Ver 1.0 -- Workshop on database validity - CALL FOR PAPERS

[Tom Johnson]

All:

This will be going to listservs in a week or two, but I wanted to
extend a personal invitation to join us in Ver 1.0.  Some of the FRIAM
gang have already indicated their intent to participate, once again
illustrating the quite amazing level of intellectual resources we have
in the small town in the Southwest.

We do hope you will consider preparing a paper because your years of
experience and insights will be infinitely valuable in breaking what
appears to be new ground

See the attached for more details.

-tom

----------------------------------------------------

CALL FOR PAPERS

Ver 1.0
A workshop on public database verification
for journalists and social scientists

April 9-12, 2006
Santa Fe, NM USA

Sponsored by the Institute for Analytic Journalism
http://www.analyticjournalism.com

THE CHALLENGE::
An uncountable number of public agency databases have been created in
the past 30 years.  More and more, public and private decision-makers
draw on this collected, digital data to make decisions about
everything from disciplining doctors to zoning decisions to law
enforcement to deciding who gets to vote.  The often-unquestioned
assumption is that the data, as found, analyzed and presented by a
government or quasi-government agency, is valid.  Increasingly,
anecdotal evidence indicates that data is riddled with serious errors.
Often, if initial investigations indicate the data is too suspect --
and the cost to clean the data by hand or automatically too high --
then good and important analysis and investigations are put aside.

THE FOCUS:
Twenty participants in the three-day workshop will explore developing
statistical and other methodological tools suitable for social
scientists, biomedical and behavioral researchers, journalists and
other interested investigators to determine the veracity of public
records databases.
-- Participants will learn how reporters and public administrators
discovered, analyzed, verified and corrected public databases.
-- Participants will learn how biomedical researchers, social
scientists and investigators from other disciplines cope with the
record validation problem.
-- Participants, in small-group breakout sessions, will develop
first-phase experimental strategies to ultimately measure the validity
of databases.
-- The intent is to approach the problem of database veracity at a
high theoretical/experimental level while constantly keeping in mind
the pragmatic needs of analysts.

THE PARTICIPANTS::
By invitation based on proposals for submitted papers and
presentations.  Eight to ten journalists with track records of
high-concept involvement in analytic journalism and who have
demonstrated in-depth knowledge of database sciences will participate.
An equal number of participants will be biomedical researchers,
public administrators, data-mining experts, statisticians, forensic
accountants, computer scientists and social scientists interested in
the problem of database veracity.

More detailed information found at:

http://www.ver1point0.org/
________________________________

We look forward to your participation.

-Tom Johnson

==============================================
Institute for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, NM USA
http://www.analyticjournalism.com

Co-directors:
Steve Doig, J. T. Johnson, Steve Ross
==============================================
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[Giles Bowkett]

Hi all -- quick intro, I'm a Web developer, I discovered this list
while in California/considering returning to Santa Fe, Steve G. told
me about it, now I'm back in SFe, so I subbed and I've been lurking
for a bit.

Anyway, if this is going to be an actual physical conference, I just
wanted to say that your dream keynote speaker might be David Brin.
He's a sci-fi author with a doctoral degree in some kind of physics (I
think) and he's written a nonfiction book called "The Transparent
Society" (or something very similar). The basic idea is that the only
way to ensure liberty and security and other basic common-good things
is to expose these various databases and make them all entirely
public, so that their data can be cross-checked very easily. Of course
a lot of his book has to do with governmental databases, police
surveillance video, and so on and so forth. I think the book was
written before 9/11 but has only become more relevant since then.
Obviously he'd have some great things to say if you managed to land
him.


On 9/12/05, J T Johnson <tom at jtjohnson.com> wrote:

> All:
>
> This will be going to listservs in a week or two, but I wanted to
> extend a personal invitation to join us in Ver 1.0.  Some of the FRIAM
> gang have already indicated their intent to participate, once again
> illustrating the quite amazing level of intellectual resources we have
> in the small town in the Southwest.
>
> We do hope you will consider preparing a paper because your years of
> experience and insights will be infinitely valuable in breaking what
> appears to be new ground
>
> See the attached for more details.
>
> -tom
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> CALL FOR PAPERS
>
> Ver 1.0
> A workshop on public database verification
> for journalists and social scientists
>
> April 9-12, 2006
> Santa Fe, NM USA
>
> Sponsored by the Institute for Analytic Journalism
> http://www.analyticjournalism.com
>
> THE CHALLENGE::
> An uncountable number of public agency databases have been created in
> the past 30 years.  More and more, public and private decision-makers
> draw on this collected, digital data to make decisions about
> everything from disciplining doctors to zoning decisions to law
> enforcement to deciding who gets to vote.  The often-unquestioned
> assumption is that the data, as found, analyzed and presented by a
> government or quasi-government agency, is valid.  Increasingly,
> anecdotal evidence indicates that data is riddled with serious errors.
> Often, if initial investigations indicate the data is too suspect --
> and the cost to clean the data by hand or automatically too high --
> then good and important analysis and investigations are put aside.
>
> THE FOCUS:
> Twenty participants in the three-day workshop will explore developing
> statistical and other methodological tools suitable for social
> scientists, biomedical and behavioral researchers, journalists and
> other interested investigators to determine the veracity of public
> records databases.
> -- Participants will learn how reporters and public administrators
> discovered, analyzed, verified and corrected public databases.
> -- Participants will learn how biomedical researchers, social
> scientists and investigators from other disciplines cope with the
> record validation problem.
> -- Participants, in small-group breakout sessions, will develop
> first-phase experimental strategies to ultimately measure the validity
> of databases.
> -- The intent is to approach the problem of database veracity at a
> high theoretical/experimental level while constantly keeping in mind
> the pragmatic needs of analysts.
>
> THE PARTICIPANTS::
> By invitation based on proposals for submitted papers and
> presentations.  Eight to ten journalists with track records of
> high-concept involvement in analytic journalism and who have
> demonstrated in-depth knowledge of database sciences will participate.
> An equal number of participants will be biomedical researchers,
> public administrators, data-mining experts, statisticians, forensic
> accountants, computer scientists and social scientists interested in
> the problem of database veracity.
>
> More detailed information found at:
>
> http://www.ver1point0.org/
> ________________________________
>
> We look forward to your participation.
>
> -Tom Johnson
>
> ==============================================
> Institute for Analytic Journalism
> Santa Fe, NM USA
> http://www.analyticjournalism.com
>
> Co-directors:
> Steve Doig, J. T. Johnson, Steve Ross
> ==============================================
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>
>

--
Giles Bowkett = Giles Goat Boy
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org/