Computational algorithms and automated decision making systems that include them offer potential to improve public policy and organizations. But computational algorithms based on biased data encode ...those biases into algorithms, models and their outputs. Systemic racism is institutionalized bias with respect to race, ethnicity and related attributes. Such bias is located in data that encode the results and outputs of decisions that have been discriminatory, in procedures and processes that may intentionally or unintentionally disadvantage people based on race, and in policies that may discriminate by race. Computational algorithms may exacerbate systemic racism if they are not designed, developed, and used–that is, enacted–with attention to identifying and remedying bias specific to race. Advancing social equity in digital governance requires systematic, ongoing efforts to assure that automated decision making systems, and their enactment in complex public organizational arrangements, are free from bias.
•Computational algorithms are powerful tools but may replicate biases.•Biases, including systemic racism, in underlying data bias algorithms•Automated decision making systems that discriminate harm people.•Careful scrutiny of data, processes, variables and algorithms may reduce bias.
The use of customer service ideas in government continues to be widespread, although the concept and its implications for public sector service production and delivery remain poorly developed. This ...paper presents a series of paradoxes related to customer service and its use in government. The central and most troubling paradox is that customer service techniques and tools applied to government may lead to increased political inequality even as some aspects of service are improved. The argument is structured by examination of the following: the predominant structural features of service management in theprivate sector, the assumption that customer satisfaction is a central objective of service firms, the understanding of customer service that informs current federal reform efforts, and the operational and political challenges of customer service as a public management objective.
For the first time in history, women have the opportunity to play a major and visible role in a social transformation of potentially monumental proportions. The extensive reach and penetration of ...information technology into virtually every area of society creates enormous opportunities for women. But women's lack of representation in IT design roles may prevent them from capitalizing on these opportunities. Most current discussion and analysis focuses on the increasing numbers of women as users of information technology with great emphasis on their use of the Internet and World Wide Web. Comparatively little attention has been given to the potential role women might play as designers in an information-based society.
As the data in this paper clearly indicate, women are poorly represented in the sector that constitutes the growth engine of the U.S. economy and that bears primary responsibility for the scientific and technological development of an Information Society. The human capital requirements of the Information Society demonstrate the need for women to strengthen their participation as experts, owners and designers of information technologies. This paper argues that stronger representation by women in technical roles not only would help to redress a troubling human capital deficit, but is highly likely to modify and expand the range of technological applications, products, standards and practices to benefit all of society. On the importance of women as scientific and technical experts, see
1,2.
To develop this argument, the paper surveys across several policy areas to identify a central challenge that does not neatly fit into established policy categories. The first section of this paper distinguishes between the types of contributions that may be made by users of information technology versus its designers. The second section surveys current participation rates of women in IT-related fields within education and industry in order to gauge the near-term supply of women designers and experts. The third section argues, by analogy to the fields of medicine and psychology, that the degree of participation by women is likely to have a notable effect on professional practice and technological developments within the fields that constitute information technology.
The current economy presents a stellar opportunity for women to assume leadership roles in research and development of information technologies and applications. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, use of the Internet, World Wide Web and other digital technologies continues to proliferate. The U.S. economy and its labor needs have shifted radically producing a serious deficit of IT workers. The U.S. Department of Commerce
3, p. 4 uses the following definitions and categories to denote information technology and related occupations: computer scientists, computer engineers, systems analysts and computer programmers. The classification is based on categories used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Demand for workers able to develop, apply and use these technologies extends beyond the computer and software industries into service industries, including health care, manufacturing, transportation, government and education. Information technology accounted for more than a third of the nation's real economic growth from 1995 to 1997
3, p. 5. If not addressed, labor market shortages in information technology related occupations are estimated to diminish national productivity, the development of new products and services, economic growth, and national competitiveness
4.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that approximately 137 800 new jobs in information technology occupations have been and will be produced each year from 1996 to 2006.
1
This figure includes both newly created jobs and the replacement of workers who are leaving the field. See U.S. Department of Commerce, June 1999
3, p. 25.
1
The U.S. educational system awarded only 24 098 bachelor's degrees and 9658 associate's degrees in computer and information sciences in 1995 and 1996
5, Tables 248 and 253, pp. 280, 286. Immigration policy has recently been modified, with passage of the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, to meet the current shortfall of IT workers
6. Firms seek to employ skilled workers from abroad, notably from India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and South Africa. But while the U.S. government has temporarily raised the quota of skilled non-immigrant visas to accommodate increased demand, the legislation includes a sunset provision that mandates lowering the cap by 2002. Even if immigration levels are not reduced, evidence of a global deficit of information technology workers (see
7 for one example) is likely to constrain the ability of firms to use immigration policy and global outsourcing of IT activities
4, p. 2. The U.S. political economy requires modernization of domestic employment and education policies to sustain growth in the information society.
Digital government is typically defined as the production and delivery of information and services inside government and between government and the public using a range of information and ...communication technologies. Two types of government relationships with other entities are government-to-citizen and government-to-government relationships. Both offer opportunities and challenges. Assessment of a public health agency's readiness for digital government includes examination of technical, managerial, and political capabilities. Public health agencies are especially challenged by a lack of funding for technical infrastructure and expertise, by privacy and security issues, and by lack of Internet access for low-income and marginalized populations. Public health agencies understand the difficulties of working across agencies and levels of government, but the development of new, integrated e-programs will require more than technical change - it will require a profound change in paradigm.
This paper argues that social capital is a necessary, although not sufficient, enabler of effective public-private partnerships and of a new, more collaborative style of innovation policy, although ...its significance for science and technology policy, has yet to be assimilated by most policy-makers. The network structure of the biotechnology industry in the United States and the regional-based industrial system in Silicon Valley, California are used to show how social capital affects innovation in science and technology. Two US national policy programs — the advanced Technology Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership — make evident the growing importance of network development. A set of recommendations is given, designed to enhance innovative capacity through the formation of social capital. The central arguments regarding social capital and its relationship to innovation transcend national boundaries, and many of the policy recommendations are important for western European, some East Asian and several other industrial states.
This new fifth edition of the classic Cataloging Correctly for Kids points the way towards providing effective cataloging for materials intended for children and young adults.
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