The overall aim of BCMBD research project is to study both the need and range of Big Data from three main perspectives of a city; citizens need and use of Big Data, decision makers’ production and need of Big Data, and the need and output of Big Data in operative administration. We also need to study both citizens’ and decision makers’ participatory actions and what structures enable citizens to participate in government services? The project will also point at the role of information literacy skills in managing Big Data on both individual and governmental levels. This is important for cities – among them Turku – in order to more efficiently communicate with the citizens and managing public services interactively. The project adopts a multiple case study approach in order to combine several aspects of managing Big Data and will be conducted in several phases. This project application covers the pilot study where the three intersections of Big Data management (citizens, decision-making processes, operative administration) will be outlined and possible methods for studying the intersections are explored. As is shown in the figure:

There are three pre-subjects included in our BCMBD project:

1. Library Big Data: digital collections as Big Data

2. Big Data and operative planning

3. The role of Big Data management in decision-making