scholarly journals Unintended Behavioural Consequences of Publishing Performance Data: Is More Always Better?

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon McGinnes ◽  
Kasturi Muthu Elandy
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Performance Data ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Cumulative Impact ◽  
League Tables ◽  
Public Consumption ◽  
Data Provision ◽  
The Media ◽  
Access To Data

This paper explores the proposition that IT-driven provision of open data may have unanticipated consequences. Transparency is normally considered desirable: knowledge is “power”, the “oxygen of democracy” and so on. Accordingly there has been a trend towards greater freedom of information, with citizens given access to an increasing diversity of datasets. For many years, governments have produced one particular type of data specifically for public consumption: performance data, such as hospital waiting list statistics, figures on crime, and school performance league tables. Having more information is usually considered beneficial, particularly when there is little available. But when the information supply becomes plentiful, it is not clear that benefits continue to accrue in a simple way. Some apparently negative repercussions are being observed from the publication of performance data. For example, in education the use of league tables seems unable to correct performance problems in some schools, and may even depress performance. Similar effects are observed in other spheres. Data reporting a decreasing threat of crime may be linked with a widespread sense of heightened danger. In the private sector, publication of CEO salaries seems to have fuelled rampant salary inflation. These effects are to do with the cumulative impact of individual behaviours when people respond en masse to information. Individuals react according to their environment, which includes data, creating a complex system with potentially unpredictable and non-intuitive behaviour. We may hope that increased access to data will create net benefits, but evidence suggests that we cannot assume this will always be true. This paper reviews the results of research into this phenomenon from theoretical and empirical perspectives. Results indicate that the publication of performance data can affect the behaviour of service providers, the media, and service consumers, and that the effects are heavily situation-dependent and by no means universally benign. An agenda for further research is outlined, which may help to guide the formulation of policies regarding the publication of government performance data in particular and open data provision in general.

scholarly journals DWD Geoportal – Converging open data, metadata and documentation in a user-friendly way

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Reetz ◽  
Hella Riede ◽  
Dirk Fuchs ◽  
Renate Hagedorn
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Free Text Search ◽  
Easy Integration ◽  
Access To Data ◽  
User Friendly

<p>Since 2017, Open Data has been a part of the DWD data distribution strategy. Starting with a small selection of meteorological products, the number of available datasets has grown continuously over the last years. Since the start, users can access datasets anonymously via the website https://opendata.dwd.de to download file-based meteorological products. Free access and the variety of products has been welcomed by the general public as well as private met service providers. The more datasets are provided in a directory structure, however, the more tedious it is to find and select among all available data. Also, metadata and documentation were available, but on separate public websites. This turned out to be an issue, especially for new users of DWD's open data.</p><p>To help users explore the available datasets as well as to quickly decide on their suitability for a certain use case, the Open Data team at DWD is developing a geoportal. It enables free-text search along with combined access to data, metadata, and description along with interactive previews via OGC WMS.</p><p>Cloud technology is a suitable way forward for hosting the geoportal along with the data in its operational state. Benefits are expected for the easy integration of rich APIs with the geoportal, and the flexible and fast deployment and scaling of optional or prototypical services such as WMS-based previews. Flexibility is also mandatory to respond to fluctuating user demands, depending on time of day and critical weather situations, which is supported by containerization. The growing overall volume of meteorological data at DWD may mandate to allow customers to bring their code to the data – for on-demand processing including slicing and interpolation –  instead of transferring files to every customer. Shared cloud instances are the ideal interface for this purpose.</p><p>The contribution will outline a protoype version of the new geoportal and discuss further steps for launching it to the public.</p>

Readers' Liberation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Rose
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Investigative Journalism ◽  
Literary Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Right ◽  
Promotion Campaigns

