Sentiment analysis: where 'disabled' and 'disability' are often considered negative terms

It's come to my attention that a number of automated sentiment analysis tools include 'disabled' and 'disability' as negative terms.

This means that when calculating whether a particular statement in social media is positive or negative, the use of these words is used by these sentiment analysis tools as an indication that the statement is negative towards the topic of the statement - such as a topic, issue, individual or organisation.

I've checked a number of sentiment dictionaries online and found that both 'disabled' and 'disability' appear frequently as negative terms. However I have not yet been able to confirm whether any sentiment analysis products treat these words in this manner.

This disturbs me, given the efforts of governments and civic organisations in Australia and many other countries to remove negative stigma attached to the word 'disabled', even given its potential application in statements such as 'their system has been disabled'.

It also concerns me that agencies engaging online about disabilities or with disabled people, might accept that the sentiment reported by their social media monitoring tools indicates negativity where in actuality no negativity exists.

I would caution government agencies using automated sentiment analysis tools to get to know they work and check how terms such as 'disability' and 'disabled' are treated in these systems.

I'd welcome comments from makers of sentiment analysis tools to confirm how they treat these words or from agencies using automated sentiment tracking if they've seen these words or others rated negatively or positively in ways which might be misleading and misrepresent the actual sentiment.

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Is it time to drop 'www' from government site promotions?

National Australia Bank (nab.com.au)

Banks do it, utilities do it, even media does it, is it time for government to also do it - drop the 'www' from web site promotions in advertising and links?

This came to my attention while playing with the Australian Department of Health and Ageing's new my child's eHealth record app.

Looking at the information for people without an eHealth account, the help page lists the new my.gov.au site in two places as www.my.gov.au, and once as my.gov.au.

It also states that people can register for an ehealth account at www.ehealth.gov.au - ehealth.gov.au would work just as well.

The designation 'www' stems from the earliest days of the world wide web. It was used to indicate to web browsers that a given resource was a web page rather than a different type of content, such as a file repository (ftp).

As the web grew, so did the use of www, even though technology improved such that web browsers no longer needed it to recognise a web page and web servers no longer needed to use it to select the right page to serve.

In fact 'www' has been technically unnecessary since the late 1990s. It continued to be used out of habit by marketers, due to the use of old web server technology and as it was recognised by early internet users as a designator of a web site.

AGL (agl.com.au)

Since the early 2000s we've seen a decline in the use of 'www' in sites and site promotion as the online community matured and moved on from needing it for recognition of sites.

First pure online services such as Google and Facebook stopped using it - rebranding themselves as google.com and facebook.com.

Next the news media, banks and utilities started dropping www from their website addresses. Most advertising by these organisations in Australia now excludes www, illustrated in the advertising images at right (look at the small print) as 'TheAustralian.com.au', 'AGL.com.au' and 'nab.com.au'.

Government has pursued a more uneven course. There's still inconsistency as to when and whether agencies and councils use 'www' or exclude it from web addresses.

I can appreciate that there may be concerns over whether government's audiences may not understand that a web address without 'www' may not be a web page - though I'd love to see the research in support (and understand what they think it might be instead).

I expect that these concerns are most commonly voiced by older public servants, who more clearly remember the early days of the internet and remember the days when 'www' was necessary.

The Australian (TheAustralian.com.au)

However times have changed.

It seems clear Australian banks, utilities and news media are convinced 'www' is now unnecessary and have put in place consistency policies avoiding its use.

It's also clear most web-based services have also dropped the use of 'www' - to shorten their name and focus on their brand.

In fact none of the top ten sites visited by Australians still use 'www' in their branding or advertising.

Australian governments have few, if any, customers, clients or stakeholders who would not use one or more of the private services considered above. Australians are big users of web-based email, of search engines, of online banking and media.

Given government is being inconsistent - sometimes using 'www', sometimes not, this can only confuse audiences at best, or make government look less professional and old-fashioned at worst. So isn't it time for agencies to come to a common view on its use?

The Australian Government has firm web standards in place through AGIMO's webguide (which drops its own www). The Webguide already states that agencies should accomodate users who don't use 'www':

When you are setting up a website on a domain, you should ensure that the website can be reached whether or not a user adds ‘www.‘ at the front of the domain name when typing it into their browser. It is very common today for users to drop ‘www.’ from website addresses and agencies should accommodate this behaviour.

Source: http://webguide.gov.au/initial-requirements/domain-names-naming-your-site/ 

The next step is to mandate an approach - either using 'www' or dropping it.

If required 'www' should be used consistently in advertising, branding and links.

If 'www' isn't required it should be dropped from these communications devices - at least on a moving forward basis.

Either way, it's time for government across Australia to consider their policy around the use of 'www'.

Whether to ban it or use it consistently, the worst outcome is to leave things as they stand, to be inconsistent in the use of 'www'.

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Government 2.0 is dead, long live Government

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Victorian Government's Communicators' Group, discussing how effective government had been at meeting the challenge of rapid change throughout the last thirty years.

As part of my presentation I revisited the area of government 2.0 - giving my view that there's no longer such a thing - it's now simply government.

