education

Transforming governance: how can technology help reshape democracy?

Curated on June 19, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Research Briefing by Matt Leighninger: “Around the world, people are asking how we can make democracy work in new and better ways. We are frustrated by political systems in which voting is the only legitimate political act, concerned that many republics don’t have the strength or appeal to withstand authoritarian figures, and disillusioned by the inability of many countries to address the fundamental challenges of health, education and economic development.

We can no longer assume that the countries of the global North have ‘advanced’ democracies, and that the nations of the global South simply need to catch up. Citizens of these older democracies have increasingly lost faith in their political institutions; Northerners cherish their human rights and free elections, but are clearly looking for something more. Meanwhile, in the global South, new regimes based on a similar formula of rights and elections have proven fragile and difficult to sustain. And in Brazil, India and other Southern countries, participatory budgeting and other valuable democratic innovations have emerged. The stage is set for a more equitable, global conversation about what we mean by democracy.

How can we adjust our democratic formulas so that they are more sustainable, powerful, fulfilling – and, well, democratic? Some of the parts of this equation may come from the development of online tools and platforms that help people to engage with their governments, with organisations and institutions, and with each other. Often referred to collectively as ‘civic technology’ or ‘civic tech’, these tools can help us map public problems, help citizens generate solutions, gather input for government, coordinate volunteer efforts, and help neighbours remain connected. If we want to create democracies in which citizens have meaningful roles in shaping public decisions and solving public problems, we should be asking a number of questions about civic tech, including:

How can online tools best support new forms of democracy?
What are the examples of how this has happened?
What are some variables to consider in comparing these examples?
How can we learn from each other as we move forward?

This background note has been developed to help democratic innovators explore these questions and examine how their work can provide answers….(More)”

Transparency reports make AI decision-making accountable

Curated on June 1, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Phys.org: “Machine-learning algorithms increasingly make decisions about credit, medical diagnoses, personalized recommendations, advertising and job opportunities, among other things, but exactly how usually remains a mystery. Now, new measurement methods developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers could provide important insights to this process.

Was it a person’s age, gender or education level that had the most influence on a decision? Was it a particular combination of factors? CMU’s Quantitative Input Influence (QII) measures can provide the relative weight of each factor in the final decision, said Anupam Datta, associate professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering.

“Demands for algorithmic transparency are increasing as the use of algorithmic decision-making systems grows and as people realize the potential of these systems to introduce or perpetuate racial or sex discrimination or other social harms,” Datta said.

“Some companies are already beginning to provide transparency reports, but work on the computational foundations for these reports has been limited,” he continued. “Our goal was to develop measures of the degree of influence of each factor considered by a system, which could be used to generate transparency reports.”

These reports might be generated in response to a particular incident—why an individual’s loan application was rejected, or why police targeted an individual for scrutiny or what prompted a particular medical diagnosis or treatment. Or they might be used proactively by an organization to see if an artificial intelligence system is working as desired, or by a regulatory agency to see whether a decision-making system inappropriately discriminated between groups of people….(More)”

Nudge 2.0: A broader toolkit for lasting behavior change

Curated on June 1, 2016October 10, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Cait Lamberton and Benjamin Castleman in the Huffington Post: “Nudges are all around us. Chances are that someone has nudged you today—even if you didn’t realize it. Maybe it was your doctor’s office, sending you a text message about an upcoming appointment. Or maybe it was an airline website, urging you to make a reservation because “only three tickets are left at this price.” In fact, the private sector has been nudging us in one way or another for at least 75 years, since the heyday of the Madison Avenue Ad Men.

It’s taken a few generations, but the public sector is starting to catch on. In policy domains ranging from consumer finance and public health to retirement planning and education, researchers are applying behavioral science insights to help people make more informed decisions that lead to better long-term outcomes.

Sometimes these nudges take the form of changing the rules that determine whether someone participates in a program or not (like switching the default so people are automatically enrolled in a retirement savings plan unless they opt out, rather than only enrolling people who actively sign up for the program). But oftentimes, nudges can be as simple as sending people simplified information about opportunities that are available to them, or reminders about important tasks they have to complete in order to participate in beneficial programs.

A growing body of research demonstrates that nudges like these, despite being low touch and costing very little, can lead to substantial improvements in educational outcomes, whether it’s parents reading more to their children, middle school students completing more class assignments, or college students successfully persisting in college….

As impressive as these results have been, many of the early nudge studies in education have focused on fairly low-hanging fruit. We’re often helping people follow through on an intention they already have, or informing them about opportunities or resources that they didn’t know or were confused about. What’s less clear, however, is how well these strategies can support sustained behavior change, like going to school every day or avoiding substance abuse….

But what if we want to change someone’s direction? In real-world terms, what if a student is struggling in school but isn’t even considering looking for help? What if their lives are too busy for them to search for or meet with a tutor on a consistent basis? What if they have a nagging feeling that they’re just not the kind of person who succeeds in school, so they don’t see the point in even trying?

