Information Production and Social Value for Public Policy: A Conceptual Modeling Perspective

Abstract

The article investigates the potential role of conceptual modeling for policymaking. It argues that the use of conceptual schemas may provide an effective understanding of public sector information assets, and how they might be used to satisfy the needs of constituencies, thus having a public as well as social value. The article first defines the information assets of public administration, and goes on to consider the role of conceptual modeling for eliciting social value with regard to open data, using as a case study open data concerning hospitals in the United States, Canada, and Italy. An interpretive framework is outlined to support public managers for choosing the data sets to be “opened,” thereby exploiting public sector information assets under a social value perspective.

AI-Enabled Innovation in the Public Sector: A Framework for Digital Governance and Resilience

“…The rhetoric on the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for governments action is now encompassing the debate on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for innovating public sector services and decision-making [9][10][11] with a new emphasis on the need for governance of AI and not by AI [9] that resonates the former claims about the governance of ICTs vs. governance by ICTs [7]. Furthermore, although some kind of public value can be gained [12], the switch to social value from co-production [13,14], by involving citizens and external actors, is still an ongoing challenge for public administrations willing to have a role in social innovation through the appropriate exploitation of the unprecedented amount of data available from information production, inside and outside public sector information systems [15]. This is particularly relevant when thinking about the use of crowdsourcing for deliberation, regulatory reviews, and policy initiatives [16][17][18], the development of open innovation in the public sector [19] as well as the emergent challenges of using, e.g., machine learning for deciding on welfare issues [20,21].…”

Editorial: Perspectives on the value of Big Data sharing

“…This would imply increasing, for example, the capacity of modeling vast amounts of different distributed data (cf. Viscusi and Batini, 2016) and to introduce specific social science competences coupled with statistical and computer science skills to harness information production by integrating a multifaceted valuation of both Big Data sources and AI or analytics outcomes.…”

Big Data and Public Policy: Can It Succeed Where E‐Participation Has Failed?

“…Of course, Big Data for government is not held solely by social media platforms. Indeed, governments themselves hold significant quantities of administrative data, which can also be repurposed and made use of through the movement towards “open data.” This is a theme addressed by Viscusi and Batini (), who apply the technique of conceptual modeling to understand information assets held by public administration (as discussed above, the theme of open data is also already addressed by De Blasio and Selva, ). They discuss in particular appropriate methods for helping administrators to choose which data sets to publish, showing in particular how social values can be prioritized over technical ones.…”