“This OCLC Research Report challenges the digital natives vs. digital immigrants paradigm; that is, the common assumption that younger people prefer to conduct research in a digital space while older people rely on physical sources for information. The report continues the work of the Digital Visitors and Residents project, which included the development of a… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: December 2017
Cybersecurity Research Report – Improving Science, Engineering, and Institutions
Additional Observations on Foundational Cybersecurity Research: Improving Science, Engineering, and Institutions: An Annex: Unclassified Abbreviated Version of a Classified Report: “At the request of the Special Cyber Operations Research and Engineering (SCORE) Interagency Working Group and sponsored with assistance from the National Science Foundation and from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the… Continue Reading
Mozilla releases Common Voice project datasets to expand new voice enabled applications
Mozilla Common Voice: “We are building an open and publicly available dataset of voices that everyone can use to train speech-enabled applications. We believe that large and publicly available voice datasets foster innovation and healthy commercial competition in machine-learning based speech technology. This is a global effort and we invite everyone to participate. Our aim… Continue Reading
New open data directory collects standards from around the world
statescoop – “A partnership between two civic data groups has led to the launch of a free directory of open data standards with the goal of making it easier for governments to find specifications that suit their open data needs. The Open Data Standards Directory has about 60 entries of open data standards governments could use to publish… Continue Reading
Paper – Stewardship in the “Age of Algorithms”
Stewardship in the “Age of Algorithms [via First Monday] by Clifford Lynch – This paper explores pragmatic approaches that might be employed to document the behavior of large, complex socio-technical systems (“algorithms”) that involve some mixture of personalization, opaque rules, and machine learning components. Thinking rooted in traditional archival methodology — focusing on the preservation… Continue Reading
32 Most Dangerous (and Safest) Cities for Cycling
24/7 Wall St: “The United States is not known for its bike-friendly infrastructure. Next to cities like Copenhagen, Denmark and Amsterdam, Netherlands, where bikes often outnumber cars and where biking is common across all demographics, U.S. cities appear car-obsessed places, where biking is reserved for athletes and young adults. Despite the nation’s relatively poor bike… Continue Reading
Moody’s: Climate change is forecast to heighten US exposure to economic loss placing short-and long-term credit pressure on US states and local governments
News release: New York, November 28, 2017 – “The growing effects of climate change, including climbing global temperatures, and rising sea levels, are forecast to have an increasing economic impact on US state and local issuers. This will be a growing negative credit factor for issuers without sufficient adaptation and mitigation strategies, Moody’s Investors Service… Continue Reading
Report – Bias, Bullshit and Lies Audience Perspectives on Low Trust in the Media
“These findings should be a wake up call for journalists, platforms and regulators. Rebuilding trust will require all interested parties to work together. We need better incentives to create and showcase more accurate and more trusted content.” – Report Co-author Nic Newman. “Even in a world where people increasingly get news from social media, the… Continue Reading
Facebook to Temporarily Block Advertisers From Excluding Audiences by Race
The social network’s actions come after a ProPublica investigation revealed that Facebook failed to keep its promise to reject discriminatory housing ads. “Facebook said it would temporarily stop advertisers from being able to exclude viewers by race while it studies the use of its ad targeting system. “Until we can better ensure that our tools… Continue Reading
DOJ Publishes New Guidance on FOIA Websites
[November 30, 2017– DOJ]: “OIP [Office of Information Policy] published updated guidance for agency FOIA websites. This new guidance, Agency FOIA Websites 2.0, encourages agencies to review their FOIA websites to ensure they contain essential resources, and are informative and user-friendly. While the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 required agencies to use… Continue Reading
Treasury IG to report on completed tax bill analysis that was not released
ThinkProgess: “Treasury watchdog to investigate why analysis of GOP tax bill was never made public. Sen. Warren said the department has “grossly misled” the public. The Treasury Department’s inspector general has opened an inquiry into why the department’s analysis of the Republican tax plan hasn’t been released to the public, following a request from Sen.… Continue Reading
CRS – How a Government Shutdown Works
Via Secrecy News/Steven Aftergood – “Short-term funding of the government is currently set to expire on December 8. If funding is not extended by Congress, then most government operations would have to cease. The processes and procedures by which such a shutdown would be executed, as well as its broader implications, were described in a… Continue Reading
