NCDG SEMINAR SERIES: INFORMATION, INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNANCE
The NCDG and the Program on Networked Governance organize and co-sponsor three additional seminar series. For more information on those seminar series, please click here.
For information about our workshops please click here
As of Fall 2009, all NCDG events are displayed on our
Thursday, September 24, 2009
"Information & Communication Technologies and Digital Government: The Turkish Case"
Dr. Turhan Mentes, Secretary General, Hacettepe University, Turkey
4-5 pm, Thompson 620, University of Massachusetts Amherst
ABSTRACT: The technological innovations of the last decades have opened the doors to a new and different world for businesses and governments. As access to the Internet penetrates more populations each day, ICTs continue to shape societies all over the world. This presentation will explore the development of ICTs and e-government in Turkey. It will include significant figures and statistics about e-government in Turkey and discuss the social consequences of such developments.
BIOGRAPHY: Turhan Mentes is the Secretary General of Hacettepe University, Turkey and an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics, where he is also chair of the Risk Analysis Program. Dr. Mentes chairs the Internet Committee of Turkey which is within the Ministry of Transportation. Currently, he is the president of Informatics Association of Turkey, which is the largest NGO active in the field of informatics in Turkey.
Friday, October 30, 2009
"Open Government: Transparency, Participation, and Collaboration" Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for the United States
12:00-1:30 PM, Isenberg School of Management 108, University of Massachusetts Amherst
ABSTRACT: On January 21, 2009, President Obama signed the first memorandum of his presidency, the Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on Transparency and Open Government. The Memorandum announced the Obama Administration’s commitment to achieving an "unprecedented level of openness in Government." As Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Beth Noveck will discuss the Obama Administration's open government policies and the tenets of transparency, participation and collaboration on which
White House Open Government Initiative operates.
BIOGRAPHY: Beth Simone Noveck is the United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government. She directs the White House Open Government Initiative at http://www.whitehouse.gov/open. She is on leave as a professor law and director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School and McClatchy visiting professor of communication at Stanford University. Dr. Noveck taught in the areas of intellectual property, technology and first amendment law and founded the law school's "Do Tank," a legal and software R&D lab focused on developing technologies and policies to promote open government (dotank.nyls.edu). Dr. Noveck is the author of Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful (2009) and editor of The State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds (2006).
Monday, November 2, 2009
"Experimenting with democracy: results from the study of online townhalls with members of congress" Dr. David Lazer, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northeastern and Director of the Program on Networked Governance (PNG) at Harvard
3:30 pm, Campus Center 917, University of Massachusetts Amherst
ABSTRACT:
What is the potential of the Internet to transform the relationship between representatives and citizens? Here I discuss the results from a series of online townhalls conducted in 2006 and 2008 with members of Congress meeting with randomly selected constituents. Our results suggest that these townhalls produced thoughtful deliberation that, in turn, had significant impacts on the views and political actions of the participants.
BIOGRAPHY: David Lazer is Associate Professor at Northeastern and Director of the Program on Networked Governance (PNG) at Harvard. His work focuses on how interconnectedness of people and organizations affects the success and failure of actors and systems. His work has appeared in a wide variety of top scientific journals, including Science, Administrative Science Quarterly, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Politics.
Spring 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009 12-1:30 p.m., Campus Center, "Opportunities in the new administration and the history of starting a national policy non-profit" Josh Silver, Executive Director, Free Press
Josh Silver is the executive director and co-founder of the nonpartisan media policy reform organization Free Press. Mr. Silver oversees all programs, campaigns, fundraising and special projects. He previously served as campaign manager for the successful statewide ballot initiative for public funding of elections in Arizona and as the director of development for the cultural arm of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. He has served as the director of an international youth exchange program and as a development and management consultant. Josh publishes frequently on media, campaign finance and other public policy issues. He attended the University of Grenoble, France, and Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009: 4-5 p.m., Thompson 620, "Transparency.gov 2.0, Using the Internet for budget transparency to increase accountability, efficiency and taxpayer confidence"
Phineas Baxandall, Senior Analyst for Tax and Budget Policy, U.S. PIRG
Abstract: A growing number of states are using powerful Internet search technology to make budget transparency more accessible than ever before. Legislation and executive orders around the country are lifting the electronic veil on where tax dollars go. At least 18 states currently mandate that citizens be able to access a searchable online database of government expenditures. These states have come to define “Transparency 2.0”—a new standard of comprehensive, one-stop, one-click budget accountability and accessibility.
