cuál categoría ofrece mayor valor público a sus habitantes; para ello se definieron indicadores cualitativos sobre datos abiertos y su valor público, con los cuales se midieron los portales; se encontró que los sitios no gubernamentales ofrecen datos con mayor valor público que los gubernamentales. La investigación presenta un novedoso enfoque analítico respecto a la evaluación de los datos abiertos y su valor público.
Edgar A Ruvalcaba-Gomez, J Ignacio Criado, and J Ramon Gil-Garcia
SAGE Publications
Open government is expected to promote important changes related to transparency, participation, and collaboration in the public sector. This article analyzes the open government policy-making process in Madrid. In order to explain the adoption process of open government as a public policy, this study uses the “multiple streams framework,” originally developed by Kingdon and recently elaborated on by Zahariadis and Herweg et al. Our empirical data, based on semi-structured interviews and qualitative and quantitative analysis provide evidence about the adoption of open government policy in the city of Madrid and help to illustrate some of the multiple roles that policy entrepreneurs play in the policy adoption process. Overall, this article offers insights on how and why open government is adopted into the public agenda of local governments. Also, this article highlights the importance of analyzing the roles of “policy entrepreneurs” and the duality of transparency and citizen participation in open government policies.
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez
SAGE Publications
Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a technological development is being implemented in the public sector with the intention of improving service delivery, as well as to help solve complex problems. However, there is a wide range of capabilities that AI can perform and that public officials perceive and implement in different ways. This paper aims to describe and analyze some categories into which AI capabilities in the public sector are divided. Using an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), our results show that the capabilities of AI from the perspective of public officials can be classified into two aspects: systematic factors and axiological factors. Systematic factors are related to the analysis and behavior of data, including monitoring, analyzing, interacting, remembering, and anticipation. Axiological factors refer to the impacts of values, ethics, and decisions, including acting, feeling, moralizing, creating, and deciding capacities. This categorization of AI capabilities in the public sector sheds light on the perception of public officials about the implementation of this technological development.
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez, J. Ignacio Criado, and Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan
Informa UK Limited
ABSTRACT Open Government (OG) is an increasingly used term in public administrations. Public sector managers seem to be interested in modernizing their public management models and find OG strategies a means to respond to increasing citizen demands for transparency, participation, and collaboration in public affairs. Specifically, the broad scope of this term seems to have produced an assortment of what public managers understand as OG. This research is a comparative analysis of the perception that exists in the local governments of two countries: Mexico and Spain. Our research questions are: (1) How do OG managers understand this concept? (2) What is the perception of those who manage OG regarding the level of development in their organization? And (3) What are the realities of OG implementation in local public administrations? This article reports the results of a survey to city councils in Mexico and Spain, in order to compare the perception of OG. The survey’s descriptive results are complemented with an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), allowing us to define public managers’ perspectives in both countries and compare them. Results indicate that there are some points of agreement between both countries, such as the relevance of transparency and citizen participation as pillars of OG. However, there are also discrepancies, not only in the progress of implementation, but also regarding the general perceptions about what OG is, and its scope.
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, J. Ignacio Criado, and Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez
ACM
Artificial Intelligence (IA) in the public sector takes the lead for public innovation. The recent government innovation development across the globe are focused on this topic. Some countries like China, France, Germany, Spain launched strategies for the next five or ten years to promote the development of iA in their countries' infrastructure, Human Resources, regulations, and ethics. This panel aims to understand the different strategies, their public policies, challenges and priorities, and the possible governance problems to be held.
