, , , , and The aim of this paper is to critically explore whether crowdsourced Big Data enables an inclusive humanitarian response at times of crisis. We argue that all data, including Big Data, are socially constructed artefacts that reflect the contexts and processes of their creation. To support our argument, we qualitatively analysed the process of ‘Big Data making’ that occurred by way of crowdsourcing through open data platforms, in the context of two specific humanitarian crises, namely the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. We show that the process of creating Big Data from local and global sources of knowledge entails the transformation of information as it moves from one distinct group of contributors to the next. The implication of this transformation is that locally based, affected people and often the original ‘crowd’ are excluded from the information flow, and from the interpretation process of crowdsourced crisis knowledge, as used by formal responding organizations, and are marginalized in their ability to benefit from Big Data in support of their own means. Our paper contributes a critical perspective to the debate on participatory Big Data, by explaining the process of in and exclusion during data making, towards more responsive humanitarian relief….(More)”.
Achieving Open Justice through Citizen Participation and Transparency
Book edited by Carlos E. Jiménez-Gómez and Mila Gascó-Hernández: “Open government initiatives have become a defining goal for public administrators around the world. However, progress is still necessary outside of the executive and legislative sectors.
Achieving Open Justice through Citizen Participation and Transparency is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the implementation of open government within the judiciary field, emphasizing the effectiveness and accountability achieved through these actions. Highlighting the application of open government concepts in a global context, this book is ideally designed for public officials, researchers, professionals, and practitioners interested in the improvement of governance and democracy….(More)
The Four-Dimensional Human
Book by Laurence Scott: “You are a four-dimensional human.
Each of us exists in three-dimensional, physical space. But, as a constellation of everyday digital phenomena rewires our lives, we are increasingly coaxed from the containment of our predigital selves into a wonderful and eerie fourth dimension, a world of ceaseless communication, instant information, and global connection.
Our portals to this new world have been wedged open, and the silhouette of a figure is slowly taking shape. But what does it feel like to be four-dimensional? How do digital technologies influence the rhythms of our thoughts, the style and tilt of our consciousness? What new sensitivities and sensibilities are emerging with our exposure to the delights, sorrows, and anxieties of a networked world? And how do we live in public with these recoded private lives?
Laurence Scott—hailed as a “New Generation Thinker” by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC—shows how this four-dimensional life is dramatically changing us by redefining our social lives and extending the limits of our presence in the world. Blending tech-philosophy with insights on everything from Seinfeld to the fall of Gaddafi, Scott stands with a rising generation of social critics hoping to understand our new reality. His virtuosic debut is a revelatory and original exploration of life in the digital age….(More)”
Why Zika, Malaria and Ebola should fear analytics
Frédéric Pivetta at Real Impact Analytics: “Big data is a hot business topic. It turns out to be an equally hot topic for the non profit sector now that we know the vital role analytics can play in addressing public health issues and reaching sustainable development goals.
Big players like IBM just announced they will help fight Zika by analyzing social media, transportation and weather data, among other indicators. Telecom data takes it further by helping to predict the spread of disease, identifying isolated and fragile communities and prioritizing the actions of aid workers.
The power of telecom data
Human mobility contributes significantly to epidemic transmission into new regions. However, there are gaps in understanding human mobility due to the limited and often outdated data available from travel records. In some countries, these are collected by health officials in the hospitals or in occasional surveys.
Telecom data, constantly updated and covering a large portion of the population, is rich in terms of mobility insights. But there are other benefits:
- it’s recorded automatically (in the Call Detail Records, or CDRs), so that we avoid data collection and response bias.
- it contains localization and time information, which is great for understanding human mobility.
- it contains info on connectivity between people, which helps understanding social networks.
- it contains info on phone spending, which allows tracking of socio-economic indicators.
Aggregated and anonymized, mobile telecom data fills the public data gap without questioning privacy issues. Mixing it with other public data sources results in a very precise and reliable view on human mobility patterns, which is key for preventing epidemic spreads.
