Suchergebnisse

While talk of "Big Data" is now prevalent in many sectors, there are still relatively few examples of Big Data being used to shape public policy. This article reports an international study of Big Data for policy initiatives to understand the role played by data‐driven approaches in the policy process. Drawing on evidence (including policy analysis and interviews with stakeholders) from 58 initiatives, we find that some policy areas, notably efforts to improve government transparency, are far more represented than others, such as use of social media data for policy evaluation. We also find Big Data used more often in the policy cycle for foresight and agenda setting, or interim evaluation and monitoring, rather than for policy implementation and ex post evaluation. Many different types of data are used in the policy process, with traditional sources such as government statistics still favored over new and emerging sources. We find that use of Big Data for public policy is therefore at an early stage, with expectations far outstripping the current reality.

In this article, we examine the growth of the Internet as a research topic across the disciplines and the embedding of the Internet into the very fabric of research. While this is a trend that 'everyone knows', prior to this study, no work had quantified the extent to which this common sense knowledge was true or how the embedding actually took place. Using scientometric data extracted from Scopus, we explore how the Internet has become a powerful knowledge machine which forms part of the scientific infrastructure across not just technology fields, but also right across the social sciences, sciences and humanities.

This paper is the product of a workshop that brought together practitioners, researchers, and data experts to discuss how big data is becoming a resource for positive social change in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs). We include in our definition of big data sources such as social media data, mobile phone use records, digitally mediated transactions, online news media sources, and administrative records. We argue that there are four main areas where big data has potential for promoting positive social change: advocacy; analysis and prediction; facilitating information exchange; and promoting accountability and transparency. These areas all have particular challenges and possibilities, but there are also issues shared across them, such as open data and privacy concerns. Big data is shaping up to be one of the key battlefields of our time, and the paper argues that this is therefore an opportune moment for civil society groups in particular to become a larger part of the conversation about the use of big data, since questions about the asymmetries of power involved are especially urgent in these uses in LMICs. Civil society groups are also currently underrepresented in debates about privacy and the rights of technology users, which are dominated by corporations, governments and nongovernmental organizations in the Global North. We conclude by offering some lessons drawn from a number of case studies that represent the current state‐of‐the‐art.

Rates of suicide are alarmingly high in military and veteran samples. Suicide rates are particularly elevated among those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, which share overlapping symptoms and frequently co-occur. Identifying and confirming factors that reduce suicide risk among veterans with PTSD and depression is imperative. The proposed study evaluated whether post-deployment social support moderated the influence of PTSD-depression symptoms on suicidal ideation among veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan using state of the art clinical diagnostic interviews and self-report measures. Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans (n=145) were invited to participate in a study evaluation returning veterans' experiences. As predicted, PTSD-depression symptoms had almost no effect on suicidal ideation (SI) when post-deployment social support was high; however, when post-deployment social support was low, PTSD-depression symptoms were positively associated with SI. Thus, social support may be an important factor for clinicians to assess in the context of PTSD and depressive symptoms. Future research is needed to prospectively examine the interrelationship between PTSD/depression and social support on suicidal risk, as well as whether interventions to improve social support result in decreased suicidality.

There are many societal concerns that emerge as a consequence of Future Internet (FI) research and development. A survey identified six key social and economic issues deemed most relevant to European FI projects. During a SESERV-organized workshop, experts in Future Internet technology engaged with social scientists (including economists), policy experts and other stakeholders in analyzing the socio-economic barriers and challenges that affect the Future Internet, and conversely, how the Future Internet will affect society, government, and business. The workshop aimed to bridge the gap between those who study and those who build the Internet. This chapter describes the socio-economic barriers seen by the community itself related to the Future Internet and suggests their resolution, as well as investigating how relevant the EU Digital Agenda is to Future Internet technologists.