For these types of behavior change, we need an expanded nudge toolkit—what we’ll call Nudge 2.0. These strategies go beyond information simplification, reminders, and professional assistance, and address the decision-making person more holistically- people’s identity, their psychology, their emotions, and the competing forces that vie for their attention….(More)”

All European scientific articles to be freely accessible by 2020

Curated on June 1, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

EU Presidency: “All scientific articles in Europe must be freely accessible as of 2020. EU member states want to achieve optimal reuse of research data. They are also looking into a European visa for foreign start-up founders.

And, according to the new Innovation Principle, new European legislation must take account of its impact on innovation. These are the main outcomes of the meeting of the Competitiveness Council in Brussels on 27 May.

Sharing knowledge freely

Under the presidency of Netherlands State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science Sander Dekker, the EU ministers responsible for research and innovation decided unanimously to take these significant steps. Mr Dekker is pleased that these ambitions have been translated into clear agreements to maximise the impact of research. ‘Research and innovation generate economic growth and more jobs and provide solutions to societal challenges,’ the state secretary said. ‘And that means a stronger Europe. To achieve that, Europe must be as attractive as possible for researchers and start-ups to locate here and for companies to invest. That calls for knowledge to be freely shared. The time for talking about open access is now past. With these agreements, we are going to achieve it in practice.’

Open access

Open access means that scientific publications on the results of research supported by public and public-private funds must be freely accessible to everyone. That is not yet the case. The results of publicly funded research are currently not accessible to people outside universities and knowledge institutions. As a result, teachers, doctors and entrepreneurs do not have access to the latest scientific insights that are so relevant to their work, and universities have to take out expensive subscriptions with publishers to gain access to publications.

Reusing research data

From 2020, all scientific publications on the results of publicly funded research must be freely available. It also must be able to optimally reuse research data. To achieve that, the data must be made accessible, unless there are well-founded reasons for not doing so, for example intellectual property rights or security or privacy issues….(More)”

If you build it… will they come?

Curated on May 27, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Laura Bacon at Omidyar Network: “What do datasets on Danish addresses, Indonesian elections, Singapore Dengue Fever, Slovakian contracts, Uruguayan health service provision, and Global weather systems have in common? Read on to learn more…

On May 12, 2016, more than 40 nations’ leaders gathered in London for an Anti-Corruption Summit, convened by UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Among the commitments made, 40 countries pledged to make their procurement processes open by default, with 14 countries specifically committing to publish to the Open Contracting Data Standard.

This conference and these commitments can be seen as part of a larger global norm toward openness and transparency, also embodied by the Open Government Partnership, Open Data Charter, and increasing numbers of Open Data Portals.

As government data is increasingly published openly in the public domain, valid questions have been raised about what impact the data will have: As governments release this data, will it be accessed and used? Will it ultimately improve lives, root out corruption, hold answers to seemingly intractable problems, and lead to economic growth?*

Omidyar Network — having supported several Open Data organizations and platforms such as Open Data Institute, Open Knowledge, and Web Foundation — sought data-driven answers to these questions. After a public call for proposals, we selected NYU’s GovLab to conduct research on the impact open data has already had. Not the potential or prospect of impact, but past proven impact. The GovLab research team, led by Stefaan Verhulst, investigated a variety of sectors — health, education, elections, budgets, contracts, etc. — in a variety of locations, spanning five continents.

Their findings are promising and exciting, demonstrating that open data is changing the world by empowering people, improving governance, solving public problems, and leading to innovation. A summary is contained in thisKey Findings report, and is accompanied by many open data case studies posted in this Open Data Impact Repository.

Of course, stories such as this are not 100% rosy, and the report is clear about the challenges ahead. There are plenty of cases in which open data has had minimal impact. There are cases where there was negative impact. And there are obstacles to open data reaching its full potential: namely, open data projects that don’t respond to citizens’ questions and needs, a lack of technical capacity on either the data provider and data user side, inadequate protections for privacy and security, and a shortage of resources.

But this research holds good news: Danish addresses, Indonesian elections,Singapore Dengue Fever, Slovakian contracts, Uruguayan health service provision, Global weather systems, and others were all opened up. And all changed the world by empowering citizens, improving governance, solving public problems, and leading to innovation. Please see this report for more….(More)”

An App to Save Syria’s Lost Generation? What Technology Can and Can’t Do

Curated on May 25, 2016August 15, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Mark Latonero in Foreign Affairs: ” In January this year, when the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe had hit its peak—more than a million had crossed into Europe over the course of 2015—the U.S. State Department and Google hosted a forum of over 100 technology experts. The goal was to “bridge the education gap for Syrian refugee children.” Speaking to the group assembled at Stanford University, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a $1.7 million prize “to develop a smartphone app that can help Syrian children learn how to read and improve their wellbeing.” The competition, known as EduApp4Syria, is being run by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and is supported by the Australian government and the French mobile company Orange.

