Collection

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

Curated on June 3, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

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

Curated on June 3, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

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

Curated on June 2, 2015October 23, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

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)”

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

Curated on June 2, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

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)”

Data (v.)

Curated on June 1, 2015October 24, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Jer Thorp in Journal 001 of The Office for Creative Research and Medium: “I data you, you data me. They data us, we data them.

As your Concise Oxford sails toward me from across the room, let’s take some time to consider the arguments:

The word data has been in a pronounced flux over the last ten years, as its role and function has been redefined by technology and culture. A decade ago, data was firmly a plural noun. Specifically, it was the plural of datum– one datum, two data. Back then, you could point and laugh at the data amateurs because they would say ‘data is’ rather than ‘data are’. Of course, those data newbies went on to form companies, make software, build databases, write books and give TED talks. And slowly, data did turn into a particular kind of singular: it has become, commonly, a mass noun…..

Data is not inert, yet its perceived passivity is one of its most dangerous properties. When we are warned that a government is collecting data about its citizens, we may be underwhelmed specifically because this act of collection seems to be so harmless, so indifferent. But of course data is not collected and then left alone: it is used as a substrate for decision making; and as an instrument for differentiation, discrimination and damage. Putting an active form of the word data into common parlance could serve as a reminder that the systems of data collection and uses are humming with capacity for influence, action and violence.

Making data a verb also exposes to us the power imbalances that have kept our collective endeavours drastically off-kilter. Grammatically speaking, data-as-verb would present a number of possibilities for subject/object combinations:

I data you. You data me. We data you. You data us. They data me. They data us. We data them.

Exposed to this rich possibility of cause and effect, the common usages of data today become strikingly narrow: in our lived data experiences we are objects, rather than subjects. Google reads our every e-mail, placing us ingloriously in marketing buckets based on what we write to our friends, colleagues and lovers. Uber’s algorithms note our late night voyages asrecords of romantic trysts. They data us, then they data us again.

Even the innocent fitness tracker, on paper an embodiment of ‘I data myself’ isn’t so much about quantified self as it is about quantified selves, less a tool for individuals to track their own beating hearts than a system to find an aggregated 24 year old Bay Area resident that can be marketed against. These devices are exciting toys for runners and walkers but also for lawyers, who have found in them a new way to argue against claims of personal injury.

Yet there is plenty of potential for us to data. Last year we built Floodwatch, a browser based tool that allows users to track the web advertising profiles that are being authored about them— empowering individuals to track the trackers. Mapping Police Violence, a project by Ferguson activists@samsway @Nettaaaaaaaa and @deray, keeps a record of every black American killed by police in the USA. In doing so, the project reminds us how powerful the simple act of data collection can be, particularly when that data is something that the powerful don’t want us to see.

These projects give us a glimpse of what can happen if we abandon our idea of data as an innocent, passive noun. By embracing the new verbal form of data, we might better understand its potential for action, and in turn move beyond our own prescribed role as the objects in data sentences.

In doing so, perhaps we can imagine a future perfect for data, where not only will they have dataed us, we will have dataed them. A future, perhaps, where we all data together….(More)”

Open data could save the NHS hundreds of millions, says top UK scientist

Curated on May 31, 2015July 18, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

The Guardian: “The UK government must open up and highlight the power of more basic data sets to improve patient care in the NHS and save hundreds of millions of pounds a year, Nigel Shadbolt, chairman of the Open Data Institute (ODI) has urged.

The UK government topped the first league table for open data (paywall)produced by the ODI last year but Shadbolt warns that ministers’ open data responsibilities have not yet been satisfied.

Basic data on prescription administration is now published on a monthly basis but Shadbolt said medical practitioners must be educated about the power of this data to change prescribing habits across the country.

Other data sets, such as trusts’ opening times, consultant lists and details of services, that are promised to make the NHS more accessible are not currently available in a form that is machine-readable.

“These basic sets of information about the processes, the people and places in the health system are all fragmented and fractured and many of them are not available as registers that you can go to,” Shadbolt said.

“Whenever you talk about health data people think you must be talking about personal data and patient data and there are issues, obviously, of absolutely protecting privacy there. But there’s lots of data in the health service that is not about personal patient data at all that would be hugely useful to just have available as machine-readable data for apps to use.”

