Paper by Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer, João F. Pugliese, Jonathan Robinson & Frank Schilbach: “An enduring puzzle regarding technology adoption in developing countries is that new technologies often diffuse slowly through the social network. Two of the key predictions of the canonical epidemiological model of technology diffusion are that forums to share information and higher returns to technology should both spur social transmission. We design a large-scale experiment to test these predictions among farmers in Western Kenya, and we fail to find support for either. However, in the same context, we introduce a technology that diffuses... (More >)
A journey toward an open data culture through transformation of shared data into a data resource
Paper by Scott D. Kahn and Anne Koralova: “The transition to open data practices is straightforward albeit surprisingly challenging to implement largely due to cultural and policy issues. A general data sharing framework is presented along with two case studies that highlight these challenges and offer practical solutions that can be adjusted depending on the type of data collected, the country in which the study is initiated, and the prevailing research culture. Embracing the constraints imposed by data privacy considerations, especially for biomedical data, must be emphasized for data outside of the United States until data privacy law(s) are... (More >)
A little good goes an unexpectedly long way: Underestimating the positive impact of kindness on recipients.
Paper by Kumar, A., & Epley, N. : “Performing random acts of kindness increases happiness in both givers and receivers, but we find that givers systematically undervalue their positive impact on recipients. In both field and laboratory settings (Experiments 1a through 2b), those performing an act of kindness reported how positive they expected recipients would feel and recipients reported how they actually felt. From giving away a cup of hot chocolate in a park to giving away a gift in the lab, those performing a random act of kindness consistently underestimated how positive their recipients would feel, thinking their... (More >)
Nowcasting daily population displacement in Ukraine through social media advertising data
Pre-Publication Paper by Douglas R. Leasure et al: “In times of crisis, real-time data mapping population displacements are invaluable for targeted humanitarian response. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 forcibly displaced millions of people from their homes including nearly 6m refugees flowing across the border in just a few weeks, but information was scarce regarding displaced and vulnerable populations who remained inside Ukraine. We leveraged near real-time social media marketing data to estimate sub-national population sizes every day disaggregated by age and sex. Our metric of internal displacement estimated that 5.3m people had been internally displaced... (More >)
Collective Intelligence
Editorial to the Inaugural Issue by Jessica Flack et al: “It is easy to see the potential of collective intelligence research to serve as a unifying force in the sciences. Its “nuts and bolts” methodological and conceptual questions apply across scales – how to characterize minimal and optimal algorithms for aggregating and storing information; how to derive macroscopic collective outputs from microscopic inputs; how to measure the robustness and vulnerability of collective outcomes, the design of algorithms for information aggregation; the role of diversity in forecasting and estimation; the dynamics of problem-solving in groups; team dynamics and complementary and... (More >)
Citizen science in environmental and ecological sciences
Paper by Dilek Fraisl et al: “Citizen science is an increasingly acknowledged approach applied in many scientific domains, and particularly within the environmental and ecological sciences, in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection to advance scientific research. We present contributory citizen science as a valuable method to scientists and practitioners within the environmental and ecological sciences, focusing on the full life cycle of citizen science practice, from design to implementation, evaluation and data management. We highlight key issues in citizen science and how to address them, such as participant engagement and retention, data quality assurance and bias correction,... (More >)
Academic freedom and democracy in African countries: the first study to track the connection
Article by Liisa Laakso: “There is growing interest in the state of academic freedom worldwide. A 1997 Unesco document defines it as the right of scholars to teach, discuss, research, publish, express opinions about systems and participate in academic bodies. Academic freedom is a cornerstone of education and knowledge. Yet there is surprisingly little empirical research on the actual impact of academic freedom. Comparable measurements have also been scarce. It was only in 2020 that a worldwide index of academic freedom was launched by the Varieties of Democracy database, V-Dem, in collaboration with the Scholars at Risk Network…. My... (More >)
Design in the Civic Space: Generating Impact in City Government
Paper by Stephanie Wade and Jon Freach:” When design in the private sector is used as a catalyst for innovation it can produce insight into human experience, awareness of equitable and inequitable conditions, and clarity about needs and wants. But when we think of applying design in a government complex, the complicated nature of the civic arena means that public sector servants need to learn and apply design in ways that are specific to the complex ecosystem of long-standing social challenges they face, and learn new mindsets, methods, and ways of working that challenge established practices in a bureaucratic... (More >)
Public preferences for governing AI technology: Comparative evidence
Paper by Soenke Ehret: “Citizens’ attitudes concerning aspects of AI such as transparency, privacy, and discrimination have received considerable attention. However, it is an open question to what extent economic consequences affect preferences for public policies governing AI. When does the public demand imposing restrictions on – or even prohibiting – emerging AI technologies? Do average citizens’ preferences depend causally on normative and economic concerns or only on one of these causes? If both, how might economic risks and opportunities interact with assessments based on normative factors? And to what extent does the balance between the two kinds of... (More >)
Transforming public policy with engaged scholarship: better together
Blog by Alana Cattapan & Tobin LeBlanc Haley: “The expertise of people with lived experience is receiving increased attention within policy making arenas. Yet consultation processes have, for the most part, been led by public servants, with limited resources provided for supporting the community engagement vital to the inclusion of lived experience experts in policy making. What would policy decisions look like if the voices of the communities who live with the consequences of these decisions were prioritised not only in consultation processes, but in determining priorities and policy processes from the outset? This is one of the questions... (More >)
