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Ushahidi’s blog has a great post on the development of a tech toolbox for election monitoring. Unsurprisingly, it is anchored to the use of Ushahidi as a platform for election monitoring, which has been used quite effectively in India amongst other places.
Through the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), I introduced Web 2.0 and mapping to election monitoring in Sri Lanka around two years ago, realising at the time that the visualisation of election violence and real time monitoring could help media and civil society hold members of political parties and their supporters more accountable for their actions.
There is no other election monitoring agency in the country that uses maps, the web, or Facebook, in a comparable manner and the Government Department of Elections website remains stuck in the 90’s.
Writing in 2009 on the challenge of using new media for election monitoring, I noted that,
Right now, there’s no escaping the labour required for the task – each location and incident is entered into the map directly, no automated source from the web is used to populate maps. Helps us give as close to a real time image of the ground situation in the lead up to and on the day of election, more useful we are told by extensive feedback from local media, than a mashup that just puts unverified reports on a map along with other data streams.
At the time I started to work on using web media for election monitoring, and even today, the installation, configuration and customisation of Ushahidi requires a level of technical expertise that is well beyond every single election monitoring NGO I know of in Sri Lanka. It is therefore not easy to promote or use the system without a sufficient budget to get help in localising it and for staff training. Further, short code SMS’s for purposes of election monitoring are very hard to negotiate with all mobile service providers, given the risk averse nature of these business to monitoring that obviously clearly targets political parties including those which constitute government.
With these limitations in mind, I used the following set of tools to undergird CMEV’s monitoring operations, which continue to date.
Video
I use the Vimeo channel of the Centre for Policy Alternatives to host videos shot using a Flip Mino HD. The Flip records very high quality video, which I process and edit using iMovie on my Mac, saving it in a lower resolution before uploading it to Vimeo using its relatively new (and still buggy) Adobe Air based uploader. I have been forced to use YouTube (e.g. this video) when on the day of an election, Vimeo has temporarily halted uploading and site functionality for routine maintenance.
There is a high degree of interest in these videos. For example, 4 videos uploaded to the CMEV site during the course of the Presidential election day on 26 January 2010 were viewed over 1,400 times.
Mapping
From the get-go, I used Google Maps because of its ease of use and rich feature set. Two years ago, Google Maps didn’t have any of the street level information for key cities it now features. I used a laborious technique of getting lat / long data from one map via Google and entering this into the election monitoring map to plot incidents in cities and towns. Today, this process is made much faster and easier with the street level information that was first featured in 2009.
I have manually plotted well over 1,500 incidents over four elections since 2008, including Sri Lanka’s first post-war Presidential election earlier this year.
For each election, I have created two maps – one plotting election violence leading up to election day, and another plotting election violence on election day.
The map plotting election violence on the day of the Presidential election held on 26 January 2010 has been viewed nearly 26,000 times to date, proving my hunch that information visualised on Google Maps would be in high demand.
Plotting election violence on Google Maps also allows for new forms of advocacy against election violence through the visualisation of patterns and perpetrators, such as A map of shame: Clustering cities and regions with very high levels of election violence.
Backend
I had used WordPress for years, and when CPA’s own website in its previous avatar became too laborious to hold all the information the monitoring was generating, I created a new blog to be the hub for CMEV’s information dissemination. All the while, I kept in mind how CMEV could continue operations even if WordPress temporarily went down during a critical phase of monitoring.
CMEV’s website now holds all of its election monitoring reports, field reports, videos, podcasts and maps, with links to archived material on CPA’s own website.
Podcasts
I recorded all the podcasts in elections before 2010 using my Mac’s in built speaker, which was good enough for the job. I wasn’t aiming for broadcast quality in these recordings, but a clarity good enough to get the message across. I edited the podcasts using my Mac’s GarageBand, adding for example an intro and extro to give it a touch of professional flair.
For the Presidential Election in 2010, we did something completely new and revolutionary in Sri Lanka, using drop.io’s voice mail feature to record election monitoring updates via mobile phones. For the cost of a call to the US, we were able to use mobile phones to give out timely updates that media was able to use as well. As noted on the CMEV site and all of our press releases on election day,
These updates can be downloaded as MP3s for broadcast, listened to online, embedded on any website and social networking platform, emailed or easily linked to. Special incidents will also be covered in these updates, and to help reduce the burden on our monitors, journalists are strongly encouraged to use this feed as their primary channel of regular soundbites from CMEV.