Using telecom data to map epidemic risk flows
So how does it work? As in any other big data application, the challenge is to build the right predictive model, allowing decision-makers to take the most appropriate actions. In the case of epidemic transmission, the methodology typically includes five steps :
- Identify mobility patterns relevant for each particular disease. For example, short-term trips for fast-spreading diseases like Ebola. Or overnight trips for diseases like Malaria, as it spreads by mosquitoes that are active only at night. Such patterns can be deduced from the CDRs: we can actually find the home location of each user by looking at the most active night tower, and then tracking calls to identify short or long-term trips. Aggregating data per origin-destination pairs is useful as we look at intercity or interregional transmission flows. And it protects the privacy of individuals, as no one can be singled out from the aggregated data.
- Get data on epidemic incidence, typically from local organisations like national healthcare systems or, in case of emergency, from NGOs or dedicated emergency teams. This data should be aggregated on the same level of granularity than CDRs.
- Knowing how many travelers go from one place to another, for how long, and the disease incidence at origin and destination, build an epidemiological model that can account for the way and speed of transmission of the particular disease.
- With an import/export scoring model, map epidemic risk flows and flag areas that are at risk of becoming the new hotspots because of human travel.
- On that base, prioritize and monitor public health measures, focusing on restraining mobility to and from hotspots. Mapping risk also allows launching prevention campaigns at the right places and setting up the necessary infrastructure on time. Eventually, the tool reduces public health risks and helps stem the epidemic.
That kind of application works in a variety of epidemiological contexts, including Zika, Ebola, Malaria, Influenza or Tuberculosis. No doubt the global boom of mobile data will proof extraordinarily helpful in fighting these fierce enemies….(More)”
Effect of Government Data Openness on a Knowledge-based Economy
Jae-Nam Lee, Juyeon Ham and Byounggu Choi at Procedia Computer Science: “Many governments have recently begun to adopt the concept of open innovation. However, studies on the openness of government data and its effect on the global competitiveness have not received much attention. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effects of government data openness on a knowledge-based economy at the government level. The proposed model was analyzed using secondary data collected from three different reports. The findings indicate that government data openness positively affects the formation of knowledge bases in a country and that the level of knowledge base of a country positively affects the global competitiveness of a country….(More)”
Open Data for Social Change and Sustainable Development
Special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics edited by Raed M. Sharif and Francois Van Schalkwyk: “As the second phase of the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC) drew to a close, discussions started on a possible venue for publishing some of the papers that emerged from the research conducted by the project partners. In 2012 the Journal of Community Informatics published a special issue titled ‘Community Informatics and Open Government Data’. Given the journal’s previous interest in the field of open data, its established reputation and the fact that it is a peer-reviewed open access journal, the Journal of Community Informatics was approached and agreed to a second special issue with a focus on open data. A closed call for papers was sent out to the project research partners. Shortly afterwards, the first Open Data Research Symposium was held ahead of the International Open Data Conference 2015 in Ottawa, Canada. For the first time, a forum was provided to academics and researchers to present papers specifically on open data. Again there were discussions about an appropriate venue to publish selected papers from the Symposium. The decision was taken by the Symposium Programme Committee to invite the twenty plus presenters to submit full papers for consideration in the special issue.
The seven papers published in this special issue are those that were selected through a double-blind peer review process. Researchers are often given a rough ride by open data advocates – the research community is accused of taking too long, not being relevant enough and of speaking in tongues unintelligible to social movements and policy-makers. And yet nine years after the ground-breaking meeting in Sebastopol at which the eight principles of open government data were penned, seven after President Obama injected political legitimacy into a movement, and five after eleven nation states formed the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), which has grown six-fold in membership; an email crosses our path in which the authors of a high-level report commit to developing a comprehensive understanding of a continental open data ecosystem through an examination of open data supply. Needless to say, a single example is not necessarily representative of global trends in thinking about open data. Yet, the focus on government and on the supply of open data by open data advocates – with little consideration of open data use, the differentiation of users, intermediaries, power structures or the incentives that propel the evolution of ecosystems – is still all too common. Empirical research has already revealed the limitations of ‘supply it and they will use it’ open data practices, and has started to fill critical knowledge gaps to develop a more holistic understanding of the determinants of effective open data policy and practice. As open data policies and practices evolve, the need to capture the dynamics of this evolution and to trace unfolding outcomes becomes critical to advance a more efficient and progressive field of research and practice. The trajectory of the existing body of literature on open data and the role of public authorities, both local and national, in the provision of open data
As open data policies and practices evolve, the need to capture the dynamics of this evolution and to trace unfolding outcomes becomes critical to advance a more efficient and progressive field of research and practice. The trajectory of the existing body of literature on open data and the role of public authorities, both local and national, in the provision of open data is logical and needed in light of the central role of government in producing a wide range of types and volumes of data. At the same time, the complexity of open data ecosystem and the plethora of actors (local, regional and global suppliers, intermediaries and users) makes a compelling case for opening avenues for more diverse discussion and research beyond the supply of open data. The research presented in this special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics touches on many of these issues, sets the pace and contributes to the much-needed knowledge base required to promote the likelihood of open data living up to its promise. … (More)”
How Medical Crowdsourcing Empowers Patients & Doctors
Rob Stretch at Rendia: “Whether you’re a solo practitioner in a rural area, or a patient who’s bounced from doctor to doctor with adifficult–to-diagnose condition, there are many reasons why you might seek out expert medical advice from a larger group. Fortunately, in 2016, seeking feedback from other physicians or getting a second opinion is as easy as going online.