Loni Hagen, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, Stephan Okhuijsen, Susana Cabaco, Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez, Julian Villodre, Wookjoon Sung, and David Valle-Cruz
ACM
Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic happened when public administrations were convinced of the need to expose their data on open data portals. However, the global emergency that COVID-19 produced in governments highlighted some shortcomings in terms of public policies and strategies related to open data, open government, and open innovation. The aim of the open government and open data in times of COVID-19 panel is to discuss experiences and the potential consequences of open government and open data exploitation to combat the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Rigoberto Garcia-Contreras, Patricia Munoz-Chavez, David Valle-Cruz, Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez, and Jose Alberto Becerra-Santiago
ACM
Abstract: The COVID-19 crisis has forced public sector organizations to implement teleworking as the only option to continue their daily activities and stop the spread of the virus. However, it is still too early to know in a full context how public servants are reacting to the demands of teleworking. This paper aims to fill this gap and examine the effects of timely implementation of teleworking on employees in the public sector. This study analyzed in a transversal manner the perception of 971 public servants in Mexico. Descriptive, correlation, and multiple linear regression analyses were performed. The results indicated the influence of teleworking on aspects such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout, and productivity. Besides, the findings suggest the relationship between the variables, as well as their importance in light of the current situation.
Víctor Hugo García Benítez and Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gómez
Universidad de Valparaiso Chile
El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar las diferencias y similitudes de las características de las estrategias nacionales en materia de Inteligencia Artificial (IA) en el sector público, de los países de la región de América Latina: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México y Uruguay. La estrategia metodológica y analítica consiste en exponer y analizar las características a partir de las siguientes categorías de análisis: objetivos, principios, ejes/acciones y visión/metas, el análisis se realiza a través de las dimensiones de ética y de derechos humanos. Esta investigación permitió inferir y concluir que los esfuerzos de los países por implementar la IA en el sector público están en una fase emergente y avanzan de manera significativa, además las estrategias cuentan con similitudes desde los enfoques éticos y de derechos humanos, no obstante, las diferencias se encuentran condicionadas por los enfoques político-administrativo y tecnológico del que son sujetas las estrategias de IA.
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, J. Ignacio Criado, and Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gómez
IOS Press
Open government has become a research trend among e-government scholars around the world. However, most research in this field has focused on national policies and the implementation thereof. Typically, this is related to Open Government (OG) ecosystems, data, policies and models, yet very little attention has been paid to the most basic level: the municipal/local level. The purpose of this research paper is to fill this gap. We based our research on an instrument for the assessment of OG priorities in Spanish municipalities (Gómez, Criado, & Gil-Garcia, 2017a). This instrument for assessment was adapted to Mexican municipalities. In so doing, we surveyed 67 cases of Mexican public officials working on OG or in transparency offices in municipalities across Mexico during 2017. This paper reports the findings of this exploratory research, grouping concepts of perception, and analyzing four elements of OG: 1. Open Government; 2. Transparency; 3. Citizen Participation and 4. Open Data. Going forward, we used factor analysis to group concepts and identify two principal perspectives for addressing OG policy implementation in local governments, one oriented at fostering technological innovation, and another at promoting democratic values of co-responsibility. Broadly, we discovered there is some emphasis on democratic values and some on technological innovation. We also found varying levels of knowledge on this topic in Mexican municipalities. Another finding is that OG policies are not well-defined due to a lack of resources for the promotion of genuine transparency, participation, and collaborative actions.
J. Ignacio Criado, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, David Valle-Cruz, and Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gómez
University of Illinois Libraries
This article presents a study about artificial intelligence (AI) policy based on the perceptions, expectations, and challenges/opportunities given by chief information officers (CIOs). In general, publications about AI in the public sector relies on experiences, cases, ideas, and results from the private sector. Our study stands out from the need of defining a distinctive approach to AI in the public sector, gathering primary (and comparative) data from different countries, and assessing the key role of CIOs to frame federal/national AI policies and strategies. This article reports three research questions, including three dimensions of analysis: (1) perceptions regarding to the concept of AI in the public sector; (2) expectations about the development of AI in the public sector; and, (3) challenges and opportunities of AI in the public sector. This exploratory study presents the results of a survey administered to federal/national ministerial government CIOs in ministries of Mexico and Spain. Our descriptive statistical (and exploratory) analysis provides an overall approach to our dimensions, exploratory answering the research questions of the study. Our data supports the existence of different governance models and policy priorities in different countries. Also, these results might inform research in this same area and will help senior officials to assess the national AI policies actually in process of design and implementation in different national/federal, regional/state, and local/municipal contexts.
