Paper by Mimi Recker, Min Yuan, and Lei Ye in the International Review of Research in Open and Distant Learning: “The widespread availability of high-quality Web-based content offers new potential for supporting teachers as designers of curricula and classroom activities. When coupled with a participatory Web culture and infrastructure, teachers can share their creations as well as leverage from the best that their peers have to offer to support a collective intelligence or crowdsourcing community, which we dub crowdteaching. We applied a collective intelligence framework to characterize crowdteaching in the context of a Web-based tool for teachers called the... (More >)
DrivenData
DrivenData Blog: “As we begin launching our first competitions, we thought it would be a good idea to lay out what exactly we’re trying to do and why…. At DrivenData, we want to bring cutting-edge practices in data science and crowdsourcing to some of the world’s biggest social challenges and the organizations taking them on. We host online challenges, usually lasting 2-3 months, where a global community of data scientists competes to come up with the best statistical model for difficult predictive problems that make a difference. Just like every major corporation today, nonprofits and NGOs have more data... (More >)
Citizen Science: The Law and Ethics of Public Access to Medical Big Data
New Paper by Sharona Hoffman: “Patient-related medical information is becoming increasingly available on the Internet, spurred by government open data policies and private sector data sharing initiatives. Websites such as HealthData.gov, GenBank, and PatientsLikeMe allow members of the public to access a wealth of health information. As the medical information terrain quickly changes, the legal system must not lag behind. This Article provides a base on which to build a coherent data policy. It canvasses emergent data troves and wrestles with their legal and ethical ramifications. Publicly accessible medical data have the potential to yield numerous benefits, including scientific... (More >)
Business Models for Open Innovation: Matching Heterogenous Open Innovation Strategies with Business Model Dimensions
New paper by Saebi, Tina and Foss, Nicolai, available at SSRN: “Research on open innovation suggests that companies benefit differentially from adopting open innovation strategies; however, it is unclear why this is so. One possible explanation is that companies’ business models are not attuned to open strategies. Accordingly, we propose a contingency model of open business models by systematically linking open innovation strategies to core business model dimensions, notably the content, structure, governance of transactions. We further illustrate a continuum of open innovativeness, differentiating between four types of open business models. We contribute to the open innovation literature by... (More >)
Bridging the Knowledge Gap: In Search of Expertise
New paper by Beth Simone Noveck, The GovLab, for Democracy: “In the early 2000s, the Air Force struggled with a problem: Pilots and civilians were dying because of unusual soil and dirt conditions in Afghanistan. The soil was getting into the rotors of the Sikorsky UH-60 helicopters and obscuring the view of its pilots—what the military calls a “brownout.” According to the Air Force’s senior design scientist, the manager tasked with solving the problem didn’t know where to turn quickly to get help. As it turns out, the man practically sitting across from him had nine years of experience... (More >)
Agency Liability Stemming from Citizen-Generated Data
Paper by Bailey Smith for The Wilson Center’s Science and Technology Innovation Program: “New ways to gather data are on the rise. One of these ways is through citizen science. According to a new paper by Bailey Smith, JD, federal agencies can feel confident about using citizen science for a few reasons. First, the legal system provides significant protection from liability through the Federal Torts Claim Act (FTCA) and Administrative Procedures Act (APA). Second, training and technological innovation has made it easier for the non-scientist to collect high quality data.” ... (More >)
With Wikistrat, crowdsourcing gets geopolitical
Aaron Stanley in the Financial Times: “In January, while the world was focused on the build up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, a team of analysts scattered around the globe huddled in front of their computer screens and forecast that ethnic strife in Ukraine would lead to the eventual incorporation of Crimea into neighbouring Russia. Much to the surprise of western intelligence, in a matter of weeks Vladimir Putin’s troops would occupy the disputed peninsula and a referendum would be passed authorising secession from Ukraine. That a dispersed team of thinkers – assembled by a consultancy known as... (More >)
Using Crowds for Evaluation Tasks: Validity by Numbers vs. Validity by Expertise
Paper by Christoph Hienerth and Frederik Riar: “Developing and commercializing novel ideas is central to innovation processes. As the outcome of such ideas cannot fully be foreseen, the evaluation of them is crucial. With the rise of the internet and ICT, more and new kinds of evaluations are done by crowds. This raises the question whether individuals in crowds possess necessary capabilities to evaluate and whether their outcomes are valid. As empirical insights are not yet available, this paper deals with the examination of evaluation processes and general evaluation components, the discussion of underlying characteristics and mechanism of these... (More >)
City 72 Toolkit
“An effective preparedness platform customizable to your city. City72 is an open-source emergency preparedness platform that promotes community resilience and connection. This Toolkit is designed specifically for emergency preparedness organizations and provides the information and resources to create a customized City72 site for any city or region. It includes: how to create localized content, access to the code to build and install your City72 website, and tips for how to manage and promote your site.” ... (More >)
In democracy and disaster, emerging world embraces 'open data'
Jeremy Wagstaff’ at Reuters: “Open data’ – the trove of data-sets made publicly available by governments, organizations and businesses – isn’t normally linked to high-wire politics, but just may have saved last month’s Indonesian presidential elections from chaos. Data is considered open when it’s released for anyone to use and in a format that’s easy for computers to read. The uses are largely commercial, such as the GPS data from U.S.-owned satellites, but data can range from budget numbers and climate and health statistics to bus and rail timetables. It’s a revolution that’s swept the developed world in recent... (More >)
