Paper by Jeremy de Beer, Paula Millar, Jacquelen Mwangi, Victor B. Nzomo, and Isaac Rutenberg: “This article explains the importance of technology hubs as drivers of innovation, social change, and economic opportunity within and beyond the African continent. The article is the first to thoroughly review and synthesize findings from multi-disciplinary literature, and integrate insights from qualitative data gathered via interviews and fieldwork. It identifies three archetypes of hubs — clusters, companies, and countries — and discusses examples of each archetype using Kenya as a case study. The article discusses potential collaboration, conflicts, and competition among these archetypes of hubs, and concludes with recommendations for future researchers….(More)”
Decision Making in a World of Comparative Effectiveness Research
Book by Howard G. Birnbaum and Paul E. Greenberg: “In the past decade there has been a worldwide evolution in evidence-based medicine that focuses on real-world Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) to compare the effects of one medical treatment versus another in real world settings. While most of this burgeoning literature has focused on research findings, data and methods, Howard Birnbaum and Paul Greenberg (both of Analysis Group) have edited a book that provides a practical guide to decision making using the results of analysis and interpretation of CER. Decision Making in a World of Comparative Effectiveness contains chapters by senior industry executives, key opinion leaders, accomplished researchers, and leading attorneys involved in resolving disputes in the life sciences industry. The book is aimed at ‘users’ and ‘decision makers’ involved in the life sciences industry rather than those doing the actual research. This book appeals to those who commission CER within the life sciences industry (pharmaceutical, biologic, and device manufacturers), government (both public and private payers), as well as decision makers of all levels, both in the US and globally…(More)”.
Five hacks for digital democracy
Beth Simone Noveck in Nature: “…Technology is already changing the way public institutions make decisions. Governments at every level are using ‘big data’ to pinpoint or predict the incidence of crime, heart attack and foodborne illness. Expert networking platforms — online directories of people and their skills, such as NovaGob.org in Spain — are helping to match civil servants who have the relevant expertise with those who need the know-how.
To get beyond conventional democratic models of representation or referendum, and, above all, to improve learning in the civil service, we must build on these pockets of promise and evolve. That requires knowledge of what works and when. But there is a dearth of research on the impact of technology on public institutions. One reason is a lack of suitable research methods. Many academics prefer virtual labs with simulated conditions that are far from realistic. Field experiments have long been used to evaluate the choice between two policies. But much less attention is paid to how public organizations might operate differently with new technologies.
The perfect must not be the enemy of the good. Even when it is impractical to create a control group and run parallel interventions in the same institution, comparisons can yield insights. For instance, one could compare the effect of using citizen commenting on legislative proposals in the Brazilian parliament with similar practices in the Finnish parliament.
Of course, some leaders have little interest in advancing more than their own power. But many more politicians and public servants are keen to use research-based evidence to guide how they use technology to govern in the public interest.
The MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, has started funding a research network — a dozen academics and public servants — to study the possibilities of using new technology to govern more transparently and in partnership with citizens (see www.opening-governance.org). More collaboration among universities and across disciplines is needed. New research platforms — such as the Open Governance Research Exchange, developed by the Governance Lab, the UK-based non-profit mySociety and the World Bank — can offer pathways for sharing research findings and co-creating methodologies….(More)”
Remote Data Collection: Three Ways to Rethink How You Collect Data in the Field
Magpi : “As mobile devices have gotten less and less expensive – and as millions worldwide have climbed out of poverty – it’s become quite common to see a mobile phone in every person’s hand, or at least in every family, and this means that we can utilize an additional approach to data collection that were simply not possible before….
In our Remote Data Collection Guide, we discuss these new technologies and the:
- Key benefits of remote data collection in each of three different situations.
- The direct impact of remote data collection on reducing the cost of your efforts.
- How to start the process of choosing the right option for your needs….(More)”
Scholarpedia
About: “Scholarpedia is a peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia written and maintained by scholarly experts from around the world. Scholarpediais inspired by Wikipedia and aims to complement it by providing in-depth scholarly treatments of academic topics.
Scholarpedia and Wikipedia are alike in many respects:
- both allow anyone to propose revisions to almost any article
- both are “wikis” and use the familiar MediaWiki software designed for Wikipedia
- both allow considerable freedom within each article’s “Talk” pages
- both are committed to the goal of making the world’s knowledge freely available to all
Nonetheless, Scholarpedia is best understood by how it is unlike most wikis, differences arising from Scholarpedia’s academic origins, goals, and audience. The most significant isScholarpedia’s process of peer-reviewed publication: all articles in Scholarpedia are either in the process of being written by a team of authors, or have already been published and are subject to expert curation….(More)”
Time for sharing data to become routine: the seven excuses for not doing so are all invalid
Paper by Richard Smith and Ian Roberts: “Data are more valuable than scientific papers but researchers are incentivised to publish papers not share data. Patients are the main beneficiaries of data sharing but researchers have several incentives not to share: others might use their data to get ahead in the academic rat race; they might be scooped; their results might not be replicable; competitors may reach different conclusions; their data management might be exposed as poor; patient confidentiality might be breached; and technical difficulties make sharing impossible. All of these barriers can be overcome and researchers should be rewarded for sharing data. Data sharing must become routine….(More)”
NEW Platform for Sharing Research on Opening Governance: The Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX)
Andrew Young: “Today, The GovLab, in collaboration with founding partners mySociety and the World Bank’s Digital Engagement Evaluation Team are launching the Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX), a new platform for sharing research and findings on innovations in governance.
