GovEx Data Points

We know that collecting and analyzing data generates insights. But how can we transform those moments of insight into enduring knowledge that guides the organization, even when priorities and staff change? In today’s episode, we discuss Knowledge Management - the work of collecting insights into a big-picture understanding of our how our organization and efforts work. We’ll look at how this process applies to the work cities engage in, and how you might implement it in your own work.

Today, we take a look at GovEx's engagement with the City of Rochester, MN to support their affordable housing initiative. We'll look at where the initiative came from, explore how Rochester collected and leveraged its data, and cover valuable takeaways for other cities looking to conduct this work.

We're all under pressure to cope during the COVID-19 pandemic. But how can we make the most of this time, and what benefits of this situation might we be overlooking? Today, members of the GovEx Academy explore how COVID-19 has placed a greater emphasis on distance learning, bringing an instructor's perspective to the challenges we face and exploring some of the tools you can use to make your online courses more manageable.

Today, we discuss the impact COVID-19 has had on food system resilience. Joined by two graduate students focused on this work, we’ll take a look at what cities focused on this issue are doing right now, and how hazard and vulnerability assessment plays a role in the planning of a city’s food system framework.

Today, we join the City of Asheville’s Equity and Inclusion Director Kimberlee Archie and IT Director Jonathan Feldman to discuss the city's work on embedding equity into its data work. We'll also talk about how the work has pivoted after the George Floyd protests, ultimately culminating in the city's Reparations Declaration.

During the holidays, food drives and charitable giving campaigns raise awareness of food insecurity, but people experience disruptions in access to healthy food year round. New research by Dr. Kristin Mmari and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Public Health reveals that some adolescents engage in risky behavior to get access to food or money to buy food.

In this Data Points episode, our GovEx Director of Applied Research discusses these findings with Dr. Mmari and Anushka Jajodia, a Social Design Fellow from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Together with researchers from the JHU Department of Civil Engineering, this team is taking a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding and mapping systemic barriers to food access, and developing a process to put this valuable research into action.

For further reading, see the relevant Urban Institute study linked here.

When we thinking of measuring outcomes in education, we often think of test scores as the ultimate indicator. But a team of practitioners and researchers in Baltimore City are working together to use a science-based method to identify and implement incremental changes, and to empower teachers, school leaders and others to understand and use multiple layers of data in their day-to-day work.

On this episode of Data Points we speak with Jarrod Bolte, founder of Improving Education; Faith Connolly, Executive Director of the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC); and Marc Stein, Associate Professor of Education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and Research Co-Director of BERC, about how practitioners are using improvement science to make smaller changes to achieve outcomes in areas like early literacy and attendance for students in Baltimore City schools.

For further reading, check out these EdWeek blogs from the perspectives of researcher and practitioner. And linked here is a video of Improvement Science at work in Baltimore City high schools. Additional information and resources are available through the Carnegie Foundation, and Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

At GovEx, a lot of our work is focused on cities. But counties play a crucial role in using data to improve public outcomes as well. From health to elections and justice programming, counties provide critical services to people across the US.

To explore these often overlooked stakeholders in government data work, we are diving deep through a conversation with two represenatives from NACo, the National Assocation of Counties. In this episode, we talked with Natalie Ortiz and Kathy Rowings about the work of NACo connecting counties together, their work on Data-Driven Justice, and how they use data themselves to advance better public outcomes across all sorts of counties from urban to rural and everywhere in between.

If you are interested in learning more about how counties use data, get in touch with us at [email protected] and we are happy to discuss.

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact.

Algorithms are a growing part of government work. They play a part in items ranging from traffic light decisions to criminal sentencing and a variety of topics in between. However, there is not a consistent way to think about algorithms as a public sector employee, leading to a wide range of usage.

GovEx and a few partners set out to change that through the creation of the Ethics and Algorithms Toolkit. In this episode, we talk with Joy Bonaguro, former Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, and Miriam McKinney, an analyst on the GovEx team, about the development of the toolkit. They describe the work to gather feedback from stakeholders, the iteration of work on the toolkit itself, and the ways that anyone can use the toolkit to help center their own work.

If you are interested in learning more about algorithms, check out a preview of the toolkit here. If you're interested in working with the toolkit and need assistance, please contact us at [email protected].

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact.

Being a Smart City is a new hot goal for cities. From Singapore to Amsterdam and anywhere in between, cities are trying to become smarter and implementing projects that include "smart city" components. But what does it mean? What makes a city smart and what components make a project relevant for smart cities?

Because of the variety of concepts and definitions (check out the Wikipedia page for a long list of possibilities) we take a deeper look at Smart Cities in this episode. Along with our guest and friend of the podcast, GovEx's Director of Applied Research Katherine Klosek, we discuss how GovEx defines smart cities, how to make residents and their needs a central piece of smart cities strategy, and several examples of Smart Cities implementation in the US from Colorado Springs, CO, Louisville, KY, and Columbus, OH.

If you want to learn more or are interested in getting started implementing a Smart Cities strategy, check out GovEx's Smart Cities Guide and get in touch with us at [email protected] if you have any further questions.

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact.