Eric Afful-Dadzie and Anthony Afful-Dadzie in Government Information Quarterly: “Open Government Data (OGD) continues to receive considerable traction around the world. In particular, there have been a growing number of OGD establishments in the developed world, sparking expectations of similar trends in growing democracies. To understand the readiness of OGD stakeholders in Africa especially the media, this paper (1) reviews current infrastructure at OGD web portals in Africa and (2) conducts a preference elicitation analysis among media practitioners in 5 out of the 7 OGD country centers in Africa regarding desired structure of OGD in developing countries. The analysis gives a view of the relative importance media practitioners ascribe to a selected set of OGD attributes in anticipation of a more functional OGD in their respective countries. Using conjoint analysis, the result indicates that media practitioners put premium on ‘metadata’ and ‘data format’ respectively in order of importance. Results from the review also reveal that features of current OGD web portals in Africa are not consistent with the desired preferences of users. Overall, the study provides a general insight into media expectations of OGD in Africa, and also serves as a foundational knowledge for authorities and practitioners to manage expectations of the media in connection with OGD in Africa….(More)”.
Democracy at Work: Moving Beyond Elections to Improve Well-Being
Michael Touchton, Natasha Borges Sugiyama and Brian Wampler in the American Political Science Review: “How does democracy work to improve well-being? In this article, we disentangle the component parts of democratic practice—elections, civic participation, expansion of social provisioning, local administrative capacity—to identify their relationship with well-being. We draw from the citizenship debates to argue that democratic practices allow citizens to gain access to a wide range of rights, which then serve as the foundation for improving social well-being. Our analysis of an original dataset covering over 5,550 Brazilian municipalities from 2006 to 2013 demonstrates that competitive elections alone do not explain variation in infant mortality rates, one outcome associated with well-being. We move beyond elections to show how participatory institutions, social programs, and local state capacity can interact to buttress one another and reduce infant mortality rates. It is important to note that these relationships are independent of local economic growth, which also influences infant mortality. The result of our thorough analysis offers a new understanding of how different aspects of democracy work together to improve a key feature of human development….(More)”.
Playing (with) Democracy: A Review of Gamified Participation Approaches
Sarah-Kristin Thiel, Michaela Reisinger, Kathrin Röderer, Peter Fröhlich in the Journal of Democracy and Open Government: “Albeit a wide range of e-participation platforms being already available, the level of public participation remains low. Governments around the world as well as academia are currently exploring new ways to design participation methods that are more engaging to use and will foster participation. One of the strategies is gamification. By adding game elements to e-participation platforms it is hoped to motivate for citizens to engage. This paper reviewed a large number of e-participation platforms, seeking to provide an overview of the current state of the art of so-called gamified participation initiatives. Our results show that while about half of the review projects can be categorized as game-related, only a small amount employs gamification. Moreover, current gamified participation initiatives seem to focus on reward-based gamification, a strategy which is said to come with risks. In this paper we further provide recommendations for future gamified participation projects….(More)”
Handbook of Big Data Technologies
Handbook by Albert Y. Zomaya and Sherif Sakr: “…offers comprehensive coverage of recent advancements in Big Data technologies and related paradigms. Chapters are authored by international leading experts in the field, and have been reviewed and revised for maximum reader value. The volume consists of twenty-five chapters organized into four main parts. Part one covers the fundamental concepts of Big Data technologies including data curation mechanisms, data models, storage models, programming models and programming platforms. It also dives into the details of implementing Big SQL query engines and big stream processing systems. Part Two focuses on the semantic aspects of Big Data management including data integration and exploratory ad hoc analysis in addition to structured querying and pattern matching techniques. Part Three presents a comprehensive overview of large scale graph processing. It covers the most recent research in large scale graph processing platforms, introducing several scalable graph querying and mining mechanisms in domains such as social networks. Part Four details novel applications that have been made possible by the rapid emergence of Big Data technologies such as Internet-of-Things (IOT), Cognitive Computing and SCADA Systems. All parts of the book discuss open research problems, including potential opportunities, that have arisen from the rapid progress of Big Data technologies and the associated increasing requirements of application domains.
Designed for researchers, IT professionals and graduate students, this book is a timely contribution to the growing Big Data field. Big Data has been recognized as one of leading emerging technologies that will have a major contribution and impact on the various fields of science and varies aspect of the human society over the coming decades. Therefore, the content in this book will be an essential tool to help readers understand the development and future of the field….(More)”
Innovation in Education Through Crowdsourcing
Meghna Tare in TriplePundit: “….UNESCO tapped into online crowdsourcing to help achieve Education for All. The project on crowdsourcing girls’ education in Ethiopia and Tanzania launched in July 2011 took a community-based approach to lowering drop-out rates in secondary schools in those countries.
