A framework for Adoption of Challenges and Prizes in US Federal Agencies: A Study of Early Adopters

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Thesis by Louis, Claudia (Syracuse University): “In recent years we have witnessed a shift in the innovation landscape of organizations from closed to more open models embracing solutions from the outside. Widespread use of the internet and web 2.0 technologies have made it easier for organizations to connect with their clients, service providers, and the public at large for more collaborative problem solving and innovation. Introduction of the Open Government initiative accompanied by the America Competes Reauthorization Act signaled an unprecedented commitment by the US Federal Government to stimulating more innovation and creativity in problem solving. The policy and legislation empowered agencies to open up their problem solving space beyond their regular pool of contractors in finding solutions to the nation’s most complex problems.

This is an exploratory study of the adoption of challenges as an organizational innovation in public sector organizations. The main objective is to understand and explain how, and under what conditions challenges are being used by federal agencies and departments as a tool to promote innovation. The organizational innovation literature provides the main theoretical foundation for this study, but does not directly address contextual aspects regarding the type of innovation and the type of organization. The guiding framework uses concepts drawn from three literature streams: organizational innovation, open innovation, and public sector innovation…. (More)”

Open data for competitive advantage: insights from open data use by companies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Anneke Zuiderwijk et al in the Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: “Politicians have high expectations for commercial open data use. Yet, companies appear to challenge the assumption that open data can be used to create competitive advantage, since any company can access open data and since open data use requires scarce resources. In this paper we examine commercial open data use for creating competitive advantage from the perspective of Resource Based Theory (RBT) and Resource Dependency Theory (RDT). Based on insights from a scenario, interviews and a survey and from RBT and RDT as a reference theory, we derive seven propositions. Our study suggests that the generation of competitive advantage with open data requires a company to have in-house capabilities and resources for open data use. The actual creation of competitive advantage might not be simple. The propositions also draw attention to the accomplishment of unique benefits for a company through the combination of internal and external resources. Recommendations for further research include testing the propositions….(More)”

The Diffusion and Evolution of 311 Citizen Service Centers in American Cities from 1996 to 2012

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

PhD thesis by John Christopher O’Byrne: “This study of the diffusion and evolution of the 311 innovation in the form of citizen service centers and as a technology cluster has been designed to help identify the catalysts for the spread of government-to-citizen (G2C) technology in local government in order to better position future G2C technology for a more rapid rate of adoption. The 311 non-emergency number was first established in 1996 and had spread to 80 local governments across the United States by 2012. This dissertation examines: what factors contributed to the adoption of 311 in American local governments over 100,000 in population; how did the innovation diffuse and evolve over time; and why did some governments’ communications with citizens became more advanced than others? Given the problem of determining causality, a three-part research design was used to examine the topic including a historical narrative, logistic regression model, and case studies from Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and St. Louis. The narrative found that the political forces of the federal government, national organizations, and policy entrepreneurs (Karch, 2007) promoted the 311 innovation to solve different problems and that it evolved beyond its original intent.

The logistic regression model found that there was a statistically significant relationship between 311 adoption and the variables of higher population, violent crime rate, and the mayor-council form of government. The case studies revealed that mayors played a strong role in establishing citizen service centers in all three cities while 311 adopter Pittsburgh and non-adopter St. Louis seemed to have more in common in their G2C evolution due to severe budget constraints. With little written about the 311 innovation in academic journals, practitioners and scholars will benefit from understanding the catalysts for the diffusion and evolution of the 311 in order to determine ways to increase the rate of adoption for future G2C communication innovations….(More)”

Governing methods: policy innovation labs, design and data science in the digital governance of education

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Ben Williamson in the Journal of Educational Administration and History: “Policy innovation labs are emerging knowledge actors and technical experts in the governing of education. The article offers a historical and conceptual account of the organisational form of the policy innovation lab. Policy innovation labs are characterised by specific methods and techniques of design, data science, and digitisation in public services such as education. The second half of the article details how labs promote the use of digital data analysis, evidence-based evaluation and ‘design-for-policy’ techniques as methods for the governing of education. In particular, they promote the ‘computational thinking’ associated with computer programming as a capacity required by a ‘reluctant state’ that is increasingly concerned to delegate its responsibilities to digitally enabled citizens with the ‘designerly’ capacities and technical expertise to ‘code’ solutions to public and social problems. Policy innovation labs are experimental laboratories trialling new methods within education for administering and governing the future of the state itself….(More)”

Data (v.)

