Weiye Loh's Library tagged Open →  View Popular, Search in Google

alongside the rise of the Internet and the empowerment of the Internet generation has emerged the greatest inequalities of wealth and privilege that any of the increasingly Internet enabled economies/societies have experienced at least since the great Depression and perhaps since the beginnings of systematic economic record keeping.  The association between the rise of inequality and the rise of the Internet has not yet been explained and if may simply be a coincidence but somehow I’m doubtful and we await a newer generation of rather more critical and less dewey economists to give us the models and explanations for this co-evolution.

Internet New Media Income Inequality Open Government Open Open Information Power

Efforts to improve climate literacy may prove ineffective because they don’t reach their intended audience, or perhaps because those people who disagree with conclusions from climate scientists need more than explanation. People don’t want to be told that they are science illiterate. They may disagree with the scientific consensus because of misconceptions about the process of science or because of distrust. They want to see the data for themselves and make their own conclusions.
We at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC, think we should help them do just that. Scientists and writers at the NSIDC have been experimenting with such an open approach to data sharing since 2006. Through the Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis website, we not only make near-real-time data available to the public, but also explain it in basic terms. The project is a collaboration between scientists and science writers at the center, and made possible by our access to near-real-time data.

Data Climate Science Open

Community Informatics colleague Ajit Maru, in a posting on the Community Informatics Research elist suggests some disturbing questions concerning the relationship between “Information Access” and “effective use” and its possible links to the rising food crisis globally.
He comments on the increasing shift of governments to making agricultural information available primarily in electronic form via the web or through mobile access. This is inevitably linked to declining support for the provision of agricultural information through the more traditional face to face connections of agricultural extension

Data Effects Access Open Food

In today’s Web 3.0 personal data rich economy, reputation is replacing cash, Fertik believes. And he is confident that his company, Reputation.com, is well placed to become the new rating index of this digital ecosystem.

But Fertik isn’t ecstatic about the way in which new online products, such as facial recognition technology, are exploiting the privacy of online consumers. Arguing that “data is the new oil,” Fertik believes that the only people not benefitting from today’s social economy are consumers themselves. Rather than government legislation, however, the solution, Fertik told me, are more start-up entrepreneurs like himself providing paid products that empower consumers in our Web 3.0 world of pervasive personalized data.

This is the second and final part of my interview with Fertik. Yesterday, he explained to me why people will pay for privacy.

Data Power Open Privacy

control of information still represents the exercise of power, and how shifts in that control as a result of the transparency/open data/linked data agenda are open to abuse, gaming, or spin.

Data Power Open

Open Open Government Data Inequality Digital Divide

A huge industry has been created responding to the perceived social malady, the "Digital Divide". This paper examines the concepts and strategies underlying the notion of the Digital Divide and concludes that it is little more than a marketing campaign for Internet service providers. The paper goes on to present an alternative approach — that of "effective use" — drawn from community informatics theory which recognizes that the Internet is not simply a source of information, but also a fundamental tool in the new digital economy.

Open Data Digital Divide Digital Access

Governments are increasingly making their data available online in standard formats and under licenses that permit the free re-use of data. The justifications advanced for this include claims regarding the economic potential of open government data (OGD), the potential for OGD to promote transparency and accountability of government and the role of OGD in supporting the reform and reshaping of public services. This paper takes a pragmatic mixed-methods approach to exploring uses of data from the UK national open government data portal, data.gov.uk, and identifies how the emerging practices of OGD use are developing. It sets out five ‘processes’ of data use, and describes a series of embedded cases of education OGD use, and use of public-spending OGD. Drawing upon quantitative and qualitative data it presents an outline account of the motivations driving different individuals to engage with open government data, and it identifies a range of connections between open government data use of processes of civic change. It argues that a “data for developers” narrative that assumes OGD use will primarily be mediated by technology developers is misplaced, and that whilst innovation-based routes to OGD-driven public sector reform are evident, the relationship between OGD and democracy is less clear. As strategic research it highlights a number of emerging policy issues for developing OGD provision and use, and makes a contribution towards theoretical understandings of OGD use in practice.

Open Government Open Data

So this attempt to enhance democratic participation has ended up providing an additional opportunity for those who already, because of their income, education, and overall conventional characteristics of higher status (age, gender etc.) already have the means to communicate with and influence politicians. The additional information and an additional communications channel thus has the effect of reinforcing patterns of opportunity that are already there rather than widening the base of participation and influence.

Open Government Open Data

Aleem Walji, practice manager for innovation at the World Bank Institute, which assists and advises policy makers and NGOs, tells the Guardian's Activate summit in London about the organisation's commitment to open data

Open Open Government Data World World Bank Transparency Collaboration Google