The Data That’s Hiding in Plain Sight


Beth Noveck in Governing: “What makes open data a powerful tool for governing better is the ability of people inside and outside of institutions to use the same data to create effective policies and useful tools, visualizations, maps and apps. Open data also can provide the raw material to convene informed conversations about what’s broken and the empirical foundation for developing solutions. But to realize its potential, the data needs to be truly open: not only universally and readily accessible but also structured for usability and computability.

One area where open data has the potential to make a real difference — and where some of its current limitations are all too apparent — is in state-level regulation of nonprofits. In May, a task force comprising the Federal Trade Commission together with 58 agencies from all 50 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Cancer Fund group of nonprofits and the individuals who run them. The complaint alleges that the groups are sham charities that spend “the overwhelming majority of donated funds supporting the Individual Defendants, their families and friends, and their fundraisers.” State officials spotted telltale signs of abuse and fraud by studying information the organizations had submitted in their federal nonprofit tax returns and state-by-state registration forms.

Nonprofit tax returns and registration forms are the public’s (and government’s) primary window into the workings of America’s enormous and economically impactful nonprofit sector. Every year in the United States, approximately 1.5 million registered tax-exempt organizations file a version of the federal Form 990, the tax return for tax-exempt organization, with the Internal Revenue Service and state tax authorities. These forms collect details on the organizations’ financial, governance and organizational structure to the end of ensuring that they are deserving of their tax-exempt status. All but 10 states also require that nonprofits file state-specific registration forms. The information these filings contain about executive compensation, fundraising expenses and donation activities can help regulators spot possible bad actors and alert each other to targets for further investigation.

Yet despite the richness and utility of the information contained in these filings, major barriers prevent regulators from efficiently sharing and analyzing the data..(More)”

New ODI research shows open data reaching every sector of UK industry


ODI: “New research has been published today (1 June) by the Open Data Institute showing that open data is reaching every sector of UK industry.

In various forms, open data is being adopted by a wide variety of businesses – small and large, new and old, from right across the country. The findings from Open data means business: UK innovation across sectors and regions draw on 270 companies with a combined turnover of £92bn and over 500k employees, identified by the ODI as using, producing or investing in open data as part of their business. The project included desk research, surveys and interviews on the companies’ experiences.

Key findings from the research include:

  • Companies using open data come from many sectors; over 46% from outside the information and communication sector. These include finance & insurance, science & technology, business administration & support, arts & entertainment, health, retail, transportation, education and energy.
  • The most popular datasets for companies aregeospatial/mapping data (57%), transport data (43%) and environment data (42%).
  • 39% of companies innovating with open data are over 10 years old, with some more than 25 years old, proving open data isn’t just for new digital startups.
  • ‘Micro-enterprises’ (businesses with fewer than 10 employees) represented 70% of survey respondents, demonstrating athriving open data startup scene. These businesses are using it to create services, products and platforms. 8% of respondents were drawn from large companies of 251 or more employees….
  • The companies surveyed listed 25 different government sources for the data they use. Notably, Ordnance Survey data was cited most frequently, by 14% of the companies. The non-government source most commonly used was OpenStreetMap, an openly licenced map of the world created by volunteers….(More)

5 cool ways connected data is being used


 at Wareable: “The real news behind the rise of wearable tech isn’t so much the gadgetry as the gigantic amount of personal data that it harnesses.

Concerns have already been raised over what companies may choose to do with such valuable information, with one US life insurance company already using Fitbits to track customers’ exercise and offer them discounts when they hit their activity goals.

Despite a mildly worrying potential dystopia in which our own data could be used against us, there are plenty of positive ways in which companies are using vast amounts of connected data to make the world a better place…

Parkinson’s disease research

Apple Health ResearchKit was recently unveiled as a platform for collecting collaborative data for medical studies, but Apple isn’t the first company to rely on crowdsourced data for medical research.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research recently unveiled a partnership with Intel to improve research and treatment for the neurodegenerative brain disease. Wearables are being used to unobtrusively gather real-time data from sufferers, which is then analysed by medical experts….

Saving the rhino

Connected data and wearable tech isn’t just limited to humans. In South Africa, the Madikwe Conservation Project is using wearable-based data to protect endangered rhinos from callous poachers.

