Data Literacy in Government: How Are Agencies Enhancing Data Skills?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Randy Barrett at FedTech: “The federal government is vast, and the challenge of understanding its oceans of data grows daily. Rather than hiring thousands of new experts, agencies are moving to train existing employees on how to handle the new frontier.

Data literacy is now a common buzzword, spurred by the publication of the Federal Data Strategy 2020 Action Plan last year and the growing empowerment of chief data officers in the government. The document outlines a multiyear, holistic approach to government information that includes building a culture that values data, encouraging strong management and protection and promoting its efficient and appropriate use.

“While the Federal government leads globally in many instances in developing and providing data about the United States and the world, it lacks a robust, integrated approach to using data to deliver on mission, serve the public and steward resources,” the plan notes.

A key pillar of the plan is to “identify opportunities to increase staff data skills,” and it directs all federal agencies to undertake a gap analysis of skills to see where the weaknesses and needs lie….

The Department of Health and Human Services launched its Data Science CoLab in 2017 to boost basic and intermediate data skills. The collaborative program is the first try at a far reaching and cohort-based data-skills training for the agency. In addition to data analytics skills, HHS is currently training hundreds of employees on how to write Python and R.

“Demand for a seat in the Data Science CoLab has grown approximately 800 percent in the past three years, a testament to its success,” says Bishen Singh, a senior adviser in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. “Beyond skill growth, it has led to incredible time and cost savings, as well as internal career growth for past participants across the department.”

The National Science Foundation was less successful with its Data Science and Data Certification Pilot, which had a class of 10 participants from various federal agencies. The workers were trained in advanced analytics techniques, with a focus on applying data tools to uncover meaning and solve Big Data challenges. However, the vendor curriculum used general data sets rather than agency-specific ones.

“As a result, participants found it more difficult to apply their learnings directly to real-world scenarios,” notes the CDO Council’s “Data Skill Training Program: Case Studies” report. The learning modules were mostly virtual and self-paced. Communication was poor with the vendor, and employees began to lag in completing their coursework. The pilot was discontinued.

Most of the training pilot programs were launched as the pandemic closed down government offices. The shift to virtual learning made progress difficult for some students. Another key lesson: Allow workers to use their new skills quickly, while they’re fresh….(More)”.

Big data for economic statistics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Stats Brief by ESCAP: “This Stats Brief gives an overview of big data sources that can be used to produce economic statistics and presents country examples of the use of online price data, scanner data, mobile phone data, Earth Observations, financial transactions data and smart meter data to produce price indices, tourism statistics, poverty estimates, experimental economic statistics during COVID-19 and to monitor public sentiment. The Brief is part of ESCAP’s series on the use of non-traditional data sources for official statistics….(More)”.

The coloniality of collaboration: sources of epistemic obedience in data-intensive astronomy in Chile

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Sebastián Lehuedé: “Data collaborations have gained currency over the last decade as a means for data- and skills-poor actors to thrive as a fourth paradigm takes hold in the sciences. Against this backdrop, this article traces the emergence of a collaborative subject position that strives to establish reciprocal and technical-oriented collaborations so as to catch up with the ongoing changes in research.

Combining insights from the modernity/coloniality group, political theory and science and technology studies, the article argues that this positionality engenders epistemic obedience by bracketing off critical questions regarding with whom and for whom knowledge is generated. In particular, a dis-embedding of the data producers, the erosion of local ties, and a data conformism are identified as fresh sources of obedience impinging upon the capacity to conduct research attuned to the needs and visions of the local context. A discursive-material analysis of interviews and field notes stemming from the case of astronomy data in Chile is conducted, examining the vision of local actors aiming to gain proximity to the mega observatories producing vast volumes of data in the Atacama Desert.

Given that these observatories are predominantly under the control of organisations from the United States and Europe, the adoption of a collaborative stance is now seen as the best means to ensure skills and technology transfer to local research teams. Delving into the epistemological dimension of data colonialism, this article warns that an increased emphasis on collaboration runs the risk of reproducing planetary hierarchies in times of data-intensive research….(More)”.

Foreign Policy by Canadians: a unique national experiment

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blogpost by James Fishkin: “…Foreign Policy by Canadians was a national field experiment (with a control group that was not invited to deliberate, but which answered the same questions before and after.) The participants and the control group matched up almost perfectly before deliberation, but after deliberation, the participants had reached their considered judgments (while the control group had hardly changed at all). YouGov recruited and surveyed an excellent sample of deliberators, nationally representative in demographics and attitudes (as judged by comparison to the control groups). The project was an attempt to use social science to give an informed and representative input to policy. It was particularly challenging in that foreign policy is an area where most of the public is less engaged and informed even than it is on domestic issues (outside of times of war or severe international crises). Hence, we would argue that Deliberative Polling is particularly appropriate as a form of public input on these topics.

