Paper by Robert Goodspeed in the Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society: This article makes three related arguments. First, that although many definitions of the smart city have been proposed, corporate promoters say a smart city uses information technology to pursue efficient systems through real-time monitoring and control. Second, this definition is not new and equivalent to the idea of urban cybernetics debated in the 1970s. Third, drawing on a discussion of Rio de Janeiro’s Operations Center, I argue that viewing urban problems as wicked problems allows for more fundamental solutions than urban cybernetics, but requires local innovation... (More >)
Opening Health Data: What Do Researchers Want? Early Experiences With New York's Open Health Data Platform.
Paper by Martin, Erika G. PhD, MPH; Helbig, Natalie PhD, MPA; and Birkhead, Guthrie S. MD, MPH in the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice: “Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make information more accessible. New York is a leader, with currently the only state platform devoted to health. Although these platforms could build public health departments’ capabilities to serve more researchers, agencies have little guidance on releasing meaningful and usable data. Objective: Structured focus groups with researchers and practitioners collected stakeholder feedback on potential uses of open health data and New York’s... (More >)
The city as living labortory: A playground for the innovative development of smart city applications
Paper by Veeckman, Carina and van der Graaf, Shenja: “Nowadays the smart-city concept is shifting from a top-down, mere technological approach towards bottom-up processes that are based on the participation of creative citizens, research organisations and companies. Here, the city acts as an urban innovation ecosystem in which smart applications, open government data and new modes of participation are fostering innovation in the city. However, detailed analyses on how to manage smart city initiatives as well as descriptions of underlying challenges and barriers seem still scarce. Therefore, this paper investigates four, collaborative smart city initiatives in Europe to learn... (More >)
Monitoring Arms Control Compliance With Web Intelligence
Chris Holden and Maynard Holliday at Commons Lab: “Traditional monitoring of arms control treaties, agreements, and commitments has required the use of National Technical Means (NTM)—large satellites, phased array radars, and other technological solutions. NTM was a good solution when the treaties focused on large items for observation, such as missile silos or nuclear test facilities. As the targets of interest have shrunk by orders of magnitude, the need for other, more ubiquitous, sensor capabilities has increased. The rise in web-based, or cloud-based, analytic capabilities will have a significant influence on the future of arms control monitoring and the... (More >)
Complexity, Governance, and Networks: Perspectives from Public Administration
Paper by Naim Kapucu: “Complex public policy problems require a productive collaboration among different actors from multiple sectors. Networks are widely applied as a public management tool and strategy. This warrants a deeper analysis of networks and network management in public administration. There is a strong interest in both in practice and theory of networks in public administration. This requires an analysis of complex networks within public governance settings. In this this essay I briefly discuss research streams on complex networks, network governance, and current research challenges in public administration.” ... (More >)
Digital Footprints: Opportunities and Challenges for Online Social Research
Paper by Golder, Scott A. and Macy, Michael for the Annual Review of Sociology: “Online interaction is now a regular part of daily life for a demographically diverse population of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. These interactions generate fine-grained time-stamped records of human behavior and social interaction at the level of individual events, yet are global in scale, allowing researchers to address fundamental questions about social identity, status, conflict, cooperation, collective action, and diffusion, both by using observational data and by conducting in vivo field experiments. This unprecedented opportunity comes with a number of methodological challenges, including generalizing... (More >)
Transforming Performance Measurement for the 21st Century
Paper by Harry P. Hatry at the Urban Institute: “While substantial progress has been made in spreading performance measurement across the country and world, much of the information from performance measurement systems has been shallow. Modern technology and the considerable demand for information on progress in achieving the outcomes of public programs and policies are creating major opportunities for considerably improving the usefulness of performance information. This report provides a number of recommendations to help public and private service organizations take advantage of these opportunities, particularly for:(a) selecting appropriate performance indicators and data collection procedures; (b) analyzing and reporting... (More >)
Quantifying the Interoperability of Open Government Datasets
Paper by Pieter Colpaert, Mathias Van Compernolle, Laurens De Vocht, Anastasia Dimou, Miel Vander Sande, Peter Mechant, Ruben Verborgh, and Erik Mannens, to be published in Computer: “Open Governments use the Web as a global dataspace for datasets. It is in the interest of these governments to be interoperable with other governments worldwide, yet there is currently no way to identify relevant datasets to be interoperable with and there is no way to measure the interoperability itself. In this article we discuss the possibility of comparing identifiers used within various datasets as a way to measure semantic interoperability. We... (More >)
Using predictive analytics and rapid-cycle evaluation to improve program design and results
An interview with Scott Cody, Vice President, Mathematica Policy Research and GovInnovator Blog (Podcast: Play in new window | Download): “What are predictive analytics and rapid-cycle evaluation and how can public agencies and programs use them to improve program delivery and outcomes? To explore these questions, we’re joined by Scott Cody. He’s a Vice President of Mathematica Policy Research and the co-author, with Andrew Asher, of a recent paper “Smarter, Better, Faster: The Potential for Predictive Analytics and Rapid-Cycle Evaluation to Improve Program Development and Outcomes,” published by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution.” ... (More >)
Selected Readings on Economic Impact of Open Data
The Living Library’s Selected Readings series seeks to build a knowledge base on innovative approaches for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance. This curated and annotated collection of recommended works on the topic of open data was originally published in 2014. Open data is publicly available data – often released by governments, scientists, and occasionally private companies – that is made available for anyone to use, in a machine-readable format, free of charge. Considerable attention has been devoted to the economic potential of open data for businesses and other organizations, and it is now widely accepted that open... (More >)