“Medical crowdsourcing” sites and apps are gathering steam, from provider-only forums likeSERMOsolves and Figure 1, to patient-focused sites like CrowdMed. They share the same mission of empowering doctors and patients, reducing misdiagnosis, and improving medicine. Is crowdsourcing the future of medicine? Read on to find out more.
Fixing misdiagnosis
An estimated 10 percent to 20 percent of medical cases are misdiagnosed, even more than drug errors and surgery on the wrong patient or body part, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. And diagnostic errors are the leading cause of malpractice litigation. Doctors often report that with many of their patient cases, they would benefit from the support and advice of their peers.
The photo-sharing app for health professionals, Figure 1, is filling that need. Since we reported on it last year, the app has reached 1 million users and added a direct-messaging feature. The app is geared towards verified medical professionals, and goes to great lengths to protect patient privacy in keeping with HIPAAlaws. According to co-founder and CEO Gregory Levey, an average of 10,000 unique users check in toFigure 1 every hour, and medical professionals and students in 190 countries currently use the app.
Using Figure 1 to crowdsource advice from the medical community has saved at least one life. EmilyNayar, a physician assistant in rural Oklahoma and a self-proclaimed “Figure 1 addict,” told Wired magazine that because of photos she’d seen on the app, she was able to correctly diagnose a patient with shingles meningitis. Another doctor had misdiagnosed him previously, and the wrong medication could have killed him.
Collective knowledge at zero cost
In addition to serving as “virtual colleagues” for isolated medical providers, crowdsourcing forums can pool knowledge from an unprecedented number of doctors in different specialties and even countries,and can do so very quickly.
When we first reported on SERMO, the company billed itself as a “virtual doctors’ lounge.” Now, the global social network with 600,000 verified, credentialed physician members has pivoted to medical crowdsourcing with SERMOsolves, one of its most popular features, according to CEO Peter Kirk.
“Crowdsourcing patient cases through SERMOsolves is an ideal way for physicians to gain valuable information from the collective knowledge of hundreds of physicians instantly,” he said in a press release.According to SERMO, 3,500 challenging patient cases were posted in 2014, viewed 700,000 times, and received 50,000 comments. Most posted cases received responses within 1.5 hours and were resolved within a day. “We have physicians from more than 96 specialties and subspecialties posting on the platform, working together to share their valuable insights at zero cost to the healthcare system.”
While one early user of SERMO wrote on KevinMD.com that he felt the site’s potential was overshadowed by the anonymous rants and complaining, other users have noted that the medical crowdsourcing site has,like Figure 1, directly benefitted patients.
In an article on PhysiciansPractice.com, Richard Armstrong, M.D., cites the example of a family physician in Canada who posted a case of a young girl with an E. coli infection. “Physicians from around the world immediately began to comment and the recommendations resulted in a positive outcome for the patient.This instance offered cross-border learning experiences for the participating doctors, not only regarding the specific medical issue but also about how things are managed in different health systems,” wrote Dr.Armstrong.