Massachusetts, consistently ranked as a top state for technology industries, should be a natural leader of the Transparency 2.0 movement. But as more and more states upgrade their transparency systems, Massachusetts has fallen behind the emerging set of best practices.
This talk will make the case that in the course of upgrading government IT systems we must seize the opportunity to catch up with a nationwide movement of state and local government to enhance budget transparency and thereby increase efficiency, accountability, and public trust. The report documents the accelerating trend toward budget Transparency 2.0 in other states. It examines the benefits of this improved transparency, highlighting best practices and offering suggestions for how Massachusetts can catch up.
Dr. Baxandall oversees policy and strategy development for state PIRGs’ tax and budget campaigns throughout the U.S. He comes to the PIRGs from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he assisted in directing the Taubman Center for State and Local Government as well as the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. In that capacity he assisted the city of Somerville, Massachusetts with performance management and best-practice budgeting, as well as served as a technical advisor for the Massachusetts’ Metropolitan Mayors’ Coalition report on reforming local aid, which was credited for helping to restore local aid funding within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Before coming to the Kennedy School, Baxandall worked for the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, editing their flagship publication, Regional Review. He also taught political economy for several years at Harvard’s undergraduate honors program in Social Studies, where he won six teaching awards. In 1990-91, he taught economics and organizational behavior at the University of Budapest. In Hungary, Baxandall also worked with an American campaign consulting firm to observe focus groups, formulate survey questions, and prepare national strategy for a major political party in Parliament.
Read the report Dr. Baxandall's will discuss here.
Fall 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008; 4 -5 p.m. Campus Center room 803, "Mentoring and Persistence among Lower-Income First Generation College Students in STEM" Becky Wai-Ling Packard, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, Mt Holyoke College.
Abstract: Increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce has been an issue of national concern for decades. African American and Latino students, from working class families, are significantly underrepresented in science and technical fields, and this is especially the case for female students within computer science and engineering. Over half of first generation, lower-income Latinos and African American students use two-year colleges, or trade colleges, as an entry point to the four-year degree, but so few actually complete these pathways. Thus, research is warranted to better understand the experiences of ethnically diverse working class women and men within these complex pathways. My research, guided broadly by an ecological perspective that highlights the importance of macro-economic factors and multiple contexts (e.g., home, school, and work), has focused on the mentoring experienced by lower-income students as they strive to “get on track” and persist toward a four-year STEM degree. Drawing upon longitudinal survey and interview data with high school students, trade college students, community college, and university students, I have investigated how particular functions of mentoring are associated with STEM persistence. I will describe examples of essential instrumental functions of mentoring and productive mentoring constellations, articulate a need for greater organizational infrastructures for mentoring, and point to implications for designing mentoring interventions, governmental aid for students pursuing higher education, and transfer program designs that link shorter-term certificate and degree programs to four-year degree programs.
Dr. Packard is an expert on mentoring, motivation, and identity. She studies the persistence of women, minorities, and first-generation college students in non-traditional fields such as science and technology fields; how students can maximize their access to mentoring; and how young people from low-income backgrounds, especially urban ethnic minority students, strive to pursue higher education in many forms and participate in science and technology fields. Ultimately, she aims to identify success strategies that support motivation and turn aspirations into realities.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008: 4 -5 p.m. Gunness Student Center Conference Room," Legislative and Regulatory Developments in Information Security" Mark MacCarthy, Adjunct Professor of Communication, Culture and Technology, Georgetown University & former Senior Vice President for Public Policy at Visa.
Abstract: This talk develops the argument that a role for government regulation of information
security is warranted because of significant externalities in this market. The point
is illustrated by an examination of the financial incentives established by the legal
structure and private sector practice in the payment card industry. I discuss the
range of legislative and regulatory responses to this externality. At the state level,
I describe breach notification laws, cost recovery requirements and specific security
mandates, noting the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. At the federal
level, I discuss the actions taken by the Federal Trade Commission, and the legislative
approaches developed over the two Congresses. I address the possibility of changes at
the FTC under the new Administration and the likelihood of passage of information
security legislation in the new Congress. Finally, I report on changes in information
security rules in other countries, including developments in the European Commission,
the UK, Australia and Canada.
Bio: Mark MacCarthy is currently adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Communication, Culture, and Technology Program, where he teaches courses on the economics of network industries and public policy toward network industries. He is also an adjunct member of Georgetown University’s Department of Philosophy where he teaches courses in the political philosophy. He does research and consults in the areas of information privacy and security, ecommerce and other technology policy issues. He is currently designated as the appointed expert of the American National Standards Institute on the International Organization For Standardization (ISO) Technical Management Board (TMB) Task Force On Privacy.
