Derek Eder: “Have you ever used a government website and had a not-so-awesome experience? In our slick 2014 world of Google, Twitter and Facebook, why does government tech feel like it’s stuck in the 1990s? The culprit: bad technology procurement. Procurement is the procedure a government follows to buy something–letting suppliers know what they want, asking for proposals, restricting what kinds of proposal they will consider, limiting what kinds of firms they will do business with, and deciding if what they got what they paid for. The City of Chicago buys technology about the same way that they buy... (More >)
How government can engage with citizens online – expert views
The Guardian: In our livechat on 28 February the experts discussed how to connect up government and citizens online. Digital public services are not just for ‘techno wizzy people’, so government should make them easier for everyone… Read the livechat in full Michael Sanders, head of research for the behavioural insights team – @mike_t_sanders It’s important that government is a part of people’s lives: when people interact with government it shouldn’t be a weird and alienating experience, but one that feels part of their everyday lives. Online services are still too often difficult to use: most people who use... (More >)
Open Government -Opportunities and Challenges for Public Governance
New volume of Public Administration and Information Technology series: “Given this global context, and taking into account both the need of academicians and practitioners, it is the intention of this book to shed light on the open government concept and, in particular: • To provide comprehensive knowledge of recent major developments of open government around the world. • To analyze the importance of open government efforts for public governance. • To provide insightful analysis about those factors that are critical when designing, implementing and evaluating open government initiatives. • To discuss how contextual factors affect open government initiatives’success or... (More >)
New study proves economic benefits of open data for Berlin
ePSI Platform: “The study “Digitales Gold: Nutzen und Wertschöpfung durch Open Data für Berlin” – or “Digital Gold: the open data benefits and its added value for Berlin” in english – released by TSB Technologiestiftung Berlin estimates that Open Data will bring around 32 million euros per year of economic benefit to the city of Berlin for the next few years. … The estimations made for Berlin are inspired by previous reasoning included in two other studies: Pollock R. (2011), Welfare Gains from opening up public sector information in the UK; and Fuchs, S. et al. (2013), Open Government... (More >)
Big Data, Big New Businesses
Nigel Shaboldt and Michael Chui: “Many people have long believed that if government and the private sector agreed to share their data more freely, and allow it to be processed using the right analytics, previously unimaginable solutions to countless social, economic, and commercial problems would emerge. They may have no idea how right they are. Even the most vocal proponents of open data appear to have underestimated how many profitable ideas and businesses stand to be created. More than 40 governments worldwide have committed to opening up their electronic data – including weather records, crime statistics, transport information, and... (More >)
Crowdsourcing voices to study Parkinson’s disease
TedMed: “Mathematician Max Little is launching a project that aims to literally give Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients a voice in their own diagnosis and help them monitor their disease progression. Patients Voice Analysis (PVA) is an open science project that uses phone-based voice recordings and self-reported symptoms, along with software Little designed, to track disease progression. Little, a TEDMED 2013 speaker and TED Fellow, is partnering with the online community PatientsLikeMe, co-founded by TEDMED 2009 speaker James Heywood, and Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit research organization, to conduct the research. The new project is an extension of Little’s Parkinson’s Voice... (More >)
Are bots taking over Wikipedia?
Kurzweil News: “As crowdsourced Wikipedia has grown too large — with more than 30 million articles in 287 languages — to be entirely edited and managed by volunteers, 12 Wikipedia bots have emerged to pick up the slack. The bots use Wikidata — a free knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and bots — to exchange information between entries and between the 287 languages. Which raises an interesting question: what portion of Wikipedia edits are generated by humans versus bots? To find out (and keep track of other bot activity), Thomas Steiner of Google... (More >)
LocalWiki turns open local data into open local knowledge
Marina Kukso at OpenGovVoices:” LocalWiki is an open knowledge project focusing on giving everyone the opportunity to collaborate to create and share all kinds of information about the place where they live. The project started in 2004 in Davis, Calif. as the Davis Wiki, now the primary local information resource for Davis residents. One-in-seven residents have contributed to the project and, in a given month, almost every resident uses it. In 2010, we received funding from the Knight Foundation to bring LocalWiki to many more communities. We created a wiki software specifically designed for local collaboration and have seen... (More >)
11 ways to rethink open data and make it relevant to the public
Miguel Paz at IJNET: “It’s time to transform open data from a trendy concept among policy wonks and news nerds into something tangible to everyday life for citizens, businesses and grassroots organizations. Here are some ideas to help us get there: 1. Improve access to data Craig Hammer from the World Bank has tackled this issue, stating that “Open Data could be the game changer when it comes to eradicating global poverty”, but only if governments make available online data that become actionable intelligence: a launch pad for investigation, analysis, triangulation, and improved decision making at all levels. 2.... (More >)
Three ways digital leaders can operate successfully in local government
Carl Haggerty in The Guardian: “The landscape of digital is constantly changing and being redefined with every new development, technology breakthrough, success and failure. We need digital public sector leaders who can properly navigate this environment, and follow these three guidelines. 1. Champion open data We need leaders who can ensure that information and data is open by default, and secure when absolutely required. Too often councils commission digital programmes only to find the data generated does not easily integrate with other systems, or that data is not council-owned and can only be accessed at further cost. 2. Don’t... (More >)