Funded by the Packard Foundation, within the framework of UNESCO’s global partnership for girls’ and women’s education, it encouraged girls and their communities to propose solutions to obstacles preventing girls from completing secondary education. The process introduced a fresh approach to designing education policies
One of the groups that benefits tremendously from crowdsourcing in education is the faculty. Teachers and professors can share lesson plans with each other and find new and innovative ways to share material with students. They can brainstorm together to create a database of resources and best practices that benefit their institution – and then share that information with other schools as well. They can give feedback and offer assistance in further developing curriculum. Finally, faculty can use peer evaluations to help with grading practices and to receive feedback on their teaching styles
Crowdsourcing is also an important method to improve the way education is conducted by teachers and received by students. With crowdsourcing projects, colleges and universities can use collective brainpower and energy to complete what they can’t do on their own, going beyond their budgets and time constraints.
From transcribing ancient documents and increasing class participation to collecting data for research and documenting campus crime, these college crowdsourcing projects are downright awe-inspiring.
- Columbia University used crowdsourcing of ideas to dramatically enhance the student experience. By allowing students to suggest ideas in the “What to Fix Colombia” community, the school received feedback and implemented changes that made a significant difference in how students operate at school. Some of the low-hanging fruit ideas included small things like revised gate hours and a new mailbox notification system….(More)”
Disinformation campaigns target tech-enabled citizen journalists
Steven Livingston at Brookings: “Governments hoping to evade responsibility for war crimes and rights abuses are having a much tougher time of it these days. Denying entry to nettlesome investigators is still standard while many places are simply too dangerous to investigate. But even where investigators cannot go, digital technologies can sometimes overcome barriers to investigation. A recent Harvard Kennedy School report published by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy underscores how various digital technologies undermine attempts to hide abuses and war crimes. Commercial high-resolution remote sensing satellites, some capable of distinguishing objects on the ground as small as 30-cm across, allow human rights groups to document military forces deployments, mass graves, forced population displacements, and damage to physical infrastructure…(More)”
Digital Democracy: The Tools Transforming Political Engagement
Paper by Julie Simon, Theo Bass, Victoria Boelman and Geoff Mulgan: “… shares lessons from Nesta’s research into some of the pioneering innovations in digital democracy which are taking place across Europe and beyond.
Key findings
- Digital democracy is a broad concept and not easy to define. The paper provides a granular approach to help encompass its various activities and methods (our ‘typology of digital democracy’).
- Many initiatives exist simply as an app, or web page, driven by what the technology can do, rather than by what the need is.
- Lessons from global case studies describe how digital tools are being used to engage communities in more meaningful political participation, and how they are improving the quality and legitimacy of decision-making.
- Digital democracy is still young. Projects must embed better methods for evaluation of their goals if the field is to grow.
Thanks to digital technologies, today we can bank, read the news, study for a degree, and chat with friends across the world – all without leaving the comfort of our homes. But one area that seems to have remained impervious to these benefits is our model of democratic governance, which has remained largely unchanged since it was invented in the 20th century.
New experiments are showing how digital technologies can play a critical role in engaging new groups of people, empowering citizens and forging a new relationship between cities and local residents, and parliamentarians and citizens.
At the parliamentary level, including in Brazil and France, experiments with new tools are enabling citizens to contribute to draft legislation. Political parties such as Podemos in Spain and the Icelandic Pirate Party are using tools such as Loomio, Reddit and Discourse to enable party members and the general public to deliberate and feed into policy proposals. Local governments have set up platforms to enable citizens to submit ideas and information, rank priorities and allocate public resources…..
Lessons from the innovators
- Develop a clear plan and process: Pioneers in the field engage people meaningfully by giving them a clear stake; they conduct stakeholder analysis; operate with full transparency; and access harder-to-reach groups with offline methods.
- Get the necessary support in place: The most successful initiatives have clear-backing from lawmakers; they also secure the necessary resources to promote to the process properly (PR and advertising), as well as the internal systems to manage and evaluate large numbers of ideas.
- Choose the right tools: The right digital tools help to improve the user-experience and understanding of the issue, and can help remove some of the negative impacts of those who might try to damage or ‘game’ the process….(More)”
Cities need to innovate to survive. Here are four ways they can do it
Alice Charles: “…The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Cities chronicled a list of Top 10 Urban Innovations from around the world, that are providing best practice examples of how cities are creating innovative solutions to a variety of urban problems.
Top 10 Urban Innovations
Within these innovations, four principles surface again and again. They can be seen as a core framework to find innovative solutions to complex urban problems:
- Unleashing spare capacity: Many innovations cleverly make use of existing yet underutilized resources. Airbnb, for example, enables the renting out of unused private homes; co-locating schools and recreational facilities enables public-private sharing of space; and the circular economy provides opportunities to reuse, recycle and upcycle.
- Cutting out the peaks: From electricity and water to roads and public transport, upwards of 20% of capacity sits idle for much of the time ready to cope with demand peaks; cutting out these peaks with technology-enabled demand management or innovative pricing structures can significantly limit the burden on financial and natural resources.
