Sean Varah at VentureBeat: “Everyone takes pictures and video with their devices. Parents record their kids’ soccer games, companies record employee training, police surveillance cameras at busy intersections run 24/7, and drones monitor pipelines in the desert.
With vast amounts of video growing vaster at a rate faster than the day before, and the hottest devices like drones decreasing in price and size until everyone has one (OK, not in their pocket quite yet) it’s time to start talking about mining this mass of valuable video data for useful purposes.
Julian Mann, the cofounder of Skybox Imaging — a company in the business of commercial satellite imagery and the developer advocate for Google Earth outreach — says that the new “Skybox for Good” program will provide “a constantly updated model of change of the entire planet” with the potential to “save lives, protect the environment, promote education, and positively impact humanity.”…
Mining video data through “man + machine” artificial intelligence is new technology in search of unsolved problems. Could this be the next chapter in the ever-evolving technology revolution?
For the past 50 years, satellite imagery has only been available to the U.S. intelligence community and those countries with technology to launch their own. Digital Globe was one of the first companies to make satellite imagery available commercially, and now Skybox and a few others have joined them. Drones are even newer, having been used by the U.S. military since the ‘90s for surveillance over battlefields or, in this age of counter-terrorism, playing the role of aerial detectives finding bad guys in the middle of nowhere. Before drones, the same tasks required thousands of troops on the ground, putting many young men and women in harm’s way. Today, hundreds of trained “eyes” safely located here in the U.S. watch hours of video from a single drone to assess current situations in countries far away….”
Bringing the data revolution to education, and education to the data revolution
Pauline Rose at Post2015.org: “Calls for a data revolution are putting the spotlight on the importance of more and better data as a means to hold policymakers to account for post-2015 goals. In many ways, education has been at the forefront of approaches to measuring progress over the past 15 years. The influence of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) and the efforts of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in improving the availability of education data provide important lessons for tracking progress post-2015. This experience should play an important contribution to informing the practical next steps for the data revolution.
Building on this experience, a roundtable held at the Overseas Development Institute on 17 November brought together over 40 technical experts, who debated approaches to measuring progress towards post-2015 education targets, with a focus on learning and equity. The meeting coincided with the launch of consultation on post-2015 education indicators by the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the EFA Steering Committee. As noted in the opening remarks on the data revolution by Neil Jackson, Chief Statistician at DFID, in many ways the education sector is leading the way in thinking about how to monitor post-2015 progress in concrete ways.
One of the problems that the GMR and UIS faced in tracking progress over the past 15 years was that indicators were not set at the time of deciding on education for all goals in 2000, hence the importance of the current consultation process. Another was that data have not been available a sufficiently disaggregated form to track progress on the most disadvantaged subgroups within each country, that is those most likely to be left behind. The GMR’s World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE), drawing on internationally-comparable household survey data, has been one step forward in presenting data in an accessible format to show that the poorest children living in rural areas, and often girls, are still far from completing primary school in many countries, and that many are also not learning the basics in reading and mathematics even if they have spent time in school….”
Show Me the Evidence
New book by Ron Haskins: “This book tells the story of how the Obama administration planned and enacted several initiatives to fund social programs based on rigorous evidence of success and thereby created a fundamental change in the role of evidence in federal policymaking.
Using interviews with the major players from the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, federal agencies, Congress, and the child advocacy community, the authors detail the development and implementation of six evidence-based social policy initiatives by the Obama administration.
The initiatives range widely over fundamental issues in the nation’s social policy including preschool and K-12 education, teen pregnancy, employment and training, health, and community-based programs. These initiatives constitute a revolution in the use of social science evidence to guide federal policymaking and the operation of federal grant programs.
A fascinating story for everyone interested in politics and policy, this book also provides a blueprint for policymakers worldwide who are interested in expanding the use of evidence in policy.
Read David Wessel’s review in the Wall Street Journal.”