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jer Thorp in Journal 001 of The Office for Creative Research and Medium: “I data you, you data me. They data us, we data them.

As your Concise Oxford sails toward me from across the room, let’s take some time to consider the arguments:

The word data has been in a pronounced flux over the last ten years, as its role and function has been redefined by technology and culture. A decade ago, data was firmly a plural noun. Specifically, it was the plural of datum– one datum, two data. Back then, you could point and laugh at the data amateurs because they would say ‘data is’ rather than ‘data are’. Of course, those data newbies went on to form companies, make software, build databases, write books and give TED talks. And slowly, data did turn into a particular kind of singular: it has become, commonly, a mass noun…..

Data is not inert, yet its perceived passivity is one of its most dangerous properties. When we are warned that a government is collecting data about its citizens, we may be underwhelmed specifically because this act of collection seems to be so harmless, so indifferent. But of course data is not collected and then left alone: it is used as a substrate for decision making; and as an instrument for differentiation, discrimination and damage. Putting an active form of the word data into common parlance could serve as a reminder that the systems of data collection and uses are humming with capacity for influence, action and violence.

Making data a verb also exposes to us the power imbalances that have kept our collective endeavours drastically off-kilter. Grammatically speaking, data-as-verb would present a number of possibilities for subject/object combinations:

I data you. You data me. We data you. You data us. They data me. They data us. We data them.

Exposed to this rich possibility of cause and effect, the common usages of data today become strikingly narrow: in our lived data experiences we are objects, rather than subjects. Google reads our every e-mail, placing us ingloriously in marketing buckets based on what we write to our friends, colleagues and lovers. Uber’s algorithms note our late night voyages asrecords of romantic trysts. They data us, then they data us again.

Even the innocent fitness tracker, on paper an embodiment of ‘I data myself’ isn’t so much about quantified self as it is about quantified selves, less a tool for individuals to track their own beating hearts than a system to find an aggregated 24 year old Bay Area resident that can be marketed against. These devices are exciting toys for runners and walkers but also for lawyers, who have found in them a new way to argue against claims of personal injury.

Yet there is plenty of potential for us to data. Last year we built Floodwatch, a browser based tool that allows users to track the web advertising profiles that are being authored about them— empowering individuals to track the trackers. Mapping Police Violence, a project by Ferguson activists@samsway @Nettaaaaaaaa and @deray, keeps a record of every black American killed by police in the USA. In doing so, the project reminds us how powerful the simple act of data collection can be, particularly when that data is something that the powerful don’t want us to see.

These projects give us a glimpse of what can happen if we abandon our idea of data as an innocent, passive noun. By embracing the new verbal form of data, we might better understand its potential for action, and in turn move beyond our own prescribed role as the objects in data sentences.

In doing so, perhaps we can imagine a future perfect for data, where not only will they have dataed us, we will have dataed them. A future, perhaps, where we all data together….(More)”

Aligning Supply and Demand for Better Governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Findings regarding Open Data in the Open Government Partnership: “Many have predicted that open government data will lead to major gains in political accountability, generate economic value, and improve the quality of government services. Yet, there is a growing consensus among practitioners and experts that, for open data reforms to have strong governance, economic, and social impacts, reforms must do more than make data available and reusable. Government reforms ultimately must aim to provide data that is useful and used. There may be a high opportunity cost to investing in open data in the place of other useful governance reforms….

This paper identifies strong performances and gaps in aligning open data supply and demand. Findings from action plans and IRM reporting reveal the following trends:

  • OGP countries are making more open data commitments in their national action plans, both in absolute numbers and in percentage. This could be good for open data advocates, but may come at the expense of other open government approaches that may be more effective at countering excessive secrecy and corruption.
  • Open data commitments emphasize government supply of data and government coordination mechanisms over identifying and stimulating public demand for data.
  • Among a smaller group of countries, a growing number of commitments aim to align supply and demand by reforming the regulatory framework and by setting up mechanisms to ensure greater demand, such as participatory prioritization processes in which government solicits public input on which data sets to release. However, typical OGP action plans do not show a distinct move toward establishing or implementing the right to request data.
  • There is some evidence that sector-specific approaches to open data see higher rates of implementation than crosscutting and whole-of-government approaches to open data. Commitments emphasize data on budgets, health, natural resources, and aid…. (More)”