From 2000 to 2008, Mark MacCarthy was Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy at Visa Inc. He was responsible for global government relations strategies and initiatives affecting electronic commerce, technology policy, information security, privacy, risk management, credit, debit and prepaid payment cards and innovative products such as payWave and Visa’s mobile telephone platform. He was also responsible for coordinating working relationships with consumer and privacy groups. He regularly represented Visa before the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Administration, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S federal financial regulators and multi-governmental groups such as the OECD and APEC.
Mr. MacCarthy has extensive experience in Washington DC public policy making and government affairs. Prior to joining Visa, Mr. MacCarthy spent six years as a principal and senior director with the Wexler-Walker Group, a Washington government affairs consulting firm, where he worked with a variety of clients on electronic commerce, financial services, privacy and telecommunications. He was Vice President in charge of Capital Cities/ABC's Washington office from 1988 to 1994, representing the company’s interests before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and other administrative agencies. From 1981 to 1988, he was a professional staff member on the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he handled communications policy and other issues for the Chairman of the Committee, Representative John D. Dingell, Jr. (D-MI). From 1978 to 1981, Mr. MacCarthy worked as an economist performing regulatory analyses of safety and health regulations at the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Mr. MacCarthy has a Ph.D in philosophy from Indiana University and an MA in economics from the University of Notre Dame. He has published a number of articles on government regulation and information security. He has taught introduction to philosophy and political philosophy at Notre Dame and philosophy of economics at Maryland University.
April 30, 2008; 10 am - 12noon; 165-169 Campus Center, "Public Forum/Town Hall Meeting with Sharon Gillett"
Sharon Eisner Gillett, Commissioner, MA Department of Telecommunications and Cable
Please join us for a town hall style meeting with the Commissioner of the MA Department of Telecommunications and Cable. This is your chance to find out more about internet and broadband access in western Massachusetts and to ask any questions you may have directly to the Commissioner herself. Stay on campus and join us for a lecture at 1:30 pm, too! (see below)
Registration is not required for the Town Hall Meeting, but an RSVP is appreciated. Please email sts@pubpol.umass.edu to RSVP.
Biography: Sharon E. Gillett was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick in the spring of 2007 to head the Department of Telecommunications and Cable. Prior to serving in state government, Commissioner Gillett was a Principal Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she chaired the Broadband Working Group of MIT’s Communications Futures Program and taught courses on telecommunications and Internet policy. She also conducted research on municipal broadband and its economic impact and served on Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s Wireless Broadband Task Force. Commissioner Gillett received her MBA and MS in Technology and Policy from MIT and her AB in Physics from Harvard University.
April 30, 2008; 1:30-3 pm; Thompson 620, "Access to the Internet: Broadband in Massachusetts"
Sharon Eisner Gillett, Commissioner, MA Department of Telecommunications and Cable
Abstract: In this talk Commissioner Gillett will focus on the different roles government plays in achieving universal broadband. She will relate her public sector experience to her academic understanding of this issue by reflecting on her 2006 paper on municipal wireless broadband through the lenses of her experience as a member of Boston’s wireless task force, and her first year of service as the Commonwealth’s Telecommunications and Cable Commissioner.
Biography: Sharon E. Gillett was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick in the spring of 2007 to head the Department of Telecommunications and Cable. Prior to serving in state government, Commissioner Gillett was a Principal Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she chaired the Broadband Working Group of MIT’s Communications Futures Program and taught courses on telecommunications and Internet policy. She also conducted research on municipal broadband and its economic impact and served on Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s Wireless Broadband Task Force. Commissioner Gillett received her MBA and MS in Technology and Policy from MIT and her AB in Physics from Harvard University.
May 6, 2008; 2-3 pm; "Aging in Place with the ASSIST Environment"
Cynthia Jacelon, Assistant Professor of Nursing, UMass and Al Hanson, Professor of Computer Science, UMass
Abstract: Technologically smart environments have potential to postpone nursing
home placement for frail elders, thereby reducing the burden on the
healthcare system. Informed by focus group data from elders, family
members, and caregivers, we have developed the ASSIST smart
environment that will help vulnerable elders with alterations in
functional and cognitive ability to maintain function in their own
homes. ASSIST addresses six elements of elders’ lives that are
essential for aging in place: communications, health self-management,
task management, safety, finding things, and entertainment. ASSIST is
unique in that an interdisciplinary team of nurse, social, and
computer scientists designed the system. ASSIST has potential to
increase the quality of life of one of the most vulnerable
populations in our society. ASSIST has implications for housing,
healthcare and home-based services. We believe ASSIST can reduce
social isolation, reduce risk of depression, increase safety in the
home, increase cognitive stimulation, improve in self-care, and
enhance the elder’s sense of control while helping the elder stay at
home longer.