White House: Help Shape Public Participation
at the White House Blog: “Public participation — where citizens help shape and implement government programs — is a foundation of open, transparent, and engaging government services. From emergency management and regulatory development to science and education, better and more meaningful engagement with those who use public services can measurably improve government for everyone.
A team across the government is now working side-by-side with civil society organizations to deliver the first U.S. Public Participation Playbook, dedicated to providing best practices for how agencies can better design public participation programs, and suggested performance metrics for evaluating their effectiveness.
Developing a U.S. Public Participation Playbook has been an open government priority, and was included in both the first and second U.S. Open Government National Action Plans as part of the United States effort to increase public integrity in government programs. This resource reflects the commitment of the government and civic partners to measurably improve participation programs, and is designed using the same inclusive principles that it champions.
More than 30 Federal leaders from across diverse missions in public service have collaborated on draft best practices, or “plays,” lead by the General Services Administration’s inter-agency SocialGov Community. The playbook is not limited to digital participation, and is designed to address needs from the full spectrum of public participation programs.
The plays are structured to provide best practices, tangible examples, and suggested performance metrics for government activities that already exist or are under development. Some categories included in the plays include encouraging community development and outreach, empowering participants through public/private partnerships, using data to drive decisions, and designing for inclusiveness and accessibility.
In developing this new resource, the team has been reaching out to more than a dozen civil society organizations and stakeholders, asking them to contribute as the Playbook is created. The team would like your input as well! Over the next month, contribute your ideas to the playbook using Madison, an easy-to-use, open source platform that allows for accountable review of each contribution.
Through this process, the team will work together to ensure that the Playbook reflects the best ideas and examples for agencies to use in developing and implementing their programs with public participation in mind. This resource will be a living document, and stakeholders from inside or outside of government should continually offer new insights — whether new plays, the latest case studies, or the most current performance metrics — to the playbook.
We look forward to seeing the public participate in the creation and evolution of the Public Participation Playbook!”
Look to Government—Yes, Government—for New Social Innovations
Paper by Christian Bason and Philip Colligan: “If asked to identify the hotbed of social innovation right now, many people would likely point to the new philanthropy of Silicon Valley or the social entrepreneurship efforts supported by Ashoka, Echoing Green, and Skoll Foundation. Very few people, if any, would mention their state capital or Capitol Hill. While local and national governments may have promulgated some of the greatest advances in human history — from public education to putting a man on the moon — public bureaucracies are more commonly known to stifle innovation.
Yet, around the world, there are local, regional, and national government innovators who are challenging this paradigm. They are pioneering a new form of experimental government — bringing new knowledge and practices to the craft of governing and policy making; drawing on human-centered design, user engagement, open innovation, and cross-sector collaboration; and using data, evidence, and insights in new ways.
Earlier this year, Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation (which Philip helps run), teamed up with Bloomberg Philanthropies to publish i-teams, the first global review of public innovation teams set up by national and city governments. The study profiled 20 of the most established i-teams from around the world, including:
- French Experimental Fund for Youth, which has supported more than 554 experimental projects (such as one that reduces school drop-out rates) that have benefited over 480,000 young people;
- Nesta’s Innovation Lab, which has run 70 open innovation challenges and programs supporting over 750 innovators working in fields as diverse as energy efficiency, healthcare, and digital education;
- New Orleans’ Innovation and Delivery team, which achieved a 19% reduction in the number of murders in the city in 2013 compared to the previous year.
How are i-teams achieving these results? The most effective ones are explicit about the goal they seek – be it creating a solution to a specific policy challenge, engaging citizenry in behaviors that help the commonweal, or transforming the way government behaves. Importantly, these teams are also able to deploy the right skills, capabilities, and methods for the job.
In addition, i-teams have a strong bias toward action. They apply academic research in behavioral economics and psychology to public policy and services, focusing on rapid experimentation and iteration. The approach stands in stark contrast to the normal routines of government.
