DOI: 10.4018/IJITPM.2018070105 International Journal of Information Technology Project Management Volume 9 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018 Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 72 Examining the Factors of Open Government Data Usability From Academician’s Perspective Muhammad Mahboob Khurshid, Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia Nor Hidayati Zakaria, Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia Ammar Rashid, NUR International University, Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan Muhammad Nouman Shafque, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, China ABSTRACT This article examines factors that can be argued to influence the academician’s behavioral intentions in using open government data (OGD). Policy-makers and practitioners will determine policy instruments in increasing acceptance and use of OGD by maintaining a good understanding of these factors. In this article, Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory has been proposed and used in order to empirically examine these factors taking perceived characteristics of innovations. Relevant hypotheses have been developed through the literature review, forming a preliminary research model, while respective influences of the factors on the behavioral intention to use open government data have been statistically tested. Results have shown that compatibility and voluntariness have had a strong influence on behavioral intention, whereas a 66.2% variance has been found in academicians’ behavioral intentions to use open government data. KEywORDS Academician, Adoption, Behavioral Intention, Developing Country, Diffusion of Innovations, Factors, Open Data, Open Government Data, Pakistan Data Portal INTRODUCTION Our society is advancing towards a knowledge-based and service-oriented, globalized world. Data is considered a vital prerequisite for knowledge creation, and for the delivery of different services. Therefore, data is argued to be not something that should not be stored away from the public, but rather it should be made available for free use (Hossain, Dwivedi, & Rana, 2016). The demand for open data has been catalyzed through three different aspects. These include the facts that firstly citizens now have a sense of ownership in governance and politics, secondly there have been recent technological advancements that have facilitated individuals’ ability to access, learn, store, analyze, link and share data and information, and lastly there has been speedy and substantial growth of virtual social networks. Web 2.0 technology has also facilitated data interoperability, through which citizens are collectively becoming active producers of data, rather than just passive recipients (Charalabidis, Loukis, & Alexopoulos, 2014). As a result, there is an absolute need for open data, while its growth and development should also be encouraged.