Open Data Barometer: 2013 Global Report

The Open Data Barometer: 2013 Global Report marks the first large-scale research collaboration between the Open Data Institute and the World Wide Web Foundation "to uncover the true prevalence and impact of open data initiatives around the world. It analyses global trends, and also ranks countries and regions via an in-depth methodology that considers: readiness to secure the benefits of open data; actual levels of implementation; and the impact of such initiatives."

This collaboration promises to represent the first of what is to become "a regular study, checking against the baseline captured in the 2013 study" of Open Government Data (OGD) policy and practice around the world.  78 countries were surveyed in the 2013 report.

The 44-page Report in includes country and regional rankings and analysis in the following data arenas: land ownership, census data, government budgets, government spending, company registers, legislation, health, education, crime, environment, and election results.  It also includes a 2-page Executive Summary, detailed methodology, and bibliography.

Open Data Barometer data is published under an open license. All are welcome to "build upon, remix and reinterpret" this data.

If you want to play around with this data visually check out the interactive tool that displays the data by country.

Global Information Technology Report 2013

Just out, the World Economic Forum's The Global Information Technology Report 2013: Growth and Jobs in a Hyperconnected World.

Since 2002 this annual report has "accompanied and monitored ICT advances over the last decade as well as raising awareness of the importance of ICT diffusion and usage for long-term competitiveness and societal well-being."

The Report includes its much touted and anticipated Networked Readiness Index. More on this from the Executive summary: 

"In terms of the results (see the Networked Readiness Index Rankings provided on page xix), two groups of economies dominate the NRI: Northern European economies and the so-called Asian Tigers. Among the Northern European countries, four out of the five Nordic economies featured in the NRI—Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (in rank order)—continue to feature in the top 10. Iceland, the last of the Nordics, is not too far behind, at 17th place. The performance of this group in terms of readiness is particularly outstanding. All five Nordics feature in the top 10 of this subindex. Within this subindex, on the infrastructure and digital content pillar, four countries occupy the top
positions. As highlighted in the previous edition and in this Report, the gap between those countries and the ones in the Southern and Eastern parts of Europe is profound. A second group of economies that posts a remarkable performance are the Asian Tigers: Singapore, Taiwan (China), the Republic of Korea, and Hong Kong SAR. All boast outstanding business and innovation environments that are consistently ranked among the most conducive in the world. The Tigers also stand out for their governments’ leadership in promoting the digital agenda, and the impact of ICTs on society tends to be larger in these economies."

This is a huge report, 384 pages worth of detailed country by country data.  The Readiness Index is quite detailed with a variety of factors feeding into the ranking. These include efficiency of legal systems for resolving disputes, intellectual property protection, electricity production, mobile network coverage, cellular and broadband tariffs, quality of math and science education, adult literacy rates, households with personal computers, business to business computer usage and many more. 

Big Data--To Be Wowed or Wary: Two Views

I was lucky to be able to drop in on the Big Data Workshop here at the Annenberg School, Big Data and the Transformation of the Public Information Environment: Implications for Public Health (March 19, 2013), where panelists from academic and commercial sectors met to discuss the new information ecosystem (think tidal wave) produced from social media--Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and the like.  While most everyone in the room was either already working with this data--collecting it, asking questions of it, re-purposing it--or has designs on such, there is also a general buzz in the culture about the power and uses of big data. I'd like to recommend two books that tug in opposing directions on the topic. Neither of these are academic books per se but academics and non-academics are reading them. The first is upbeat and visionary:  Big Data: A Revolultion That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier. Writes Lawrence Lessig, "Every decade, there are a handful of books that change the way you look at everything. This is one of those books. Society has begun to recon the change that big data will bring. This book is an incredibly important start. " And speaking of tidal waves, Clay Shirky's metaphor about water may a good way to think about big data. "Just as water is wet in a way that individual water molecules aren't, big data can reveal information in a way that individual bits of data can't. The authors show us the surprising ways that enormous, complex, and messy collections of data can be used to predict everything from shopping patterns to flu outbreaks."

But Evgeny Morozov isn't buying any of this in To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. Observes the New Scientist: “Evgeny Morozov does a good job of dispelling 'big data' hype...If Silicon Valley is a party, Evgeny Morozov is the guy who turns up late and spoils the fun. The valley loves ambitious entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas. Morozov is, in his own words, an 'Eastern European curmudgeon.' He's wary of quick fixes and irritated by hype. He's the guy who saunters over to the technophiles gathered around the punch bowl and tells them…how misguided they are. Morozov should be invited all the same, because he brings a caustic yet thoughtful skepticism that is usually missing from debates about technology." 