April 12, 2007; 12-1 pm; Computer Science Building, Room 151, "Digital Government: Westchester County, New York, and the Role of the CIO"
Norman J. Jacknis, Chief Information Officer of Westchester County
Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Jacknis will describe Westchester County government's effort to utilize the World Wide Web in order to reach out to various constituents. His formal presentation will describe recent digital government initiatives in the fields of public safety, emergency management, public health, education, public recreation, and economic development. He will discuss how the web has been used to promote efficient and fair markets, to coordinate between public and non-profit agencies, and to enhance citizen-county communication related to government decision-making processes. Dr. Jacknis will also discuss and entertain questions related to the role of a CIO at his level of government and the policy and management implications of web and other new digital technologies.
Biography: Norman J. Jacknis was appointed Westchester County's first Chief Information Officer in January 1998. As the County's Information Technology Commissioner, he directs all of the County Government’s technology efforts, including all computer systems, desktop/office computing, the several hundred mile, high speed data network, phone, cell, video and radio communications, geographical information systems, the County's web presence and E-government activities, multi-media, graphics/design, and the records and archives center. His department also provides these services to municipalities and other non-profit community organizations. Under his leadership, Westchester County’s IT Department has won numerous awards, including the Center for Digital Government’s top ten digital counties in the country and American City & County's Crown Communities Award for technology. Last year, Government Technology Magazine selected him as one of the nation’s “Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers who, using technology … broke bureaucratic inertia to better serve the public“ – a list which included not just technology leaders, but governors as well.
In addition to his position as Westchester’s CIO, Dr. Jacknis serves as one of the few local government CIO’s on the New York State CIO Council, where he is also co-chair of the Technology Committee that sets the standards and architecture for the State. He represents the County Executives of America on technology issues at the Federal level and is a member of the national Partnership for Intergovernmental Innovation.
He received his Doctorate, Master's and Bachelor's degrees from Princeton University. Before taking his current position, Dr. Jacknis held a variety of executive positions in the computer software industry. For the few years prior to becoming CIO, he specialized in enterprise-scale computing and distributed (especially Internet-based) systems. He was Managing Director for enterprise middleware software products purchased by both IBM and Microsoft. Dr. Jacknis' technical skills cover a wide range of computer languages, platforms, protocols.
February 22, 2007; 4:00 - 5:00 pm;W.E.B. Dubois Library Learning Commons,
"Digital Land - Integrating Digital Technology into the Land Planning Process"
Mark Lindhult, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at UMass Amherst
Abstract: In doing research for my upcoming book I interviewed numerous individual professionals across the country and conducted a 250-firm survey to discover how digital tools are being used in their practices. I asked, “Has digital technology altered the way you design?” Two-thirds of respondents said, “Absolutely!” The point is, there is no question that planning and design methods are changing, and changing quickly. Therefore, it is important for designers, planners, and nonprofessionals alike to gain a clear understanding of digital, data, tools and processes so that they can make informed decisions during the design and planning processes now and into the future. The time is now, for the integration of digital technology and the working methods in planning and design are moving forward at an unrelenting pace—especially in the areas of collection and public availability of digital data.
The talk is outlined around the framework of my upcoming book, which looks at digital data from the perspective of the design and planning process: First address the impact digital data is having on the design professions—it is now the foundation of every project. To that end: How is digital data gathered? How important is accuracy of that data? Next I will discuss the importance of data storage and the management strategies that make it possible to share data. Then, because that data must be processed by software before it can provide useful information, I will offer a look at the digital tools—CAD, GIS, and image processing software—that are at the heart of land planning projects. Finally, I will focus on the issue of integration—how to merge the information generated by these individual applications into a comprehensive product, one that tells a clear story from existing context to final proposal.
Mark Lindhult, FASLA is a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a partner with The Berkshire Design Group, Inc. in Northampton, MA. He has been active in the application of computers to landscape architectural problems since 1978. He was the first computer editor for Landscape Architecture magazine and chair of the ASLA’s computer committee. He has spoken at numerous national and international conferences, including keynote addresses in Japan, Switzerland, and Germany. He and co-author, Jim Sipes, have written Digital Land: Integrating Technology into the Land Planning Process, which will be published by Wiley in April 2007.