This project was also distinctive in some other ways. First, all the small group discussions by the 444 nationally representative deliberators were conducted via our new video based automated moderator platform. Developed here at Stanford with Professor Ashish Goel and “Crowdsourced Democracy Team” in Management Science and Engineering, it facilitates many small groups of ten or so to self-moderate their discussions. It controls access to the queue for the microphone (limiting each contribution to 45 seconds), it orchestrates the discussion to move from one policy proposal to the next on the list, it periodically asks the participants if they have covered both the arguments in favor and against the proposal, it intervenes if people are being uncivil (a rare occurrence in these dialogues) and it guides the group into formulating its questions for the plenary session experts. This was only the second national application of the online platform (the first was in Chile this past year) and it was the first as a controlled experiment.

A second distinctive aspect of Foreign Policy by Canadians is that the agenda was formulated in both a top-down and a bottom-up manner. While a distinguished advisory group offered input on what topics were worth exploring and on the balance and accuracy of the materials, those materials were also vetted by chapters of the Canadian International Council in different parts of the country. Those meetings deliberated about how the draft materials could be improved. What was left out? Were the most important arguments on either side presented? The meetings of CIC chapters agreed on recommendations for revision and those recommendations were reflected in the final documents and proposals for discussion. I think this is “deliberative crowdsourcing” because the groups had to agree on their most important recommendations based on shared discussion. These meetings were also conducted with our automated deliberation platform….(More)”.

Analytical modelling and UK Government policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Marie Oldfield & Ella Haig:  “In the last decade, the UK Government has attempted to implement improved processes and procedures in modelling and analysis in response to the Laidlaw report of 2012 and the Macpherson review of 2013. The Laidlaw report was commissioned after failings during the Intercity West Coast Rail (ICWC) Franchise procurement exercise by the Department for Transport (DfT) that led to a legal challenge of the analytical models used within the exercise. The Macpherson review looked into the quality assurance of Government analytical models in the context of the experience with the Intercity West Coast franchise competition. This paper examines what progress has been made in the 8 years since the Laidlaw report in model building and best practise in government and proposes several recommendations for ways forward. This paper also discusses the Lords Science and Technology Committees of June 2020 that analysed the failings in the modelling of COVID. Despite going on to influence policy, many of the same issues raised within the Laidlaw and Macpherson Reports were also present in the Lords Science and Technology Committee enquiry. We examine the technical and organisational challenges to progress in this area and make recommendations for a way forward….(More)”.

Text Your Government: Participatory Cell Phone Technology in Ghana

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Emily DiMatteo: “Direct citizen engagement can be transformed with innovative technological tools. As communities search for new ways to connect citizens to democratic processes, using existing technological devices such as cell phones can reach a number of citizens—including those typically excluded from policy processes. This occurred in Ghana when a technology startup and social enterprise called VOTO Mobile (now Viamo) created polling and information sharing software that uses mobile phone SMS texts and voice calls. Since its founding in 2010, the Ghana-based company has worked to use mobile technology to advance democratic engagement and good governance through new communication channels between citizens and their government.

Previous methods to overcome public participation challenges in Ghana include using public radio. However, when VOTO Mobile evaluated technological capabilities in several districts, cell phones offered a new way to engage. The option to contact citizens via text or voice call also helped remove certain barriers to participation in political processes, including distance, language and literacy. In 2012-2013, VOTO Mobile facilitated a project called the, “Mobile for Social Inclusive Government,” to increase citizen engagement and participation. The project used the company’s software to disseminate local information and conduct citizen surveys in four Ghanaian districts: Tamale, Savelugu, Wa and Yendi. VOTO Mobile partnered with civil society organizations including Savana Signatures, GINKS and Amplify Governance, as well as District Assemblies in local district governments.

Participant selection for the project utilized pre-existing District Assembly membership data across the four districts to contact citizens to participate. This outreach also was supplemented by the project’s partner organizations and ultimately involved more than 2,000 participants. In using VOTO Mobile’s technological platform of interactive text and voice call surveys, the project gathered feedback from citizens as they shared concerns with their local government. There was a large focus on input from marginalized populations across the districts including women, young people and people with disabilities. In addition to the cell phone surveys, the platform enabled online consultations between citizens and local district officials in place of face-to-face visits.

As a result, local district governments were able to crowdsource information directly from citizens, leading to increased citizen input in subsequent policy formulation and planning processes….(More)”.

Street Experiments

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “City streets are increasingly becoming spaces for experimentation, for testing “in the wild” a seemingly unstoppable flow of “disruptive” mobility innovations such as mobility platforms for shared mobility and ride/hailing, electric and autonomous vehicles, micro-mobility solutions, etc. But also, and perhaps more radically, for recovering the primary function of city streets as public spaces, not just traffic channels.

City street experiments are:

​“intentional, temporary changes of the street use, regulation and/or form, aimed at exploring systemic change in urban mobility”

​They offer a prefiguration of what a radically different arrangement of the city´s mobility system and public space could look like and allow moving towards that vision by means of “learning by doing”.

The S.E.T. platform offers a collection of Resources for implementing and supporting street experiments. As well as a special section of COVID-19 devoted to the best practices of street experiments that offered solutions and strategies for cities to respond to the current pandemic and a SET Guidelines Kit that provides insights and considerations on creating impactful street experiments with long-term effects….(More)”.

