Situating Open Data

Situating Open Data
Author: Danny Lämmerhirt
Publisher: African Minds
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2020-10-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781928502128

Open data and its effects on society are always woven into infrastructural legacies, social relations, and the political economy. This raises questions about how our understanding and engagement with open data shifts when we focus on its situated use. To shed light onto these questions, Situating Open Data provides several empirical accounts of open data practices, the local implementation of global initiatives, and the development of new open data ecosystems. Drawing on case studies in different countries and contexts, the chapters demonstrate the practices and actors involved in open government data initiatives unfolding within different socio-political settings. The book proposes three recommendations for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. First, beyond upskilling through 'data literacy' programmes, open data initiatives should be specified through the kinds of data practices and effects they generate. Second, global visions of open data implementation require more studies of the resonances and tensions created in localised initiatives. And third, research into open data ecosystems requires more attention to the histories and legacies of information infrastructures and how these shape who benefits from open data flows. As such, this volume departs from the framing of data as a resource to be deployed. Instead, it proposes a prism of different data practices in different contexts through which to study the social relations, capacities, infrastructural histories and power structures affecting open data initiatives. It is hoped that the contributions collected in Situating Open Data will spark critical reflection about the way open data is locally practiced and implemented. The contributions should be of interest to open data researchers, advocates, and those in or advising government administrations designing and rolling out effective open data initiatives.

The State of Open Data

The State of Open Data
Author: Davies, Tim
Publisher: African Minds
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2019-05-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1928331955

It’s been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? The State of Open Data brings together over 60 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come.

Open Data in Developing Economies

Open Data in Developing Economies
Author: Verhulst, Stefaan G.
Publisher: African Minds
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2017-11-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1928331599

Recent years have witnessed considerable speculation about the potential of open data to bring about wide-scale transformation. The bulk of existing evidence about the impact of open data, however, focuses on high-income countries. Much less is known about open data’s role and value in low- and middle-income countries, and more generally about its possible contributions to economic and social development. Open Data for Developing Economies features in-depth case studies on how open data is having an impact across the developing world-from an agriculture initiative in Colombia to data-driven healthcare projects in Uganda and South Africa to crisis response in Nepal. The analysis built on these case studies aims to create actionable intelligence regarding: (a) the conditions under which open data is most (and least) effective in development, presented in the form of a Periodic Table of Open Data; (b) strategies to maximize the positive contributions of open data to development; and (c) the means for limiting open data’s harms on developing countries.

Situating Data Science

Situating Data Science
Author: Michelle Hoda Wilkerson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-04-14
Genre: Big data
ISBN: 9780367760717

This book explores how one distinguishing feature of Data Science - its focus on data collected from social and environmental contexts within which learners often find themselves deeply embedded - suggests serious implications for learning and education.

The Social Dynamics of Open Data

The Social Dynamics of Open Data
Author: van Schalkwyk, Francois
Publisher: African Minds
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2017-12-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1928331564

The Social Dynamics of Open Data is a collection of peer reviewed papers presented at the 2nd Open Data Research Symposium (ODRS) held in Madrid, Spain, on 5 October 2016. Research is critical to developing a more rigorous and fine-combed analysis not only of why open data is valuable, but how it is valuable and under what specific conditions. The objective of the Open Data Research Symposium and the subsequent collection of chapters published here is to build such a stronger evidence base. This base is essential to understanding what open data’s impacts have been to date, and how positive impacts can be enabled and amplified. Consequently, common to the majority of chapters in this collection is the attempt by the authors to draw on existing scientific theories, and to apply them to open data to better explain the socially embedded dynamics that account for open data’s successes and failures in contributing to a more equitable and just society.

