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.

城市决策者如何利用信息？ 如何有效利用信息？什么是定义有用信息的问题的横切定义？ 城市中通过多种决策路径进行的分散决策如何影响信息的使用？ 本项目将研究地方政府内部的组织，分析城市如何定义问题和使用数据的变化，分解政策决策。联合PI将研究行政能力不同的司法管辖区，使用每个城市的关键信息提供者定义为重要的政策问题作为案例。 城市正处于一个信息越来越丰富的环境中，对数据分析的投资增加将迫使城市官员使用信息。 我们对大城市之外的数据分析实践知之甚少。在智力上，该项目将有助于使问题的形成、决策的优先次序和信息的使用理论化。 该项目更广泛的影响将包括协助各城市制定一个程序，就对它们最有用的信息提出问题，并在各管辖区传播调查结果。该项目将召开会议，帮助地方政府改善信息流动，并提高措施的适当性。 最后，该项目将以多种方法培养研究生。 现有方案中的许多学生是非传统的学生，他们是种族化的少数民族成员，有助于扩大对社会科学的参与。 依靠机构人种志，关键的线人访谈和文件分析，该项目将跟踪了解数据的有用性，特别是从数据到行动的翻译。该框架是以社区为基础的研究，在那里，提供信息者还可以从其他参与者和司法管辖区获得关于进程和理解的反馈。 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，共同定义问题和可能的解决方案，并与社区成员讨论问题定义，数据分析和潜在的解决方案。这种做法将意味着，随着项目的进展，作为设计者、用户和选民的城市官员、城市公民和居民将从这一进程中受益。 该项目将提出一个信息和决策流程的软系统模型。 最后，共同PI将利用前几个阶段收集的信息开发一个基于代理的模型，以协助决策者。