Transforming Local Civic Engagement Through an Online Game; The smartphone revolution in the behavioral sciences; Big Data

Beyond Participation: Transforming Local Civic Engagement Through an Online Game

Tuesday, March 5, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

The problem of civic engagement is often un­derstood as a lack of participation. People do not show up to meetings, they do not engage in their civic institutions or communicate with decision-makers. Engagement strategies of­ten involve a lot of bean counting, where the quantity of people participating is more impor­tant than the quality of participation created. The Engagement Game Lab has developed an online game called Community PlanIt to explore how game mechanics and social interaction can move local civic processes beyond transactive participation towards civic learning – or a sustained, reflective mode of civic interaction. Over the past year, Community PlanIt has been played in six distinct planning processes ranging from urban planning in Detroit and Philadelphia to education planning in Boston. This talk explores the unique affordances of Community PlanIt for building social trust, engaging youth in civic life, and developing shared local narratives. It will address the complexities of implementing an online game within official public feedback processes, including dealing with positive and negative perceptions of games, assuring a commitment from organizations and decision-makers to being responsive to an online social network, and cultivating trust and civility amongst players and between players and decision-makers. Ultimately, Community PlanIt serves as a multi-site case study in the design of playful, place-specific and networked local engagement that should inform how government thinks about community participation. Eric Gordon is a researcher and game designer who investigates how games and social media can enhance civic learning and local engagement. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

N=billions: The smartphone revolution in the behavioral sciences

Tuesday, March 12, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

5.9 billion people now use mobile phones, of which 1.1 billion are smartphones. Smartphones will empower behavioral scientists to collect terabytes of ecologically valid data from vast global samples – easily, quickly, and remotely. Smartphones can record where people are, what they are doing, and what they can see and hear. They can run interactive surveys, tests, and experiments through touch screens and Bluetooth peripherals. This talk focuses on what smartphones can do now, and will be able to do in the near future, as research platforms. Smartphone research will require new skills in app development, Big Data analysis, and recruitment through social media, and will raise tough new ethical issues, but smartphones could transform the behavioral sciences even more profoundly than PCs and brain imaging did. By 2025, billions of potential research participants will be carrying ultra-broadband, sensor-rich smartphones with GPS, augmented reality goggles, and biosensors that allow remote psychophysiology. These will render some current research methods obsolete, and will open extraordinary new opportunities for understanding human nature and culture. Geoffrey Miller is a Visiting Professor, Business & Society Area at the NYU Stern Business School and an Associate Professor, Psychology at the University of New Mexico. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Big Data - and its Dark Side

Wednesday, March 6, 5:30pm ET, Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall Room 1015.

The power of big data -- analyzing huge swaths of information to uncover insights and make predictions that were largely impossible in the past -- is poised to transform business and society. Fueling it is the realization that data has a value beyond the primary purpose for which it was collected. Yet there is a dark side. Privacy is eroded like never before. And a new harm emerges: predictions about human behavior that may result in penalties prior to actual the infraction being committed. In this talk Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier take a look at big data's power, the dangers it poses and how to address them. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford. His research focuses on the role of information in a networked economy. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Kenneth Neil Cukier is the Data Editor of The Economist. From 2007 to 2012 he was the Japan business and finance correspondent, and before that, the paper's global technology correspondent based in London, where his work focused on innovation, intellectual property and Internet governance. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to launch at Boston Public Library

April 18-19, 2013, Boston, MA. This event will be webcast live.

On April 18-19, 2013, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) will celebrate the groundbreaking work of hundreds of librarians, innovators, and other dedicated volunteers in our collective effort to build the first national digital library. The DPLA invites you to join them at the Boston Public Library for this historic event.

Convened by the DPLA Secretariat at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and co-hosted by the Boston Public Library, the two-day DPLA Launch will include a brief working day on Thursday, April 18th, followed by a formal reception featuring presentations and a series of interactive exhibits showcasing content from our many partners, including the Digital Hubs and Europeana. On Friday, April 19th, the DPLA will convene a focused half-day plenary meeting highlighting the DPLA’s progress and potential.

Registration for the DPLA Launch is required and is free and open to all. The DPLA invites all those interested from the general public, the educational community, public and research libraries, cultural organizations, state and local government, the creative community, publishers, and private industry to attend the launch.

For those unable to attend in-person, please note that the working meetings, public plenary, and portions of the reception will be livestreamed and/or recorded. The DPLA encourages participation via Twitter, Facebook, and other social tools (hashtag: #dpla).

Limited scholarships to support participation in the DPLA Launch are available for those who are traveling from rural and distant areas. Scholarship amounts will vary, but are intended to apply to travel and accommodation costs for out-of-town participants. Preference will be given to applicants who have not yet attended a DPLA event.

You are encouraged to share this announcement widely with your networks. Please don't hesitate to be in touch with the DPLA Secretariat (dpla@cyber.harvard.edu) if you have any questions.

About the Digital Public Library of America

The DPLA is taking the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. This impact-oriented research effort unites leaders from all types of libraries, museums, and archives with educators, industry, and government to define the vision for a digital library in service of the American public. Registration Required. Register now or find more information on the DPLA website>

Ruha Devanesan on Thoughts On The Fallout from Kony 2012

On March 5th, 2012, the American nonprofit, Invisible Children, published a video called "Kony 2012" on the social video-sharing network, Youtube. Within six days the video was dubbed the “most viral video in history,” beating out pop artists Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Beyonce’s music videos in how quickly it hit 100 million views. In this talk Ruha Devanesan — Executive Director of the Internet Bar Organization and Berkman Fellow — explores thoughts on the successes and failures of the initial Kony 2012 campaign, and the way in which Invisible Children has responded to criticism and adapted its messaging to ask what lessons can be learned by the human rights advocacy community from Kony 2012 and Invisible Children's subsequent actions. video/audio on our website>