Paper by Tanja Aitamurto and Jorge Saldivar in Proceedings of ACM Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW ’18): “…we examine the changes in motivation factors in crowdsourced policymaking. By drawing on longitudinal data from a crowdsourced law reform, we show that people participated because they wanted to improve the law, learn, and solve problems. When crowdsourcing reached a saturation point, the motivation factors weakened and the crowd disengaged. Learning was the only factor that did not weaken. The participants learned while interacting with others, and the more actively the participants commented, the more likely they stayed engaged. Crowdsourced policymaking should thus be designed to support both epistemic and interactive aspects. While the crowd’s motives were rooted in self-interest, their knowledge perspective showed common-good orientation, implying that rather than being dichotomous, motivation factors move on a continuum. The design of crowdsourced policymaking should support the dynamic nature of the process and the motivation factors driving it….(More)”.
Chatbots Are a Danger to Democracy
Jamie Susskind in the New York Times: “As we survey the fallout from the midterm elections, it would be easy to miss the longer-term threats to democracy that are waiting around the corner. Perhaps the most serious is political artificial intelligence in the form of automated “chatbots,” which masquerade as humans and try to hijack the political process.
Chatbots are software programs that are capable of conversing with human beings on social media using natural language. Increasingly, they take the form of machine learning systems that are not painstakingly “taught” vocabulary, grammar and syntax but rather “learn” to respond appropriately using probabilistic inference from large data sets, together with some human guidance.
Some chatbots, like the award-winning Mitsuku, can hold passable levels of conversation. Politics, however, is not Mitsuku’s strong suit. When asked “What do you think of the midterms?” Mitsuku replies, “I have never heard of midterms. Please enlighten me.” Reflecting the imperfect state of the art, Mitsuku will often give answers that are entertainingly weird. Asked, “What do you think of The New York Times?” Mitsuku replies, “I didn’t even know there was a new one.”
Most political bots these days are similarly crude, limited to the repetition of slogans like “#LockHerUp” or “#MAGA.” But a glance at recent political history suggests that chatbots have already begun to have an appreciable impact on political discourse. In the buildup to the midterms, for instance, an estimated 60 percent of the online chatter relating to “the caravan” of Central American migrants was initiated by chatbots.
In the days following the disappearance of the columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Arabic-language social media erupted in support for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was widely rumored to have ordered his murder. On a single day in October, the phrase “we all have trust in Mohammed bin Salman” featured in 250,000 tweets. “We have to stand by our leader” was posted more than 60,000 times, along with 100,000 messages imploring Saudis to “Unfollow enemies of the nation.” In all likelihood, the majority of these messages were generated by chatbots.
Chatbots aren’t a recent phenomenon. Two years ago, around a fifth of all tweets discussing the 2016 presidential election are believed to have been the work of chatbots. And a third of all traffic on Twitter before the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union was said to come from chatbots, principally in support of the Leave side
We should also be exploring more imaginative forms of regulation. Why not introduce a rule, coded into platforms themselves, that bots may make only up to a specific number of online contributions per day, or a specific number of responses to a particular human? Bots peddling suspect information could be challenged by moderator-bots to provide recognized sources for their claims within seconds. Those that fail would face removal.
We need not treat the speech of chatbots with the same reverence that we treat human speech. Moreover, bots are too fast and tricky to be subject to ordinary rules of debate. For both those reasons, the methods we use to regulate bots must be more robust than those we apply to people. There can be no half-measures when democracy is at stake….(More)”.
Library of Congress Launches Crowdsourcing Platform
Matt Enis at the Library Journal: “The Library of Congress (LC) last month launched crowd.loc.gov, a new crowdsourcing platform that will improve discovery and access to the Library’s digital collections with the help of volunteer transcription and tagging. The project kicked off with the “Letters to Lincoln Challenge,” a campaign encouraging volunteers to transcribe 10,000 digitized versions of documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln, which will make these materials full-text searchable for the first time….
