Report: Open data, democracy and public sector reform

From: Tim Davies tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk
Date: Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 2:35 AM

Open data, democracy and public sector reform is a report based on a recent MSc dissertation taking a look at the policy and practice of using open government data from data.gov.uk. It's now up as an online document at -
http://practicalparticipation.co.uk/odi/report/

In looking at how open government data is being used in practice it draws out a number of themes, including:

Data is not just for developers
- there is a tendency to focus on machine-readable data for large scale visualisations and mash-ups; but data can be useful to individual citizens or local citizen activists, finding facts within spreadsheets and campaigning for change locally.

Open government data changes the gatekeepers, and the role of civic actors
- now mainstream media, independent citizens, companies and different levels of government are all afforded the possibility of advancing their own interpretations of data. Government, however, retains some (significant?) gate-keeping power by setting the categories and structure in which data is recorded and released. Debates over the meaning of data become more important - and the capacity of local democratic actors to be part of those debates again needs to be developed.

Open government data can support innovation in public services
- predominantly through improving the 'markets' for public service innovation - allowing social and commercial entrepreneurs to work with government data, and preventing exclusive access to data being an anti-competitive advantage for certain firms. However, the research didn't find cases where open government data was successfully facilitating 'citizen led' forms of public service innovation involving local communities discussing and debating how services operated.

A focus on digitizing government underlies much open government data supply and use, and can lead to concerns of politics, power and justice being under-valued in the development of open government data infrastructure
- and we need more articulation and focus on real-live civic use-cases of open government data to inform the development of open data infrastructures.

All comments and feedback on the report welcome - particularly to help shape thinking about what to do with the research next.

http://www.timdavies.org.uk
@timdavies

Co-director of Practical Participation:
http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk

My source:
ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net

CfP IEEE IC Special Issue: Web Technology and Architecture for Personal Health Records (July/August 2011)

IEEE Internet Computing: special issue planned for 2011

Guest Editors:
Chimezie Thomas-Ogbuji [cut at case.edu], Karthik Gomadam [karthik at knoesis.org], and Charles Petrie [petrie at stanford.edu]

Final submissions due 1 November 2010
Please email the guest editors a brief description of the article you plan to submit by 15 October 2010.

The healthcare industry is well positioned to take advantage of contemporary Web-based architecture to address the technological challenges of personal health record (PHR) systems, many of which require simultaneous advances in engineering, informatics, and network-based applications. Of particular interest are the PHR systems that capture healthcare data entered by individuals.

This special issue seeks original articles describing development, relevant trends, and challenges in incorporating contemporary Web-based technology for the primary functions of PHR systems. The main functional categories of interest are information collection, sharing, exchange, and management.

Appropriate topics of interest include:

• Web-based, structured data collection in PHR systems;
• implementations of access-control policies and healthcare data sharing;
• distributed, identity-based authentication methods;
• digital signature and encryption techniques;
• Web portal architecture’s general components and capabilities as the basis for a PHR system;
• architectural paradigms regarding connectivity to other healthcare information producers and consumers;
• data models for PHR systems;
• distributed data subscription and publishing protocols;
• successful Web-based applications for chronic disease and medication management;
• health applications for PHR systems on mobile devices;
• privacy and security issues;
• HIPAA and its implications for adopting cloud computing for PHR applications; and
• semantics for PHR interoperability and applications

http://www.computer.org/internet/cfp.htm

All submissions must be original manuscripts of fewer than 5,000 words, focused on Internet technologies and implementations. All manuscripts are subject to peer review on both technical merit and relevance to IC’s international readership — primarily system and software design engineers. We do not accept white papers, and we discourage strictly theoretical or mathematical papers.

To submit a manuscript, please log on to Manuscript Central (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cs-ieee) to create or access an account, which you can use to log on to IC‘s Author Center and upload your submission.

Data sharing, privacy, health, citizenry.... "Database State"

In February (2009) I ventured that the degree of sensitivity that members of the public ascribe to their personal data is undergoing quite a change. This change is not without its own chaotic dynamic since the change is one of general laissez faire, until an individual finds themselves 'wronged'. Then watch the litigation flow. That initial laissez faire attitude may please some in government as it makes it easier to introduce yet more data farming, gathering, and harvesting legislation and join up what are usually (or should be) disparate data repositories.

I don't read the gutter press and 'lighter' forms of reading, but the exposé in such publications that include - as per the market 'requirement' - very personal data, information and knowledge must have an influence on how the populous view their own data? For health and social care professionals of course they had better continue to hold 'personal data' in the 'highest of esteem', especially in these digitally conjoined times.

Last month The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust published a report "Database State" calling in question the legality of several public sector databases. The response to these findings is awaited. ...

Meanwhile the website Statebook seeks to parody and yet make a point about the changing data times we live in. Whilst in response to such a critique there are calls for independent oversight, the difficulty lies in ensuring such bodies are not dentally challenged....

Additional links:

http://www.jrrt.org.uk/

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/email/the-database-state-were-in

Open Rights Group

Hodges' model: Political domain links