Book edited by Mita Marra, Karol Olejniczak, and Arne Paulson:”…explores the relationship between the nature of evaluative knowledge, the increasing demand in decision-making for evaluation and other forms of research evidence, and the post-truth phenomena of antiscience sentiments combined with illiberal tendencies of the present day. Rather than offer a checklist on how to deal with post-truth, the experts found herein wish to raise awareness and reflection throughout policy circles on the factors that influence our assessment and policy-related work in such a challenging environment. Journeying alongside the editor and contributors, readers benefit from three guiding questions to help identify specific challenges but tools to deal with such challenges: How are policy problems conceptualized in the current political climate? What is the relationship between expertise and decision-making in today’s political circumstances? How complex has evaluation become as a social practice? Evaluation in the Post-Truth World will benefit evaluation practitioners at the program and project levels, as well as policy analysts and scholars interested in applications of evaluation in the public policy domain…(More)”.
Mark the good stuff: Content provenance and the fight against disinformation
BBC Blog: “BBC News’s Verify team is a dedicated group of 60 journalists who fact-check, verify video, counter disinformation, analyse data and – crucially – explain complex stories in the pursuit of truth. On Monday, March 4th, Verify published their first article using a new open media provenance technology called C2PA. The C2PA standard is a technology that records digitally signed information about the provenance of imagery, video and audio – information (or signals) that shows where a piece of media has come from and how it’s been edited. Like an audit trail or a history, these signals are called ‘content credentials’.
Content credentials can be used to help audiences distinguish between authentic, trustworthy media and content that has been faked. The digital signature attached to the provenance information ensures that when the media is “validated”, the person or computer reading the image can be sure that it came from the BBC (or any other source with its own x.509 certificate).
This is important for two reasons. First, it gives publishers like the BBC the ability to share transparently with our audiences what we do every day to deliver great journalism. It also allows us to mark content that is shared across third party platforms (like Facebook) so audiences can trust that when they see a piece of BBC content it does in fact come from the BBC.
For the past three years, BBC R&D has been an active partner in the development of the C2PA standard. It has been developed in collaboration with major media and technology partners, including Microsoft, the New York Times and Adobe. Membership in C2PA is growing to include organisations from all over the world, from established hardware manufacturers like Canon, to technology leaders like OpenAI, fellow media organisations like NHK, and even the Publicis Group covering the advertising industry. Google has now joined the C2PA steering committee and social media companies are leaning in too: Meta has recently announced they are actively assessing implementing C2PA across their platforms…(More)”.
Societal challenges and big qualitative data require a new era of methodological pragmatism
Blog by Alex Gillespie, Vlad Glăveanu, and Constance de Saint-Laurent: “The ‘classic’ methods we use today in psychology and the social sciences might seem relatively fixed, but they are the product of collective responses to concerns within a historical context. The 20th century methods of questionnaires and interviews made sense in a world where researchers did not have access to what people did or said, and even if they did, could not analyse it at scale. Questionnaires and interviews were suited to 20th century concerns (shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and the ideological battles of the Cold War) for understanding, classifying, and mapping opinions and beliefs.
However, what social scientists are faced with today is different due to the culmination of two historical trends. The first has to do with the nature of the problems we face. Inequalities, the climate emergency and current wars are compounded by a general rise in nationalism, populism, and especially post-truth discourses and ideologies. Nationalism and populism are not new, but the scale and sophistication of misinformation threatens to undermine collective responses to collective problems.
It is often said that we live in the age of ‘big data’, but what is less often said is that this is in fact the age of ‘big qualitative data’.
The second trend refers to technology and its accelerated development, especially the unprecedented accumulation of naturally occurring data (digital footprints) combined with increasingly powerful methods for data analysis (traditional and generative AI). It is often said that we live in the age of ‘big data’, but what is less often said is that this is in fact the age of ‘big qualitative data’. The biggest datasets are unstructured qualitative data (each minute adds 2.5 million Google text searches, 500 thousand photos on Snapchat, 500 hours of YouTube videos) and the most significant AI advances leverage this qualitative data and make it tractable for social research.
These two trends have been fuelling the rise in mixed methods research…(More)” (See also their new book ‘Pragmatism and Methodology’ (open access)
Can AI mediate conflict better than humans?
Article by Virginia Pietromarchi: “Diplomats whizzing around the globe. Hush-hush meetings, often never made public. For centuries, the art of conflict mediation has relied on nuanced human skills: from elements as simple as how to make eye contact and listen carefully to detecting shifts in emotions and subtle signals from opponents.
Now, a growing set of entrepreneurs and experts are pitching a dramatic new set of tools into the world of dispute resolution – relying increasingly on artificial intelligence (AI).
“Groundbreaking technological advancements are revolutionising the frontier of peace and mediation,” said Sama al-Hamdani, programme director of Hala System, a private company using AI and data analysis to gather unencrypted intelligence in conflict zones, among other war-related tasks.
