The Data Revolution for Sustainable Development

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jeffrey D. Sachs at Project Syndicate: “There is growing recognition that the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will be adopted on September 25 at a special United Nations summit, will depend on the ability of governments, businesses, and civil society to harness data for decision-making…

One way to improve data collection and use for sustainable development is to create an active link between the provision of services and the collection and processing of data for decision-making. Take health-care services. Every day, in remote villages of developing countries, community health workers help patients fight diseases (such as malaria), get to clinics for checkups, receive vital immunizations, obtain diagnoses (through telemedicine), and access emergency aid for their infants and young children (such as for chronic under-nutrition). But the information from such visits is usually not collected, and even if it is put on paper, it is never used again.
We now have a much smarter way to proceed. Community health workers are increasingly supported by smart-phone applications, which they can use to log patient information at each visit. That information can go directly onto public-health dashboards, which health managers can use to spot disease outbreaks, failures in supply chains, or the need to bolster technical staff. Such systems can provide a real-time log of vital events, including births and deaths, and even use so-called verbal autopsies to help identify causes of death. And, as part of electronic medical records, the information can be used at future visits to the doctor or to remind patients of the need for follow-up visits or medical interventions….
Fortunately, the information and communications technology revolution and the spread of broadband coverage nearly everywhere can quickly make such time lags a thing of the past. As indicated in the report A World that Counts: Mobilizing the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, we must modernize the practices used by statistical offices and other public agencies, while tapping into new sources of data in a thoughtful and creative way that complements traditional approaches.
Through more effective use of smart data – collected during service delivery, economic transactions, and remote sensing – the fight against extreme poverty will be bolstered; the global energy system will be made much more efficient and less polluting; and vital services such as health and education will be made far more effective and accessible.
With this breakthrough in sight, several governments, including that of the United States, as well as businesses and other partners, have announced plans to launch a new “Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data” at the UN this month. The new partnership aims to strengthen data collection and monitoring efforts by raising more funds, encouraging knowledge-sharing, addressing key barriers to access and use of data, and identifying new big-data strategies to upgrade the world’s statistical systems.
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network will support the new Global Partnership by creating a new Thematic Network on Data for Sustainable Development, which will bring together leading data scientists, thinkers, and academics from across multiple sectors and disciplines to form a center of data excellence….(More)”

Sustainable Value of Open Government Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Phd Thesis from Thorhildur Jetzek: “The impact of the digital revolution on our societies can be compared to the ripples caused by a stone thrown in water: spreading outwards and affecting a larger and larger part of our lives with every year that passes. One of the many effects of this revolution is the emergence of an already unprecedented amount of digital data that is accumulating exponentially. Moreover, a central affordance of digitization is the ability to distribute, share and collaborate, and we have thus seen an “open theme” gaining currency in recent years. These trends are reflected in the explosion of Open Data Initiatives (ODIs) around the world. However, while hundreds of national and local governments have established open data portals, there is a general feeling that these ODIs have not yet lived up to their true potential. This feeling is not without good reason; the recent Open Data Barometer report highlights that strong evidence on the impacts of open government data is almost universally lacking (Davies, 2013). This lack of evidence is disconcerting for government organizations that have already expended money on opening data, and might even result in the termination of some ODIs. This lack of evidence also raises some relevant questions regarding the nature of value generation in the context of free data and sharing of information over networks. Do we have the right methods, the right intellectual tools, to understand and reflect the value that is generated in such ecosystems?

This PhD study addresses the question of How is value generated from open data? through a mixed methods, macro-level approach. For the qualitative analysis, I have conducted two longitudinal case studies in two different contexts. The first is the case of the Basic Data Program (BDP), which is a Danish ODI. For this case, I studied the supply-side of open data publication, from the creation of open data strategy towards the dissemination and use of data. The second case is a demand-side study on the energy tech company Opower. Opower has been an open data user for many years and have used open data to create and disseminate personalized information on energy use. This information has already contributed to a measurable world-wide reduction in CO2 emissions as well as monetary savings. Furthermore, to complement the insights from these two cases I analyzed quantitative data from 76 countries over the years 2012 and 2013. I have used these diverse sources of data to uncover the most important relationships or mechanisms, that can explain how open data are used to generate sustainable value….(More)”