Less than a month later, a group called Techfugees brought together over 100 technologists for a daylong brainstorm in New York City focused exclusively on education solutions. “We are facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power to open the conference. “It is a twenty-first-century crisis and we need a twenty-first-century solution.” Among the more promising, according to Power, were apps that enable “refugees to access critical services,” new “web platforms connecting refugees with one another,” and “education programs that teach refugees how to code.”

For example, the nonprofit PeaceGeeks created the Services Advisor app for the UN Refugee Agency, which maps the location of shelters, food distribution centers, and financial services in Jordan….(More)”

Case Studies of Government Use of Big Data in Latin America: Brazil and Mexico

Curated on May 24, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Chapter by Roberto da Mota Ueti, Daniela Fernandez Espinosa, Laura Rafferty, Patrick C. K. Hung in Big Data Applications and Use Cases: “Big Data is changing our world with masses of information stored in huge servers spread across the planet. This new technology is changing not only companies but governments as well. Mexico and Brazil, two of the most influential countries in Latin America, are entering a new era and as a result, facing challenges in all aspects of public policy. Using Big Data, the Brazilian Government is trying to decrease spending and use public money better by grouping public information with stored information on citizens in public services. With new reforms in education, finances and telecommunications, the Mexican Government is taking on a bigger role in efforts to channel the country’s economic policy into an improvement of the quality of life of their habitants. It is known that technology is an important part for sub-developed countries, who are trying to make a difference in certain contexts such as reducing inequality or regulating the good usage of economic resources. The good use of Big Data, a new technology that is in charge of managing a big quantity of information, can be crucial for the Mexican Government to reach the goals that have been set in the past under Peña Nieto’s administration. This article focuses on how the Brazilian and Mexican Governments are managing the emerging technologies of Big Data and how it includes them in social and industrial projects to enhance the growth of their economies. The article also discusses the benefits of these uses of Big Data and the possible problems that occur related to security and privacy of information….(More)’

Big data: big power shifts?

Curated on May 24, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Special issue of Internet Policy Review: “Facing general conceptions of the power effects of big data, this thematic edition is interested in studies that scrutinise big data and power in concrete fields of application. It brings together scholars from different disciplines who analyse the fields agriculture, education, border control and consumer policy. As will be made explicit in the following, each of the articles tells us something about firstly, what big data is and how it relates to power. They secondly also shed light on how we should shape “the big data society” and what research questions need to be answered to be able to do so….

The ethics of big data in big agriculture
Isabelle M. Carbonell, University of California, Santa Cruz

Regulating “big data education” in Europe: lessons learned from the US
Yoni Har Carmel, University of Haifa

The borders, they are a-changin’! The emergence of socio-digital borders in the EU
Magdalena König, Maastricht University

Beyond consent: improving data protection through consumer protection law
Michiel Rhoen, Leiden University…

(More)”

Reining in the Big Promise of Big Data: Transparency, Inequality, and New Regulatory Frontiers

Curated on May 23, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Philipp Hacker and Bilyana Petkova: “The growing differentiation of services based on Big Data harbors the potential for both greater societal inequality and for greater equality. Anti-discrimination law and transparency alone, however, cannot do the job of curbing Big Data’s negative externalities while fostering its positive effects.

To rein in Big Data’s potential, we adapt regulatory strategies from behavioral economics, contracts and criminal law theory. Four instruments stand out: First, active choice may be mandated between data collecting services (paid by data) and data free services (paid by money). Our suggestion provides concrete estimates for the price range of a data free option, sheds new light on the monetization of data collecting services, and proposes an “inverse predatory pricing” instrument to limit excessive pricing of the data free option. Second, we propose using the doctrine of unconscionability to prevent contracts that unreasonably favor data collecting companies. Third, we suggest democratizing data collection by regular user surveys and data compliance officers partially elected by users. Finally, we trace back new Big Data personalization techniques to the old Hartian precept of treating like cases alike and different cases – differently. If it is true that a speeding ticket over $50 is less of a disutility for a millionaire than for a welfare recipient, the income and wealth-responsive fines powered by Big Data that we suggest offer a glimpse into the future of the mitigation of economic and legal inequality by personalized law. Throughout these different strategies, we show how salience of data collection can be coupled with attempts to prevent discrimination against and exploitation of users. Finally, we discuss all four proposals in the context of different test cases: social media, student education software and credit and cell phone markets.

Many more examples could and should be discussed. In the face of increasing unease about the asymmetry of power between Big Data collectors and dispersed users, about differential legal treatment, and about the unprecedented dimensions of economic inequality, this paper proposes a new regulatory framework and research agenda to put the powerful engine of Big Data to the benefit of both the individual and societies adhering to basic notions of equality and non-discrimination….(More)”