Nick Cowen et al at Critical Review: “We attempt to map the limits of evidence-based policy through an interactive theoretical critique and empirical case-study. We outline the emergence of an experimental turn in EBP among British policymakers and the limited, broadly inductive, epistemic approach that underlies it. We see whether and how field professionals identify and react to these limitations through a case study of teaching professionals subject to a push to integrate research evidence into their practice. Results suggest that many of the challenges of establishing evidential warrant that EBP is supposed to streamline re-appear at the level of choice of locally effective policies and implementation…(More)”.
Where’s the evidence? Obstacles to impact-gathering and how researchers might be better supported in future
Clare Wilkinson at the LSE Impact Blog: “…In a recent case study I explore how researchers from a broad range of research areas think about evidencing impact, what obstacles to impact-gathering might stand in their way, and how they might be further supported in future.
Unsurprisingly the research found myriad potential barriers to gathering research impact, such as uncertainty over how impact is defined, captured, judged, and weighted, or the challenges for researchers in tracing impact back to a specific time-period or individual piece of research. Many of these constraints have been recognised in previous research in this area – or were anticipated when impact was first discussed – but talking to researchers in 2015 about their impact experiences of the REF 2014 data-gathering period revealed a number of lingering concerns.
A further hazard identified by the case study is the inequalities in knowledge around research impact and how this knowledge often exists in siloes. Those researchers most likely to have obvious impact-generating activities were developing quite detailed and extensive experience of impact-capturing; while other researchers (including those at early-career stages) were less clear on the impact agenda’s relevance to them or even whether their research had featured in an impact case study. Encouragingly some researchers did seem to increase in confidence once having experience of authoring an impact case study, but sharing skills and confidence with the “next generation” of researchers likely to have impact remains a possible issue for those supporting impact evidence-gathering.
So, how can researchers, across the board, be supported to effectively evidence their impact? Most popular amongst the options given to the 70 or so researchers that participated in this case study were: 1) approaches that offered them more time or funding to gather evidence; 2) opportunities to see best-practice examples; 3) opportunities to learn more about what “impact” means; and 4) the sharing of information on the types of evidence that could be collected….(More)”.
Enhancing Citizen Engagement in the Face of Climate Change Risks: A Case Study of the Flood Early Warning System and Health Information System in Semarang City, Indonesia
This case study describes how two climate resilience action projects in Semarang City, Indonesia, were able to provide new mechanisms allowing better engagement between the Semarang city government and its citizens. With the introduction of the Flood Early Warning System (FEWS), flood-prone communities in the Beringin River Basin are now able to evacuate to safe shelters before flood incidents occur. Through the Health Information and Early Warning System (HIEWS), citizens can access real-time information related to dengue fever cases in the city. Although the focus areas are different, both projects aim to help communities become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, specifically floods and vector-borne disease. We find similar patterns in the two cases, in which efforts to enhance community participation are essential to guarantee the success of the projects. Enhanced community engagement is achieved through the thoughtful consideration of local knowledge and social networks, intensive assistance to increase awareness and motivation of the community, and understanding governance structures to ensure that funds are allocated through formal handover processes to continue and expand the results of the interventions. These findings are useful and important to guide any climate change adaptation projects toward better sustainability and ownership, especially in the application of an early warning system or information system that requires technology, sustainable budget allocation from the local government to operate and maintain the system, and buy-in from local communities…(More)”
Co-creating an Open Government Data Driven Public Service: The Case of Chicago’s Food Inspection Forecasting Model
Conference paper by Keegan Mcbride et al: “Large amounts of Open Government Data (OGD) have become available and co-created public services have started to emerge, but there is only limited empirical material available on co-created OGD-driven public services. The authors have built a conceptual model around an innovation process based on the ideas of co-production and agile development for co-created OGD-driven public service. An exploratory case study on Chicago’s use of OGD in a predictive analytics model that forecasts critical safety violations at food serving establishments was carried out to expose the intricate process of how co-creation occurs and what factors allow for it to take place. Six factors were identified as playing a key role in allowing the co-creation of an OGD-driven public service to take place: external funding, motivated stakeholders, innovative leaders, proper communication channels, an existing OGD portal, and agile development practices. The conceptual model was generally validated, but further propositions on co-created OGD-driven public services emerged. These propositions state that the availability of OGD and tools for data analytics have the potential to enable the co-creation of OGD-driven public services, governments releasing OGD are acting as a platform and from this platform the co-creation of new and innovative OGD-driven public services may take place, and that the idea of Government as a Platform (GaaP) does appear to be an idea that allows for the topics of co-creation and OGD to be merged together….(More)”.
All hands on deck to tweet #sandy: Networked governance of citizen coproduction in turbulent times
Akemi TakeokaChatfield and Christopher G.Reddick at Government Information Quarterly: “While citizens previously took a back seat to government, citizen coproduction of disaster risk communications through social media networks is emerging. We draw on information-processing, citizen coproduction, and networked governance theories to examine the governance and impact of networked interactions in the following question: When government’s capacity in information-processing and communication is overwhelmed by unfolding disasters, how do government and citizens coproduce disaster risk communications? During the Hurricane Sandy, we collected 132,922 #sandy tweets to analyze the structure and networked interactions using social network analysis. We then conducted case study of the government’s social media policy governance networks. Networked citizen interactions – their agility in voluntarily retweeting the government’s #sandy tweets and tweeting their own messages – magnified the agility and reach of the government’s #sandy disaster communications. Our case study indicates the criticality of social media policy governance networks in empowering the lead agencies and citizens to coproduce disaster communication public services….(More)”.