David Valle-Cruz, J. Ignacio Criado, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, and Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez
Elsevier BV
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba Gómez
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Resumen: Los Datos Abiertos (DA) u Open Data están siendo un tema de alta relevancia en las administraciones públicas cuando se habla de innovación y modernización del sector público, no solo por su reciente disrupción, sino por su potencial en términos de valor público. La puesta en marcha de políticas que impulsan el acceso libre de datos está transformando, en gran medida, los servicios que ofrecen los gobiernos y generando un valor transformador sin precedentes. Este fenómeno se está dando principalmente bajo el nuevo modelo de gestión pública llamado Gobierno Abierto. En este sentido, este trabajo presenta una revisión sobre el concepto de DA principalmente vinculado a una idea de apertura gubernamental, así mismo se discute la relevancia de los DA y se hacen algunas reflexiones sobre el rol y las implicaciones político-administrativas que representan este tipo de datos. Palabras clave: Datos abiertos, gobierno abierto, gestión pública, valor público. Abstract: Open Data (OD) is a topic of high relevance in public administrations related to innovation and modernization of the public sector, not only for its recent disruption, but for its potential in terms of public value. The implementation of policies that promote free data access is transforming the services offered by the government and generating unprecedented value. This phenomenon is occurring mainly under the new public management model called Open Government. In this sense, this paper presents a review of the concept of OD mainly linked to an idea of government openness, the relevance of OD is also discussed and some reflections are made about the role and political-administrative implications that these data represent. Keywords: Open data, open government, public management, public value.
Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez and Cesar Renteria
IOS Press
The concepts of Transparency, Citizen Participation and Open Government is increasingly being used by politicians, public officials and civil society. Open Government strategies are being assumed by public administration at different levels of government, but also by civil society organizations that are involved in issues of transparency, citizen participation mainly. However, there is a diversity about how the concepts are used by different social sectors. In this sense, it is pertinent to know how these concepts are perceived among the main sectors that trigger policies of transparency, citizen participation and open government. The objective of this research is to analyze transparency, citizen participation and open government from the perspectives of two fundamental sectors in the political-social participation process: Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and Government. To contrast the perspectives of the two sectors, the case of the State of Jalisco, Mexico is studied. This research shows the results of a survey administrated to members of CSO and public officials involved in open government actions. In order to contrast ideas and assessments, three dimensions are established for its analysis: a) open government, c) transparency and b) citizen participation. The results show a considerable gap between the perceptions of public officials and organized civil society.
David Valle-Cruz, Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, and J. Ignacio Criado
ACM
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest trend being implemented in the public sector. Recent advances in this field and the AI explosion in the private sector have served to promote a revolution for government, public service management, accountability, and public value. Incipient research to understand, conceptualize and express challenges and limitations is now ongoing. This paper is the first approach in such a direction; our research question is: What are the current AI trends in the public sector? In order to achieve that goal, we collected 78 papers related to this new field in recent years. We also used a public policy framework to identify future areas of implementation for this trend. We found that only normative and exploratory papers have been published so far and there are a lot of public policy challenges facing in this area, and that AI implementation results are unknown and unexpected; since there may be great benefits for governments and society, but, on the other hand, it may have negative results like the so-called ”algorithmic bias” of AI when making important decisions for social development. However, we consider that AI has potential benefits in the public health, public policies on climate change, public management, decision-making, disaster prevention and response, improving government-citizen interaction, personalization of services, interoperability, analyzing large amounts of data, detecting abnormalities and patterns, and discovering new solutions through dynamic models and simulation in real time.
Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez, J. Ignacio Criado, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, and David Valle-Cruz
ACM
Open Government (OG) is a term increasingly used in public administrations. The public managers seem to be interested in modernizing their models of public management and they find in the idea of OG strategies to respond to citizen demands. However, there seems to be a dispersion of what public managers understand as OG. This work is a comparative analysis of the perspectives that exists in the local governments of two countries: Mexico and Spain. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is carried out to define the perspectives assumed by public managers in both countries and compare them. In order to achieve this purpose, we established the following research question: What perspectives about open government do local public managers have in Spain and Mexico? The findings indicate that while in Spain public managers configure three clear perspectives about OG, meanwhile in Mexico only two perspectives are identified.
Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez and Cesar Renteria
IEEE
The concept of Citizen Participation is increasingly being used by politicians, public officials and civil society. Citizen participation is a topic of debate about its relevance and implementation mechanisms. On the other hand, citizen participation is a core part of the idea of Open Government as an element that configures a novel public management strategy. Open Government strategies are being assumed by public administration at different levels of government, but also by civil society organizations that are involved in issues of citizen participation. However, there is a diversity about how the concept is used by different social sectors. In this sense, it is pertinent to know how this concept is perceived among the main sectors that trigger citizen participation. It is important to know these perceptions because the dispersion of the concept entails a gap between the aspirations, expectations and objectives of public policies that promote citizen participation. The objective of this research is to analyze citizen participation from the perspectives of two fundamental sectors in the political-social participation process: Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and Government. To contrast the perspectives of the two sectors, the case of the State of Jalisco, Mexico is studied. This research shows the results of a survey administrated to members of CSO and public officials involved in open government actions. In order to contrast ideas and assessments, two dimensions are established for its analysis: a)open government, and b) citizen participation. The results show a considerable gap between the perceptions of public officials and organized civil society.
Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez
JEDEM Journal of e-Democracy and Open Government
The concepts of citizen participation and open government (OG) are increasingly being used by politicians, government officials, and civil society organizations (CSOs). However, there are differences about how the concepts are assumed and used by different social actors. The objective of this research is to analyze the perception of citizen participation and open government from the perspectives of two fundamental sectors: CSOs and government using the State of Jalisco, Mexico as a case study. The research question is: How are citizen participation and open government perceived in the State of Jalisco by civil society organizations and the government? This research presents statistical results of a survey given to members of civil society and public officials involved in OG actions. The results show a huge gap between the perceptions of government officials and CSOs; this affects the relationship between the two sectors, which can impede development and implementation of public policies.
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez, and J. Ignacio Criado
ACM
Open Government (OG) has become a research trend among scholars and officials in the world. However, most of the research is focused on national or countries policies and implementations, related to OG, very few attention has been made to the basic level of municipalities. We surveyed 67 cases of Mexican public officials working on open government or transparency offices in municipalities across Mexico during 2017. This paper reports the findings of this exploratory research considering to group concepts perception. From there, we use factor analysis to group concepts and identify two principal perspectives to address OG policy implementation in local governments, one oriented to foster technological innovation, and another to promote democratic values of co-responsibility.
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba-Gomez, J. Ignacio Criado, and J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
ACM
Open government is definitely not a new concept. For almost a decade, countries around the world have been implementing open government initiatives as a way to increase transparency, improved accountability, fight corruption, or foster economic development. However, there is still no consensus about the constitutive dimensions of open government and how they are perceived by public managers in different contexts. Based on a systematic literature review and a survey administered to Spanish local governments, this paper discusses the concept of Open Government (OG) and its dimensions. According to our results, public managers working on OG initiatives perceive OG through three different lenses: a) democratic values of co-responsibility, b) technological innovation, and c) availability and access to information. This new categorization of OG perspectives provides a valuable contribution to the scientific debate about what OG is and how this new public management strategy is perceived by local government managers.
