Daniel Castro at GovTech: “Many states now support open data, or data that’s made freely available without restriction in a nonproprietary, machine-readable format, to increase government transparency, improve public accountability and participation, and unlock opportunities for civic innovation. To date, 10 states have adopted open data policies, via executive order or legislation, and 24 states have built open data portals. But while many agencies have joined the open data movement, state colleges and universities have largely ignored this opportunity. To remedy this, policymakers should consider how to extend open data policies to state colleges and universities. There are many... (More >)
The Power of Heuristics
ideas42: “People are presented with many choices throughout their day, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation to how much money to save for emergencies. In many situations, this ability to choose enhances our lives. However, having too many choices can sometimes feel like a burden, especially if the choices are complex or the decisions we’re making are important. In these instances, we often make poor decisions, or sometimes even fail to choose at all. This can create real problems, for example when people fail to save enough for retirement or don’t make the... (More >)
Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy
Book by Tina Nabatchi, and Matt Leighninger: “…Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy explores the theory and practice of public participation in decision-making and problem-solving. It examines how public participation developed over time to include myriad thick, thin, and conventional opportunities, occurring in both face-to-face meetings and online settings. The book explores the use of participation in various arenas, including education, health, land use, and state and federal government. It offers a practical framework for thinking about how to engage citizens effectively, and clear explanations of participation scenarios, tactics, and designs. Finally, the book provides a sensible approach for... (More >)
Governance in the Information Era
New book edited by Erik W. Johnston:” Policy informatics is addressing governance challenges and their consequences, which span the seeming inability of governments to solve complex problems and the disaffection of people from their governments. Policy informatics seeks approaches that enable our governance systems to address increasingly complex challenges and to meet the rising expectations of people to be full participants in their communities. This book approaches these challenges by applying a combination of the latest American and European approaches in applying complex systems modeling, crowdsourcing, participatory platforms and citizen science to explore complex governance challenges in domains that... (More >)
Unleashing the Power of Data to Serve the American People
“Memorandum: Unleashing the Power of Data to Serve the American People To: The American People From: Dr. DJ Patil, Deputy U.S. CTO for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist ….While there is a rich history of companies using data to their competitive advantage, the disproportionate beneficiaries of big data and data science have been Internet technologies like social media, search, and e-commerce. Yet transformative uses of data in other spheres are just around the corner. Precision medicine and other forms of smarter health care delivery, individualized education, and the “Internet of Things” (which refers to devices like cars or... (More >)
Medical Wikis Dedicated to Clinical Practice: A Systematic Review
New paper by Alexandre Brulet et al: “Wikis may give clinician communities the opportunity to build knowledge relevant to their practice. The only previous study reviewing a set of health-related wikis, without specification of purpose or audience, globally showed a poor reliability…. Our aim was to review medical wiki websites dedicated to clinical practices…..Among 25 wikis included, 11 aimed at building an encyclopedia, five a textbook, three lessons, two oncology protocols, one a single article, and three at reporting clinical cases. Sixteen wikis were specialized with specific themes or disciplines. Fifteen wikis were using MediaWiki software as-is, three were... (More >)
A lot of private-sector data is also used for public good
Josh New in Computerworld: “As the private sector continues to invest in data-driven innovation, the capacity for society to benefit from this data collection grows as well. Much has been said about how the private sector is using the data it collects to improve corporate bottom lines, but positive stories about how that data contributes to the greater public good are largely unknown. This is unfortunate, because data collected by the private sector is being used in a variety of important ways, including to advance medical research, to help students make better academic decisions and to provide government agencies... (More >)
Innovate or Stagnate
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Project Syndicate: “Companies, like people, grow old. They start life small and eager to survive, fueled by youthful energy and fresh ideas. They compete, expand, mature, and eventually, with few exceptions, fade into obscurity. The same is true of governments: they, too, can lose the hunger and ambition of youth and allow themselves to become complacent…. The key to corporations’ rejuvenation, civilizations’ evolution, and human development in general is simple: innovation. I am always amazed when governments think they are an exception to this rule. Innovation in government is not an intellectual luxury,... (More >)
U.S. Public Participation Playbook
“The U.S. Public Participation Playbook is a resource for government managers to effectively evaluate and build better services through public participation using best practices and performance metrics. Public participation—where citizens help shape and implement government programs—is a foundation of open, transparent, and engaging government services. From emergency management, town hall discussions and regulatory development to science and education, better engagement with those who use public services can measurably improve those services for everyone. Developing a U.S. Public Participation Playbook is an open government priority included in both the first and second U.S. Open Government National Action Plans as part... (More >)
With a Few Bits of Data, Researchers Identify ‘Anonymous’ People
Natasha Singer in the New York Times: “Even when real names and other personal information are stripped from big data sets, it is often possible to use just a few pieces of the information to identify a specific person, according to a study to be published Friday in the journal Science. In the study, titled “Unique in the Shopping Mall: On the Reidentifiability of Credit Card Metadata,” a group of data scientists analyzed credit card transactions made by 1.1 million people in 10,000 stores over a three-month period. The data set contained details including the date of each transaction,... (More >)