A combination of ultra-strong Kevlar ankle collars powered by an Intel Galileo chip, along with an RFID chip implanted in each rhino’s horn allows the animals to be monitored. Any break in proximity between the anklet and horn results in anti-poaching teams being deployed to catch the bad guys….

Making public transport smart

A company called Snips is collecting huge amounts of urban data in order to improve infrastructure. In partnership with French national rail operator SNCF, Snips produced an app called Tranquilien to utilise location data from commuters’ phones and smartwatches to track which parts of the rail network were busy at which times.

Combining big data with crowdsourcing, the information helps passengers to pick a train where they can find a seat during peak times, while the data can also be useful to local businesses when serving the needs of commuters who are passing through.

Improving the sports fan experience

We’ve already written about how wearable tech is changing the NFL, but the collection of personal data is also set to benefit the fans.

Levi’s Stadium – the new home of the San Francisco 49ers – opened in 2014 and is one of the most technically advanced sports venues in the world. As well as a strong Wi-Fi signal throughout the stadium, fans also benefit from a dedicated app. This not only offers instant replays and real-time game information, but it also helps them find a parking space, order food and drinks directly to their seat and even check the lines at the toilets. As fans use the app, all of the data is collated to enhance the fan experience in future….

Creating interactive art

Don’t be put off by the words ‘interactive installation’. On Broadway is a cool work of art that “represents life in the 21st Century city through a compilation of images and data collected along the 13 miles of Broadway that span Manhattan”….(More)”

The Missing Statistics of Criminal Justice


Matt Ford at the Atlantic: “An abundance of data has fueled the reform movement, but from prisons to prosecutors, crucial questions remain unquantified.

After Ferguson, a noticeable gap in criminal-justice statistics emerged: the use of lethal force by the police. The federal government compiles a wealth of data on homicides, burglaries, and arson, but no official, reliable tabulation of civilian deaths by law enforcement exists. A partial database kept by the FBI is widely considered to be misleading and inaccurate. (The Washington Post has just released a more expansive total of nearly 400 police killings this year.) “It’s ridiculous that I can’t tell you how many people were shot by the police last week, last month, last year,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters in April.

This raises an obvious question: If the FBI can’t tell how many people were killed by law enforcement last year, what other kinds of criminal-justice data are missing? Statistics are more than just numbers: They focus the attention of politicians, drive the allocation of resources, and define the public debate. Public officials—from city councilors to police commanders to district attorneys—are often evaluated based on how these numbers change during their terms in office. But existing statistical measures only capture part of the overall picture, and the problems that go unmeasured are often also unaddressed. What changes could the data that isn’t currently collected produce if it were gathered?….

Without reliable official statistics, scholars often must gather and compile necessary data themselves. “A few years ago, I was struck at how many police killings of civilians we seemed to be having in Philadelphia,” Gottschalk said as an example. “They would be buried in the newspaper, and I was stunned by how difficult it was to compile that information and compare it to New York and do it on a per-capita basis. It wasn’t readily available.” As a result, criminal-justice researchers often spend more time gathering data than analyzing it.

This data’s absence shapes the public debate over mass incarceration in the same way that silence between notes of music gives rhythm to a song. Imagine debating the economy without knowing the unemployment rate, or climate change without knowing the sea level, or healthcare reform without knowing the number of uninsured Americans. Legislators and policymakers heavily rely on statistics when crafting public policy. Criminal-justice statistics can also influence judicial rulings, including those by the Supreme Court, with implications for the entire legal system.

Beyond their academic and policymaking value, there’s also a certain power to statistics. They have the irreplaceable ability to both clarify social issues and structure the public’s understanding of them. A wealth of data has allowed sociologists, criminologists, and political scientists to diagnose serious problems with the American criminal-justice system over the past twenty years. Now that a growing bipartisan consensus recognizes the problem exists, gathering the right facts and figures could help point the way towards solutions…(More)”

Measuring ‘governance’ to improve lives


Robert Rotberg at the Conversation: “…Citizens everywhere desire “good governance” – to be governed well within their nation-states, their provinces, their states and their cities.

Governance is more useful than “democracy” if we wish to understand how different political rulers and ruling elites satisfy the aspirations of their citizens.

But to make the notion of “governance” useful, we need both a practical definition and a method of measuring the gradations between good and bad governance.