At the time of writing, over 450 had listened to these podcasts.
Drop.io came into its own when on the day of election, just before polls closed, there was a serious question over the eligibility of a leading candidate. I was able to use Skype to record an interview with a leading constitutional lawyer (and friend) and immediately feature it on the drop.io channel for media to pick up on and use to dispel rumours and propaganda.
Social networking
CMEV is the only election monitoring agency to have a presence on Facebook and give out updates using its Twitter feed. But it is not only through CMEV’s Twitter feed that I have given critical updates during elections.
On the 27th of January, I tweeted on Groundviews from 3am throughout the day giving updates that at the time were some of the first eye witness reports on the situation unfolding on the ground, and served to dispel false rumours to boot. My article, Updates capturing aftermath of presidential elections, is a detailed look at how Twitter aided election monitoring and reporting and how its use by Groundviews was unprecedented in Sri Lankan media to report on, what was at the time, a very disturbing situation on the ground.
Photos
Instead of using a custom CMS or uploading them to WordPress, I opted to use Flickr to catalogue CMEV’s photo documentation of election violence and its work. This aspect of CMEV’s work need to be strengthened, but the photos received from the field are all catalogued here, and embedded as appropriate on CMEV’s WordPress blog (often linked to CMEV’s press releases).
Of course, that I haven’t or can’t use the tools mentioned in Ushahidi’s blog post, including the Ushahidi platform itself, is no reflection on their ability to efficiently nod effectively support election monitoring processes. It’s just that in the absence of any funding, and with my limited technical knowledge, I have almost single-handedly demonstrated in Sri Lanka without the use of any of these tools that the violence of political parties and some politicians in particular can be mapped and archived for posterity, to be leveraged by concerned citizens in civil society in on-going agitations for greater democracy.
But is technology alone enough? Even if all these tools and those in Ushahidi’s blog are used, it is any guarantee of a better, more transparent and accountable electoral process and democracy? As I note in Mapping violence during elections and voter education, albeit from a Sri Lankan perspective,
… unless awareness campaigns before an election, and advocacy campaigns after which bring to light, including name and shame, perpetrators of elections violence, these exercises alone, including my own, have little chance of really strengthening democracy. The problem with raising awareness before an election is that NGOs can never match the reach of an incumbent government’s propaganda, or even that of a political party, both of which have vested interests in keeping the public ignorant about the history of candidates and their violence.
The problem with post-election advocacy is that placing the violence of winners in public scrutiny will almost always be (a) seen as a conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of their victory (b) cast as a rival party political bid to discredit the electoral victory and the ‘will of the people’ (c) be seen as some sort of NGO / civil society campaign to discredit the winners.
Technology alone then is no guarantee of cleaner elections. But technology can be part of the solution.
0.000000 0.000000Ushahidi’s blog has a great post on the development of a tech toolbox for election monitoring. Unsurprisingly, it is anchored to the use of Ushahidi as a platform for election monitoring, which has been used quite effectively in India amongst other places.
Through the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), I introduced Web 2.0 and mapping to election monitoring in Sri Lanka around two years ago, realising at the time that the visualisation of election violence and real time monitoring could help media and civil society hold members of political parties and their supporters more accountable for their actions.
There is no other election monitoring agency in the country that uses maps, the web, or Facebook, in a comparable manner and the Government Department of Elections website remains stuck in the 90’s.
Writing in 2009 on the challenge of using new media for election monitoring, I noted that,
Right now, there’s no escaping the labour required for the task – each location and incident is entered into the map directly, no automated source from the web is used to populate maps. Helps us give as close to a real time image of the ground situation in the lead up to and on the day of election, more useful we are told by extensive feedback from local media, than a mashup that just puts unverified reports on a map along with other data streams.