February 12, 2007; 2:00 - 3:00 PM; Campus Center 803
"E-Government in China"
Shiyang (Shane) Yu, Division Director of the State Information Center, Beijing, China
This talk will provide an overview of e-government initiatives in China and explain the role of the State Information Center in creating e-government policy. Special attention will be paid to the drafting of China's 11th Five-Year-Plan of Informatization and 11th Five-Year Plan of e-Government.
February 9, 2007; 11:30am-1:00pm; Thompson Hall 620,
"Public Safety Networks and Infrastructures: Creating Successful ICT Collaborations Among Public Safety Organizations"
Jane Fedorowicz, M. Lynne Markus, Christine B. Williams, Steve Sawyer, and Michael Tyworth
Abstract: This talk will examine ICT-related collaborations among public safety organizations, with an emphasis on those employing common ICT infrastructures for communication and information sharing. The speakers' goals are to contribute to scientific knowledge and policy guidance for public safety networks by discovering where collaboration does/does not occur and why, and by determining the factors that contribute to the success of shared ICT infrastructures. They focus on several key explanatory concepts, including governance of the collaboration, governance of the infrastructure, the architecture of the infrastructure, and the level and complexity of the initiative. By combining large-N study and case study methods, they will be able to capture the data needed to answer their research questions while also enhancing the generalizeability of the results.
Jane Fedorowicz is the Rae D. Anderson Professor of Accounting and Information Systems at Bentley College, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. She holds a joint appointment in Bentley’s Accountancy and Information & Process Management departments. Her MS and PhD degrees in Systems Sciences were awarded by Carnegie Mellon University. She is currently principal investigator of a National Science Foundation project team studying interorganizational design issues for public safety networks. She also served as principal investigator for the Bentley Invision Project on interorganizational information sharing and coordination infrastructures in supply chain, government, and health care.Dr. Fedorowicz has published extensively and has served in a governance capacity for a number of professional associations including INFORMS, AAA and AIS. She was named a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems in 2006.
M. Lynne Markus is the John W. Poduska, Sr. Professor of Information and Process Management at Bentley College. Professor Markus’s three primary research areas are enterprise and inter-enterprise systems, IT and organization change, and knowledge management. Dr. Markus has received research grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation, The Advanced Practices Council of SIM International, the Financial Executives Research Foundation, the Office of Technology Assessment (US Congress), and Baan Institute. She is the author of three books and numerous articles in journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research,Organization Science, Communications of the ACM, Sloan Management Review and Management Science. She has served as AIS VP for Education, SIM VP for Academic Community Affairs, and on the editorial boards of several leading journals in the information systems field. She was named Fellow of the Association for Information Systems in 2004.
Christine B. Williams is a Professor of Government at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. She holds MA and PhD degrees in Political Science from Indiana University. Dr. Williams currently serves as an Associate Editor and on the senior Editorial Board of the Journal of Information Technology and Politics and on the Meetup Politics & Governance Advisory Council. Her research area is political communication, with emphasis on new and emerging technologies. Current projects include two cross-disciplinary research collaborations, “Design Principles for Effective Interorganizational Public Safety Response Infrastructures,” and “The Challenge of Interagency Integration,” which have been funded by the National Science Foundation, Digital Government Program and the IBM Center for the Business of Government, respectively. Her work has appeared in academic publications such as the Journal of Political Marketing, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, the International Journal of Information Technology and Management, and the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society; in trade and professional association publications such as Campaigns & Elections and IEEE Computer; as well as in national and regional news media outlets in the US.
Steve Sawyer is a founding member and an associate professor at the Pennsylvania State University’s School of Information Sciences and Technology. He holds affiliate appointments in Management and Organizations; Labor Studies and Employer Relations; and the Science, Technology and Society. Steve does social and organizational informatics research with a particular focus on people working together using information and communication technologies, and has published many books and journal articles on these topics. He received his PhD in Management Information Systems from the Boston University School of Management.
Michael Tyworth is an ABD Doctoral Candidate in the Pennsylvania State University’s School of Information Sciences and Technology. He is working on his dissertation in the area of public safety networks.
Fall 2006
December 7, 2006, 4pm, WEB DuBois Library Learning Commons,
"Vision for Next Generation Cyberinfrastructure: Blackstone River Model" Paula Rees, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst and David Reckhow, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst.