“We are witnessing an era where AI transforms mediators into powerhouses of efficiency and insight,” al-Hamdani said.
The researcher is one of thousands of speakers participating in the Web Summit in Doha, Qatar, where digital conflict mediation is on the agenda. The four-day summit started on February 26 and concludes on Thursday, February 29.
Already, say experts, digital solutions have proven effective in complex diplomacy. At the peak of the COVID-19 restrictions, mediators were not able to travel for in-person meetings with their interlocutors.
The solution? Use remote communication software Skype to facilitate negotiations, as then-United States envoy Zalmay Khalilzad did for the Qatar-brokered talks between the US and the Taliban in 2020.
For generations, power brokers would gather behind doors to make decisions affecting people far and wide. Digital technologies can now allow the process to be relatively more inclusive.
This is what Stephanie Williams, special representative of the United Nations’ chief in Libya, did in 2021 when she used a hybrid model integrating personal and digital interactions as she led mediation efforts to establish a roadmap towards elections. That strategy helped her speak to people living in areas deemed too dangerous to travel to. The UN estimates that Williams managed to reach one million Libyans.
However, practitioners are now growing interested in the use of technology beyond online consultations…(More)”
What Happens to Your Sensitive Data When a Data Broker Goes Bankrupt?
Article by Jon Keegan: “In 2021, a company specializing in collecting and selling location data called Near bragged that it was “The World’s Largest Dataset of People’s Behavior in the Real-World,” with data representing “1.6B people across 44 countries.” Last year the company went public with a valuation of $1 billion (via a SPAC). Seven months later it filed for bankruptcy and has agreed to sell the company.
But for the “1.6B people” that Near said its data represents, the important question is: What happens to Near’s mountain of location data? Any company could gain access to it through purchasing the company’s assets.
The prospect of this data, including Near’s collection of location data from sensitive locations such as abortion clinics, being sold off in bankruptcy has raised alarms in Congress. Last week, Sen. Ron Wyden wrote the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urging the agency to “protect consumers and investors from the outrageous conduct” of Near, citing his office’s investigation into the India-based company.
Wyden’s letter also urged the FTC “to intervene in Near’s bankruptcy proceedings to ensure that all location and device data held by Near about Americans is promptly destroyed and is not sold off, including to another data broker.” The FTC took such an action in 2010 to block the use of 11 years worth of subscriber personal data during the bankruptcy proceedings of the XY Magazine, which was oriented to young gay men. The agency requested that the data be destroyed to prevent its misuse.
Wyden’s investigation was spurred by a May 2023 Wall Street Journal report that Near had licensed location data to the anti-abortion group Veritas Society so it could target ads to visitors of Planned Parenthood clinics and attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortions. Wyden’s investigation revealed that the group’s geofencing campaign focused on 600 Planned Parenthood clinics in 48 states. The Journal also revealed that Near had been selling its location data to the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies...(More)”.
Why Everyone Hates The Electronic Medical Record
Article by Dharushana Muthulingam: “Patient R was in a hurry. I signed into my computer—or tried to. Recently, IT had us update to a new 14-digit password. Once in, I signed (different password) into the electronic medical record. I had already ordered routine lab tests, but R had new info. I pulled up a menu to add on an additional HIV viral load to capture early infection, which the standard antibody test might miss. R went to the lab to get his blood drawn
My last order did not print to the onsite laboratory. An observant nurse had seen the order and no tube. The patient had left without the viral load being drawn. I called the patient: could he come back?
Healthcare workers do not like the electronic health record (EHR), where they spend more time than with patients. Doctors hate it, as do nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, and physical therapists. The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine reports the EHR is a major contributor to clinician burnout. Patient experience is mixed, though the public is still concerned about privacy, errors, interoperability and access to their own records.
The EHR promised a lot: better accuracy, streamlined care, and patient-accessible records. In February 2009, the Obama administration passed the HITECH Act on this promise, investing $36 billion to scale up health information technology. No more deciphering bad handwriting for critical info. Efficiency and cost-savings could get more people into care. We imagined cancer and rare disease registries to research treatments. We wanted portable records accessible in an emergency. We wanted to rapidly identify the spread of highly contagious respiratory illnesses and other public health crises.
Why had the lofty ambition of health information, backed by enormous resources, failed so spectacularly?…(More)”.
Public sector capacity matters, but what is it?
Blog by Rainer Kattel, Marriana Mazzucato, Rosie Collington, Fernando Fernandez-Monge, Iacopo Gronchi, Ruth Puttick: “As governments turn increasingly to public sector innovations, challenges, missions and transformative policy initiatives, the need to understand and develop public sector capacities is ever more important. In IIPP’s project with Bloomberg Philanthropies to develop a Public Sector Capabilities Index, we propose to define public sector capacities through three inter-connected layers: state capacities, organisational capabilities, and dynamic capabilities of the public organisations.