At the time I started to work on using web media for election monitoring, and even today, the installation, configuration and customisation of Ushahidi requires a level of technical expertise that is well beyond every single election monitoring NGO I know of in Sri Lanka. It is therefore not easy to promote or use the system without a sufficient budget to get help in localising it and for staff training. Further, short code SMS’s for purposes of election monitoring are very hard to negotiate with all mobile service providers, given the risk averse nature of these business to monitoring that obviously clearly targets political parties including those which constitute government.
With these limitations in mind, I used the following set of tools to undergird CMEV’s monitoring operations, which continue to date.
Video
I use the Vimeo channel of the Centre for Policy Alternatives to host videos shot using a Flip Mino HD. The Flip records very high quality video, which I process and edit using iMovie on my Mac, saving it in a lower resolution before uploading it to Vimeo using its relatively new (and still buggy) Adobe Air based uploader. I have been forced to use YouTube (e.g. this video) when on the day of an election, Vimeo has temporarily halted uploading and site functionality for routine maintenance.
There is a high degree of interest in these videos. For example, 4 videos uploaded to the CMEV site during the course of the Presidential election day on 26 January 2010 were viewed over 1,400 times.
Mapping
From the get-go, I used Google Maps because of its ease of use and rich feature set. Two years ago, Google Maps didn’t have any of the street level information for key cities it now features. I used a laborious technique of getting lat / long data from one map via Google and entering this into the election monitoring map to plot incidents in cities and towns. Today, this process is made much faster and easier with the street level information that was first featured in 2009.
I have manually plotted well over 1,500 incidents over four elections since 2008, including Sri Lanka’s first post-war Presidential election earlier this year.
For each election, I have created two maps – one plotting election violence leading up to election day, and another plotting election violence on election day.
The map plotting election violence on the day of the Presidential election held on 26 January 2010 has been viewed nearly 26,000 times to date, proving my hunch that information visualised on Google Maps would be in high demand.
Plotting election violence on Google Maps also allows for new forms of advocacy against election violence through the visualisation of patterns and perpetrators, such as A map of shame: Clustering cities and regions with very high levels of election violence.
Backend
I had used WordPress for years, and when CPA’s own website in its previous avatar became too laborious to hold all the information the monitoring was generating, I created a new blog to be the hub for CMEV’s information dissemination. All the while, I kept in mind how CMEV could continue operations even if WordPress temporarily went down during a critical phase of monitoring.
CMEV’s website now holds all of its election monitoring reports, field reports, videos, podcasts and maps, with links to archived material on CPA’s own website.
Podcasts
I recorded all the podcasts in elections before 2010 using my Mac’s in built speaker, which was good enough for the job. I wasn’t aiming for broadcast quality in these recordings, but a clarity good enough to get the message across. I edited the podcasts using my Mac’s GarageBand, adding for example an intro and extro to give it a touch of professional flair.
For the Presidential Election in 2010, we did something completely new and revolutionary in Sri Lanka, using drop.io’s voice mail feature to record election monitoring updates via mobile phones. For the cost of a call to the US, we were able to use mobile phones to give out timely updates that media was able to use as well. As noted on the CMEV site and all of our press releases on election day,
These updates can be downloaded as MP3s for broadcast, listened to online, embedded on any website and social networking platform, emailed or easily linked to. Special incidents will also be covered in these updates, and to help reduce the burden on our monitors, journalists are strongly encouraged to use this feed as their primary channel of regular soundbites from CMEV.
At the time of writing, over 450 had listened to these podcasts.
Drop.io came into its own when on the day of election, just before polls closed, there was a serious question over the eligibility of a leading candidate. I was able to use Skype to record an interview with a leading constitutional lawyer (and friend) and immediately feature it on the drop.io channel for media to pick up on and use to dispel rumours and propaganda.
Social networking
CMEV is the only election monitoring agency to have a presence on Facebook and give out updates using its Twitter feed. But it is not only through CMEV’s Twitter feed that I have given critical updates during elections.
On the 27th of January, I tweeted on Groundviews from 3am throughout the day giving updates that at the time were some of the first eye witness reports on the situation unfolding on the ground, and served to dispel false rumours to boot. My article, Updates capturing aftermath of presidential elections, is a detailed look at how Twitter aided election monitoring and reporting and how its use by Groundviews was unprecedented in Sri Lankan media to report on, what was at the time, a very disturbing situation on the ground.