Abstract: The CLEANER (Collaborative Large-Scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research), is an NSF project for a novel cyberinfrastructure that faciliates cooperation amongst multi-disciplinarian study of the environment's adaptive response to human activities. One of CLEANER's goals will be to integrate individual models and associated data to create more complex systems that will provide near real-time simulation. The CLEANER project centers on the Blackstone River Watershed, an approximately 454 square mile basin cutting through central Massachusetts and northern Rhode Island.
December 1, 2006; 11-12am; Thompson Hall, Room 620,
"Latent Variable Models of Social Networks and Text with Application to Political, Legal and Bibliometric Data" Andrew McCallum is Associate Professor of Computer Science at UMass Amherst. He was previously Vice President of Research and Development at WhizBang Labs, a company that used machine learning for information extraction from the Web. In the late 1990's he was a Research Scientist and Coordinator at Justsystem Pittsburgh Research Center. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University after receiving his PhD from the University of Rochester in 1995. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Machine Learning Research. For the past eight years, McCallum has been active in research on statistical machine learning applied to text, especially information extraction, document classification, finite state models, and semi-supervised learning. More information and a complete biography of Professor McCallum is available here.
Abstract: The field of social network analysis studies mathematical models of patterns in the interactions between people or other entities. In this talk I will present several recent advances in generative, probabilistic modeling of networks and their per-edge attributes. The Author-Recipient-Topic model discovers role-similarity between entities by examining not only network connectivity, but also the words communicated on those edges; I'll demonstrate this method on a large corpus of email data subpoenaed as part of the Enron investigation. The Group-Topic model discovers groups of entities and the "topical" conditions under which different groupings arise; I'll demonstrate this on coalition discovery from many years worth of voting records in the U.S. Senate and the U.N. I'll conclude with further examples of Bayesian networks successfully applied to relational data, as well as discussion of their applicability to trend analysis, expert-finding and bibliometrics. Features joint work with colleagues at UMass and Google: Xuerui Wang, Natasha Mohanty, Andres Corrada, Wei Li, David Mimno, and Gideon Mann.
Join NCDG and Prof. McCallum for lunch after the seminar, from 12-1pm in Thompson 620. Please RSVP for lunch to Michelle at msagan<at>pubpol.umass.edu. A PDF flyer is available here.
November 30, 2006; 4-5pm; W.E.B. Dubois Library Learning Commons,
"Using Web Tools to Foster Cooperative Forest Management in Vermont and Massachusetts: The ACORN Project" David Kittredge, Professor of Natural Resources Conservation (NRC) at UMass Amherst with Charlie Schweik, Associate Professor of NRC & Public Policy and Associate Director of NCDG; Jennifer Fish, Service Forester with the MA Dept. of Conservation & MS student in NRC; and Alexander Stepanov, PhD student in Engineering
Abstract: ACORN (A CoOperative Resource Network) is an interactive website designed for landowners and others interested in forests in the West and Deerfield River Watersheds in Southern Vermont. This talk will discuss the use of Internet tools to inspire private landowners who have not adopted traditional approaches to forestry assistance and touch on possibilities for cross-boundary cooperation.
October 26, 2006; 4-5pm; W.E.B. DuBois Library Learning Commons, Lower Level Event Space "Chasing Interdisciplinarity while Chasing Tornadoes: an Overview of the CASA Engineering Research Center" Dave McLaughlin, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst and Director of the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA)
Abstract: The CASA team is creating the new technology of user-driven radar networks that are capable of comprehensively mapping regions of the atmosphere that are beyond the reach of today’s radars. The driving vision of the center is that dramatic improvements in sensing, detecting, predicting, warning, and responding to hazardous weather events can be achieved by building a system that targets its resources onto key regions where and when the end-user need is greatest. Achieving this vision requires the sustained collaboration of engineers, decision scientists, computer scientists, meteorologists, and sociologists, working in conjunction with the ultimate end-users, to create a new approach to weather hazard response. Part technical, part human interest, this talk addresses the challenges, the pleasures, and the opportunities inherent in a cross-disciplinary systems-level research environment that address an important national need and provides an exciting and fertile learning environment for tomorrow’s science and engineering students.