Take for example, The UK’s Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), often called the Nudge Unit. It sets clear goals, engages the right expertise to prototype means to the end, and tests innovations rapidly in the field, to learn what’s not working and rapidly scales what is.
One of BIT’s most famous projects changed taxpayer behavior. BIT’s team of economists, behavioral psychologists, and seasoned government staffers came up with minor changes to tax letters, sent out by the UK Government, that subtlety introduced positive peer pressure. By simply altering the letters to say that most people in their local area had already paid their taxes, BIT was able to boost repayment rates by around 5%. This trial was part of a range of interventions, which have helped forward over £200 million in additional tax revenue to HM Revenue & Customs, the UK’s tax authority.
The Danish government’s internal i-team, MindLab (which Christian ran for 8 years) has likewise influenced citizen behavior….”
USDA Opens VIVO Research Networking Tool to Public
Sharon Durham at the USDA: “VIVO, a Web application used internally by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists since 2012 to allow better national networking across disciplines and locations, is now available to the public. USDA VIVO will be a “one-stop shop” for Federal agriculture expertise and research outcomes.”USDA employs over 5,000 researchers to ensure our programs are based on sound public policy and the best available science,” said USDA Chief Scientist and Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics Dr. Catherine Woteki. “USDA VIVO provides a powerful Web search tool for connecting interdisciplinary researchers, research projects and outcomes with others who might bring a different approach or scope to a research project. Inviting private citizens to use the system will increase the potential for collaboration to solve food- and agriculture-related problems.”
The idea behind USDA VIVO is to link researchers with peers and potential collaborators to ignite synergy among our nation’s best scientific minds and to spark unique approaches to some of our toughest agricultural problems. This efficient networking tool enables scientists to easily locate others with a particular expertise. VIVO also makes it possible to quickly identify scientific expertise and respond to emerging agricultural issues, like specific plant and animal disease or pests.
USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Economic Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service and Forest Service are the first five USDA agencies to participate in VIVO. The National Agricultural Library, which is part of ARS, will host the Web application. USDA hopes to add other agencies in the future.
VIVO was in part developed under a $12.2 million grant from the National Center for Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant, made under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was provided to the University of Florida and collaborators at Cornell University, Indiana University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Washington University in St. Louis, the Scripps Research Institute and the Ponce School of Medicine.
VIVO’s underlying database draws information about research being conducted by USDA scientists from official public systems of record and then makes it uniformly available for searching. The data can then be easily leveraged in other applications. In this way, USDA is also making its research projects and related impacts available to the Federal RePORTER tool, released by NIH on September 22, 2014. Federal RePORTER is part of a collaborative effort between Federal entities and other research institutions to create a repository that will be useful to assess the impact of Federal research and development investments.”
The idea behind USDA VIVO is to link researchers with peers and potential collaborators to ignite synergy among our nation’s best scientific minds and to spark unique approaches to some of our toughest agricultural problems. This efficient networking tool enables scientists to easily locate others with a particular expertise. VIVO also makes it possible to quickly identify scientific expertise and respond to emerging agricultural issues, like specific plant and animal disease or pests.
USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Economic Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service and Forest Service are the first five USDA agencies to participate in VIVO. The National Agricultural Library, which is part of ARS, will host the Web application. USDA hopes to add other agencies in the future.
VIVO was in part developed under a $12.2 million grant from the National Center for Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant, made under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was provided to the University of Florida and collaborators at Cornell University, Indiana University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Washington University in St. Louis, the Scripps Research Institute and the Ponce School of Medicine.
VIVO’s underlying database draws information about research being conducted by USDA scientists from official public systems of record and then makes it uniformly available for searching. The data can then be easily leveraged in other applications. In this way, USDA is also making its research projects and related impacts available to the Federal RePORTER tool, released by NIH on September 22, 2014. Federal RePORTER is part of a collaborative effort between Federal entities and other research institutions to create a repository that will be useful to assess the impact of Federal research and development investments.”