Photos
Instead of using a custom CMS or uploading them to WordPress, I opted to use Flickr to catalogue CMEV’s photo documentation of election violence and its work. This aspect of CMEV’s work need to be strengthened, but the photos received from the field are all catalogued here, and embedded as appropriate on CMEV’s WordPress blog (often linked to CMEV’s press releases).
Of course, that I haven’t or can’t use the tools mentioned in Ushahidi’s blog post, including the Ushahidi platform itself, is no reflection on their ability to efficiently nod effectively support election monitoring processes. It’s just that in the absence of any funding, and with my limited technical knowledge, I have almost single-handedly demonstrated in Sri Lanka without the use of any of these tools that the violence of political parties and some politicians in particular can be mapped and archived for posterity, to be leveraged by concerned citizens in civil society in on-going agitations for greater democracy.
But is technology alone enough? Even if all these tools and those in Ushahidi’s blog are used, it is any guarantee of a better, more transparent and accountable electoral process and democracy? As I note in Mapping violence during elections and voter education, albeit from a Sri Lankan perspective,
… unless awareness campaigns before an election, and advocacy campaigns after which bring to light, including name and shame, perpetrators of elections violence, these exercises alone, including my own, have little chance of really strengthening democracy. The problem with raising awareness before an election is that NGOs can never match the reach of an incumbent government’s propaganda, or even that of a political party, both of which have vested interests in keeping the public ignorant about the history of candidates and their violence.
The problem with post-election advocacy is that placing the violence of winners in public scrutiny will almost always be (a) seen as a conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of their victory (b) cast as a rival party political bid to discredit the electoral victory and the ‘will of the people’ (c) be seen as some sort of NGO / civil society campaign to discredit the winners.
Technology alone then is no guarantee of cleaner elections. But technology can be part of the solution.
As millions of eyes were tuned to the Oscars last night, the stage was set for one man to use the massive platform for a unique SMS call-to-action, whether the show’s producers wanted him to or not.
During the acceptance speech for winning best Documentary, the subject of which, Ric O’Barry, held up a sign that read “text DOLPHIN to 44144.” Even though the camera cut away quickly, the message was still understood.
O’Barry, who captured and trained the first five dolphins who played Flipper in the popular 1960s TV series, dedicated the rest of his life to protecting and freeing dolphins from captivity after witnessing the ramifications of his actions — as well as the suicide of one of the Flipper dolphins in his arms. His life’s work was chronicled in the documentary “The Cove,” which won the Oscar last night for best documentary of the year.
Following through on the campaign and texting “Dolphin” to 44144 returned a link to an Online petition and a means to send a letter to Pres. Obama. MsgMe, the provider of the 44144 short code used in the call-to-action, said even though cameras cut away quickly when O’Barry held up the sign, the response was still significant.
“We saw steady traffic for the next five hours and have seen a huge spike in support over Twitter which we believe is generating the bulk of the traffic,” said Matt Silk of Waterfall Mobile, provider of the MsgMe SMS platform in an email today. ”New subscribers are still coming in at a pretty healthy clip to sign the petition so we are ecstatic with the viral explosion of the campaign.”
“A student of design, Medhi has developed text-free user interfaces (UIs) to allow any illiterate or semi-literate person on first contact with a computer, to immediately know how to proceed with minimal or no assistance.
As Medhi points out, in text-based conventional information architecture found in mobile phones and PCs, there are a number of usability challenges that semi literate people face. By using a combination of voice, video and graphics in an innovative way, Medhi has overcome this challenge.
Medhi discovered the kind of barriers that illiterate populations face in using technology through an ethnographic design process involving more than 400 women from low-income, low-literate communities across India, the Philippines, and South Africa.”
Picture this: it’s October 7, 2011, and a major hazard hits a highly vulnerable population resulting in a devastating disaster. The entire humanitarian response community mobilizes within 48 hours. Days later, the cell phone network is back up and dozens of SMS systems are activated by large and small organizations. Two or three of these systems use short codes thanks to rapid collaboration with the country’s national telecommunication companies. The other SMS systems all use long codes.
