Appealing to the Authority of Data: Social Complexity, Fragmented Decisionmaking, and the Politics of Smart Cities

诉诸数据的权威：社会复杂性、碎片化决策和智慧城市的政治

• 批准号: 1637205
• 负责人: Susan Sterett
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2018-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1637205&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Appealing; Authority; Data; Social; Complexity

How do decision makers in cities use information? How can they use information effectively? What are cross cutting definitions of problems that define the information that is useful? How does the fragmented decision-making via multiple policymaking paths in cities shape how information is used? This project will study organizations within local governments to analyze variation in how cities define problems and use data, disaggregating policy decision-making. Co-PIs will study jurisdictions that vary in administrative capacity, using as a case a policy issue that key informants in each city define as significant. Cities are in an increasingly information rich environment, and increasing investments in data analytics will press city officials to use information. We know little about how the practice of data analytics works outside of large cities. Intellectually, the project will contribute to theorizing problem formulation, priorities in decision-making and use of information. The project's broader impacts will include assisting cities in developing a process for formulating questions about the information that will be most useful for them, and disseminating findings across jurisdictions. The project will convene meetings that help local governments to improve the flow of information and to improve the appropriateness of measures. Finally, the project will train graduate students in multiple methods. Many of the students in the available programs are non-traditional students who are members of racialized minorities, contributing to broadening participation in the social sciences.Cases have been selected for variation in administrative capacity and size. Relying on institutional ethnography, key informant interviews, and analysis of documents, the project will trace understandings of the usefulness of data and specifically the translation from data to action. The framework is community-based research, where informants also get feedback on processes and understandings from other participants and jurisdictions. Therefore, as the project brings different organizations together to develop and use data, it will also convene participants to share the different understandings and to collaboratively define problems and possible solutions, and to discuss problem definitions, data analytics, and potential solutions with community members. That approach will mean that city officials, and cities' citizens and denizens, as designers, users and constituents will benefit from the process as the project progresses. The project will surface a soft systems model of information and decision-making flows. Finally, the co-PIs will use the information gathered in previous phases to develop an agent-based model to assist decision makers.

城市中的决策者如何使用信息？ 他们如何有效地使用信息？定义有用信息的问题的交叉切割定义是什么？ 通过城市中多个决策路径的破碎决策如何塑造信息的使用方式？ 该项目将研究地方政府内部的组织，以分析城市如何定义问题和使用数据的变化，从而分解政策决策。 Co-Pis将研究以行政身份有所不同的司法管辖区，将其作为一个政策问题，即每个城市中关键的线人都将其定义为重要。 城市处于越来越丰富的信息环境中，对数据分析的投资不断增加，将迫使城市官员使用信息。 我们对数据分析的实践在大城市之外的运作方式知之甚少。从理智上讲，该项目将有助于理论化问题的提出，决策和信息使用的优先级。 该项目的更广泛的影响将包括协助城市制定一个过程，以制定有关其最有用的信息的问题，并在范围内传播调查结果。该项目将召集会议，以帮助地方政府改善信息流并改善措施的适当性。 最后，该项目将以多种方法培训研究生。 可用课程中的许多学生都是非传统的学生，是种族化少数群体的成员，有助于扩大社会科学的参与。 依靠机构民族志，主要的线人访谈和文档分析，该项目将追踪对数据有用性，特别是从数据转换为行动的理解。该框架是基于社区的研究，线人还可以从其他参与者和司法管辖区收到有关过程和理解的反馈。 因此，随着该项目将不同的组织聚集在一起开发和使用数据，它还将召集参与者分享不同的理解并协作定义问题和可能的解决方案，并讨论问题定义，数据分析以及与社区成员的潜在解决方案。这种方法将意味着城市官员以及城市的公民和居民，因为设计师，用户和选民将随着项目的进行而受益。 该项目将浮出信息和决策流的软系统模型。 最后，Co-Pis将使用以前阶段收集的信息来开发基于代理的模型来协助决策者。