May 17, 2006; 12:00-1:30 p.m.; Bell Hall 5th Floor Belfer Building; John F. Kennedy School of Government:
"Citizen Relationship Management: The Rocky Road from Transactions to Empowerment" Stephen F. King, Leeds University Business School, United Kingdom
Co-sponsored with The Program on Networked Governance at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government
March 27, 2006; 12:00 p.m.; Thompson 620
"Public Accountability in the Information Age" A.J. Meijer, Visiting NCDG Faculty; Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands Presentation Slides (261 KB, PowerPoint)
March 6, 2006, 12:00 p.m.; Thompson 620:
"The Collaborative Principles of Open Source Programming" Charles Schweik, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Conservation and CPPA
Part of the Center for Public Policy and Administration's CPPA Colloquium
February 10, 2006; 11:00-12:00; Isenberg School of Management 112:
"The Parable of the Hare and the Tortoise: Small Worlds, Diversity, and System Performance" David Lazer, Associate Professor Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University;Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government; Director of the Program on Networked Governance
NCDG Seminar Co-sponsored with Operations Research/Management Science Seminar Series
October 23 - 28, 2005:
"Cyberweek: ODR, eLawyering and ethics" Cyberweek 2005-2006 presents a new opportunity for us to network with the larger legal community as we welcome the internetBar organization as partners in this year's events. Like past Cyberweeks we will have discussion forums, simulations, and demonstrations of all things ODR and beyond. Please fill out the free Registration form and we will add you to our participant list. See also the Cyberweek website. Organized by The Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (CITDR).
October 27, 2005: , 4:00 - 5:00 lecture; 5:00 - 5:45 demonstration "Open Standards, Open Source and Web Application Development"
Location: UMass W.E.B. DeBois Library Learning Commons, South Corridor
Introduction: Charlie Schweik, UMass Department of Natural Resources Conservation and Center for Public Policy and Administration
Presenter: Paul Coates, an Advisory Software Engineer with IBM's Developer Skills Program
(http://www.ibm.com/developerWorks) | More information (.doc)
September 16, 2005; 12:00 - 3:00 p.m., Taubman Building, Kennedy School of Government
Public Forum: "DNA Fingerprinting & Civil Liberties"
The theme of this Public Forum is “Views from the Other End of the Needle: Present and Future Policies.” Topics to be addressed include lessons learned and policy implications from DNA-based exonerations and innocence projects; DNA fingerprinting and individual rights, emerging issues of law, policy and ethics; post-conviction DNA review models; and effects of DNA forensics on families and communities. Consultants to this project include Drs. Frederick R. Bieber, David Lazer, Philip Reilly, and Mark Rothstein. Further details are available here.
June 7, 2005; 12:00-1:30 p.m.; Taubman 301:
"Can Technology Promote Innovation in Japanese Government?" Hirokazu Okumura, NCDG Research Fellow; University of Tokyo
In this seminar, Professor Okumura will discuss the results of a survey he conducted in winter 2004-2005 that dealt with the question "What applications are used by government officials in the two Major ministries leading e-government policies in Japan?" Approximately 1350 responses were received. The return rate was 20%.
Okumura divided the applications into 7 categories: 1.) Reading documents 2.) Writing, Documents 3.) Searching information, internet websites, legal documents, official publications by government Mail magazines 4.) E-mail communications 5.) E-meeting / discussions 6.) Electronic proceedings, E-approval of official decisions ( In Japan, official decision should be approved by jurisdictionally authorized officials from bottom to top (the level of top may differ case by case), E-transactions 7.) Others, e-learning, schedule management
February 23, 2005, Taubman A, Noon - 1:30 p.m. "Lawrence Lessig, Immanuel Kant and the Concept of the Commons" Thomas Hoeren, Institute of Information, Telecommunications, and Media Law
University of Münster Law School, Germany
April 4, Bell Hall, Noon – 1:30 p.m. "Does Info tech energize young voters? Experimental evidence from the 2002 and 2004 elections" Shanto Iyengar, Stanford University
April 11, Bell Hall, Noon – 1:30 p.m.
"Cyber-infrastructure for the people: Getting There From Here" C. Suzanne Iacono, The National Science Foundation
December 6, Bell Hall, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. "Strategic Information Sharing in Computer-Mediated Groups."
Andrea Hollingshead, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Co-sponsored with Cambridge Colloquium on Complexity and Social Networks
February 19, CBRSS, 34 Kirkland Street, 12:00-1:30 p.m.