That picture concerns me, a lot. The technology community’s response to Haiti has demonstrated that using SMS to communicate with disaster affected communities can save lives, hundreds of lives. Humanitarian organizations and NGOs have all taken note and nothing will prevent them from setting up their own SMS systems in the near future. This wouldn’t worry me if coordination wasn’t already a major challenge in this space.
Let me elaborate on the above picture.
Picture further that one organization decides to send out regular SMS broadcasts to the disaster affected communities to improve their situational awareness and prevent panic. This is an important service during the first few days of a disaster. But imagine that this organization does not provide a way for users receiving this information to unsubscribe or to specify exactly what type of information they would like and for which locations. Next suppose that three NGOs set up long codes to do the same. Now imagine that two major organizations independently set up an alerts SMS system, asking individuals to text in their location and most urgent needs.
This is an information disaster in the making for communities in crisis.
So what are we going to do to prevent the above picture from turning into reality? The group Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) is probably best placed to support a coordinating role in this space. But before we even get to this, our own community should start drafting an “SMS Code of Conduct for Disaster Response” for ourselves. I can think of no better way to start the process by using distributed cognition (aka crowdsourcing). This blog post on lessons learned and best practices may be informative as well.
Here are a few ideas to begin with:
There are likely dozens more points we could add. So please feel free to do so in the comments section below. I will then create a more structured Google Doc out of your replies and send this out for further peer reviewing.
When Public Radio Exchange (PRX) developed the free Public Radio Player for the iPhone, the nonprofit hoped for 500,000 downloads. It now has 2.5 million. "I'm very happy with that number," says PRX executive director Jake Shapiro.
He should be. The PRX dev team has already cranked out two great iPhone apps, one for public radio in general and one for the popular show This American Life in particular. Both apps have positioned public radio as a major force when it comes to on-demand mobile applications.
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nate@arstechnica.com (Nate Anderson)Guest blogger Marie Bjerede is Vice President of Wireless Education Technology at Qualcomm, Inc., where she focuses on addressing the technical, economic, social, and systemic challenges to enabling every student to gain the advantages afforded those who have 24/7 mobile broadband access.
In most schools, cell phones are checked at the door -- or at best powered off during school hours in a tacit "don't ask, don't tell" understanding between students and administrators. This wide-spread technology ban is a response to real concerns: if kids have unfettered instant access to the Internet at school, how do we keep them safe, how do we keep out inappropriate content, how do we prevent real-time cyberbullying, how do we even keep their attention in class when competing with messaging, gaming, and surfing?
At the same time, though, there is a growing sense among education thought leaders and policy leaders that not only are cell phones here to stay but there seems to be interesting potential to use these small, connected computers that so many students already have. I've been insanely fortunate over the past year to work closely with Wireless Reach (Qualcomm's strategic social initiative) and real innovators in education who are finding that cell phones in classrooms don't have to be a danger or a distraction but, in fact, can help kids learn in some surprising ways.
During the 2007-2008 school year, Wireless Reach began funding Project K-Nect, a pilot project in rural North Carolina where high school students received supplemental algebra problem sets on smartphones (the phones were provided by the project). The outcomes are promising -- classes using the smartphones have consistently achieved significantly higher proficiency rates on their end of course exams.
Now, the population is small (on the order of 150 kids) and the make-up is essentially what researchers call a "convenience sample." It was selected from a population of kids that: largely qualified for free and reduced lunch; didn't have home Internet; and had low math proficiency. It was not balanced with a formally designed control group. There was self-selection on the part of the participating teachers -- they are extremely motivated -- but the results are consistent and startling. Overall, proficiency rates increased by 30 percent. In the best case, one class using the devices had 50 percent more kids finishing the year proficient than a class learning the same material from the same teacher during the same school year, but without the cell phones.
So what's so different about delivering problem sets on a cell phone instead of a textbook? The first obvious answer is that the cell phone version is multi-media. The Project K-Nect problem sets begin with a Flash video visually demonstrating the problem -- you could theorize that this context prepares the student to understand the subsequent text-based problem better. You could also theorize that watching a Flash animation is more engaging (or just plain fun) and so more likely to keep students' attention.