From crowdsourcing to nudges to open data to participatory budgeting, more open and innovative ways to tackle society’s problems and make public institutions more effective are emerging. Yet little is known about what innovations actually work, when, why, for whom and under what conditions.
And anyone seeking existing research is confronted with sources that are widely dispersed across disciplines, often locked behind pay walls, and hard to search because of the absence of established taxonomies. As the demand to confront problems in new ways grows so too does the urgency for making learning about governance innovations more accessible.
As part of GovLab’s broader effort to move from “faith-based interventions” toward more “evidence-based interventions,” OGRX curates and makes accessible the most diverse and up-to-date collection of findings on innovating governance. At launch, the site features over 350 publications spanning a diversity of governance innovation areas, including but not limited to:
- Behavioral Science and Nudges
- Citizen Engagement and Crowdsourcing
- Civic Technology
- Data Analysis
- Expert Networking
- Labs and Experimentation
- Open Data…
Visit ogrx.org to explore the latest research findings, submit your own work for inclusion on the platform, and share knowledge with others interested in using science and technology to improve the way we govern. (More)”
GIS Research Methods: Incorporating Spatial Perspectives
“GIS Research Methods: Incorporating Spatial Perspectives shows researchers how to incorporate spatial thinking and geographic information system (GIS) technology into research design and analysis. Topics include research design, digital data sources, volunteered geographic information, analysis using GIS, and how to link research results to policy and action. The concepts presented in GIS Research Methods can be applied to projects in a range of social and physical sciences by researchers using GIS for the first time and experienced practitioners looking for new and innovative research techniques….(More)”
Wiki-fishing
The Economist: “….Mr Rhoads is a member of a network started by the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA), which aims to do something about this and to reduce by-catch of sensitive species such as rockfish at the same time. Network fishermen, who numbered only 20 at the project’s start, agreed to share data on where and what they were catching in order to create maps that highlighted areas of high by-catch. Within two years they had reduced accidental rockfish harvest by as much as 20%.
The rockfish mapping project expanded to create detailed maps of the sea floor, pooling data gathered by transducers fixed to the bottoms of boats. By combining thousands of data points as vessels traverse the fishing grounds, these “wikimaps”—created and updated through crowdsourcing—show gravel beds where bottom-dwelling halibut are likely to linger, craggy terrain where rockfish tend to lurk, and outcrops that could snag gear.
Public charts are imprecise, and equipment with the capability to sense this level of detail could cost a fisherman more than $70,000. Skippers join ALFA for as little as $250, invest a couple of thousand dollars in computers and software and enter into an agreement to turn over fishing data and not to share the information outside the network, which now includes 85 fishermen.
Skippers say the project makes them more efficient, better able to find the sort of fish they want and avoid squandering time on lost or tangled gear. It also means fewer hooks in the water and fewer hours at sea to catch the same amount of fish….(More)”
Batea: a Wikipedia hack for medical students
Tom Sullivan at HealthCareIT: “Medical students use Wikipedia in great numbers, but what if it were a more trusted source of information?
That’s the idea behind Batea, a piece of software that essentially collects data from clinical reference URLs medical students visit, then aggregates that information to share with WikiProject Medicine, such that relevant medical editors can glean insights about how best to enhance Wikipedia’s medical content.
Batea takes its name from the Spanish name for gold pan, according to Fred Trotter, a data journalist at DocGraph.
“It’s a data mining project,” Trotter explained, “so we wanted a short term that positively referenced mining.”
DocGraph built Batea with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and, prior to releasing it on Tuesday, operated beta testing pilots of the browser extension at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas, Houston.
UCSF, for instance, has what Trotter described as “a unique program where medical students edit Wikipedia for credit. They helped us tremendously in testing the alpha versions of the software.”
Wikipedia houses some 25,000 medical articles that receive more than 200 million views each month, according to the DocGraph announcement, while 8,000 pharmacology articles are read more than 40 million times a month.
DocGraph is encouraging medical students around the country to download the Batea extension – and anonymously donate their clinical-related browsing history. Should Batea gain critical mass, the potential exists for it to substantively enhance Wikipedia….(More)”