Civic Tech for Urban Collaborative Governance
Hollie Russon-Gilman in PS: Political Science & Politics: “This article aims to contribute to a burgeoning field of ‘civic technology’ to identify precise pathways through which multi-stakeholder partnerships can foster, embed, and encourage more collaborative governance, outlining a research agenda to guide next steps. Instead of looking at technology as a civic panacea or, at the other extreme, as an irrelevant force, this article takes seriously both the democratic potential and the political constraints of the use of technology for more collaborative governance. The article begins by delineating contours of a civic definition of technology focused on generating public good, provides case study examples of civic tech deployed in America’s cities, raises research questions to inform future multi-stakeholder partnerships, and concludes with implications for the public sector workforce and ecosystem.”…(More)”.
Computational Propaganda Worldwide
Executive Summary: “The Computational Propaganda Research Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, has researched the use of social media for public opinion manipulation. The team involved 12 researchers across nine countries who, altogether, interviewed 65 experts, analyzed tens of millions posts on seven different social media platforms during scores of elections, political crises, and national security incidents. Each case study analyzes qualitative, quantitative, and computational evidence collected between 2015 and 2017 from Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Poland, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States.
Computational propaganda is the use of algorithms, automation, and human curation to purposefully distribute misleading information over social media networks. We find several distinct global trends in computational propaganda. •
- Social media are significant platforms for political engagement and crucial channels for disseminating news content. Social media platforms are the primary media over which young people develop their political identities.
- In some countries this is because some companies, such as Facebook, are effectively monopoly platforms for public life. o In several democracies the majority of voters use social media to share political news and information, especially during elections.
- In countries where only small proportions of the public have regular access to social media, such platforms are still fundamental infrastructure for political conversation among the journalists, civil society leaders, and political elites.
- Social media are actively used as a tool for public opinion manipulation, though in diverse ways and on different topics. o In authoritarian countries, social media platforms are a primary means of social control. This is especially true during political and security crises. o In democracies, social media are actively used for computational propaganda either through broad efforts at opinion manipulation or targeted experiments on particular segments of the public.
- In every country we found civil society groups trying, but struggling, to protect themselves and respond to active misinformation campaigns….(More)”.
Information for the People: Tunisia Embraces Open Government, 2011–2016
Case study by Tristan Dreisback at Innovations for Successful Societies: “In January 2011, mass demonstrations in Tunisia ousted a regime that had tolerated little popular participation, opening the door to a new era of transparency. The protesters demanded an end to the secrecy that had protected elite privilege. Five months later, the president issued a decree that increased citizen access to government data and formed a steering committee to guide changes in information practices, building on small projects already in development. Advocates in the legislature and the public service joined with civil society leaders to support a strong access-to-information policy, to change the culture of public administration, and to secure the necessary financial and technical resources to publish large quantities of data online in user-friendly formats. Several government agencies launched their own open-data websites. External pressure, coupled with growing interest from civil society and legislators, helped keep transparency reforms on the cabinet office agenda despite frequent changes in top leadership. In 2016, Tunisia adopted one of the world’s strongest laws regarding access to information. Although members of the public did not put all of the resources to use immediately, the country moved much closer to having the data needed to improve access to services, enhance government performance, and support the evidence-based deliberation on which a healthy democracy depended…(More)”
A Framework for Assessing Technology Hubs in Africa
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)”
Citizen-generated data in the information ecosystem
Ssanyu Rebecca at Making All Voices Count: “The call for a data revolution by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel in the run up to Agenda 2030 stimulated debate and action in terms of innovative ways of generating and sharing data.
Since then, technological advances have supported increased access to data and information through initiatives such as open data platforms and SMS-based citizen reporting systems. The main driving force for these advances is for data to be timely and usable in decision-making. Among the several actors in the data field are the proponents of citizen-generated data (CGD) who assert its potential in the context of the sustainable development agenda.
Nevertheless, there is need for more evidence on the potential of CGD in influencing policy and service delivery, and contributing to the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Our study on Citizen-generated data in the information ecosystem: exploring links for sustainable development sought to obtain answers. Using case studies on the use of CGD in two different scenarios in Uganda and Kenya, Development Research and Training (DRT) and Development Initiatives (DI) collaborated to carry out this one-year study.
In Uganda, we focused on a process of providing unsolicited citizen feedback to duty- bearers and service providers in communities. This was based on the work of Community Resource Trackers, a group of volunteers supported by DRT in five post-conflict districts (Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Katakwi and Kotido) to identify and track community resources and provide feedback on their use. These included financial and in-kind resources, allocated through central and local government, NGOs and donors.
In Kenya, we focused on a formalised process of CGD involving the Ministry of Education and National Taxpayers Association. The School Report Card (SRC) is an effort to increase parental participation in schooling. SRC is a scorecard for parents to assess the performance of their school each year in ten areas relatingto the quality of education.
What were the findings?
The two processes provided insights into the changes CGD influences in the areas of accountability, resource allocation, service delivery and government response.
Both cases demonstrated the relevance of CGD in improving service delivery. They showed that the uptake of CGD and response by government depends significantly on the quality of relationships that CGD producers create with government, and whether the initiatives relate to existing policy priorities and interests of government.
The study revealed important effects on improving citizen behaviours. Community members who participated in CGD processes, understood their role as citizens and participated fully in development processes, with strong skills, knowledge and confidence.
The Kenya case study revealed that CGD can influence policy change if it is generated and used at large scale, and in direct linkage with a specific sector; but it also revealed that this is difficult to measure.
In Uganda we observed distinct improvements in service delivery and accessibility at the local level – which was the motivation for engaging in CGD in the first instance….(More) (Full Report)”.