Patients get proactive
While patients have long turned to social media to (questionably) crowdsource their medical queries, there are now more reputable sources than Facebook.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Heyman launched the health startup CrowdMed in 2013 after his sister endured a “terrible, undiagnosed medical condition that could have killed her,” he told the Wall Street Journal. She saw about 20 doctors over three years, racking up six-figure medical bills. The NIH Undiagnosed DiseaseProgram finally gave her a diagnosis: fragile X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency, a rare disease that affects just 1 in 15,000 women. A hormone patch resolved her debilitating symptoms….(More)”
How Technology Can Restore Our Trust in Democracy
Cenk Sidar in Foreign Policy: “The travails of the Arab Spring, the rise of the Islamic State, and the upsurge of right-wing populism throughout the countries of West all demonstrate a rising frustration with the liberal democratic order in the years since the 2008 financial crisis. There is a growing intellectual consensus that the world is sailing into uncharted territory: a realm marked by authoritarianism, shallow populism, and extremism.
One way to overcome this global resentment is to use the best tools we have to build a more inclusive and direct democracy. Could new technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), data analytics, crowdsourcing, and Blockchain help to restore meaningful dialogue and win back people’s hearts and minds?
Underpinning our unsettling current environment is an irony: Thanks to modern communication technology, the world is more connected than ever — but average people feel more disconnected. In the United States, polls show that trust in government is at a 50-year low. Frustrated Trump supporters and the Britons who voted for Brexit both have a sense of having “lost out” as the global elite consolidates its power and becomes less responsive to the rest of society. This is not an irrational belief: Branko Milanovic, a leading inequality scholar, has found that people in the lower and middle parts of rich countries’ income distributions have been the losers of the last 15 years of globalization.
The same 15 years have also brought astounding advances in technology, from the rise of the Internet to the growing ubiquity of smartphones. And Western society has, to some extent, struggled to find its bearings amid this transition. Militant groups seduce young people through social media. The Internet enables consumers to choose only the news that matches their preconceived beliefs, offering a bottomless well of partisan fury and conspiracy theories. Cable news airing 24/7 keeps viewers in a state of agitation. In short, communication technologies that are meant to bring us together end up dividing us instead (and not least because our politicians have chosen to game these tools for their own advantage).
It is time to make technology part of the solution. More urgently than ever, leaders, innovators, and activists need to open up the political marketplace to allow technology to realize its potential for enabling direct citizen participation. This is an ideal way to restore trust in the democratic process.
As the London School of Economics’ Mary Kaldor put it recently: “The task of global governance has to be reconceptualized to make it possible for citizens to influence the decisions that affect their lives — to reclaim substantive democracy.” One notable exception to the technological disconnect has been fundraising, as candidates have tapped into the Internet to enable millions of average voters to donate small sums. With the right vision, however, technological innovation in politics could go well beyond asking people for money….(More)”
Open Data for Developing Economies
Scan of the literature by Andrew Young, Stefaan Verhulst, and Juliet McMurren: This edition of the GovLab Selected Readings was developed as part of the Open Data for Developing Economies research project (in collaboration with WebFoundation, USAID and fhi360). Special thanks to Maurice McNaughton, Francois van Schalkwyk, Fernando Perini, Michael Canares and David Opoku for their input on an early draft. Please contact Stefaan Verhulst (stefaan@thegovlab.org) for any additional input or suggestions.
Open data is increasingly seen as a tool for economic and social development. Across sectors and regions, policymakers, NGOs, researchers and practitioners are exploring the potential of open data to improve government effectiveness, create new economic opportunity, empower citizens and solve public problems in developing economies. Open data for development does not exist in a vacuum – rather it is a phenomenon that is relevant to and studied from different vantage points including Data4Development (D4D), Open Government, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Open Development. The below-selected readings provide a view of the current research and practice on the use of open data for development and its relationship to related interventions.
Selected Reading List (in alphabetical order)
- Open Data and Open Government for Development
- Solomon Benjamin, R. Bhuvaneswari, P. Rajan, Manjunatha – Bhoomi: ‘E-Governance’, or, An Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize Bangalore? – a paper offering a critical take on digitization and transparency efforts, particularly in Bangalore.
- Rosie McGee and Duncan Edwards – Introduction: Opening Governance – Change, Continuity and Conceptual Ambiguity – an introduction to a special issue of IDS bulletin on open government for development.
- Open Data and Data 4 Development
- 3rd International Open Data Conference (IODC) – Enabling the Data Revolution: An International Open Data Roadmap – a summary report of the third International Open Data Conference offering a roadmap for leveraging open data for sustainable development.