Tracking Employment Shocks Using Mobile Phone Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Jameson L. Toole et al.: “Can data from mobile phones be used to observe economic shocks and their consequences at multiple scales? Here we present novel methods to detect mass layoffs, identify individuals affected by them, and predict changes in aggregate unemployment rates using call detail records (CDRs) from mobile phones. Using the closure of a large manufacturing plant as a case study, we first describe a structural break model to correctly detect the date of a mass layoff and estimate its size. We then use a Bayesian classification model to identify affected individuals by observing changes in calling behavior following the plant’s closure. For these affected individuals, we observe significant declines in social behavior and mobility following job loss. Using the features identified at the micro level, we show that the same changes in these calling behaviors, aggregated at the regional level, can improve forecasts of macro unemployment rates. These methods and results highlight promise of new data resources to measure micro economic behavior and improve estimates of critical economic indicators….(More)”

How the Internet, the Sharing Economy, and Reputational Feedback Mechanisms Solve the ‘Lemons Problem’

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Thierer, Adam D. and Koopman, Christopher and Hobson, Anne and Kuiper, Chris: “This paper argues that the sharing economy — through the use of the Internet and real time reputational feedback mechanisms — is providing a solution to the “lemons problem” that many regulations, and regulators, have spent decades attempting to overcome. Section I provides an overview of the sharing economy and traces its rapid growth. Section II revisits “lemons problem” theory as well as the various regulatory solutions proposed to deal with the problem of asymmetric information, and provides some responses. Section III discusses the relationship between reputation and trust and analyzes how reputational incentives have been used historically in commercial interactions. Section IV discusses how information asymmetries were addressed in the pre-Internet era. Section V surveys how the evolution of the Internet and information systems (especially sharing economy reputational feedback mechanisms) addresses the “lemons problem” concern. Section VI explains how these new realities affect public policy and concludes that asymmetric information is not a legitimate rationale for policy intervention in light of technological changes. We also argue continued use of this rationale to regulate in the name of consumer protection might, in fact, make consumers worse off. This has ramifications for the current debate over regulation of the sharing economy….(More)”

Constitutional Conventions in the Digital Era: Lessons from Iceland and Ireland

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Silvia Suteu: “Mechanisms of constitutional development have recently attracted significant attention, specifically, instances where popular involvement was central to the constitutional change. Examples include attempts by British Columbia, the Netherlands, and Ontario at electoral reform, in addition to the more sweeping reforms sought in Iceland and Ireland. Each of these countries’ attempts exemplifies varied innovative avenues to reform involving participatory and partially citizen-led processes aimed at revitalizing politics. The little legal scholarship on these developments has provided an insufficient analytical account of such novel approaches to constitution-making. This Essay seeks to build upon the current descriptive work on constitutional conventions by focusing on the cases of Iceland and Ireland. The Essay further aims to evaluate whether the means undertaken by each country translates into novelty at a more substantive level, namely, the quality of the process and legitimacy of the end product. The Essay proposes standards of direct democratic engagements that adequately fit these new developments and further identifies lessons for participatory constitution-making processes in the digital twenty-first century….(More)”

Smart Cities, Smart Governments and Smart Citizens: A Brief Introduction

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Gabriel Puron Cid et al in the International Journal of E-Planning Research (IJEPR): “Although the field of study surrounding the “smart city” is in an embryonic phase, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in urban settings is not new (Dameri and Rosenthal-Sabroux, 2014; Toh and Low, 1993; Tokmakoff and Billington, 1994). Since ancient times, cities and metropolitan areas have propelled social transformation and economic prosperity in many societies (Katz and Bradley, 2013). Many modern urban sites and metros have leveraged the success and competitiveness of ICTs (Caragliu, Del Bo and Nijkamp, 2011). At least in part, the recent growth of smart city initiatives can be attributed to the rapid adoption of mobile and sensor technologies, as well as the diversity of available Internet applications (Nam and Pardo, 2011; Oberti and Pavesi, 2013).

The effective use of technological innovations in urban sites has been embraced by the emergent term “smart city”, with a strong focus on improving living conditions, safeguarding the sustainability of the natural environment, and engaging with citizens more effectively and actively (Dameri and Rosenthal-Sabroux, 2014). Also known as smart city, digital city, or intelligent city, many of these initiatives have been introduced as strategies to improve the utilization of physical infrastructure (e.g., roads and utility grids), engage citizens in active local governance and decision making, foster sustainable growth, and help government officials learn and innovate as the environment changes….(More)”