open data

The Public Mapping Project: How Public Participation Can Revolutionize Redistricting

Curated on October 29, 2018October 29, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Micah Altman and Michael P. McDonald: “… unveil the Public Mapping Project, which developed DistrictBuilder, an open-source software redistricting application designed to give the public transparent, accessible, and easy-to-use online mapping tools. As they show, the goal is for all citizens to have access to the same information that legislators use when drawing congressional maps—and use that data to create maps of their own….(More)”.

The Role of Management in Open Data Initiatives in Local Governments: Opening the Organizational Black Box

Curated on October 28, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Mila Gasco-Hernandez and Jose Ramon Gil-Garcia: “Previous studies have infrequently addressed the dynamic interactions among social, technical, and organizational variables in open government data initiatives. In addition, organization level models have neglected to explain the role of management in decision-making processes about technology and data. This article contributes to addressing this gap in the literature by analyzing the complex relationships between open government data characteristics and the organizations and institutions in which they are embedded.

We systematically compare the open data inception and implementation processes, as well as their main results, in three Spanish local governments (Gava and Rubi in Catalonia and Gijon in Asturias) by using a model that combines the technology enactment framework with some specific constructs and relationships from the process model of computing change. Our resulting model is able to identify and explain the significant role of management in shaping and mediating different interactions, but also acknowledges the importance of organizational level variables and the context in which the open data initiative is taking place…(More)”.

The State of Open Data 2018

Curated on October 25, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

“Figshare’s annual report, The State of Open Data 2018, looks at global attitudes towards open data. It includes survey results of researchers and a collection of articles from industry experts, as well as a foreword from Ross Wilkinson, Director, Global Strategy at Australian Research Data Commons. The report is the third in the series and the survey results continue to show encouraging progress that open data is becoming more embedded in the research community. The key finding is that open data has become more embedded in the research community – 64% of survey respondents reveal they made their data openly available in 2018. However, a surprising number of respondents (60%) had never heard of the FAIR principles, a guideline to enhance the reusability of academic data….(More)”.

How data helped visualize the family separation crisis

Curated on October 16, 2018October 23, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Chava Gourarie at StoryBench: “Early this summer, at the height of the family separation crisis – where children were being forcibly separated from their parents at our nation’s border – a team of scholars pooled their skills to address the issue. The group of researchers – from a variety of humanities departments at multiple universities – spent a week of non-stop work mapping the immigration detention network that spans the United States. They named the project “Torn Apart/Separados” and published it online, to support the efforts of locating and reuniting the separated children with their parents.

The project utilizes the methods of the digital humanities, an emerging discipline that applies computational tools to fields within the humanities, like literature and history. It was led by members of Columbia University’s Group for Experimental Methods in the Humanities, which had previously used methods such as rapid deployment to responded to natural disasters.

The group has since expanded the project, publishing a second volume that focuses on the $5 billion immigration industry, based largely on public data about companies that contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The visualizations highlight the astounding growth in investment of ICE infrastructure (from $475 million 2014 to $5.1 billion in 2018), as well as who benefits from these contracts, and how the money is spent.

Storybench spoke with Columbia University’s Alex Gil, who worked on both phases of the project, about the process of building “Torn Apart/Separados,” about the design and messaging choices that were made and the ways in which methods of the digital humanities can cross pollinate with those of journalism…(More)”.

Here’s What the USMCA Does for Data Innovation

Curated on October 15, 2018May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Joshua New at the Center for Data Innovation: “…the Trump administration announced the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trade deal it intends to replace NAFTA with. The parties—Canada, Mexico, and the United States—still have to adopt the deal, and if they do, they will enjoy several welcome provisions that can give a boost to data-driven innovation in all three countries.

