Marta Severo, Amel Feredj and Alberto Romele in Policy & Internet: “In recent years, decision makers have reported difficulties in the use of official statistics in public policy: excessively long publication delays, insufficient coverage of topics of interest, and the top-down process of data creation. The deluge of data available online represents a potential answer to these problems, with social media data in particular as a possible alternative to traditional data. In this article, we propose a definition of “Soft Data” to indicate data that are freely available on the Internet, and that are not controlled by a public administration but rather by public or private actors. The term Soft Data is not intended to replace those of “Big Data” and “Open Data,” but rather to highlight specific properties and research methods required to convert them into information of interest for decision makers. The analysis is based on a case study of Twitter data for urban policymaking carried out for a European research program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of European cohesion policy. The article explores methodological issues and the possible impact of “Soft Data” on public policy, reporting on semistructured interviews carried out with nine European policymakers….(More)”
Resistance of Public Personnel to Open Government: A cognitive theory view of implementation barriers towards open government data
Bernd W. Wirtz, Robert Piehler, Marc-Julian Thomas & Peter Daiser in Public Management Review: “Open government has become an important topic in democratically developed societies. Its key aims are to increase transparency, citizen trust and public participation. Against this background, the article focuses on perceived barriers opposing the introduction of open government data. On the basis of cognitive theory and a literature review, the essential factors that impede public servants in implementing open government data are conceptualized and summarized in a model. The perceived risk-based attitude of public servants is identified as the main barrier. Other significant obstacles include perceived legal barriers, perceived hierarchical structuring of authorities, perceived bureaucratic decision-making culture and perceived organizational transparency….(More)”
Google Maps is turning its over a billion users into editors
TechCrunch: “Google has begun to further tap into the power of the crowd in order to improve its Google Maps application, the company announced this morning. This is being done through the introduction of a number of features that will allow users to more easily share location details, as well as confirm edits suggested by others. Many users had already seen these changes rolling out, but today Google is making them official – an indication that the broader rollout is completing.
While Google says that it makes “millions” of updates to Maps every day, it’s still not enough to ensure that every location has the most accurate, detailed information. That’s why it’s turning to users to help it improve the mapping service.
The company has expanded users’ ability to both add missing places to Google Maps or correct business information through its Google Maps iOS and Android applications, as well as in Google Search. You may have already noticed options for “Suggest an Edit,” or “Add a Missing Place,” for example, which allow you to make your contributions.
Those edits don’t immediately go live, however, as one user’s input alone isn’t enough to determine the edit’s accuracy….(More)”
Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance
Worldbank: “The Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance project is an initiative of the World Bank’sGlobal Indicators Group, which produces a range of datasets and benchmarking products on regulations and business activity around the world. These datasets include Doing Business,Enterprise Surveys, Enabling the Business of Agriculture and Women, Business and the Law.
The Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance project explores how governments interact with the public when shaping regulations that affect their business community. Concerned stakeholders could be professional associations, civic groups or foreign investors. The project charts how interested groups learn about new regulations being considered, and the extent to which they are able to engage with officials on the content. It also measures whether or not governments assess the possible impact of new regulations in their countries (including economic, social and environmental considerations) and whether those calculations form part of the public consultation. Finally, Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance capture two additional components of a predictable regulatory environment: the ability of stakeholders to challenge regulations, and the ability of people to access all the laws and regulations currently in force in one, consolidated place.
The project grew out of an increasing recognition of the importance of transparency and accountability in government actions. Citizen access to the government rulemaking process is central for the creation of a business environment in which investors make long-range plans and investments. Greater levels of consultation are also associated with a higher quality of regulation…(More) ( View project summary (PDF, 190KB)”
Mapping Momentum
Report by Rachel Sinha and Tim Draimin:”As we hurtle towards a human community of 9.7 billion people by the year 2050, coupled with new technologies and the growing challenges of our planet’s carrying capacity, there is more and more discussion of systems and how they change or are created. The post-war era has witnessed an unprecedented growth of global, national and regional systems but systemic challenges like climate change and inequality are undermining the viability and resilience of our 20th century systems.
It’s against this backdrop that a movement is starting to gain traction. A community of practitioners trying to shift incumbent systems no longer fit for purpose and build new ones that work for our current reality.
But this field is nascent and largely unsupported. In this publication, we have created two maps designed to shine a light on the work of this group of pioneers. We offer these with the hypothesis that the field will be better able to organize itself if it can see itself more clearly. Our theory of change? A clearer picture leads to greater connectivity, connectivity leads to stronger networks, and accelerates the best initiatives we so badly need if we are to effectively shift systems….(More)”
Fine-grained dengue forecasting using telephone triage services
Nabeel Abdur Rehman et al at Science Advances: “Thousands of lives are lost every year in developing countries for failing to detect epidemics early because of the lack of real-time disease surveillance data. We present results from a large-scale deployment of a telephone triage service as a basis for dengue forecasting in Pakistan. Our system uses statistical analysis of dengue-related phone calls to accurately forecast suspected dengue cases 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time at a subcity level (correlation of up to 0.93). Our system has been operational at scale in Pakistan for the past 3 years and has received more than 300,000 phone calls. The predictions from our system are widely disseminated to public health officials and form a critical part of active government strategies for dengue containment. Our work is the first to demonstrate, with significant empirical evidence, that an accurate, location-specific disease forecasting system can be built using analysis of call volume data from a public health hotline….(More)”
#HackthePayGap
Department of Commerce: “More than 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. Yet just yesterday, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker addressed developers, data scientists, and designers who are using Department of Commerce data to build new tools and products aimed at ending the pay disparities that still disadvantage women in today’s economy.