Digital Sociology
New book by Deborah Lupton: “We now live in a digital society. New digital technologies have had a profound influence on everyday life, social relations, government, commerce, the economy and the production and dissemination of knowledge. People’s movements in space, their purchasing habits and their online communication with others are now monitored in detail by digital technologies. We are increasingly becoming digital data subjects, whether we like it or not, and whether we choose this or not.
The sub-discipline of digital sociology provides a means by which the impact, development and use of these technologies and their incorporation into social worlds, social institutions and concepts of selfhood and embodiment may be investigated, analysed and understood. This book introduces a range of interesting social, cultural and political dimensions of digital society and discusses some of the important debates occurring in research and scholarship on these aspects. It covers the new knowledge economy and big data, reconceptualising research in the digital era, the digitisation of higher education, the diversity of digital use, digital politics and citizen digital engagement, the politics of surveillance, privacy issues, the contribution of digital devices to embodiment and concepts of selfhood and many other topics.”
A New Taxonomy of Smart City Projects
New paper by Guido Perboli et al: “City logistics proposes an integrated vision of freight transportation systems within urban area and it aims at the optimization of them as a whole in terms of efficiency, security, safety, viability and environmental sustainability. Recently, this perspective has been extended by the Smart City concept in order to include other aspects of city management: building, energy, environment, government, living, mobility, education, health and so on. At the best of our knowledge, a classification of Smart City Projects has not been created yet. This paper introduces such a classification, highlighting success factors and analyzing new trends in Smart City.”
A World That Counts: Mobilising a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development
Executive Summary of the Report by the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development (IEAG): “Data are the lifeblood of decision-making and the raw material for accountability. Without high-quality data providing the right information on the right things at the right time; designing, monitoring and evaluating effective policies becomes almost impossible.
New technologies are leading to an exponential increase in the volume and types of data available, creating unprecedented possibilities for informing and transforming society and protecting the environment. Governments, companies, researchers and citizen groups are in a ferment of experimentation, innovation and adaptation to the new world of data, a world in which data are bigger, faster and more detailed than ever before. This is the data revolution.
Some are already living in this new world. But too many people, organisations and governments are excluded because of lack of resources, knowledge, capacity or opportunity. There are huge and growing inequalities in access to data and information and in the ability to use it.
Data needs improving. Despite considerable progress in recent years, whole groups of people are not being counted and important aspects of people’s lives and environmental conditions are still not measured. For people, this can lead to the denial of basic rights, and for the planet, to continued environmental degradation. Too often, existing data remain unused because they are released too late or not at all, not well-documented and harmonized, or not available at the level of detail needed for decision-making.
As the world embarks on an ambitious project to meet new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is an urgent need to mobilise the data revolution for all people and the whole planet in order to monitor progress, hold governments accountable and foster sustainable development. More diverse, integrated, timely and trustworthy information can lead to better decision-making and real-time citizen feedback. This in turn enables individuals, public and private institutions, and companies to make choices that are good for them and for the world they live in.
This report sets out the main opportunities and risks presented by the data revolution for sustain-able development. Seizing these opportunities and mitigating these risks requires active choices, especially by governments and international institutions. Without immediate action, gaps between developed and developing countries, between information-rich and information-poor people, and between the private and public sectors will widen, and risks of harm and abuses of human rights will grow.
An urgent call for action: Key recommendations
The strong leadership of the United Nations (UN) is vital for the success of this process. The Independent Expert Advisory Group (IEAG), established in August 2014, offers the UN Secretary-General several key recommendations for actions to be taken in the near future, summarised below:
- Develop a global consensus on principles and standards: The disparate worlds of public, private and civil society data and statistics providers need to be urgently brought together to build trust and confidence among data users. We propose that the UN establish a process whereby key stakeholders create a “Global Consensus on Data”, to adopt principles concerning legal, technical, privacy, geospatial and statistical standards which, among other things, will facilitate openness and information exchange and promote and protect human rights.