What’s more, if we can measure well, we can diagnose weak areas of governance and, hence, seek ways to make the weak actors strong.

Governance, defined as “the performance of governments and the delivery of services by governments,” tells us if and when governments are in fact meeting the expectations of their constituents and providing for them effectively and responsibly.

Democracy outcomes, by contrast, are much harder to measure because the meaning of the very word itself is contested and impossible to measure accurately.

For the purposes of making policy decisions, if we seek to learn how citizens are faring under regime X or regime Y, we need to compare governance (not democracy) in those respective places.

In other words, governance is a construct that enables us to discern exactly whether citizens are progressing in meeting life’s goals.

Measuring governance: five bundles and 57 subcategories

Are citizens of a given country better off economically, socially and politically than they were in an earlier decade? Are their various human causes, such as being secure or being free, advancing? Are their governments treating them well, and attempting to respond to their various needs and aspirations and relieving them of anxiety?

Just comparing national gross domestic products (GDPs), life expectancies or literacy rates provides helpful distinguishing data, but governance data are more comprehensive, more telling and much more useful.

Assessing governance tells us far more about life in different developing societies than we would learn by weighing the varieties of democracy or “human development” in such places.

Government’s performance, in turn, is according to the scheme advanced in my book On Governance and in my Index of African Governance, the delivery to citizens of five bundles (divided into 57 underlying subcategories) of political goods that citizens within any kind of political jurisdiction demand.

The five major bundles are Security and Safety, Rule of Law and Transparency, Political Participation and Respect for Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity, and Human Development (education and health)….(More)”

Remote Voting and Beyond: How Tech Will Transform Government From the Inside Out


Springwise: “…Technology, and in particular the internet, are often seen as potential stumbling blocks for government. But this perception acts as a brake on innovation in public services and in politics more generally. By embracing technology, rather than warily containing it, governments globally could benefit hugely. In terms of formulating and executing policy, technology can help governments become more transparent, accountable and effective, while improving engagement and participation from regular citizens.

On engagement, for instance, technology is opening up new avenues which make taking part in the political process far more straightforward. Springwise-featured Harvard startup Voatz are building a platform that allows users to vote, make campaign donations and complete opinion polls from their smartphones. The app, which uses biometric authentication to ensure that identities are comprehensively verified, could well entice younger voters who are alienated by the ballot box. Melding the simplicity of apps with sophisticated identity verification technology, Voatz is just one example of how tech can disrupt government for good.

From the Ground Up…

The potential for active participation goes far beyond voting. E-focus groups, online petitions and campaign groups have the power to transform the interaction between political establishments and citizens. From fact-checking charities enabled by crowdfunding such as UK-based Full Fact to massive national campaigns conducted online, citizens connected by technology are using their collective power to reshape government in democratic countries. Under other regimes, such as in the People’s Republic of China, vigilante citizens are circumventing extensive firewalls to shine a light on official misconduct.

…and the Top Down

As well as an abundance of citizen-led efforts to improve governance, there are significant moves from governments themselves to shake-up public service delivery. Even HealthCare.gov, flawed though the roll-out was, marks a hugely ambitious piece of government reform underpinned by technology. Indeed, Obama has shown an unprecedented willingness to embrace technology in his two terms, appointing chief information and technology officers, promising to open up government data and launching the @POTUS Twitter account last month. Clearly, recognition is there from governments that technology can be a game changer for their headline policies.

While many countries are using technology for individual projects, there is one government that is banking its entire national success on tech – Estonia. The tiny, sparsely populated country in Eastern Europe is one of the most technologically advanced in the world. Everything from citizen IDs to tax returns and health records make use of technology and are efficient and ‘future-proofed’ as a result.