The new project is the earliest example of LC’s new Digital Strategy, which complements the library’s new 2019–23 strategic plan. Announced in October, the strategic plan, “Enriching the User Experience,” outlines four high-level goals—expanding access, enhancing services, optimizing resources, and measuring results—while the digital strategy outlines how LC plans to accomplish these goals with its digital resources, described as “throwing open the treasure chest, connecting, and investing in our future”…
LC aims to use crowdsourcing to enrich the user experience in two key ways, Zwaard said.
“First, it helps with the legibility of our collections,” she explained. “The Library of Congress is home to so many historic treasures, but the handwriting can be hard to read…. For example, we have this amazing letter from Abraham Lincoln to his first fiancée. It’s really quite lovely, but at a glance, if you’re not familiar with historic handwriting, it’s hard to read.”…
Second, crowdsourcing “invites people into the collections,” she added. “The library is very optimized around answering specific research questions. One of the things we’re thinking about is how to serve users who don’t have a specific research question—who just want to see all of the cool stuff. We have so much cool stuff! But it can be hard for people to find purchase when they are just browsing and don’t have anything specific in mind. One of the ways we can [showcase interesting content] is by offering them a window into the collections by asking for their help.”…
To facilitate ongoing engagement with these varied projects, LC has set up an online forum on History Hub, a site hosted by the National Archives, to encourage crowd.loc.gov participants to ask questions, discuss projects, and meet other volunteers. …
Crowd.loc.gov is not LC’s first crowdsourcing project. Followers of the library’s official Flickr account have added tens of thousands of descriptive tags to digitized historical photos since the account debuted in 2007. And last year, the debut of labs.loc.gov—which aims to encourage creative use of LOC’s digital collections—included the Beyond Words crowdsourcing project developed by LC software developer Tong Wang….(More)”
Reimagining Public-Private Partnerships: Four Shifts and Innovations in Sharing and Leveraging Private Assets and Expertise for the Public Good
Blog by Stefaan G. Verhulst and Andrew J. Zahuranec: “For years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have promised to help governments do more for less. Yet, the discussion and experimentation surrounding PPPs often focus on outdated models and narratives, and the field of experimentation has not fully embraced the opportunities provided by an increasingly networked and data-rich private sector.
Private-sector actors (including businesses and NGOs) have expertise and assets that, if brought to bear in collaboration with the public sector, could spur progress in addressing public problems or providing public services. Challenges to date have largely involved the identification of effective and legitimate means for unlocking the public value of private-sector expertise and assets. Those interested in creating public value through PPPs are faced with a number of questions, including:
- How do we broaden and deepen our understanding of PPPs in the 21st Century?
- How can we innovate and improve the ways that PPPs tap into private-sector assets and expertise for the public good?
- How do we connect actors in the PPP space with open governance developments and practices, especially given that PPPs have not played a major role in the governance innovation space to date?
The PPP Knowledge Lab defines a PPP as a “long-term contract between a private party and a government entity, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility and remuneration is linked to performance.”…
To maximize the value of PPPs, we don’t just need new tools or experiments but new models for using assets and expertise in different sectors. We need to bring that capacity to public problems.
At the latest convening of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance, Network members and experts from across the field tried to chart this new course by exploring questions about the future of PPPs.
The group explored the new research and thinking that enables many new types of collaboration beyond the typical “contract” based approaches. Through their discussions, Network members identified four shifts representing ways that cross-sector collaboration could evolve in the future:
- From Formal to Informal Trust Mechanisms;
- From Selection to Iterative and Inclusive Curation;
- From Partnership to Platform; and
- From Shared Risk to Shared Outcome….(More)”.