"Information Dynamics in the Networked World"
Bernardo Huberman, Systems Research Center, Hewlett Packard Laboratories
March 1, Bell Hall, 12:00-1:30 p.m. "Digital Instrumentation and Control Issues in Nuclear Reactor Safety" George Apostolakis, MIT Department of Nuclear Engineering [Presentation Slides (PDF)]
March 15, Bell Hall, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. "Clustering and community structure in networks" Mark Newman, University of Michigan
Co-sponsored with the Cambridge Colloquium for Complexity and Social Networks.
April 5, Bell Hall, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. "Research collaborations"
Sara Kiesler, Carnegie Mellon University, Human-Computer Interaction Institute
[Presentation slides (pdf)]
April 13, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Taubman Building, Allison Dining Room "Policy Made Public: Technologies of Deliberation and Representation in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan."
David Stark, Columbia University, Center on Organizational Innovation: [2004 Stark CV ] [Stark homepage]
May 10, Bell Hall, 12:00-1:30 p.m.
"Studying Information Technology in Organizations: A Practice Perspective." Wanda Orlikowski, MIT, Sloan School of Management, Organization Studies Group.
September 15, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Taubman AB, fifth floor, KSG "Inequality On-Line: Has the Digital Revolution Reduced Inequality or Exacerbated It?" Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University
Co-sponsored by the Inequality and Social Policy Seminar.
October 1, 4-5:30 p.m., Fainsod Room (L-324), KSG "Offshore IT Outsourcing and Global Competitiveness"
Bruce P. Mehlman, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy
co-sponsored by STPP, CBG and MIT TPP. [Mehlman's Testimony before the House of Representatives]
October 6, 12-1:30 p.m., Fainsod Room (L-324), KSG "Getting Past the ICANN Mess: Net Governance Problems that People Care About"
John G. Palfry, Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School.
Co-sponsored with The Governance of Information Seminar Series.
October 20, 12:00-1:30 p.m., CBRSS "Self-Governance: Agent Modeling of Endogenous, Emergent Institutions"
Robert Axtell, Brookings Institution
Note location: Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, 34 Kirkland St. (walk diagonally through the Yard toward Memorial Hall, turn left at Quincy St., turn right at Kirkland St.).
[Presentation Slides (PDF)]
November 3, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Bell Hall, KSG "Governing Information Quality"
Martin Eppler, Professor, University of Lugano, Switzerland:
Co-sponsored with The Governance of Information Seminar Series.
November 10, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Bell Hall, fifth floor, KSG "Technology, Change, and Policy: How technological change can either undercut or enhance policy, and how one can think about managing this process."
Sandy Pentland, MIT Media Lab
November 24, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Bell Hall, KSG
"Evaluating Telecom Surveillance in the US and Europe: Is Empirical Work Possible?"
Paul Schwartz, Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Co-sponsored with the Governance of Information Seminar Series.
December 8, 12:00-1:30 p.m., CBRSS,34 Kirkland St.[postponed to spring semester] "Information Dynamics in the Networked World" Bernardo Huberman, Systems Research Center, Hewlett Packard Laboratories
February 3, 2003, 11:30 a.m., Fainsod, KSG "What It Takes to Connect the Dots: Individual vs. Team Approaches to Intelligence Analysis" J. Richard Hackman, Cahners-Rabb Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, Harvard University
March 13, 2003, 11:30 a.m., Fainsod, KSG "What Is a Knowledge-based Organization?" Laurence Prusak, Researcher and Consultant. He was the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Knowledge Management (IKM), a global consortium formed to advance the practice of knowledge management though action research
Co-sponsored with the Cambridge Colloquium on Complexity and Social Networks.
April 17, 2003, 6:00 p.m., Starr Auditorium, KSG "Information and Communication Technologies for Development: Fostering International Cooperation" Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, Chairman, Talal Abu-Gazaleh Organization
Co-sponsored with the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program.
April 21, 2003, 11:30 a. m., Fainsod, KSG
"Institutionalizing On-Line Democratic Deliberation"
Peter Shane, Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Public Policy and Director, Institute for the Study of Information Technology and Society, The H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University.
Co-sponsored with The Regulatory Policy Program.
[abstract | video ]
October 16, 11:30 a.m., Bell Hall Does Technology Matter to Digital Government? David Clark, Senior Research Scientist, Laboratory for Computer Sciences and Director, Program on Internet & Telecoms Convergence, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
November 14, 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Bell Hall, "What Governments Do and Why? Electronic Government in Europe"
Kuno Schedler, Professor for Management Economics, University of St Gallen, Switzerland [Presentation Slides (PPT)]
Acknowledgment and Disclaimer - This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers 0131923 and 0630239. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
National Center for Digital Government