Andrew Zahuranec, Andrew Young and Stefaan G. Verhulst at the OECD Participo Blog Series:
“What does the public expect from data-driven responses to the COVID-19 pandemic? And under what conditions?” These are the motivating questions behind The Data Assembly, a recent initiative by The GovLab at New York University Tandon School of Engineering — an action research center that aims to help institutions work more openly, collaboratively, effectively, and legitimately.
Launched with support from The Henry Luce Foundation, The Data Assembly solicited diverse, actionable public input on data re-use for crisis response in the United States. In particular, we sought to engage the public on how to facilitate, if deemed acceptable, the use of data that was collected for a particular purpose for informing COVID-19. One additional objective was to inform the broader emergence of data collaboration— through formal and ad hoc arrangements between the public sector, civil society, and those in the private sector — by evaluating public expectation and concern with current institutional, contractual, and technical structures and instruments that may underpin these partnerships.
The Data Assembly used a new methodology that re-imagines how organisations can engage with society to better understand local expectations regarding data re-use and related issues. This work goes beyond soliciting input from just the “usual suspects”. Instead, data assemblies provide a forum for a much more diverse set of participants to share their insights and voice their concerns.
This article is informed by our experience piloting The Data Assembly in New York City in summer 2020. It provides an overview of The Data Assembly’s methodology and outcomes and describes major elements of the effort to support organisations working on similar issues in other cities, regions, and countries….(More)”.