The idea that governments should be able to design and deliver effective policies has existed ever since we had governments. A quick search in Google’s Ngram viewer shows that the use of state capacity in published books has experienced exponential growth since the late 1980s. It is, however, not a coincidence that focus on state and public sector capacities more broadly emerges in the shadow of new public management and neoliberal governance and policy reforms. Rather than understanding governance as a collaborative effort between all sectors, these reforms gave normative preference to business practices. Increasing focus on public sector capacity as a concept should thus be understood as an attempt to rebalance our understanding of how change happens in societies — through cross-sectoral co-creation — and as an effort to build the muscles in public organisations to work together to tackle socio-economic challenges.
We propose to define public sector capacities through three inter-connected layers: state capacities, organizational routines, and dynamic capabilities of the public organisations…(More)”.
The Radical How
Report by Public Digital: “…We believe in the old adage about making the most of a crisis. We think the constraints facing the next government provide an unmissable opportunity to change how government works for the better.
Any mission-focused government should be well equipped to define, from day one, what outcomes it wants to bring about.
But radically changing what the government does is only part of the challenge. We also need to change how government does things. The usual methods, we argue in this paper, are too prone to failure and delay.
There’s a different approach to public service organisation, one based on multidisciplinary teams, starting with citizen needs, and scaling iteratively by testing assumptions. We’ve been arguing in favour of it for years now, and the more it gets used, the more we see success and timely delivery.
We think taking a new approach makes it possible to shift government from an organisation of programmes and projects, to one of missions and services. It offers even constrained administrations an opportunity to improve their chances of delivering outcomes, reducing risk, saving money, and rebuilding public trust…(More)”.
The AI project pushing local languages to replace French in Mali’s schools
Article by Annie Risemberg and Damilare Dosunmu: “For the past six months,Alou Dembele, a27-year-oldengineer and teacher, has spent his afternoons reading storybooks with children in the courtyard of a community school in Mali’s capital city, Bamako. The books are written in Bambara — Mali’s most widely spoken language — and include colorful pictures and stories based on local culture. Dembele has over 100 Bambara books to pick from — an unimaginable educational resource just a year ago.
From 1960 to 2023, French was Mali’s official language. But in June last year, the military government replaced it in favor of 13 local languages, creating a desperate need for new educational materials.
Artificial intelligence came to the rescue: RobotsMali, a government-backed initiative, used tools like ChatGPT, Google Translate, and free-to-use image-maker Playgroundto create a pool of 107 books in Bambara in less than a year. Volunteer teachers, like Dembele, distribute them through after-school classes. Within a year, the books have reached over 300 elementary school kids, according to RobotsMali’s co-founder, Michael Leventhal. They are not only helping bridge the gap created after French was dropped but could also be effective in helping children learn better, experts told Rest of World…(More)”.
The Importance of Using Proper Research Citations to Encourage Trustworthy News Reporting
Article by Andy Tattersall: “…Understanding the often mysterious processes of how research is picked up and used across different sections of the media is therefore important. To do this we looked at a sample of research that included at least one author from the University of Sheffield that had been cited in either national or local media. We obtained the data from Altmetric.com to explore whether the news story included supporting information that linked readers to the research and those behind it. These were links to any of the authors, their institution, the journal or the research funder. We also investigated how much of this research was available via open access.
“National news websites were more likely to include a link to the research paper underpinning the news story.“
The contrasts between national and local samples were notable. National news websites were more likely to include a link to the research paper underpinning the news story. National research coverage stories were also more organic. They were more likely to be original texts written by journalists who are credited as authors. This is reflected in more idiosyncratic citation practices. Guardian writers, such as Henry Nicholls and George Monbiot, regularly provided a proper academic citation to the research at the end of their articles. This should be standard practice, but it does require those writing press releases to include formatted citations with a link as a basic first step.
Local news coverage followed a different pattern, which is likely due to their use of news agencies to provide stories. Much local news coverage relies on copying and pasting subscription content provided by the UK’s national news agency, PA News. Anyone who has visited their local news website in recent years will know that they are full of pop-ups and hyperlinks to adverts and commercial websites. As a result of this business model, local news stories contain no or very few links to the research and those behind the work. Whether any of this practice and the lack of information stems from academic institution and publisher press releases is debatable.
“Much local news coverage relies on copying and pasting subscription content provided by the UK’s national news agency, PA News.“
Further, we found that local coverage of research is often syndicated across multiple news sites, belonging to a few publishers. Consequently if a syndication republishes the same information across their news platforms, it replicates bad practice. A solution to this is to include a readily formatted citation with a link, preferably to an open access version, at the foot of the story. This allows local media to continue linking to third party sites whilst providing an option to explore the actual research paper, especially if that paper is open access…(More)”.