Marijn Janssen and Natalie Helbig in Government Information Quarterly: “Many policy-makers are struggling to understand participatory governance in the midst of technological changes. Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) continue to have an impact on the ways that policy-makers and citizens engage with each other throughout the policy-making process. A set of developments in the areas of opening government data, advanced analytics, visualization, simulation, and gaming, and ubiquitous citizen access using mobile and personalized applications is shaping the interactions between policy-makers and citizens. Yet the impact of these developments on the policy-makers is unclear. The changing roles and... (More >)
Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America
Book by Hollie Russon Gilman: “Democracy Reinvented is the first comprehensive academic treatment of participatory budgeting in the United States, situating it within a broader trend of civic technology and innovation. This global phenomenon, which has been called “revolutionary civics in action” by the New York Times, started in Brazil in 1989 but came to America only in 2009. Participatory budgeting empowers citizens to identify community needs, work with elected officials to craft budget proposals, and vote on how to spend public funds. Democracy Reinvented places participatory budgeting within the larger discussion of the health of U.S. democracy and... (More >)
New York City BigApps Winners Show How Civic Tech Is Maturing
Alexander Howard at Huffington Post: “Winners of the latest version of New York City’s BigApps Challenge, announced Thursday, show how tough lessons from the first generation of city apps contests are now helping to creating civic value and community. New York’s experience will help demonstrate to mayors around the world how to get the most social impact and economic value from government data: Start with the civic problem you want to target, then find the data, partners and community to make the changes…. The evolution brings civic apps contests a long way from the Washington, D.C., local government’s “Apps... (More >)
Open Government: Missing Questions
Vadym Pyrozhenko at Administration & Society: “This article places the Obama administration’s open government initiative within the context of evolution of the U.S. information society. It examines the concept of openness along the three dimensions of Daniel Bell’s social analysis of the postindustrial society: structure, polity, and culture. Four “missing questions” raise the challenge of the compatibility of public service values with the culture of openness, address the right balance between postindustrial information management practices and the capacity of public organizations to accomplish their missions, and ask to reconsider the idea that greater structural openness of public organizations will... (More >)
UK police force trials virtual crime visits over Skype
Nick Summers at Engadget: In an effort to cut costs and make its officers more efficient, police in Peterborough, England are asking citizens to report their crimes over Skype. So, whereas before a local “bobby” would come round to their house, notepad in hand, to ask questions and take down what happened, the entire process will now be conducted over webcam. Alternatively, victims can do the follow-up on the phone or at the station — handy if Skype is being its usual, unreliable self. The system is being trialled for crimes reported via 101, the police’s non-emergency contact number.... (More >)
OpenBeta. USAspending.gov
About: “Instead of building the future USAspending.gov and getting feedback from users after the launch, Treasury took the innovative approach of launching OpenBeta.USAspending.gov in November 2015 to gather your recommendations and suggestions on the features you want in the final iteration. Based on forum and email feedback, Treasury will add new features and functionalities on a rolling basis. OpenBeta.USAspending.gov currently features several search options and a demo of a search functionality that provides access to the data quickly. In addition, search filters similar to what you might find on a commercial site allow you to narrow your search results.... (More >)
Who Benefits From Civic Technology?
Report by Rebecca Rumbul at MySociety: “This research seeks to begin at the beginning, asking the most basic questions about who actually uses civic technology and why. Gathering data from civic technology groups from around the world, it shows the variations in usage of civic tech across four core countries (US, UK, Kenya and South Africa), and records the attitudes of users towards the platforms they are using. Download: Who Benefits From Civic Technology? Demographic and public attitudes research into the users of civic technologies“ ... (More >)
Smarter Government For Social Impact: A New Mindset For Better Outcomes
Report by Drive Impact: “From Kentucky to Arkansas to New York, government leaders across the United States are leveraging data, technology, and a heightened focus on outcomes to deliver social impact with modern solutions. In Louisville, Kentucky, “smart” asthma inhalers track where attacks happen citywide and feed this data into a government dashboard, helping policymakers identify hot spots to improve air quality and better treat patients. Policy leaders in New York and Texas are reforming Medicaid with “value-based payments” that reward doctors for performing preventive procedures that protect against costly tests and treatments down the road. In Arkansas, a... (More >)
The Quantified Community and Neighborhood Labs: A Framework for Computational Urban Planning and Civic Technology Innovation
Constantine E. Kontokosta: “This paper presents the conceptual framework and justification for a “Quantified Community” (QC) and a networked experimental environment of neighborhood labs. The QC is a fully instrumented urban neighborhood that uses an integrated, expandable, and participatory sensor network to support the measurement, integration, and analysis of neighborhood conditions, social interactions and behavior, and sustainability metrics to support public decision-making. Through a diverse range of sensor and automation technologies — combined with existing data generated through administrative records, surveys, social media, and mobile sensors — information on human, physical, and environmental elements can be processed in real-time... (More >)
(US) Administration Announces New “Smart Cities” Initiative to Help Communities Tackle Local Challenges and Improve City Services
Factsheet from the White House: “Today, the Administration is announcing a new “Smart Cities” Initiative that will invest over $160 million in federal research and leverage more than 25 new technology collaborations to help local communities tackle key challenges such as reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, fostering economic growth, managing the effects of a changing climate, and improving the delivery of city services. The new initiative is part of this Administration’s overall commitment to target federal resources to meet local needs and support community-led solutions. Over the past six years, the Administration has pursued a place-based approach to working... (More >)