Learning Through Citizen Science: Enhancing Opportunities by Design
National Academies: “Scientific research that involves nonscientists contributing to research processes – also known as ‘citizen science’ – supports participants’ learning, engages the public in science, contributes to community scientific literacy, and can serve as a valuable tool to facilitate larger scale research, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. If one of the goals of a citizen science project is to advance learning, designers should plan for it by defining intended learning outcomes and using evidence-based strategies to reach those outcomes.
“This report affirms that citizen science projects can help participants learn scientific practices and content, but most likely only if the projects are designed to support learning,” says Rajul Pandya, chair of the committee that wrote the report and director, Thriving Earth Exchange, AGU.
The term “citizen science” can be applied to a wide variety of projects that invite nonscientists to engage in doing science with the intended goal of advancing scientific knowledge or application. For example, a citizen science project might engage community members in collecting data to monitor the health of a local stream. As another example, among the oldest continuous organized datasets in the United States are records kept by farmers and agricultural organizations that document the timing of important events, such as sowing, harvests, and pest outbreaks.
Citizen science can support science learning in several ways, the report says. It offers people the opportunity to participate in authentic scientific endeavors, encourages learning through projects conducted in real-world contexts, supports rich social interaction that deepens learning, and engages participants with real data. Citizen science also includes projects that grow out of a community’s desire to address an inequity or advance a priority. For example, the West-Oakland Indicators Project, a community group in Oakland, Calif., self-organizes to collect and analyze air quality data and uses that data to address trucking in and around schools to reduce local children’s exposure to air pollution. When communities can work alongside scientists to advance their priorities, enhanced community science literacy is one possible outcome
In order to maximize learning outcomes, the report recommends that designers and practitioners of citizen science projects should intentionally build them for learning. This involves knowing the audience; intentionally designing for diversity; engaging stakeholders in the design; supporting multiple kinds of participant engagement; encouraging social interaction; building learning supports into the project; and iteratively improving projects through evaluation and refinement. Engaging stakeholders and participants in design and implementation results in more learning for all participants, which can support other project goals.
The report also lays out a research agenda that can help to build the field of citizen science by filling gaps in the current understanding of how citizen science can support science learning and enhance science education. Researchers should consider three important factors: citizen science extends beyond academia and therefore, evidence for practices that advance learning can be found outside of peer-reviewed literature; research should include attention to practice and link theory to application; and attention must be given to diversity in all research, including ensuring broad participation in the design and implementation of the research. Pursuing new lines of inquiry can help add value to the existing research, make future research more productive, and provide support for effective project implementation….(More)”.
These patients are sharing their data to improve healthcare standards
Article by John McKenna: “We’ve all heard about donating blood, but how about donating data?
Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart disease and epilepsy are predicted by the World Health Organization to account for 57% of all disease by 2020.
This has led some experts to call NCDs the “greatest challenge to global health”.
Could data provide the answer?
Today over 600,000 patients from around the world share data on more than 2,800 chronic diseases to improve research and treatment of their conditions.
People who join the PatientsLikeMe online community share information on everything from their medication and treatment plans to their emotional struggles.
Many of the participants say that it is hugely beneficial just to know there is someone else out there going through similar experiences.
But through its use of data, the platform also has the potential for far more wide-ranging benefits to help improve the quality of life for patients with chronic conditions.
Give data, get data
PatientsLikeMe is one of a swathe of emerging data platforms in the healthcare sector helping provide a range of tech solutions to health problems, including speeding up the process of clinical trials using Real Time Data Analysis or using blockchain to enable the secure sharing of patient data.
Its philosophy is “give data, get data”. In
Giving Voice to Patients: Developing a Discussion Method to Involve Patients in Translational Research
Paper by Marianne Boenink, Lieke van der Scheer, Elisa Garcia and Simone van der Burg in NanoEthics: “Biomedical research policy in recent years has often tried to make such research more ‘translational’, aiming to facilitate the transfer of insights from research and development (R&D) to health care for the benefit of future users. Involving patients in deliberations about and design of biomedical research may increase the quality of R&D and of resulting innovations and thus contribute to translation. However, patient involvement in biomedical research is not an easy feat. This paper discusses the development of a method for involving patients in (translational) biomedical research aiming to address its main challenges.