Another difference is that digital content is personalized. In this case, that just means that different students get the same problem (how long will it take a space ship to catch up with a space probe?) but with different numbers plugged in (the velocity might be given as 40,000 mph for one student and 37,500 mph for another). The result is that students can't simply compare answers - they need to compare solutions. "How did you get that" replaces "what did you get?"
A third difference is that, unlike the traditional practice where each student works on textbook problems in isolation, the learning environment in Project K-Nect is participative. Students are asked to record their solutions on a shared blog and are encouraged to both post and comment. Over time, a learning community has emerged that crosses classrooms and schools and adds the kind of human interaction that an isolated, individual drill (be it textbook or digital) lacks and that a single teacher is unlikely to have the bandwidth to provide to each student.
A final observation is that having a digitally mediated component to the learning environment can be surprisingly inclusive. As teachers in Project K-Nect began to experiment with using the blogs and instant messaging for discussing math in the classroom, an unexpected (to us) dynamic emerged. It turns out that many kids who don't like speaking up in class are completely comfortable speaking up online. Students who don't like to raise their hands use the devices to ask questions or participate in collaborative problem solving. There appears to be something democratizing about having a "back channel" as part of the learning environment.
So far all these distinctions are not unique to cell phones but common to any personal computing solution. A WiFi-equipped netbook at every desk could readily provide the same kind of differentiation from a lecture-and-textbook based traditional classroom. But taking the next step from computer labs or laptops at school to a personal, connected device changes the game. Beyond just computing in the classroom, cell phones give the students in Project K-Nect access to the Internet and their learning communities 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, whether they are at school, at home, on the bus, at after-school activities, or in the case of one chronically ill student, at the hospital.
Back when I was in school, I remember math learning went something like this:
Because the students in Project K-Nect have 24/7 mobile broadband, that dynamic has changed for them. When a student sits down to work on problems and gets stuck, she can post a question or just a general plea for help to the shared blog. Soon, several classmates will reply with help and encouragement. Students who might otherwise give up can get just-in-time support to help them be successful while the students who are providing the help get the reinforcement and deeper understanding that comes from teaching.
Teachers from the pilot also tell me that their instruction has changed since they started using cell phones in class. I had a chance to see one teacher give her students a simple bingo game to play on the phone that involved solving a number of algebra problems. She told me that her kids had far more patience for, and interest in, working problems as quickly and accurately as possible when it was part of a digital game rather than performing the same drill using worksheets.
I've seen another teacher use Poll Everywhere software with the students to check on their understanding during a lecture. The teacher posed a math problem, the students texted their replies to the Poll Everywhere site, and a pie chart showing the distribution of answers was instantly projected at the front of the class, giving the teacher a chance to clear up any misconceptions before moving on.
Much of the teaching has also shifted to problem-based learning. I was fascinated to see an example of this on one visit. The students worked in groups to develop a public service announcement describing the dangers of compound interest and credit card debt. They then made a video of their commercial using their cell phones and posted it to the shared blog. Not only did they learn by discussing and debating as a team how best to communicate compound interest, but they then had the resulting video to refer to when it came time to review for the test. In fact, they had everyone's videos at their fingertips via their cell phone browsers. If one team's explanation didn't kindle the "aha" moment, another one just might. Once again, the connected learning community had a significant and unanticipated impact on these students.
As for the issues of safety and appropriate use of the Internet, each student in the pilot has signed an acceptable use policy outlining their responsibilities as cell phone users at school. Soti's MobiControl software, which allows the teachers to interact with each student's cell phone, also allows them to monitor use and apply standard classroom discipline techniques for inappropriate behavior in the virtual world -- just as they manage behavior in physical hallways and on campus grounds. Not surprisingly, after some initial testing of the boundaries, a culture of responsible use quickly evolved among the students.
Finally, what about messaging, gaming, and surfing in class? In the Project K-Nect classrooms, students don't use these to play virtual hooky, but they do use them regularly for learning. In the classrooms I've had a chance to see, the students are far too busy participating to tune out. Of all the expected and unexpected outcomes of this project, I find the way that cell phones have facilitated the social aspects of learning to be one of the most intriguing.
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