Ryan Bradley in the New Yorker: “In April, during his second annual State of the City address, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a data-sharing agreement with Waze, the Google-owned, Israel-based navigation service. Waze is different from most navigation apps, including Google Maps, in that it relies heavily on real-time, user-generated data. Some of this data is produced actively—a driver or passenger sees a stalled vehicle, then uses a voice command or taps a stalled-vehicle icon on the app to alert others—while other data, such as the user’s location and average speed, is gathered passively, via smartphones. The agreement... (More >)
The privacy paradox: The privacy benefits of privacy threats
Paper by Benjamin Wittes and Jodie Liu: “In this paper, Wittes and Liu argue that how we balance the relative value of different forms of privacy is a function of how much we fear the potential audiences from whom we want to keep certain information secret. Some basic principles these authors propose regarding the nature of privacy are as follows: Most new technologies often both enhance and diminish privacy depending on how it is used, who is using it, and what sorts of privacy that person values. Individual concern with privacy often will not involve privacy in the abstract,... (More >)
A framework for Adoption of Challenges and Prizes in US Federal Agencies: A Study of Early Adopters
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... (More >)
Open data for competitive advantage: insights from open data use by companies
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... (More >)
The Diffusion and Evolution of 311 Citizen Service Centers in American Cities from 1996 to 2012
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... (More >)
Governing methods: policy innovation labs, design and data science in the digital governance of education
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... (More >)
Data (v.)
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... (More >)
Aligning Supply and Demand for Better Governance
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... (More >)
Tracking Employment Shocks Using Mobile Phone Data
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... (More >)
How the Internet, the Sharing Economy, and Reputational Feedback Mechanisms Solve the ‘Lemons Problem’
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... (More >)
