No revolution: COVID-19 boosted open access, but preprints are only a fraction of pandemic papers

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Jeffrey Brainard: “In January 2020, as COVID-19 spread insidiously, research funders and journal publishers recognized their old ways wouldn’t do. They needed to hit the gas pedal to meet the desperate need for information that could help slow the disease.

One major funder, the Wellcome Trust, issued a call for changing business as usual. Authors should put up COVID-19 manuscripts as preprints, it urged, because those are publicly posted shortly after they’re written, before being peer reviewed. Scientists should share their data widely. And publishers should make journal articles open access, or free to read immediately when published.

Dozens of the world’s leading funders, publishers, and scientific societies (including AAAS, publisher of Science) signed Wellcome’s statement. Critics of the tradition-bound world of scientific publishing saw a rare opportunity to tackle long-standing complaints—for example, that journals place many papers behind paywalls and take months to complete peer review. They hoped the pandemic could help birth a new publishing system.

But nearly 2 years later, hopes for a wholesale revolution are fading. Preprints by medical researchers surged, but they remain a small fraction of the literature on COVID-19. Much of that literature is available for free, but access to the underlying data is spotty. COVID-19 journal articles were reviewed faster than previous papers, but not dramatically so, and some ask whether that gain in speed came at the expense of quality. “The overall system demonstrated what could be possible,” says Judy Luther, president of Informed Strategies, a publishing consulting firm.

One thing is clear. The pandemic prompted an avalanche of new papers: more than 530,000, released either by journals or as preprints, according to the Dimensions bibliometric database. That fed the largest 1-year increase in all scholarly articles, and the largest annual total ever. That response is “bonkers,” says Vincent Larivière of the University of Montreal, who studies scholarly publishing. “Everyone had to have their COVID moment and write something.”…(More)”.

Afyanet

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “Afyanet is a voluntary, non-profit network of National Health Institutes and Research Centers seeking to leverage crowdsourced health data for disease surveillance and forecasting. Participation in AfyaNet for countries is free.

We aim to use technology and digital solutions to radically enhance how traditional disease surveillance systems function and the ways we can model epidemics.

Our vision is to create a common framework to collect standardized real-time data from the general population, allowing countries to leapfrog existing hurdles in disease surveillance and information sharing.

Our solution is an Early Warning System for Health based on participatory data gathering. A common, real-time framework for disease collection will help countries identify and forecast outbreaks faster and more effectively.

Crowdsourced data is gathered directly from citizens, then aggregated, anonymized, and processed in a cloud-based data lake. Our high-performance computing architecture analyzes the data and creates valuable disease spread models, which in turn provide alerts and notifications to participating countries and helps public health authorities make evidence-based decisions….(More)”

Participatory data stewardship

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the Ada Lovelace Institute: “Well-managed data can support organisations, researchers, governments and corporations to conduct lifesaving health research, reduce environmental harms and produce societal value for individuals and communities. But these benefits are often overshadowed by harms, as current practices in data collection, storage, sharing and use have led to high-profile misuses of personal data, data breaches and sharing scandals.

These range from the backlash to Care.Data, to the response to Cambridge Analytica and Facebook’s collection and use of data for political advertising. These cumulative scandals have resulted in ‘tenuous’ public trust in data sharing, which entrenches public concern about data and impedes its use in the public interest. To reverse this trend, what is needed is increased legitimacy, and increased trustworthiness, of data and AI use.

This report proposes a ‘framework for participatory data stewardship’, which rejects practices of data collection, storage, sharing and use in ways that are opaque or seek to manipulate people, in favour of practices that empower people to help inform, shape and – in some instances – govern their own data.

As a critical component of good data governance, it proposes data stewardship as the responsible use, collection and management of data in a participatory and rights-preserving way, informed by values and engaging with questions of fairness.

Drawing extensively from Sherry Arnstein’s ‘ladder of citizen participation’ and its more recent adaptation into a spectrum, this new framework is based on an analysis of over 100 case studies of different methods of participatory data stewardship. It demonstrates ways that people can gain increasing levels of control and agency over their data – from being informed about what is happening to data about themselves, through to being empowered to take responsibility for exercising and actively managing decisions about data governance….(More)”.

Design as Democratic Inquiry

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Book by Carl DiSalvo: “Through practices of collaborative imagination and making, or “doing design otherwise,” design experiments can contribute to keeping local democracies vibrant.