Open governance systems: Doing more with more

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Jeremy Millard in Government Information Quarterly: “This paper tackles many of the important issues and discussions taking place in Europe and globally about the future of the public sector and how it can use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to respond innovatively and effectively to some of the acute societal challenges arising from the financial crisis as well as other deeper rooted global problems. These include inequality, poverty, corruption and migration, as well as climate change, loss of habitat and the ageing society. A conceptual framework for open governance systems enabled by ICT is proposed, drawing on evidence and examples from around the world as well as a critical appraisal of both academic and grey literature. The framework constructs a system of open assets, open services and open engagement, and this is used to move the e-government debate forward from a preoccupation with lean and small governments which ‘do more with less’ to examine the potential for open governance systems to also ‘do more with more’. This is achieved by enabling an open government and open public sector, as part of this open governance system, to ‘do more by leveraging more’ of the existing assets and resources across the whole of society, and not just within the public sector, many of which are unrealised and untapped, so in effect are ‘wasted’. The paper argues that efficiencies and productivity improvements are essential at all levels and across all actors, as is maximising both public and private value, but that they must also be seen at the societal level where trade-offs and interactions are required, and not only at the individual actor level….(More)”

Making Open Innovation Ecosystems Work: Case Studies in Healthcare

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

New paper by Donald E. Wynn, Jr., Renee M. E. Pratt and Randy V. Bradley for the Business of Government Center: “In the mist of tightening budgets, many government agencies are being asked to deliver innovative solutions to operational and strategic problems. One way to address this dilemma is to participate in open innovation. This report addresses two key components of open innovation:

  • Adopting external ideas from private firms, universities, and individuals into the agency’s innovation practices
  • Pushing innovations developed internally to the public by reaching out to external channels

To illustrate how open innovation can work, the authors employ the concept of the technological ecosystem to demonstrate that fostering innovations cannot be done alone.

Successful technological ecosystems create innovation through the combination of five key elements:

  1. Resources – the contribution made and exchanged among the participants of an ecosystem
  2. Participants – the characteristics of the participants
  3. Relationships – the relationships and interaction among the participants
  4. Organization –of the ecosystem as a whole
  5. External environment in which the ecosystem operates

This report examines both strategies by studying two cases of government-sponsored participation in technological ecosystems in the health care industry:

  • The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) built a new ecosystem around its VistA electronic health records software in order to better facilitate the flow of innovation practices and processes between the VA and external agencies and private firms.
  • The state of West Virginia selected a variant of the VistA software for deployment in its hospital system, saving a significant amount of money while introducing a number of new features and functionality for the seven medical facilities.

As a result of these studies, the authors have identified 10 best practices for agencies seeking to capi­talize on open innovation.  These best practices include encouraging openness and transparency, minimizing internal friction and bureaucracy, and continuously monitoring external conditions….(More)”

Who you are/where you live: do neighbourhood characteristics explain co-production?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Peter Thijssen and Wouter Van Dooren in the International Review of Administrative Sciences: “Co-production establishes an interactive relationship between citizens and public service providers. Successful co-production hence requires the engagement of citizens. Typically, individual characteristics such as age, gender, and income are used to explain why citizens co-produce. In contrast, neighbourhood-level variables receive less attention. Nevertheless, the co-production literature, as well as social capital and urban planning theory, provides good arguments why neighbourhood variables may be relevant. In this study, we examine the administrative records of citizen-initiated contacts in a reporting programme for problems in the public domain. This co-production programme is located in the district of Deurne in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. A multilevel analysis is used to simultaneously assess the impact of neighbourhood characteristics and individual variables. While the individual variables usually found to explain co-production are present in our case, we also find that neighbourhood characteristics significantly explain co-production. Thus, our findings suggest that participation in co-production activities is determined not only by who you are, but also by where you live.

Points for practitioners In order to facilitate co-production and participation, the neighbourhood should be the first place to look. Co-production benefits may disproportionaly accrue to strong citizens, but also to strong neighbourhoods. Social corrections should take both into account. More broadly, a good understanding of the neighbourhoods in the city is needed to grasp citizen behaviour. Place-based policies in the city should focus on the neighbourhood….(More)”

The tools of social change: A critique of techno-centric development and activism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Jan Servaes and Rolien Hoyng in New Media and Society: “Generally, the literatures on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) and on networked resistance are evolving isolated from one another. This article aims to integrate these literatures in order to critically review differences and similarities in the techno-centric conceptions of agency and social change by political adversaries that are rooted in their socio-technical practices. We repurpose the critique of technological determinism to develop a multi-layered conception of agency that contains three interrelated dimensions: (1) “access” versus “skill” and the normative concept of inclusion; (2) fixed “system” versus “open-ended network” and savoir vivre; and (3) “institution” versus “extra-institutional network” and political efficacy. Building on our critique, we end by exploring the political possibilities at the intersections of conventional institutions or communities and emerging, extra-institutional networked formations…(More)”