The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media studies. It is shaken from without by even greater pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social attitudes that can follow from it; by technological change that may leave the traditional forms of serious human communication looking merely antiquated. For just these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading. For the Internet and digitial generation, the most basic human right is the freedom to read. The Web has indeed brought about a rapid and far-reaching revolution in reading, making a limitless global pool of literature and information available to anyone with a computer. At the same time, however, the threats of censorship, surveillance, and mass manipulation through the media have grown apace. Some of the most important political battles of the twenty-first century have been fought--and will be fought--over the right to read. Will it be adequately protected by constitutional guarantees and freedom of information laws? Or will it be restricted by very wealthy individuals and very powerful institutions? And given increasingly sophisticated methods of publicity and propaganda, how much of what we read can we believe? This book surveys the history of independent sceptical reading, from antiquity to the present. It tells the stories of heroic efforts at self-education by disadvantaged people in all parts of the world. It analyzes successful reading promotion campaigns throughout history (concluding with Oprah Winfrey) and explains why they succeeded. It also explores some disturbing current trends, such as the reported decay of attentive reading, the disappearance of investigative journalism, 'fake news', the growth of censorship, and the pervasive influence of advertisers and publicists on the media--even on scientific publishing. For anyone who uses libraries and Internet to find out what the hell is going on, this book is a guide, an inspiration, and a warning.

scholarly journals HEALTH COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY THE MEDIA DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS: CASE OF ZIMBABWE BROADCASTING CORPORATION TELEVISION (ZBC –TV)

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley Sarah Muchetwa ◽  
Ephraim Maruta ◽  
Hilda Jaka ◽  
Joyman Ruvado ◽  
Evans Chazireni
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Analysis Data ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

The paper reports findings from a study that explored health communication strategies employed by the media on the state of preparedness by the Zimbabwean government during the COVID 19 crisis by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television (ZBC-TV). The study adopted secondary data analysis. Data were collected using secondary sources. The study was influenced by the framing theory. The study found out that ZBC-TV used songs, road shows, commercial ads, dramas, musical shows on reporting the pandemic. The archival documents also revealed that ZBC-TV have used periodical updates as health communication strategies to educate the public about COVID 19. ZBC-TV also used Facebook showing staff from the Office of the President and Cabinet receiving the Covid 19 vaccine at the same time applauding positive response from Harare Metropolitan Province as front line workers surpassed the target under the first phase of Covid-19 vaccine roll out plan. The study concluded that the health communication strategies employed by ZBC-TV have been effective in increasing the societal awareness about health issues. ZBC-TV managed to reach out to the masses using both the television and by making use of the new media communication technologies. However, press censorship has been a challenge in publishing information concerning COVID 19 as the media house is not allowed to publish anything that tarnishes the image of the government. It is based on such evidence that the study concludes that ZBC-TV at some point distorted information to paint the picture that the government is doing all it can to contain the spread of COVID 19 and ensuring the safety of the public. The study recommends that the ministry should ensure freedom of information publicity, in which media houses, including ZBC-TV is not controlled by any political party of government. The government should also privatise ZBC-TV so that it will be answerable to the public and not few government officials. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0895/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

scholarly journals RESOURCES PROVIDING DATA FOR MACHINE LEARNING AND TESTING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNOLOGIES

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-52
Author(s):  
Денис Валерьевич Сикулер
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Data Access ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Internet Resources ◽  
Data Registry ◽  
Data Portal ◽  
Access To Data

В статье выполнен обзор 10 ресурсов сети Интернет, позволяющих подобрать данные для разнообразных задач, связанных с машинным обучением и искусственным интеллектом. Рассмотрены как широко известные сайты (например, Kaggle, Registry of Open Data on AWS), так и менее популярные или узкоспециализированные ресурсы (к примеру, The Big Bad NLP Database, Common Crawl). Все ресурсы предоставляют бесплатный доступ к данным, в большинстве случаев для этого даже не требуется регистрация. Для каждого ресурса указаны характеристики и особенности, касающиеся поиска и получения наборов данных. В работе представлены следующие сайты: Kaggle, Google Research, Microsoft Research Open Data, Registry of Open Data on AWS, Harvard Dataverse Repository, Zenodo, Портал открытых данных Российской Федерации, World Bank, The Big Bad NLP Database, Common Crawl. The work presents review of 10 Internet resources that can be used to find data for different tasks related to machine learning and artificial intelligence. There were examined some popular sites (like Kaggle, Registry of Open Data on AWS) and some less known and specific ones (like The Big Bad NLP Database, Common Crawl). All included resources provide free access to data. Moreover in most cases registration is not needed for data access. Main features are specified for every examined resource, including regarding data search and access. The following sites are included in the review: Kaggle, Google Research, Microsoft Research Open Data, Registry of Open Data on AWS, Harvard Dataverse Repository, Zenodo, Open Data portal of the Russian Federation, World Bank, The Big Bad NLP Database, Common Crawl.