J. Ignacio Criado, Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gómez, and Rafael Valenzuela-Mendoza
JEDEM Journal of e-Democracy and Open Government
According to the contributions of several authors, the Open Government (OG) concept is maturing and moving toward its consolidation as a new field of multidisciplinary knowledge with its own dynamics. However, little is known about how it is developing that path, if it is really generating its own characteristics and what is its scope in terms of the creation of an academic community. This article makes a systematic review or meta-evaluation of the literature on OG for 5 years (2011 to 2015) of the three magazines most recognized for their production and quality of content in the theme: Government Information Quarterly, Information Polity and eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government. This article analyzes a total universe composed of 189 articles, classified into different categories that try to answer three research questions: How is the OG analyzed? (Study Design, Research Techniques, Methodological Approach) Where is the OG analyzed? (University Departments, Host Country of the Universities and Institutions, Level of Government, Analyzed Country/Areas) What are the most analyzed topics and the most prominent concepts in the study of OG? (Main Topic, Keywords). Article data reveal the key features of OG analysis: still little quantitative and explicative-correlational studies, very focused on the countries of the Anglo-American area, and with very diverse interests ranging from open data, e-government to social media to co-production. In addition, with the latter, it can be confirmed to what extent a scientific community has been created around the OG as well as establishing some conclusions on the development of OG in the coming years.
J. Ignacio Criado and Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba-Gomez
IGI Global
At this point, the role of the concept Open Government (OG) has been key promoting transparency, participation and collaboration in public administration worldwide. This article presents research about the open government (OG) phenomena in Spanish municipalities over 50,000 inhabitants (146 municipalities), using a questionnaire. Particularly, the research objective of this article is looking at the perceptions of city managers responsible for OG policies in order to understand more about this emergent public policy in the local layer of government. The results are consistent with a notion of OG associated to terms like transparency or access to information, and less to collaboration, co-production, of technologies or electronic government. In addition, the results confirm the intention of city managers to promote transparency or access to information with OG policies, while other possible outcomes (collaboration, managerial improvements or reduction of management costs) are less popular. Finally, the implementation of OG policies remains in its initial stages, whereas they are much expanded in strategic plans or units/departments at the local level of government in Spain.
Edgar A. Ruvalcaba Gómez, J. Ignacio Criado, and J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
ACM
Open Government (OG) is pushing towards an important change in terms of how we currently understand public management. Recently, OG has attracted the attention of multiple actors from within the governmental sphere and beyond. However, little is known about how this new paradigm is evolving. For the development of this investigation, we surveyed all Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants and asked about the level of association of selected concepts with OG. We carried out an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the factors in which the concepts are grouped. This led us to determine the existence of three perspectives from which local governments are developing and implementing OG: a) democratic values of coresponsibility, b) technological innovation, and c) availability and access to information.
Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba Gómez
ACM
The role of the concept Open Government (OG) has been key promoting transparency, participation and collaboration in public administration worldwide. At the same time, it is now the moment to generate data that allow us to understand the measures adopted. Diverse research suggests that OG contributes to creating better conditions for political and social dialogue, normative frameworks to be translated into laws and regulations, organizational change in public administrations, as well as the creation of software, applications and useful processes for citizens. At the same time, it is unclear the scope of concept or its relationship with other areas of public policy (like transparency, participation, e-government, social media, open data, etc.). This paper presents a research about the Open Government (OG) phenomena in Spanish municipalities over 50,000 inhabitants (146 municipalities), using a questionnaire. Particularly the research objective of this study is looking at the perceptions of city managers responsible of OG policies in order to understand more about this emergent public policy in the local layer of government. In order to achieve this purpose, the following research question has been raised: What is the perception of those who manage OG about this concept? The results are consistent with a notion of OG associated to terms like transparency or access to information, and less to collaboration, co-production, technologies or electronic government.