Center for Data Science and Public Policy: “Want to know if your organization is ready to start a data-driven social impact project? See where you are in our data maturity framework and how to improve your organizational, tech, and data readiness. The Data Maturity Framework has three content areas: Problem Definition Data and Technology Readiness Organizational Readiness The Data Maturity Framework consists of: A questionnaire and survey to assess readiness Data and Technology Readiness Matrix Organizational Readiness Matrix The framework materials can be downloaded here, and you can complete our survey here. When we collect enough responses from enough... (More >)
Public services and the new age of data
John Manzoni at Civil Service Quaterly: “Government holds massive amounts of data. The potential in that data for transforming the way government makes policy and delivers public services is equally huge. So, getting data right is the next phase of public service reform. And the UK Government has a strong foundation on which to build this future. Public services have a long and proud relationship with data. In 1858, more than 50 years before the creation of the Cabinet Office, Florence Nightingale produced her famous ‘Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the east’ during the... (More >)
Scientists have a word for studying the post-truth world: agnotology
Janna Roses Barros and Marcos Barros in The Conversation: “But scientists have another word for “post-truth”. You might have heard of epistemology, or the study of knowledge. This field helps define what we know and why we know it. On the flip side of this is agnotology, or the study of ignorance. Agnotology is not often discussed, because studying the absence of something — in this case knowledge — is incredibly difficult. Doubt is our product Agnotology is more than the study of what we don’t know; it’s also the study of why we are not supposed to know... (More >)
How statistics lost their power – and why we should fear what comes next
William Davies in The Guardian: “In theory, statistics should help settle arguments. They ought to provide stable reference points that everyone – no matter what their politics – can agree on. Yet in recent years, divergent levels of trust in statistics has become one of the key schisms that have opened up in western liberal democracies. Shortly before the November presidential election, a study in the US discovered that 68% of Trump supporters distrusted the economic data published by the federal government. In the UK, a research project by Cambridge University and YouGov looking at conspiracy theories discovered that... (More >)
DataCollaboratives.org – A New Resource on Creating Public Value by Exchanging Data
Recent years have seen exponential growth in the amount of data being generated and stored around the world. There is increasing recognition that this data can play a key role in solving some of the most difficult public problems we face. However, much of the potentially useful data is currently privately held and not available for public insights. Data in the form of web clicks, social “likes,” geo location and online purchases are typically tightly controlled, usually by entities in the private sector. Companies today generate an ever-growing stream of information from our proliferating sensors and devices. Increasingly, they—and... (More >)
Popular Democracy: The Paradox of Participation
Book by Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Ernesto Ganuza: “Local participation is the new democratic imperative. In the United States, three-fourths of all cities have developed opportunities for citizen involvement in strategic planning. The World Bank has invested $85 billion over the last decade to support community participation worldwide. But even as these opportunities have become more popular, many contend that they have also become less connected to actual centers of power and the jurisdictions where issues relevant to communities are decided. With this book, Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Ernesto Ganuza consider the opportunities and challenges of democratic participation. Examining how one... (More >)
Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops
Thomas Kalil and David Wilkinson at the White House: “When it comes to strengthening the public sector, the Federal Government looks for new ways to achieve better results for the people we serve. One promising tool that has gained momentum across numerous sectors in the last few years is the adoption of feedback loops. Systematically collecting data and learning from client and customer insights can benefit organizations across all sectors. The collection of these valuable insights—and acting on them—remains an underutilized tool. The people who receive services are the experts on their effectiveness and usefulness. While the private sector... (More >)
Doctors take inspiration from online dating to build organ transplant AI
Ariel Bogle at Mashable :”When Bob Jones performed one of Victoria’s first liver transplants in 1988, he could not imagine that 29 years later he’d be talking about artificial intelligence and online dating. Jones is the director of Austin Health’s Victorian liver transplant unit in Melbourne, Australia, and along with his colleague Lawrence Lau, he has helped develop an algorithm that could potentially better match organ donors with organ recipients. Comparing it to the metrics behind dating site eHarmony, Jone said they planned to use the specially-designed AI to improve the accuracy of matching liver donors and recipients, hopefully... (More >)
How Mobile Crowdsourcing Can Improve Occupational Safety
Batu Sayici & Beth Simone Noveck at The GovLab’s Medium: “With 150 workers dying each day from hazardous working conditions, work safety continues to be a serious problem in the U.S. Using mobile technology to collect information about workplace safety conditions from those on the ground could help prevent serious injuries and save lives by accelerating the ability to spot unsafe conditions. The convergence of wireless devices, low-cost sensors, big data, and crowdsourcing can transform the way we assess risk in our workplaces. Government agencies, labor unions, workers’ rights organizations, contractors and crowdsourcing technology providers should work together to... (More >)
All deleted tweets from politicians
Politwoops: “An archive of public tweets, deleted by politicians. Explore the tweets they would prefer you couldn’t see.” ... (More >)