In this counterpoint to the grand narratives of design punditry, Carl DiSalvo presents what he calls “doing design otherwise.” Arguing that democracy requires constant renewal and care, he shows how designers can supply novel contributions to local democracy by drawing together theory and practice, making and reflection. The relentless pursuit of innovation, uncritical embrace of the new and novel, and treatment of all things as design problems, says DiSalvo, can lead to cultural imperialism. In Design as Democratic Inquiry, he recounts a series of projects that exemplify engaged design in practice. These experiments in practice-based research are grounded in collaborations with communities and institutions.

The projects DiSalvo describes took place from 2014 to 2019 in Atlanta. Rather than presume that government, industry—or academia—should determine the outcome, the designers began with the recognition that the residents and local organizations were already creative and resourceful. DiSalvo uses the projects to show how design might work as a mode of inquiry. Resisting heroic stories of design and innovation, he argues for embracing design as fragile, contingent, partial, and compromised. In particular, he explores how design might be leveraged to facilitate a more diverse civic imagination. A fundamental tenet of design is that the world is made, and therefore it could be made differently. A key concept is that democracy requires constant renewal and care. Thus, designing becomes a way to care, together, for our collective future…(More)”.

Civic Technology for Participatory Cities of the Future

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Francesca Esses: “As cities continue to expand and demographics diversify, it has become challenging for governments, on a local level, to make informed decisions representative of the local population. Through town hall meetings and public hearings, traditional means of public engagement are no longer sufficient in attaining meaningful citizen input to policy and decision making. These types of engagement methods have come under criticism for their inaccessibility, timelines, and representation of the broader demographic of modern society…

Winston Churchill is famously quoted as saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. History would suggest that pandemics have forced humans to embrace change, described as a ‘portal’ from the old world to the next. COVID-19 has created an unparalleled opportunity to reimagine technology’s role in shaping society. It is anticipated that a surge in technological innovation will materialise from the pandemic and the subsequent economic instability.

Concerning smart cities, the COVID-19 pandemic has been referred to as the “lubricant” for further development in this area. There has been a significant rise in civic tech projects globally as a direct response to the pandemic: organisations such as Code for Japan, Code for Germany, and Code for Pakistan have all launched several projects in response to the virus. We’ve already seen civic tech initiatives across Africa implemented as a direct response to the pandemic; the Civic Tech Innovation Network referenced at least 140 initiatives across the continent.

Civic technologists also created a comprehensive COVID-19 data platform available at global.health, described as the first easy-to-use global repository, enabling open access to real-time data containing over 30 million anonymised cases in over 100 countries. The data curated on the site aims to help epidemiologists monitor the trajectory of the virus and track variants. A list of other corona-focused civic tech initiatives can be found here….

Restrictions put in place due to COVID-19 have positively impacted the earth’s climate, resulting in a pollution reduction, with carbon emissions falling globally. We’ve all seen the images of smog-free skies over the notoriously muggy cities across the world. According to reports, overall carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 7 percent compared to 2019. It’s argued that a more socially conscious and responsible consumer is likely to emerge post-pandemic, with a greater focus on sustainability, responsible living, and carbon footprint….(More)“

The Innovation Project: Can advanced data science methods be a game-change for data sharing?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by JIPS (Joint Internal Displacement Profiling Service): “Much has changed in the humanitarian data landscape in the last decade and not primarily with the arrival of big data and artificial intelligence. Mostly, the changes are due to increased capacity and resources to collect more data quicker, leading to the professionalisation of information management as a domain of work. Larger amounts of data are becoming available in a more predictable way. We believe that as the field has progressed in filling critical data gaps, the problem is not the availability of data, but the curation and sharing of that data between actors as well as the use of that data to its full potential.

In 2018, JIPS embarked on an innovation journey to explore the potential of state-of-the-art technologies to incentivise data sharing and collaboration. This report covers the first phase of the innovation project and launches a series of articles in which we will share more about the innovation journey itself, discuss safe data sharing and collaboration, and look at the prototype we developed – made possible by the UNHCR Innovation Fund.

We argue that by making data and insights safe and secure to share between stakeholders, it will allow for a more efficient use of available data, reduce the resources needed to collect new data, strengthen collaboration and foster a culture of trust in the evidence-informed protection of people in displacement and crises.

The paper first defines the problem and outlines the processes through which data is currently shared among the humanitarian community. It explores questions such as: what are the existing data sharing methods and technologies? Which ones constitute a feasible option for humanitarian and development organisations? How can different actors share and collaborate on datasets without impairing confidentiality and exposing them to disclosure threats?…(More)”.