- Small-scale infrastructure thinking: Cities will always need large-infrastructure projects, but sometimes small-scale infrastructure – from cycle lanes and bike sharing to the planting of trees for climate change adaptation – can also have a big impact on an urban area.
- People-centred innovation: The best way to improve a city is by mobilizing its citizens. From smart traffic lights to garbage taxes, innovations in technology, services and governance are not ends in themselves but means to shape the behaviour and improve the lives of the city’s inhabitants. All innovations should be centred on the citizen, adhering to the principles of universal design and usable by people of all ages and abilities.
Cities are expected to provide a better standard of living, increase community cohesion, wellness and happiness while progressing towards sustainable development. To be successful in meeting these requirements, cities need to transform their strategies to include innovation and enable the convergence of the digital and physical dimensions. Cities need to support the design and development of cutting-edge solutions and processes in collaboration with the private sector, scientific research institutions, academia, citizens and start-ups, to maintain the competitive edge, while progressing towards better performance and urban service deliveries….(More)”
Facebook artificial intelligence spots suicidal users
Leo Kelion at BBC News: “Facebook has begun using artificial intelligence to identify members that may be at risk of killing themselves.
The social network has developed algorithms that spot warning signs in users’ posts and the comments their friends leave in response.
After confirmation by Facebook’s human review team, the company contacts those thought to be at risk of self-harm to suggest ways they can seek help.
A suicide helpline chief said the move was “not just helpful but critical”.
The tool is being tested only in the US at present.
It marks the first use of AI technology to review messages on the network since founder Mark Zuckerberg announced last month that he also hoped to use algorithms to identify posts by terrorists, among other concerning content.
Facebook also announced new ways to tackle suicidal behaviour on its Facebook Live broadcast tool and has partnered with several US mental health organisations to let vulnerable users contact them via its Messenger platform.
Pattern recognition
Facebook has offered advice to users thought to be at risk of suicide for years, but until now it had relied on other users to bring the matter to its attention by clicking on a post’s report button.
It has now developed pattern-recognition algorithms to recognise if someone is struggling, by training them with examples of the posts that have previously been flagged.
Talk of sadness and pain, for example, would be one signal.
Responses from friends with phrases such as “Are you OK?” or “I’m worried about you,” would be another.
Once a post has been identified, it is sent for rapid review to the network’s community operations team.
“We know that speed is critical when things are urgent,” Facebook product manager Vanessa Callison-Burch told the BBC.
The director of the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline praised the effort, but said he hoped Facebook would eventually do more than give advice, by also contacting those that could help….
The latest effort to help Facebook Live users follows the death of a 14-year-old-girl in Miami, who livestreamed her suicide on the platform in January.
However, the company said it had already begun work on its new tools before the tragedy.
The goal is to help at-risk users while they are broadcasting, rather than wait until their completed video has been reviewed some time later….(More)”.
What is the Spectrum of Public Participation?
Using the Spectrum of Public Participation
Many practitioners and organisations find the Spectrum very helpful. The IAP2 claims that the Spectrum is “quickly becoming an international standard” and, while this claim is partly marketing, it certainly has some validity in some sectors. In Australia, the Spectrum forms a basis for many state and federal government guides to community engagement (e.g., Department Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Department of Primary Industries) local government community engagement plans (e.g., City of Newcastle, Latrobe City and the Local Government Association of South Australia ) and a range of other organisations (e.g., Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence and Trinity Grammar School).
While not as widely used in other parts of the world, it is still relevant and has been used in a range of contexts (e.g., The United States Environmental Protection Agency, the British Forestry Commission and Vancouver’s Engage City Task Force).
….
Selecting a level
The Spectrum is not a flow chart. They are not steps in a process – starting on the left and working to the right – so selecting a level needs to be based on the specific context.
Higher levels are not necessarily “better”. If an issue is not controversial and does not provoke passionate feelings, a lower level maybe more appropriate, but for issues which are complex and controversial, it can save time in the long run to choose a higher level ….
Selecting a level of participation does not mean that the level cannot change, (e.g., it might be discovered that an issue was more controversial than thought, and so a higher level might be adopted) nor is the selected level the only one that can be used. It can be quite appropriate to provide ways of engaging the community at lower levels than the level selected. For example, some people may not have the time and energy to participate in day long workshop held at the Collaborate level, but might still want to have the opportunity to contribute their ideas.
The level is only part of the picture
Community engagement needs to have strong ethical base. Selecting appropriate levels is important but the way we engage the community and who we engage are also vitally important.
The Spectrum of Public Participation is underpinned by seven values.….
The Spectrum is a useful tool in thinking about, and planning, community engagement that has helped many practitioners in a wide range of contexts. Although there are examples where it has been used poorly, it provides a valuable starting place and can, in fact, be used to challenge poor community engagement practice….(More)”