- Share technology and innovations for the common good: To create mechanisms through which technology and innovation can be shared and used for the common good, we propose
to create a global “Network of Data Innovation Networks”, to bring together the organisations and experts in the field. This would: contribute to the adoption of best practices for improving the monitoring of SDGs, identify areas where common data-related infrastructures could address capacity problems and improve efficiency, encourage collaborations, identify critical research gaps and create incentives to innovate. - New resources for capacity development: Improving data is a development agenda in
its own right, and can improve the targeting of existing resources and spur new economic opportunities. Existing gaps can only be overcome through new investments and the strengthening of capacities. A new funding stream to support the data revolution for sustainable development should be endorsed at the “Third International Conference on Financing for Development”, in Addis Ababa in July 2015. An assessment will be needed of the scale of investments, capacity development and technology transfer that is required, especially for low income countries; and proposals developed for mechanisms to leverage the creativity and resources of the private sector. Funding will also be needed to implement an education program aimed at improving people’s, infomediaries’ and public servants’ capacity and data literacy to break down barriers between people and data. - Leadership for coordination and mobilisation: A UN-led “Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data” is proposed, tomobiliseandcoordinate the actions and institutions required to make the data revolution serve sustainable development, promoting several initiatives, such as:
- A “World Forum on Sustainable Development Data” to bring together the whole data ecosystem to share ideas and experiences for data improvements, innovation, advocacy and technology transfer. The first Forum should take place at the end of 2015, once the SDGs are agreed;
- A “Global Users Forum for Data for SDGs”, to ensure feedback loops between data producers and users, help the international community to set priorities and assess results;
- Brokering key global public-private partnerships for data sharing.
- Exploit some quick wins on SDG data: Establishing a “SDGs data lab” to support the development of a first wave of SDG indicators, developing an SDG analysis and visualisation platform using the most advanced tools and features for exploring data, and building a dashboard from diverse data sources on ”the state of the world”.
Never again should it be possible to say “we didn’t know”. No one should be invisible. This is the world we want – a world that counts.”
Finding Collaborators: Toward Interactive Discovery Tools for Research Network Systems
New paper by Charles D Borromeo, Titus K Schleyer, Michael J Becich, and Harry Hochheiser: “Background: Research networking systems hold great promise for helping biomedical scientists identify collaborators with the expertise needed to build interdisciplinary teams. Although efforts to date have focused primarily on collecting and aggregating information, less attention has been paid to the design of end-user tools for using these collections to identify collaborators. To be effective, collaborator search tools must provide researchers with easy access to information relevant to their collaboration needs.
Objective: The aim was to study user requirements and preferences for research networking system collaborator search tools and to design and evaluate a functional prototype.
Methods: Paper prototypes exploring possible interface designs were presented to 18 participants in semistructured interviews aimed at eliciting collaborator search needs. Interview data were coded and analyzed to identify recurrent themes and related software requirements. Analysis results and elements from paper prototypes were used to design a Web-based prototype using the D3 JavaScript library and VIVO data. Preliminary usability studies asked 20 participants to use the tool and to provide feedback through semistructured interviews and completion of the System Usability Scale (SUS).
Results: Initial interviews identified consensus regarding several novel requirements for collaborator search tools, including chronological display of publication and research funding information, the need for conjunctive keyword searches, and tools for tracking candidate collaborators. Participant responses were positive (SUS score: mean 76.4%, SD 13.9). Opportunities for improving the interface design were identified.
Conclusions: Interactive, timeline-based displays that support comparison of researcher productivity in funding and publication have the potential to effectively support searching for collaborators. Further refinement and longitudinal studies may be needed to better understand the implications of collaborator search tools for researcher workflows.”