Speaking at the White House Hack the Pay Gap Demo Day, Secretary Pritzker stressed that the issue of equal pay for equal work is not just a women’s issue, but an injustice that impacts families and threatens our nation’s economic prosperity. While the pay gap remains a stubborn and persistent problem, Secretary Pritzker pointed to open data as a powerful new tool for workers, businesses, and the public to advance equality in the workplace.
Last April the Commerce Department, Presidential Innovation Fellows, and the White House Council on Women and Girls invited data scientists and developers from across America to “Hack the Pay Gap” using MIDAAS (Making Income Data Available as a Service) – a new application programming interface (API) designed to improve public access to the U.S. Census Bureau’s income, population, and geographic data…..For example, the “What’s my Pay Gap” project asks you to answers questions about yourself and allows you to discover how your personal wage gap grows and shrinks depending on your demographic characteristics. Another project named “Aware,” provides a survey and data analytics platform for companies to use in order to make data-driven decisions about combating the pay gap in their own organizations. In addition, the Secretary listened to a presentation on the PowerShift application that provides users salary breakdown and range data on what men in a similar situation are making in addition to legal information about fair pay….To learn more about the Hack the Pay Gap challenge visit paygap.pif.gov.”
Two Laws On Expertise That Make Government Dumber
Beth Noveck in Forbes: “With the announcement of Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn last week comes the prospect of new tech products that can help us visualize more than ever before about what we know and can do. But the buzz about what this might mean for our ability to find a job in the 21st century (and for privacy), obscures a tantalizing possibility for improving government.
Imagine if the Department of Health and Human Services needed to craft a new policy on hospitals. With better tools for automating the identification of expertise from our calendar, email, and document data (Microsoft), our education history and credentials (LinkedIn) skills acquired from training (Lynda), it might become possible to match the demand for know how about healthcare to the supply of those people who have worked in the sector, have degrees in public health, or who have demonstrated passion and know how evident from their volunteer experience.
The technological possibility of matching people to public opportunities to participate in the life of our democracy in ways that relate to our competencies and interests is impeded, however, by two decades-old statutes that prohibit the federal government from taking advantage of the possibilities of technology to tap into the expertise of the American people to solve our hardest problems.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (FACA) and the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (PRA) entrench the committee and consultation practices of an era before the Internet. They make it illegal for wider networks of more diverse people with innovative ideas from convening to help solve public problems and need to be updated for the 21st century….(More)”
Use of big data risks making some people uninsurable
Oliver Ralph at the Financial Times: “More sophisticated use of data could create an “underclass” of people who cannot afford insurance. According to a new report from the Chartered Institute of Insurance, consumers could miss out on some types of cover altogether if insurers deem them too risky.
Big data are one of the insurance industry’s great hopes for the future. Established insurers and a host of start-ups are investing millions in new systems to better understand the information they hold about customers, and to collect more data. They hope that by better analysing the risks that each policyholder faces, they can not only price their products more accurately but also advise customers on how to avoid problems.
However, the CII paper warns that using data in this way threatens the concept of pooling risk on which the industry was founded.
“Data is a double-edged sword,” said David Thomson, director of policy and public affairs at the CII. “The insurance sector needs to be careful about moving away from pooled risk into individual pricing. They need to think about the broader public interest.”
The report says that the concept of pooling risk “underpins the effectiveness of insurance cover”.
It adds: “Some people may be identified as such high risk to insurers that they are priced out of insurance altogether. Big data could, in effect, create groups of ‘uninsurable’ people. While in some cases this may be to do with modifiable behaviour, like driving style, it could easily be due to factors that people can’t control, such as where they live, age, genetic conditions or health problems.”
The issue of genetic data is a particularly contentious one.
In theory, genetic data could be useful to insurers when deciding how to price life or health insurance. Because of the ethical questions this poses, an agreement signed in 2000 between the government and the Association of British Insurers stops the industry from using predictive genetic test results. The agreement runs until 2019, although a review is due this year.
“You could price people out of the market for health products. There’s a danger insurers will not offer health cover to some people. The government would intervene if people are doing social sorting,” said Mr Thomson.
Better use of data in other areas has already forced the government to act. Improved mapping and data analysis have allowed insurers to more accurately assess which homes and businesses run a high risk of flooding. Many people complained that the resulting prices made cover unaffordable for people living in areas at risk….(More)”.
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction
New book by Arvind Narayanan, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller & Steven Goldfeder: “Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies provides a comprehensive introduction to the revolutionary yet often misunderstood new technologies of digital currency. Whether you are a student, software developer, tech entrepreneur, or researcher in computer science, this authoritative and self-contained book tells you everything you need to know about the new global money for the Internet age.
How do Bitcoin and its block chain actually work? How secure are your bitcoins? How anonymous are their users? Can cryptocurrencies be regulated? These are some of the many questions this book answers. It begins by tracing the history and development of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and then gives the conceptual and practical foundations you need to engineer secure software that interacts with the Bitcoin network as well as to integrate ideas from Bitcoin into your own projects. Topics include decentralization, mining, the politics of Bitcoin, altcoins and the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the future of Bitcoin, and more.
- An essential introduction to the new technologies of digital currency
- Covers the history and mechanics of Bitcoin and the block chain, security, decentralization, anonymity, politics and regulation, altcoins, and much more
- Features an accompanying website that includes instructional videos for each chapter, homework problems, programming assignments, and lecture slides…(More)”.
See also: Coursera course