- Martin Hilbert – Big Data for Development: A Review of Promises and Challenges – an article offering a conceptual framework on the opportunities and threats of leveraging data for international development.
- International Development Research Centre, World Wide Web Foundation, and Berkman Center at Harvard University – Fostering a Critical Development Perspective on Open Government Data – a paper assessing how the real-world impact of open data, particularly in the Global South, are or are not meeting expectations.
- Open Data for Development – Open Data for Development: Building an Inclusive Data Revolution – a report providing an overview of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) program and its early findings.
- Elizabeth Stuart, Emma Samman, William Avis, Tom Berliner – The Data Revolution: Finding the Missing Millions – a report outlining the challenge of using data for development when many people are not represented in official databases.
- United Nations Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development – A World That Counts, Mobilizing the Data Revolution – a report examining the opportunities and risks for using data for sustainable development.
- The World Bank – Digital Dividends: World Development Report 2016 – a report on the use of digital technologies, including big and open data, to improve development efforts.
- Open Data and Open Development…
- Open Data and Development Goals
- Evangelia Berdou – Mediating Voices and Communicating Realities: Using Information Crowdsourcing Tools, Open Data Initiatives and Digital Media to Support and Protect the Vulnerable and Marginalised – a report exploring how crowdsourcing, mapping and open data can generate and publicly share information that could benefit vulnerable and marginalized communities.
- Michael Canares, Satyarupa Shekhar – Open Data and Sub-national Governments: Lessons from Developing Countries – a synthesis paper providing lessons learned regarding sub-national open data from the Open Data in Developing Countries research project.
- Tim Davies – Open Data in Developing Countries – Emerging Insights from Phase I – a report offering 15 central insights from 13 countries studied in the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries research network.
- Tim Davies, Duncan Edwards – Emerging Implications of Open and Linked Data for Knowledge Sharing Development – a study and collection of case studies examining how open and linked data can benefit development.
- Tim Davies, Fernando Perini, and Jose Alonso – Researching the Emerging Impacts of Open Data – a paper providing a conceptual framework and comparative theory of change for open data, with a particular focus on developing countries.
- Elise Montano and Diogo Silva – Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC): ODDC1 Follow-up Outcome Evaluation Report – a report summarizing the findings of a project on open data’s impact on governance in developing countries.
- Fiona Smith, William Gerry, Emma Truswell – Supporting Sustainable Development with Open Data – a report describing the the benefits and challenges of using open data to achieve the SDGs.
- Open Data and Developing Countries (National Case Studies)….(More)”
Gamification of physical activity: Beat the Street and Pokémon Go
Katherine Knight at NESTA: “Since launching in the US on 6 July, Pokémon Go has become a global phenomenon with millions of downloads and more active users than Twitter. The game has been attributed with improving mental health, establishing augmented reality as mainstream and boosting traffic to local businesses.
Pokémon Go has also caused a massive spike in physical activity similar to that seen following New Year’s Resolutions. While the game’s main intention was not to transform the health of its players, it has clearly demonstrated the powerful potential of gamification as a means to get people active.
Gamified design has already been recognised by leading organisations in transport, nature, and the voluntary sector as a way to engage new audiences and change behaviour, but only recently have we come to understand how gamification can be used to dramatically increase physical activity and improve public health.
Changing habitual behaviours such as inactivity or driving to school and work has proven difficult via traditional health initiatives. Gamification provides new opportunities move people towards a more active lifestyle by providing positive incentives and rewards for players who get moving. In the case of Pokémon GO, the incentive to catch and collect as many Pokémon as possible is enough to nudge players to go outside and get active.
Gamification offers advantages over other types of physical activity campaigns due to its ability to bypass the perceived barriers to becoming active. Gamified design can deliver health through stealth by encouraging people to play a fun, free game rather than take part in a fitness scheme.
The impact of gamifying health can be clearly seen in Intelligent Health’s Beat the Street initiative which transforms communities into playable cities. At the heart of Beat the Street is a six-week game where residents are encouraged to explore their local area by tapping cards and fobs against special sensors – Beat Boxes – distributed across their town. Players are rewarded with points, can create teams and earn prizes depending on how far they run, walk or cycle….(More)”.