After reviewing the potential challenges of patient involvement, we formulate three requirements for any method to meaningfully involve patients in (translational) biomedical research. It should enable patients (1) to put forward their experiential knowledge, (2) to develop a rich view of what an envisioned innovation might look like and do, and (3) to connect their experiential knowledge with the envisioned innovation. We then describe how we developed the card-based discussion method ‘Voice of patients’, and discuss to what extent the method, when used in four focus groups, satisfied these requirements. We conclude that the method is quite successful in mobilising patients’ experiential knowledge, in stimulating their imaginaries of the innovation under discussion and to some extent also in connecting these two. More work is needed to translate patients’ considerations into recommendations relevant to researchers’ activities. It also seems wise to broaden the audience for patients’ considerations to other actors working on a specific innovation….(More)”
Crowdlaw: Collective Intelligence and Lawmaking
Paper by Beth Noveck in Analyse & Kritik: “To tackle the fast-moving challenges of our age, law and policymaking must become more flexible, evolutionary and agile. Thus, in this
As we hope to demonstrate,
Crowdsourced data informs women which streets are safe
Springwise: “Safe & the City is a free app designed to help users identify which streets are safe for them. Sexual harassment and violent crimes against women
It is a development of traditional navigation apps but instead of simply providing the fastest route, it also has information on what is the safest. The Live Map relies on user data. Victims can report harassment or assault on the app. The information will then be available to other users to warn them of a potential threat in the area. Incidents can be ranked from a feeling of discomfort or threat, verbal harassment, or a physical assault. Whilst navigating, the Live Map can also alert users to potentially dangerous intersections coming. This reminds people to stay alert and not only focus on their phone while walking.
The Safe Sites feature is also a way of incorporating the community. Businesses and organisations can register to be Safe Sites. They will then receive training from SafeSeekers in how to provide the best support and assistance in emergency situations. The locations of such Sites will be available on the app, should a user need one.
The IOS app launched in March 2018 on International Women’s Day. It is currently only available for London…(More)”
It’s time to let citizens tackle the wickedest public problems
Gabriella Capone at apolitical (a winner of the 2018 Apolitical Young Thought Leaders competition): “Rain ravaged Gdańsk in 2016, taking the lives of two residents and causing millions of euros in damage. Despite its 700-year history of flooding the city was overwhelmed by these especially devastating floods. Also, Gdańsk is one of the European coasts most exposed to rising sea levels. It needed a new approach to avoid similar outcomes for the next, inevitable encounter with this worsening problem.
Bringing in citizens to tackle such a difficult issue was not the obvious course of action. Yet this was the proposal of Dr. Marcin Gerwin, an advocate from a neighbouring town who paved the way for Poland’s first participatory budgeting experience.
Mayor Adamowicz of Gdańsk agreed and, within a year, they welcomed about 60 people to the first Citizens Assembly on flood mitigation. Implemented by Dr. Gerwin and a team of coordinators, the Assembly convened over four Saturdays, heard expert testimony, and devised solutions.
The Assembly was not only deliberative and educational, it was action-oriented. Mayor Adamowicz committed to implement proposals on which 80% or more of participants agreed. The final 16 proposals included the investment of nearly $40 million USD in monitoring systems and infrastructure, subsidies to incentivise individuals to improve water management on their property, and an educational “Do Not Flood” campaign to highlight emergency resources.
It may seem risky to outsource the solving of difficult issues to citizens. Yet, when properly designed, public problem-solving can produce creative resolutions to formidable challenges. Beyond Poland, public problem-solving initiatives in Mexico and the United States are making headway on pervasive issues, from flooding to air pollution, to technology in public spaces.
The GovLab, with support from the Tinker Foundation, is