Methodical Snark

November 4, 2016

The long haul towards evidence: information in elections edition

In commentary, Random Snark

2 Min Read

04November

Civil society groups emphasize the need for high quality public information on the performance of politicians. But, does information really make a difference in institutionally weak environments? Does it lead to the rewarding of good performance at the polls or are voting decisions going to be dominated by ethnic ties and clientelistic relations? Enter the Metaketa project’s first phase...

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October 24, 2016

research links w42

In Research Roundup

4 Min Read

24October

  Papers / Findings Citizen engagement in rulemaking — evidence on regulatory practices in 185 countries (from the World Bank). TL;DR: opportunities for engagement are greatest in developed countries with strong regulatory systems, as are the use of ex post ante impact assessments. Paper includes an incredibly brief literature review and the study itself is based on e-questionnaires...

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October 17, 2016

research links w41

In Research Roundup

3 Min Read

17October

Papers / Findings A special issue of the Journal of Communication Law and Policy offers five articles on the US Freedom of Information Act. The Editor’s conclusion: “The case made by all these articles is that FOIA is not doing the job that was intended, and that a major overhaul of the act is needed to ensure requisite access to government documents and activities. Access is key to a...

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October 14, 2016

Gaps in Human Rights Research, Advocacy and Compliance

In commentary, Random Snark

2 Min Read

14October

How human rights scholars conceal social wrongs. That’s the title of an Open Democracy article published yesterday, which takes issue with the way that international comparative indices (such as Ciri Human Rights Data Project and Freedom in the World) hide injustice in rich western democracies. Specifically, the authors are angered by the US government’s consistently high ranking...

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October 13, 2016

Panel weights and voice for the voiceless (lessons from Uncle Sam’s Rock-Bottom Yankee Doodle Suicide Pact 2016)

In methods, Random Snark, Uncategorized

2 Min Read

13October

So not even MethodicalSnark can resist the US presidential elections (as christened by John Oliver). New York Times ran a piece this week entitled How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages. Our Trump-supporting friend in Illinois is a surprisingly big part of the reason. In some polls, he’s weighted as much as 30 times more than the average respondent, and as much...

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October 11, 2016

Book Review: The Global Impact of Open Data

In I Read This For You

8 Min Read

11October

The Global Impact of Open Data: Key Findings from Detailed Case Studies Around the World By Stefaan Verhulst, Andrew Young Publisher: O’Reilly Released: September 2016         O’Reilly recently released a book documenting GovLab’s case studies on open data impact around the world. Some of the key findings were presented for feedback at the IODC last week, and were...

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October 10, 2016

research links w40

In Research Roundup

4 Min Read

10October

Papers / Findings Squeaky wheels get the grease.  Analysis of policy crowdsourcing for urban planning in California uses natural language processing to show that (1) whether or not citizen contributions are included in policy depended on their “volume and tone,” (2) that the contributing crowd was more representative of the community than elected representatives contributions, and (3)...

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October 7, 2016

The Open Data Research Symposium 2016: summary and issues

In event takeaways, Random Snark

6 Min Read

07October

Wednesday saw the second Open Data Research Symposium, convened on the sidelines of the International Open Data Conference (and this year’s IODC was a doosie, with side events and opre-events stretching across 5 days different parts of Madrid).  Here is a quick summary of the papers and working groups, followed by some hanging questions and challenges for next year’s Symposium.

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October 3, 2016

Research Links w 39

In Research Roundup

3 Min Read

03October

Papers and Findings Nordic Open Access to Research Data. A new research paper reiterates important conditions for effective open access, and offers 3 recommendations for Nordic research communities that take advantage of their countries’ size and position. A psychology study in Zimbabwe suggests that for political activism in repressive political contexts, psychological resilience in the...

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September 29, 2016

When Indicators Get in the Way, Go Report Minimal?

In commentary, Random Snark

2 Min Read

29September

Now, there’s a lot we could debate here about data collection processes, or tools, or when and how data clerks should be employed – but that’s not the point. Instead, we suggest that a growing amount of the qualitative evidence indicates that costs of collecting and reporting on the data that inform high-level performance indicators (for various agencies) can be quite high – perhaps higher than...

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