The UK government has led the way in recent years in encouraging transparency and accountability within the NHS by opening league tables. The publication of league tables on MRSA was followed by a 76-79% drop in infections.

Shadbolt said: “Those hospitals that were worst in their league table don’t like to be there and there was a very rapid diffusion of understanding of best practice across them that you can quantify. It’s many millions of pounds being saved.”

The artificial intelligence and open data expert said the next big area for open data improvement in the NHS is around prescriptions.

Shadbolt pointed to the publication of data about the prescription of statins,which has helped identify savings worth hundreds of millions of pounds: “There is little doubt that this pattern is likely to exist across the whole of the prescribing space.”…(More)”

New Technologies and Civic Engagement

Curated on May 30, 2015October 10, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Homero Gil de Zuniga Navajas: “First, this book pays attention to the overall impact of the Internet and people’s use of digital media and new technologies to analyze civic life at large, reconceptualizing what citizenship is today. Secondly, and more specifically, participants shed light over the intersection of a number of current new agendas of research in regards to some of the most rapidly growing technological advances (i.e., new publics and citizenship), and the emergence of sprouting structures of citizenship. The volume shows the implications that new technological advances carry with respect the possibilities, patterns and mechanisms for citizen communication, citizen deliberation, public sphere and civic engagement….(More)”

The Open Seventeen

Curated on May 29, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

“Crowdsourcing the Verification of the Sustainable Development Goals with Open Data : In 2015, the United Nations is announcing seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the world. Success at implementing the SDGs by 2030 could put the planet on the right course for the rest of the century. Failure could result in a breakdown of trust in global initiatives and cynical pursuit of self-interest by nations and corporations.

One way to ensure SDGs are achieved is to establish an independent means for verifying that all stakeholders – governments, corporations, NGOs and international organisations – live up to their promises. This requires harnessing the grassroots efforts of concerned citizens on a global scale.

To ignite this effort, ONE– in collaboration with the Citizen Cyberscience Centre and the Crowdcrafting platform for open research – is launching The Open Seventeen, a challenge to develop crowdsourcing projects that tackle SDGs using open data.

How does this challenge work?

You’ll find a big blue button further down this page. Use this to pitch a crowdsourcing project that tackles any of the 17 SDGs, at either a local, regional or global level, and tell us what open data set could be analysed for this purpose.

To inspire you, we’ve provided below some >examples of crowdsourcing projects that have already been tackling different aspects of the SDGs, from deforestation to corruption, and from drought to disease. Projects proposed for the challenge should have clear and realistic goals, and build on existing open data sets.

ONE and its partners will select three proposals and create crowdsourcing projects based on these. The winners and their projects will be profiled by ONE in upcoming international events related to the launch of the SDGs. Your project could inspire the world….

What can you do with open data to help verify SDGs? Have a look at what citizens have already created using the open source technology PyBossa that powers the Crowdcrafting platform and other crowdsourcing projects….(More)”

Aligning Supply and Demand for Better Governance

Curated on May 28, 2015July 19, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Findings regarding Open Data in the Open Government Partnership: “Many have predicted that open government data will lead to major gains in political accountability, generate economic value, and improve the quality of government services. Yet, there is a growing consensus among practitioners and experts that, for open data reforms to have strong governance, economic, and social impacts, reforms must do more than make data available and reusable. Government reforms ultimately must aim to provide data that is useful and used. There may be a high opportunity cost to investing in open data in the place of other useful governance reforms….

This paper identifies strong performances and gaps in aligning open data supply and demand. Findings from action plans and IRM reporting reveal the following trends:

OGP countries are making more open data commitments in their national action plans, both in absolute numbers and in percentage. This could be good for open data advocates, but may come at the expense of other open government approaches that may be more effective at countering excessive secrecy and corruption.
Open data commitments emphasize government supply of data and government coordination mechanisms over identifying and stimulating public demand for data.
Among a smaller group of countries, a growing number of commitments aim to align supply and demand by reforming the regulatory framework and by setting up mechanisms to ensure greater demand, such as participatory prioritization processes in which government solicits public input on which data sets to release. However, typical OGP action plans do not show a distinct move toward establishing or implementing the right to request data.
There is some evidence that sector-specific approaches to open data see higher rates of implementation than crosscutting and whole-of-government approaches to open data. Commitments emphasize data on budgets, health, natural resources, and aid…. (More)”