How can governments boost citizen-led projects?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Justin Tan at GovInsider: “The visual treat of woks tossing fried carrot cake, the dull thuds of a chopper expertly dicing up a chicken, the fragrant lime aroma of grilled sambal stingray. The sensory playgrounds of Singapore’s hawker centres are close to many citizens’ homes and hearts, and have even recently won global recognition by UNESCO.

However, the pandemic has left many hawkers facing slow business. While restaurants and fast food chains have quickly caught on to food delivery services, many elderly hawkers were left behind in the digital race.

28 year-old Singaporean M Thirukkumaran developed an online community map called “Help Our Hawkers” that provides information on digitally-disadvantaged hawkers near users’ locations, such as opening hours and stall information. GovInsider caught up with him to learn how it was built and how governments can support fellow civic hackers…

Besides creating space for civic innovation, governments can step in to give particularly promising projects a boost with their resources and influence, Thiru says.

Most community-led projects need to rely on cloud services such as AWS, which can be expensive for a small team to bear, he explains. Government subsidies or grants may help to ease the cost for digital infrastructure.

In Thiru’s case, the map needed to be rolled out quickly to be useful. He chose to build his tool with Google Maps to speed up the process, as many users are already familiar with it.

Another way that governments can help is through getting more visibility to these community-led projects with their wide reach, Thiru suggests. Community projects commonly face a “cold start” dilemma. This arises where the community tool needs data for it to be useful, but citizens also hesitate to spend time on a tool if it is not useful in the first place.

Thiru jump started his tool by contributing a few stalls on his own. With more publicity with government campaigns, the process could be sped up considerably, he shares….(More)”.

America’s ‘Smart City’ Didn’t Get Much Smarter

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Aarian Marshall: “In 2016, Columbus, Ohio, beat out 77 other small and midsize US cities for a pot of $50 million that was meant to reshape its future. The Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge was the first competition of its kind, conceived as a down payment to jump-start one city’s adaptation to the new technologies that were suddenly everywhere. Ride-hail companies like Uber and Lyft were ascendant, car-sharing companies like Car2Go were raising their national profile, and autonomous vehicles seemed to be right around the corner.

“Our proposed approach is revolutionary,” the city wrote in its winning grant proposal, which pledged to focus on projects to help the city’s most underserved neighborhoods. It laid out plans to experiment with Wi-Fi-enabled kiosks to help residents plan trips, apps to pay bus and ride-hail fares and find parking spots, autonomous shuttles, and sensor-connected trucks.

Five years later, the Smart City Challenge is over, but the revolution never arrived. According to the project’s final report, issued this month by the city’s Smart Columbus Program, the pandemic hit just as some projects were getting off the ground. Six kiosks placed around the city were used to plan just eight trips between July 2020 and March 2021. The company EasyMile launched autonomous shuttles in February 2020, carrying passengers at an average speed of 4 miles per hour. Fifteen days later, a sudden brake sent a rider to the hospital, pausing service. The truck project was canceled. Only 1,100 people downloaded an app, called Pivot, to plan and reserve trips on ride-hail vehicles, shared bikes and scooters, and public transit.

The discrepancy between the promise of whiz-bang technology and the reality in Columbus points to a shift away from tech as a silver bullet, and a newer wariness of the troubles that web-based applications can bring to IRL streets. The “smart city” was a hard-to-pin-down marketing term associated with urban optimism. Today, as citizens think more carefully about tech-enabled surveillance, the concept of a sensor in every home doesn’t look as shiny as it once did….(More)”.

Stewarding innovation portfolios for the ecosystem: catalysing collective system change

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Case study by Emily Wise: “…Future by Lund (FBL) is an innovation platform located in the city of Lund, in southern Sweden. The municipality of Lund spearheads this collaborative effort (with more than 50 partners) to catalyse innovative solutions for sustainable and attractive cities and to strengthen the innovation culture of the ecosystem in Lund. Since its start in 2013, FBL has developed its system leadership function – scouting trends and identifying opportunities, matching relevant actors and catalyzing collaborative action, and developing a community of actors (companies, universities, research institutes, innovation support actors) and portfolio of activities that (collectively) contribute to a more sustainable and attractive city. For instance, FBL gathered a group of actors and facilitated initial activities to develop an electric road – moving from idea to national demonstrator over the course of six years. FBL played a similar “initial catalyst” role in developing a new energy solution – Ectogrid.

FBL is one of six innovation platforms supported through a programme at Sweden’s innovation agency – Vinnova, which is soon coming to its end. The funding and other support from Vinnova have helped FBL build its capacity to proactively foster innovation activities that respond to challenges and sustainable development aims that can only be addressed in collaboration with others – operating in between municipal and other organisational mandates, in the more exploratory, uncertain, and bottom-up areas of innovation activity (see figure below).

Figure 1: Future by Lund – leading in between organisations…(More)”.