Methodical Snark critical reflections on how we measure and assess civic tech
Category

commentary

May 11, 2016

RIO: new examples of open sharing research data

In commentary
2 Min Read
11May

As a practical contribution to the scholarly discourse on new modes of communicating knowledge, Prof. Cameron Neylon, Centre for Culture and Technology, Curtin University, Australia, and collaborators are to publish a series of outputs and outcomes resulting from their ongoing data sharing pilot project in the open access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO). Starting with their Grant...

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May 10, 2016

State of research: data visualization

In commentary
2 Min Read
10May

Data visualization is all the rage in advocacy circles. Activists and development orgs are doing it all the time, often without formal mandates or training. This tends to go unquestioned, because  it’s easy to adopt a “good enough” approach to peripheral activities from the trenches of campaigning, and because visualization and design are things that a lot of us like to think...

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May 6, 2016

Building on TICTec: more thinking about research pls

In commentary, event takeaways, Random Snark
11 Min Read
06May

  Last week I joined the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference 2016, a sort of annual mixer for researchers and the civic tech community, organized by MySociety to “promote and share rigorous and meaningful research into online technologies and digital democracy around the world.” The event was good (write ups here, here, here, and here), but notable for being so firmly grounded in the idea...

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Methodical Snark critical reflections on how we measure and assess civic tech
This is a blog about how the civic tech and accountability field measures its work and its impact. It’s based on a critical perspective, but tries to be more productive than conference snark. It’s an effort to highlight how much work is being done in silos across the academic-NGO divide, to de-mystify important methods and findings, and to call out research that is sloppy or unhelpful.

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africa anti-corruption big data brazil China civic engagement collaboration comparative indices corruption crowdsourcing development e-government elections europe facebook fake news field comment FOIA gender ghana health human rights impact India intermediaries Kenya latin america literature review methods OGP open data participation participatory budgeting procurement protest RCTs social media spain survey transparency trust twitter uganda US visualization