The Social Dynamics of Open Data (edited by Francois van Schalkwyk, Stefaan Verhulst, Gustavo Magalhaes, Juan Pane & Johanna Walker) is a collection of peer reviewed papers presented at the 2nd Open Data Research Symposium (ODRS) held in Madrid, Spain, on 5 October 2016. Research is critical to developing a more rigorous and fine-combed analysis not only of why open data is valuable, but how it is valuable and under what specific conditions.