Building a Responsible Open Data Ecosystem: Mobility Data & COVID-19

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Anna Livaccari: “Over the last year and a half, COVID-19 has changed the way people move, work, shop, and live. The pandemic has necessitated new data-sharing initiatives to understand new patterns of movement, analyze the spread of COVID-19, and inform research and decision-making. Earlier this year, Cuebiq collaborated with the Open Data Institute (ODI) and NYU’s The GovLab to explore the efficacy of these new initiatives. 

The ODI is a non-profit organization that brings together commercial and non-commercial organizations and governments to address global issues as well as advise on how data can be used for positive social good. As part of a larger project titled “COVID-19: Building an open and trustworthy data ecosystem,” the ODI published a new report with Cuebiq and The GovLab, an action research center at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering that has pioneered the concept of data collaboratives and runs the data stewards network among other initiatives to advance data-driven decision making in the public interest. This report, “The Use of Mobility Data for Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic,” specifically addresses key enablers and obstacles to the successful sharing of mobility data between public and private organizations during the pandemic….

Since early 2020, researchers and policy makers have been eager to understand the impact of COVID-19. With the help of mobility data, organizations from different sectors were able to answer some of the most pressing questions regarding the pandemic: questions about policy decisions, mass-communication strategies, and overall socioeconomic impact. Mobility data can be applied to specific use cases and can help answer complex questions, a fact that The GovLab discusses in its short-form mobility data brief. Understanding exactly how organizations employ mobility data can also improve how institutions operate post-pandemic and make data collaboration as a whole more responsible, sustainable, and systemic.

Cuebiq and the GovLab identified 51 projects where mobility data was used for pandemic response, and then selected five case studies to analyze further. The report defines mobility data, the ethics surrounding it, and the lessons learned for the future….(More)”.

Co-Develop: Digital Public Infrastructure for an Equitable Recovery

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

A report by The Rockefeller Foundation: “Digital systems that accomplish basic, society-wide functions played a critical role in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, enabling both public health and social protection measures. The pandemic has shown the value of these systems, but it has also revealed how they are non-existent or weak in far too many places.

As we build back better, we have an unprecedented opportunity to build digital public infrastructure that promotes inclusion, human rights, and progress toward global goals. This report outlines an agenda for international cooperation on digital public infrastructure to guide future investments and expansion of this critical tool.

6 Key Areas for International Cooperation on Digital Public Infrastructure

  1. A vision for digital public infrastructure as a whole, backed by practice, research, and evaluation.
  2. A global commons based on digital public goods.
  3. Safeguards for inclusion, trust, competition, security, and privacy.
  4. Tools that use data in digital public infrastructure for public value and private empowerment.
  5. Private and public capacity, particularly in implementing countries.
  6. Silo-busting, built-for-purpose coordinating, funding, and financing….(More)”.

Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence: Evidence from a Survey of Machine Learning Researchers

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Baobao Zhang, Markus Anderljung, Lauren Kahn, Naomi Dreksler, Michael C. Horowitz, and Allan Dafoe: “Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers play an important role in the ethics and governance of AI, including through their work, advocacy, and choice of employment. Nevertheless, this influential group’s attitudes are not well understood, undermining our ability to discern consensuses or disagreements between AI/ML researchers. To examine these researchers’ views, we conducted a survey of those who published in two top AI/ML conferences (N = 524). We compare these results with those from a 2016 survey of AI/ML researchers (Grace et al., 2018) and a 2018 survey of the US public (Zhang & Dafoe, 2020). We find that AI/ML researchers place high levels of trust in international organizations and scientific organizations to shape the development and use of AI in the public interest; moderate trust in most Western tech companies; and low trust in national militaries, Chinese tech companies, and Facebook….(More)”.

World Public Sector Report 2021

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UN-DESA: “Five years after the start of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, governance issues remain at the forefront. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted even more the importance of national institutions for the achievement of the SDGs. The World Public Sector Report 2021 focuses on three dimensions of institutional change at the national level. First, it documents changes in institutional arrangements for SDG implementation since 2015. Second, it assesses the development, performance, strengths and weaknesses of follow-up and review systems for the SDGs. Third, it examines efforts made by governments and other stakeholders to enhance the capacity of public servants to implement the SDGs. Based on in-depth examination of institutional arrangements for SDG implementation in a sample of 24 countries in all regions, the report aims to draw attention to the institutional dimension of SDG implementation and provide lessons for national policymakers in this regard. The report also takes stock of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on national institutions and their implications for delivering on the 2030 Agenda….(More)”.