scholarly journals Data ownership and data publishing

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyubomir Penev
Keyword(s):  
Data Protection ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Data Publishing ◽  
Supplementary File ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Biodiversity Knowledge ◽  
Data Ownership ◽  
Data Hoarding ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
Access To Data

"Data ownership" is actually an oxymoron, because there could not be a copyright (ownership) on facts or ideas, hence no data onwership rights and law exist. The term refers to various kinds of data protection instruments: Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) (mostly copyright) asserted to indicate some kind of data ownership, confidentiality clauses/rules, database right protection (in the European Union only), or personal data protection (GDPR) (Scassa 2018). Data protection is often realised via different mechanisms of "data hoarding", that is witholding access to data for various reasons (Sieber 1989). Data hoarding, however, does not put the data into someone's ownership. Nonetheless, the access to and the re-use of data, and biodiversuty data in particular, is hampered by technical, economic, sociological, legal and other factors, although there should be no formal legal provisions related to copyright that may prevent anyone who needs to use them (Egloff et al. 2014, Egloff et al. 2017, see also the Bouchout Declaration). One of the best ways to provide access to data is to publish these so that the data creators and holders are credited for their efforts. As one of the pioneers in biodiversity data publishing, Pensoft has adopted a multiple-approach data publishing model, resulting in the ARPHA-BioDiv toolbox and in extensive Strategies and Guidelines for Publishing of Biodiversity Data (Penev et al. 2017a, Penev et al. 2017b). ARPHA-BioDiv consists of several data publishing workflows: Deposition of underlying data in an external repository and/or its publication as supplementary file(s) to the related article which are then linked and/or cited in-tex. Supplementary files are published under their own DOIs to increase citability). Description of data in data papers after they have been deposited in trusted repositories and/or as supplementary files; the systme allows for data papers to be submitted both as plain text or converted into manuscripts from Ecological Metadata Language (EML) metadata. Import of structured data into the article text from tables or via web services and their susequent download/distribution from the published article as part of the integrated narrative and data publishing workflow realised by the Biodiversity Data Journal. Publication of data in structured, semanticaly enriched, full-text XMLs where data elements are machine-readable and easy-to-harvest. Extraction of Linked Open Data (LOD) from literature, which is then converted into interoperable RDF triples (in accordance with the OpenBiodiv-O ontology) (Senderov et al. 2018) and stored in the OpenBiodiv Biodiversity Knowledge Graph Deposition of underlying data in an external repository and/or its publication as supplementary file(s) to the related article which are then linked and/or cited in-tex. Supplementary files are published under their own DOIs to increase citability). Description of data in data papers after they have been deposited in trusted repositories and/or as supplementary files; the systme allows for data papers to be submitted both as plain text or converted into manuscripts from Ecological Metadata Language (EML) metadata. Import of structured data into the article text from tables or via web services and their susequent download/distribution from the published article as part of the integrated narrative and data publishing workflow realised by the Biodiversity Data Journal. Publication of data in structured, semanticaly enriched, full-text XMLs where data elements are machine-readable and easy-to-harvest. Extraction of Linked Open Data (LOD) from literature, which is then converted into interoperable RDF triples (in accordance with the OpenBiodiv-O ontology) (Senderov et al. 2018) and stored in the OpenBiodiv Biodiversity Knowledge Graph In combination with text and data mining (TDM) technologies for legacy literature (PDF) developed by Plazi, these approaches show different angles to the future of biodiversity data publishing and, lay the foundations of an entire data publishing ecosystem in the field, while also supplying FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data to several interoperable overarching infrastructures, such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR), Plazi TreatmentBank, OpenBiodiv, as well as to various end users.

