One of the underlying -- and motivating -- assumptions here at the IAJ is that having good data is a prerequisite to doing good analysis.  And the analytic journalist needs to know first what data is available before any questions can be raised about the quality and defintion of that data.  All this means we are talking about transparency in government and, when possible, the private sector.  (It also applies to transparency in journalism.  More on that here and in days to come.)

One of our favorite and most reliable sources is The Scout Report.  It informs us today:

"Development Gateway: Public Sector Transparency
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/special/transparency

The Scout Report has profiled various offerings from the Development Gateway in the past several years, but one of the  group's latest creations is both
thought-provoking and helpful for policy-makers and persons generally interested in the subject of governance. This particular site casts an eye on the question of transparency in governmental transactions through interviews with leaders from a broad range of sectors, along with allowing space for individual feedback. The "Points of View" section is a good place to start, as it includes commentary from government officials from Bolivia, Guatemala, and Tanzania about the question of public sector transparency.  Other sections on the site address such thorny questions as "What tools help sustain public sector transparency?" and "What practices promote public-private partnerships?" Those visual learners coming to visit the site may appreciate the gallery of charts that offer indicators of levels ofgovernance and transparency for more than 209 countries. [KMG]"

On that site you will find:
"This Special Report on Public Sector Transparency illustrates current international trends in advancing transparency through civil society, government and the media. Through extensive interviews with leaders across a range of sectors as well as survey feedback from Development Gateway users, this Report explores the practical issues of ensuring openness in governments around the world."

In the IAJ's on-going search for new methodologies, reinforcing lessons often come through.  On Saturday, April 30, NPR's Scott Simon taked with John Lentini about analyzing fires.  Lentini's comments emphasize the need for questioning assumptions and pressing hard to clarify definitions.

From NPR's "Weekend Edition Saturday:"
"John Lentini, an arson expert, tells Scott Simon about changes that have brought into question many convictions based on outdated methods of determining arson. One of this convictions resulted in the execution of a Texas man in 2004."  To listen, click here.

Derek Willis -- who might be considered an analytic journalist's analytic journalist -- reminded us today that there already is an abundance of resources in every newsroom in the world.  The problem is, journalists don't understand the concept of synergy, and that one piece of your information and one piece of my information can total the three pieces required to produce an uncommonly good story.

See:
Derek Willis' The Scoop
http://www.thescoop.org/thefix/

Spatial data analysis and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology contribute to the advancement of crime analysis and the better understanding of criminal behavior. Since 1997 the Mapping & Analysis for Public Safety (MAPS) program, formerly the Crime Mapping Research Center (CMRC), has reached out to academics and practitioners alike in the criminology, criminal justice and law enforcement communities to bridge the gap between research and practice. The MAPS program awards grants, sponsors conferences and workshops, publishes reports, and provides guidance. It also disseminates information on training opportunities in spatial data analysis techniques and GIS technology. In all, the program focuses on research, evaluation, development, coordination, and dissemination.

A while ago we participated in an on-line project to test the small world hypothesis -- the idea that people are connected by only six degrees of separation.

Some of the results from that project have been published in the journal Science.  You can download a copy of the results here, http://smallworld.columbia.edu/results.html and also examine the methodology.

This study has some interesting implications, not just about "social connectedness" but how one can use the internet and, Gasp!, "self-selecting respondents" to do what seems to be valid social science research, at least of a specific sort.

By Alex Knott

"WASHINGTON, April 7, 2005 — Special interests and the lobbyists they employ have reported spending, since 1998, a total of almost $13 billion to influence Congress, the White House and more than 200 federal agencies. They've hired a couple thousand former government officials to influence federal policy on everything from abortion and adoption to taxation and welfare. And they've filed—most of the time—thousands of pages of disclosure forms with the Senate Office of Public Records and the House Clerk's Office...."

The folks at LII ("Librarian's Index to the Internet") delivered good works again this week.

jux2
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   Test version for this "comparative research tool" designed to answer these questions: how different are the major Internet search engines, and is one any better than the others? The site is a search engine aggregator that simultaneously queries Yahoo, Google, and Ask Jeeves. Results include the rankings from the various search engines and other comparative and statistical
information.
* http://www.jux2.com
* http://www.jux2.com/stats.php

Also:

Marion Brechner Citizen Action Project (CAP)
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   This project's goal is to allow citizens "to better understand public access to local government information in all 50 states."
   Includes ratings that are based on the analysis of statutes, constitutions, and case law. Also includes summaries of "sunshine" laws, and comparisons of state laws. The "I can help you get started" section is not very useful; use the categories to the left instead. From the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
* http://www.citizenaccess.org

Copyright 2005 by Librarians' Index to the Internet, LII.

The Search Engine Report is yet another valuable tool that serious researchers use as a "heads up" device.  It's a monthly newsletter that covers developments in the search engine industry [Industry?  Who would have thought it?] and changes to the Search Engine Watch web site, http://searchenginewatch.com/.  You can subscribe at http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/

From a story in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Does this proposed legislation have implications for what we do?  For example, what if your county is licensing tax assessor data to a reseller?  Yet another barrier to public access to our data?  How about what the good guys at http://www.fecinfo.com/ do, commercially, with the FEC data?

Wednesday, April 6, 2005 (SF Chronicle)
Another incident for UC
By David Lazarus
   The University of California has suffered yet another potential data breach, this one involving the names and Social Security numbers of about 7, 000 students, faculty and staff at the San Francisco campus.
   For Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., enough is enough. She told me Tuesday that she'll introduce federal legislation within the next few days requiring encryption of all data stored for commercial purposes.
   "What this shows is that there is enormous sloppy handling of personal data," Feinstein said.
   This latest incident involving UCSF follows news that UC Berkeley lost control of personal info for nearly 100,000 grad students, alumni and applicants last month when a laptop computer was stolen from an unlocked
campus office.
   It also follows a flurry of other security lapses, including San Francisco's Wells Fargo, the nation's fourth-largest bank, experiencing no fewer than three data breaches due to stolen computers over the past year and a half....

More at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/06/BUGEOC3L5N1.DTL

Elliott Parker, and the Journet listserv, tips us to a NewScientist.com report....
"Governments and big business like to indulge in media spin, and that means knowing what is being said about them. But finding out is becoming ever more difficult, with thousands of news outlets, websites and blogs to monitor.
"Now a British company is about to launch a software program that can automatically gauge the tone of any electronic document. It can tell whether a newspaper article is reporting a political party’s policy in a positive or negative light, for instance, or whether an online review is praising a product or damning it. Welcome to the automation of PR. " http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7210&feedId=online-news_rss20)--at

Interesting perhaps in its nuance, but hardly new in concept. Here at the IAJ we've long been impressed with the work done at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory around "information visualization."
"Information Visualization is the direct visualization of a representation of selected features or elements of complex multi-dimensional data. Data that can be used to create a visualization includes text, image data, sound, voice, video - and of course, all kinds of numerical data." See http://www.pnl.gov/infoviz/about.html and http://www.pnl.gov/infoviz/technologies.html