First, USMCA is the first trade agreement in the world to promote the publication of open government data. Article 19.18 of the agreement officially recognizes that “facilitating public access to and use of government information fosters economic and social development, competitiveness, and innovation.” Though the deal does not require parties to publish open government data, to the extent they choose to publish this data, it directs them to adhere to best practices for open data, including ensuring it is in open, machine-readable formats. Additionally, the deal directs parties to try to cooperate and identify ways they can expand access to and the use of government data, particularly for the purposes of creating economic opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses. While this is a welcome provision, the United States still needs legislation to ensure that publishing open data becomes an official responsibility of federal government agencies.

Second, Article 19.11 of USMCA prevents parties from restricting “the cross-border transfer of information, including personal information, by electronic means if this activity is for the conduct of the business of a covered person.” Additionally, Article 19.12 prevents parties from requiring people or firms “to use or locate computing facilities in that Party’s territory as a condition for conducting business in that territory.” In effect, these provisions prevent parties from enacting protectionist data localization requirements that inhibit the flow of data across borders. This is important because many countries have disingenuously argued for data localization requirements on the grounds that it protects their citizens from privacy or security harms, despite the location of data having no bearing on either privacy or security, to prop up their domestic data-driven industries….(More)”.

Open Government Data Report: Enhancing Policy Maturity for Sustainable Impact

Curated on October 8, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the OECD: This report provides an overview of the state of open data policies across OECD member and partner countries, based on data collected through the OECD Open Government Data survey (2013, 2014, 2016/17), country reviews and comparative analysis. The report analyses open data policies using an analytical framework that is in line with the OECD OUR data Index and the International Open Data Charter. It assesses governments’ efforts to enhance the availability, accessibility and re-use of open government data. It makes the case that beyond countries’ commitment to open up good quality government data, the creation of public value requires engaging user communities from the entire ecosystem, such as journalists, civil society organisations, entrepreneurs, major tech private companies and academia. The report also underlines how open data policies are elements of broader digital transformations, and how public sector data policies require interaction with other public sector agendas such as open government, innovation, employment, integrity, public budgeting, sustainable development, urban mobility and transport. It stresses the relevance of measuring open data impacts in order to support the business case for open government data….(More)”.

Translating science into business innovation: The case of open food and nutrition data hackathons

Curated on October 6, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Christopher Tucci, Gianluigi Viscusi and Heidi Gautschi: “In this article, we explore the use of hackathons and open data in corporations’ open innovation portfolios, addressing a new way for companies to tap into the creativity and innovation of early-stage startup culture, in this case applied to the food and nutrition sector. We study the first Open Food Data Hackdays, held on 10-11 February 2017 in Lausanne and Zurich. The aim of the overall project that the Hackdays event was part of was to use open food and nutrition data as a driver for business innovation. We see hackathons as a new tool in the innovation manager’s toolkit, a kind of live crowdsourcing exercise that goes beyond traditional ideation and develops a variety of prototypes and new ideas for business innovation. Companies then have the option of working with entrepreneurs and taking some of the ideas forward….(More)”.

Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier.

Curated on October 2, 2018December 11, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Christine L. Borgman: “As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic freedom, and intellectual property. Two parallel developments in academic data collection are converging: (1) open access requirements, whereby researchers must provide access to their data as a condition of obtaining grant funding or publishing results in journals; and (2) the vast accumulation of “grey data” about individuals in their daily activities of research, teaching, learning, services, and administration.

The boundaries between research and grey data are blurring, making it more difficult to assess the risks and responsibilities associated with any data collection. Many sets of data, both research and grey, fall outside privacy regulations such as HIPAA, FERPA, and PII. Universities are exploiting these data for research, learning analytics, faculty evaluation, strategic decisions, and other sensitive matters. Commercial entities are besieging universities with requests for access to data or for partnerships to mine them. The privacy frontier facing research universities spans open access practices, uses and misuses of data, public records requests, cyber risk, and curating data for privacy protection. This Article explores the competing values inherent in data stewardship and makes recommendations for practice by drawing on the pioneering work of the University of California in privacy and information security, data governance, and cyber risk….(More)”.