Throughout the book two dominant ideologies, solutionism and "Internet-centrism," are questioned. Morozov contends that "Silicon Valley's promise of eternal amelioration has blunted our ability to do this questioning. Who today is mad enough to challenge the virtues of eliminating hypocrisy from politics? Or of providing more information--the direct result of self-tracking--to facilitate decision making? Or of finding new incentives to get people interested in saving humanity, fighting climate change, or participating in politics? Or of decreasing crime? To question the appropriateness of such interventions, it seems, is to question the Enlightenment itself. And yet I feel that such questioning is necessary. Hence the premise of this book: Silicon Valley's quest to fit us all into a digital straightjacket by promoting efficiency, transparency, certitude and perfection--and, by extension, eliminating their evil twins of friction, opacity, ambiguity, and imperfection--will prove to be prohibitively expensive in the long run...this high cost remains hidden from public view and will remain so as long as we, in our mindless pursuit of this silicon Eden, fail to radically question our infatuation with a set of technologies that are often lumped together under the deceptive label of "the Internet"...Imperfection, ambiguity, opacity, disorder and the opportunity to err, to sin, to do the wrong thing, all of these are constitutive of human freedom, and any concentrated attempt to root them out will root out that freedom as well." --Introduction (p. xiii--xiv)

As I write this these titles are not at Van Pelt yet; they will be soon. But I bought Annenberg copies so if anyone wants to intercept them before I send them off for cataloging, let me know.

Teens and Technology 2013

Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project and the Berkman Center for Internet and; Technology have jut released their 2013 report on Teens and Technology. Read the whole 19-page report or remain blogbound with the summary here: 

Overview

Smartphone adoption among American teens has increased substantially and mobile access to the internet is pervasive. One in four teens are “cell-mostly” internet users, who say they mostly go online using their phone and not using some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer.
These are among the new findings from a nationally representative Pew Research Center survey that explored technology use among 802 youth ages 12-17 and their parents. Key findings include:

• 78% of teens now have a cell phone, and almost half (47%) of them own smartphones. That translates into 37% of all teens who have smartphones, up from just 23% in 2011.
• 23% of teens have a tablet computer, a level comparable to the general adult population.
• 95% of teens use the internet.
• 93% of teens have a computer or have access to one at home. Seven in ten (71%) teens with home computer access say the laptop or desktop they use most often is one they share with other family members.

“The nature of teens’ internet use has transformed dramatically — from stationary connections tied to shared desktops in the home to always-on connections that move with them throughout the day,” said Mary Madden, Senior Researcher for the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project and co-author of the report. “In many ways, teens represent the leading edge of mobile connectivity, and the patterns of their technology use often signal future changes in the adult population.”

Measuring the Information Society 2012

In last Thursday's fascinating CGCS lecture, Digital Innovation for International Development, Martin Hilbert referred to the International Telecommunication Union Report, Measuring the Information Society 2012 which presents two authoritative benchmarking tools to monitor information society developments worldwide. From the report launch:

The first of these is the ICT Development Index, the IDI, which combines 11 different indicators into one single measure to track progress made in ICT access, use and skills.

The IDI measures the level of ICT developments in 155 economies worldwide, presents country rankings, and compares progress made between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011.

The second is the ICT Price Basket, the IPB, which combines fixed-telephone, mobile-cellular and fixed-broadband Internet tariffs for 165 economies into one measure, and ranks countries based on the 2011 tariffs, and in relation to income levels. It also compares tariffs over the four-year period from 2008 to 2011.

The report also features new data and analysis on revenue and investment in the ICT sector.

This 213-page report is required reading for anyone interested in the global information society--especially in terms of equality/disparity issues.  

Mapping Twitter Around the World

The Oxford Internet Institute has recently published a study called A Geography of Twitter which examines Twitter traffic around the world.  Not surprisingly the United States is first in Twitter usage, followed by Brazil, Indonesia and the UK. The study's results are displayed graphically which we've come to expect from the Institute (see more of their data visualizations)--though I have to say visual displays carry their own confusions. Is the longer, thinner rectangle of the UK smaller, larger or the same size as the fatter but shorter rectangle of Indonesia? Too close to call to my eye. 

Writes the authors of the study, Mark Graham and Monica Stephens:

By mapping the distribution of tweets in the world it becomes apparent that Twitter is allowing for broader participation than is possible in most other platforms and media. In other words, it might be allowing for a 'democratisation' of information production and sharing because of its low barriers to entry and adaptability to mobile devices. Similarly barriers to the dissemination of information, such as censorship, are also visible through the small proportion of tweets originating in China (home to the largest population of internet users in the world).

International Media and Communication Statistics from NORDICOM

Even the most qualitative researcher from time to time asks me for media use stats and I'm not always able to deliver. "There is a lack of comparative statistics on media communication," NORDICOM editors point out in the Foreword of their compilation of world media stats. A copy of A Sampler of International Media and Communication Statistics 2010, compiled by Sara Leckner and Ulrika Facht, is available on the web. (We also have a copy in print here in the ASC Library.) The volume provides access, distribution, revenue, and usage numbers the internet, radio, television, and newspapers for countries throughout the world.