Whether as a threat or an opportunity, technology represents a transformative influence on government. Its potential as a disruptive, reshaping force has fed a narrative that casts technology as a looming threat and a destabiliser of conventional power structures. But harnessed properly and executed effectively, technology can remold government for the better, improving big public service projects, raising participation and engaging a young population whose default is digital….(More)”

Open data for competitive advantage: insights from open data use by companies


Anneke Zuiderwijk et al in the Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: “Politicians have high expectations for commercial open data use. Yet, companies appear to challenge the assumption that open data can be used to create competitive advantage, since any company can access open data and since open data use requires scarce resources. In this paper we examine commercial open data use for creating competitive advantage from the perspective of Resource Based Theory (RBT) and Resource Dependency Theory (RDT). Based on insights from a scenario, interviews and a survey and from RBT and RDT as a reference theory, we derive seven propositions. Our study suggests that the generation of competitive advantage with open data requires a company to have in-house capabilities and resources for open data use. The actual creation of competitive advantage might not be simple. The propositions also draw attention to the accomplishment of unique benefits for a company through the combination of internal and external resources. Recommendations for further research include testing the propositions….(More)”

The Diffusion and Evolution of 311 Citizen Service Centers in American Cities from 1996 to 2012


PhD thesis by John Christopher O’Byrne: “This study of the diffusion and evolution of the 311 innovation in the form of citizen service centers and as a technology cluster has been designed to help identify the catalysts for the spread of government-to-citizen (G2C) technology in local government in order to better position future G2C technology for a more rapid rate of adoption. The 311 non-emergency number was first established in 1996 and had spread to 80 local governments across the United States by 2012. This dissertation examines: what factors contributed to the adoption of 311 in American local governments over 100,000 in population; how did the innovation diffuse and evolve over time; and why did some governments’ communications with citizens became more advanced than others? Given the problem of determining causality, a three-part research design was used to examine the topic including a historical narrative, logistic regression model, and case studies from Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and St. Louis. The narrative found that the political forces of the federal government, national organizations, and policy entrepreneurs (Karch, 2007) promoted the 311 innovation to solve different problems and that it evolved beyond its original intent.

The logistic regression model found that there was a statistically significant relationship between 311 adoption and the variables of higher population, violent crime rate, and the mayor-council form of government. The case studies revealed that mayors played a strong role in establishing citizen service centers in all three cities while 311 adopter Pittsburgh and non-adopter St. Louis seemed to have more in common in their G2C evolution due to severe budget constraints. With little written about the 311 innovation in academic journals, practitioners and scholars will benefit from understanding the catalysts for the diffusion and evolution of the 311 in order to determine ways to increase the rate of adoption for future G2C communication innovations….(More)”

How Twitter Users Can Generate Better Ideas


Salvatore Parise, Eoin Whelan and Steve Todd in MIT Sloan Management Review: “New research suggests that employees with a diverse Twitter network — one that exposes them to people and ideas they don’t already know — tend to generate better ideas…. A multitude of empirical studies confirm what Jobs intuitively knew. The more diverse a person’s social network, the more likely that person is to be innovative. A diverse network provides exposure to people from different fields who behave and think differently. Good ideas emerge when the new information received is combined with what a person already knows. But in today’s digitally connected world, many relationships are formed and maintained online through public social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Increasingly, employees are using such platforms for work-related purposes.

Studying Twitter Networks

Can Twitter make employees more innovative? In particular, does having a greater diversity of virtual Twitter connections mean that good ideas are more likely to surface, as in the face-to-face world? To answer this question, we used a technique called organizational network analysis (ONA) to create visual representations of employee Twitter networks. We studied ten employee groups across five companies in a range of industries….

….in analyzing the structure of each employee’s Twitter network, we found that there was a positive relationship between the amount of diversity in one’s Twitter network and the quality of ideas submitted. However, Twitter activity and size measures (such as the number of tweets, number of followers and number of people followed) were not correlated with personal innovation….(More)

Governing methods: policy innovation labs, design and data science in the digital governance of education


Paper by Ben Williamson in the Journal of Educational Administration and History: “Policy innovation labs are emerging knowledge actors and technical experts in the governing of education. The article offers a historical and conceptual account of the organisational form of the policy innovation lab. Policy innovation labs are characterised by specific methods and techniques of design, data science, and digitisation in public services such as education. The second half of the article details how labs promote the use of digital data analysis, evidence-based evaluation and ‘design-for-policy’ techniques as methods for the governing of education. In particular, they promote the ‘computational thinking’ associated with computer programming as a capacity required by a ‘reluctant state’ that is increasingly concerned to delegate its responsibilities to digitally enabled citizens with the ‘designerly’ capacities and technical expertise to ‘code’ solutions to public and social problems. Policy innovation labs are experimental laboratories trialling new methods within education for administering and governing the future of the state itself….(More)”