Towards decision support for disclosing data: Closed or open data?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Zuiderwijk , Anneke and Janssen , Marijn in Information Polity: “The disclosure of open government data is a complex activity that may create public value yet might also encounter risks, such as the misinterpretation and misuse of data. While politicians support data release and assume that the positive value of open data will dominate, many governmental organizations are reluctant to open their data, as they are afraid of the dark side. The objective of this paper is to provide a decision-making model that assists in trade-offs between the pros and cons of open data. Data disclosure is dependent on the type of data (e.g. its sensitivity, structure and quality) and the context (e.g. organizational policies, legislation and the political influences). Based on the literature and fifteen in-depth interviews with public sector officials and data archivists, this paper identifies contextual and dataset-related variables which influence a trade-off. A decision-making model is presented capturing trade-offs, and in this way providing guidance for weighing the creation of public value and the risks. The model can be used for decision-making to open or not to open data. It is likely that the decision regarding which data should be opened or closed will shift over time….(More)”

Democratic Rulemaking

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

New paper by de Figueiredo, John M. and Stiglitz, Edward for the Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics, Forthcoming: “To what extent is agency rulemaking democratic? This paper examines the soundness and empirical support for the leading theories that purport to endow the administrative state with democratic legitimacy. We study the theories in light of two normative benchmarks: a “democratic” benchmark based on voter preferences, and a “republican” benchmark based on the preferences of elected representatives. We conclude that all of the proposed theories lack empirical support and many have substantial conceptual flaws; we point to directions for possible future research….(More)”

Public service coding: the BBC as an open software developer

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst
Juan Mateos-Garcia at NESTA: “On Monday, the BBC published British, Bold, Creative, a paper where it put forward a vision for its future based on openness and collaboration with its audiences and the UK’s wider creative industries.

In this blog post, we focus on an area where the BBC is already using an open and collaborative model for innovation: software development.

The value of software

Although less visible to the public than its TV, radio and online content programming, the BBC’s software development activities may create value and drive innovation beyond the BBC, providing an example of how the corporation can put its “technology and digital capabilities at the service of the wider industry.”

Software is an important form of innovation investment that helps the BBC deliver new products and services, and become more efficient. One might expect that much of the software developed by the BBC would also be of value to other media and digital organisations. Such beneficial “spillovers” are encouraged by the BBC’s use of open source licensing, which enables other organisations to download its software for free, change it as they see fit, and share the results.

Current debates about the future of the BBC – including the questions about its role in influencing the future technology landscape in the Government’s Charter Review Consultation – need to be informed by robust evidence about how it develops software, and the impact that this has.

In this blog post, we use data from the world’s biggest collaborative software development platform, GitHub, to study the BBC as an open software developer.

GitHub gives organisations and individuals hosting space to store their projects (referred to as “repos”), and tools to coordinate development. This includes the option to “fork” (copy) other users’ software, change it and redistribute the improvements. Our key questions are:

  • How active is the BBC on GitHub?
  • How has its presence on GitHub changed over time?
  • What is the level of adoption (forking) of BBC projects on GitHub?
  • What types of open source projects is the BBC developing?
  • Where in the UK and in the rest of the world are the people interested in BBC projects based?

But before tackling these questions, it is important to address a question often raised in relation to open source software:

Why might an organisation like the BBC want to share its valuable code on a platform like GitHub?

There are several possible reasons:

  • Quality: Opening up a software project attracts help from other developers, making it better
  • Adoption: Releasing software openly can help turn it into a widely adopted standard
  • Signalling: It signals the organisation as an interesting place to work and partner with
  • Public value: Some organisations release their code openly with the explicit goal of creating public value

The webpage introducing TAL (Television Application Layer), a BBC project on GitHub, is a case in point: “Sharing TAL should make building applications on TV easier for others, helping to drive the uptake of this nascent technology. The BBC has a history of doing this and we are always looking at new ways to reach our audience.”…(More)“

Policies for a fair re-use of data: Big Data and the application of anonymization techniques

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Giuseppe D’Acquisto: “The legal framework on data protection in Europe sets a high standard with regard to the possible re-use of personal data. Principles like purpose limitation and data minimization challenge the emerging Big Data paradigm, where the “value” of data is linked to its somehow still unpredictable potential future uses. Nevertheless, the re-use of data is not impossible, once they are properly anonymized. The EU’s Article 29 Working Party published in 2014 an Opinion on the application of anonymization techniques, which can be implemented to enable potential re-use of previously collected data within a framework of safeguards for individuals. The paper reviews the main elements of the Opinion, with a view to the widespread adoption of anonymization policies enabling a fair re-use of data, and gives an overview of the legal and technical aspects related to anonymization, pointing out the many misconceptions on the issue…(More)”