The Commercial Fourth Estate in the 2014–2019 Election Campaigns

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katia Mihailova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Media

The paper presents results of media monitoring during the election campaigns held in Bulgaria between 2014 and 2019 – after the adoption of the new Electoral Code in 2014 until the last local elections in 2019. The main research question is to what extent the media as mediators in the election campaigns know, respect and comply with the legal regulations concerning their activities during such campaigns. The results outline the models of legal socialization of the Fourth Estate in the election campaigns. They also show patterns of compliance and violation of the legal framework. In addition, they reflect the way in which the media work to change the regulations in question. The research sample included between 117 and 180 media service providers in various election campaigns. There were representatives of all media subfields – traditional media, new media, yellow media, brown media, Prokopiev’s media, Peevski’s media, as well as Russian and American “propaganda media”. The period of research includes almost two full election cycles ‒ two parliamentary elections, two European elections, two local elections, and one presidential election which was held after the clear definition of the legal framework for media in the 2014 Electoral Code. No changes were made to this framework during the study and prior to the publication of this paper. This leads to conclusions regarding the electoral legislation and the regulation of the media system in the electoral process.

scholarly journals Parliamentary Open Data in Scandinavia

Computers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasse Berntzen ◽  
Marius Johannessen ◽  
Kim Andersen ◽  
Jonathan Crusoe
Keyword(s):  
Open Data ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Access To Data

This article presents a case study on the use of open data in the Scandinavian parliaments (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark). While the three countries have all opened the gates and provided access to data—for example, on the voting in parliament, debates, and notes from meetings in committees—the uptake and use of data outside the parliaments is limited. While journalists and academia are users of the open data, hackathons and third-party portals are at an explorative level. Still, there are indicators that hackathons can enhance democracy, and parliamentary data can increase political transparency.

Ontology Evolution

2010 ◽  
pp. 113-125
Author(s):  
Christian Weiss ◽  
Jon Atle Gulla ◽  
Jin Liu ◽  
Terje Brasethvik ◽  
Felix Burkhardt
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Semantic Search ◽  
Semantic Web Technologies ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Web Technologies ◽  
Learning From Text ◽  
The Media ◽  
Access To Data ◽  
Machine Communication

As semantic web technologies, including semantic search, have matured from visions to practical applications, this chapter describes a case study of (semi-) automatic construction and maintenance of ontologies and their applications to the media domain. A substantial amount of work has been done and will be done to integrate semantic search technologies into all kind of services where the underlying data is crucial for the success of automatic processing. Semantic search technologies should help both the user-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication to understand the meaning behind the data as well as to retrieve information according to user’s requests and needs. The crucial question is how to manage the semantic content (meaning) and how to deliver it in order to increase the value-chain of users’ benefits. Ontologies provide the basis for machine-based data understanding and ontology-based semantic search as they play a major role in allowing semantic access to data resources. However, the human effort needed for creating, maintaining and extending ontologies is often unreasonably high. In order to reduce effort for engineering and managing ontologies, the authors have developed a general framework for ontology learning from text. This framework has been applied in the media domain, in particular to video, music and later on to game search to offer an extended user experience in machineto machine as well as user-machine interaction.

Performance Analysis of Cloud Computing Centers for Bulk Services

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veena Goswami ◽  
Sudhansu Shekhar Patra ◽  
G. B. Mund
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Performance Measures ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Blocking Probability ◽  
Cloud Service ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Queuing Model ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Computing Centers ◽  
Access To Data

Cloud is a service oriented platform where all kinds of virtual resources are treated as services to users. Several cloud service providers have offered different capabilities for a variety of market segments over the past few years. The most important aspects of cloud computing are resource scheduling, performance measures, and user requests. Sluggish access to data, applications, and web pages spoils employees and customers alike, as well as cause application crashes and data losses. In this paper, the authors propose an analytical queuing model for performance evaluation of cloud server farms for processing bulk data. Some important performance measures such as mean number of tasks in the queue, blocking probability, and probability of immediate service, and waiting-time distribution in the system have also been discussed. Finally, a variety of numerical results showing the effect of model parameters on key performance measures are presented.

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