Situating Sexualities

Situating Sexualities
Author: Fran Martin
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2003-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789622096196

This is the first book in English to analyse the stunning rise to prominence of cultures of dissident sexuality in Taiwan during the 1990s. Positioned at the crossroads of queer theory and postcolonial cultural studies, this book intervenes in current debates on sexuality and globalization to argue that the current emergence of public, dissident sexualities in non-Western locations like Taiwan cannot be reduced to the effects of homogenizing 'Westernization'. Instead, Situating Sexualities approaches the queer sexualities represented in recent Taiwanese fiction, film and public culture as dynamic formations that combine local knowledge with globalizing discourses on gay and lesbian identity to produce sexualities that are multiple, shifting and inherently hybrid. Equally, the book pushes out the limits of 'queer' to challenge the Eurocentrism of much queer theory to date. Consistently critical of essentializing accounts of 'Chinese' culture, the book nevertheless highlights some of the important ways in which Taiwanese formations of dissident sexuality differ from the familiar Euro-American formations.

The Future of Open Data

The Future of Open Data
Author: Pamela Robinson
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-05-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 077662976X

The Future of Open Data flows from a multi-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant project that set out to explore open government geospatial data from an interdisciplinary perspective. Researchers on the grant adopted a critical social science perspective grounded in the imperative that the research should be relevant to government and civil society partners in the field. This book builds on the knowledge developed during the course of the grant and asks the question, “What is the future of open data?” The contributors’ insights into the future of open data combine observations from five years of research about the Canadian open data community with a critical perspective on what could and should happen as open data efforts evolve. Each of the chapters in this book addresses different issues and each is grounded in distinct disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives. The opening chapter reflects on the origins of open data in Canada and how it has progressed to the present date, taking into account how the Indigenous data sovereignty movement intersects with open data. A series of chapters address some of the pitfalls and opportunities of open data and consider how the changing data context may impact sources of open data, limits on open data, and even liability for open data. Another group of chapters considers new landscapes for open data, including open data in the global South, the data priorities of local governments, and the emerging context for rural open data.

Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge

Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge
Author: Daniel Sui
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2012-08-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400745877

The phenomenon of volunteered geographic information is part of a profound transformation in how geographic data, information, and knowledge are produced and circulated. By situating volunteered geographic information (VGI) in the context of big-data deluge and the data-intensive inquiry, the 20 chapters in this book explore both the theories and applications of crowdsourcing for geographic knowledge production with three sections focusing on 1). VGI, Public Participation, and Citizen Science; 2). Geographic Knowledge Production and Place Inference; and 3). Emerging Applications and New Challenges. This book argues that future progress in VGI research depends in large part on building strong linkages with diverse geographic scholarship. Contributors of this volume situate VGI research in geography’s core concerns with space and place, and offer several ways of addressing persistent challenges of quality assurance in VGI. This book positions VGI as part of a shift toward hybrid epistemologies, and potentially a fourth paradigm of data-intensive inquiry across the sciences. It also considers the implications of VGI and the exaflood for further time-space compression and new forms, degrees of digital inequality, the renewed importance of geography, and the role of crowdsourcing for geographic knowledge production.

Open Government for Stronger Democracies A Global Assessment

Open Government for Stronger Democracies A Global Assessment
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2023-11-15
Genre:
ISBN: 926453248X

Open government is a powerful catalyst for driving democracy, public trust, and inclusive growth. In recognition of this, the OECD Council adopted the Recommendation on Open Government in 2017. To date, it remains the first - and only - internationally recognised legal instrument on open government and has guided many countries in designing and implementing their open government agendas. This report takes stock of countries' implementation of the Recommendation, its dissemination, and its ongoing significance. It is based on an OECD survey carried out in 2020/2021 among all countries that adhered to the Recommendation and other partner countries, as well as on further data collected through a perception survey with delegates to the OECD Working Party on Open Government.

Openness in Practice

Openness in Practice
Author: Suneel Jethani
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9811642516

This book looks at open data practices historically and from the perspective of those currently involved in advocating for making government data freely available. Based on interviews with practitioners, users and evangelists across three Australian-based case studies illustrating contemporary open data practices, this book discusses how open data has evolved, why certain barriers to openness exist and what the future of open data might look like. It highlights both the challenges and approaches to ‘best practice’ in government departments and agencies as they adapt to changing data ecosystems and public expectations around access, transparency, risk and responsible stewardship.