Social media is now mainstream in the community and the majority of Australian federal, state and territory departments officially use social media channels as part of their business as usual engagement with citizens, stakeholders and/or staff.

We sometimes overlook how massive a change this is - the first mention of Government 2.0 in Australia that I've been able to identify was only in September 2007, and the first Twitter account was established in November 2007.

In the last five and a half years, social media has become an extremely powerful tool for governments to engage communities, source knowledge and provide support.

This is only likely to grow into the future as we all become better at using digital channels, as more services go online. Mobile has also reached a tipping point in Australia, 50% of active internet connections, and is growing fast, meaning that digital channels will undergo even more changes towards a digital first approach.

I also highlighted four examples of what I consider current best practice in public sector digital engagement, looking at the areas of citizen-led engagement, crowdsourcing, budget savings and policy codesign.

These are only opinions and at a given point in time - there's more to come as the public sector further grows its digital capabilities and expertise.



However while Gov 2.0 might have largely merged into standard public sector practices, there's still a shortage of experienced digital engagement professionals in the sector and enormous need for ongoing education, training and support.

Ultimately I expect to see digital competency as a horizontal skill, required by the majority of public servants to support their ability to effectively recommend and implement appropriate engagement and service channels to meet public needs. However there's still a long road to travel and much that agencies will need to learn and consider along the way.

I'm going to continue using the term 'Government 2.0' for some time as, despite my view, it still has some value in defining a specific set of approaches and channels for public sector engagement, and providing a focal point for discussions regarding the ongoing change governments face online.

However I believe that Government 2.0 is realistically now simply Government - with the new approaches and channels it involved now officially part and parcel of 21st century governance.

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GovHack 2013 - my top ten picks

Last weekend (31 May - 2 June) was a big weekend for Government 2.0 in Australia, with the first truly national GovHack held across eight locations, including seven of Australia's eight major states and territories.

With over $170,000 in prizes, and around 100 national and local prizes on offer, GovHack 2013 attracted 900 participants, who formed into 134 teams to create 124 apps using open government data - of which 108 were submitted by deadline.

Sponsors included a range of small, medium and large companies and included a number of government agencies, who used the event for inspiration on how open data could be used to generate new insights and improve public awareness and understanding.

I was unable to attend due to personal commitments, however kept an eye on the event remotely via the #govhack tag on Twitter, the event website and the online dashboard (image above).

The event, as anticipated, resulted in some awesome visualisations, tools and ideas - ranging from the visual mapping of immigration to Australia, which put asylum seeker arrivals in proportion; to the creation of jewelry based on open data.

Some awards have already been given out, with others to be decided by Thursday.

A process of public voting for entries is now underway - and you can vote for your favourite entries at http://hackerspace.govhack.org/

However here are my top ten favourite entries this year.

Immigration in proportion

This is an awesome way to visualise immigration to Australia, the type of visualisation that governments should be using to put data in perspective.

Explanation:
A visualisation of all immigration to Australia within 2011-12, created for Govhack 2013. Each dot represents one person.

Red dot: immigration through skilled entry, family reunion or special eligibility schemes.
Blue dot: refugees who arrive by boat (IMA = irregular maritime arrival).
Green dot: refugees who arrive by plane (non-IMA).

Refugees arriving through offshore resettlement (eg, from refugee camps overseas) are not currently shown.

Data is from Department of Immigration and Citizenship and Refugee Council of Australia.

Credits: Steve Bennett, Andrew Wise, Darren Yu.



Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/asylum-seekers-proportion-and-getting-sense-scale

Trove: Open it up

While I don't care much for the word games, I love the concept of Trove having its own Captcha - which government agencies could use to enlist Australians in crowdsourcing the digitalisation of our national newspaper archive.

View it at: http://ec2-54-253-113-204.ap-southeast-2.compute.amazonaws.com/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/open-it

APS Jobs Gazetter

The APS Jobs Gazetter takes Australian Public Service (APS) jobs information, drawing from the (PDF) APS Jobs Gazette and presents it graphically by type of job over time, based on search terms entered.

This makes it possible to track the ebb and flow of different job types in the APS, very useful for detecting changing patterns in employment over time that simply cannot be achieved via other APS resources.

View it at: http://gazetteer.pv.tl
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/aps-jobs-gazetteer-exploring-public-service-jobs

Australia in review

It can be difficult to get a clear picture of the Australia's past - with data spread across many sources and many accounts giving a partial sense of each year.

Australia in review is a useful addition to this area, providing a useful and usable snapshop of Australia in each of the last 40 years - with the ability to expand to provide all kinds of custom information.

View it at: http://www.bradandglen.com/govhack/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/australia-review-air

Deathmatch.me

There's many preconceptions about the major causes of death in Australia, and deathmatch.me takes a lighthearted approach to correcting these, by presenting causes of death in one-on-one matches to the... er... death.

View it at: http://deathmatch.me/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/deathmatchme

Explorations in flight

Ever been interested in seeing where people come from to visit Australia, or how this has changed over the years?

Explorations in flight provides a 20-year picture of flight arrivals and departures for Australia, showing the rise in travel and changes in origin.

View it at: http://flinklabs.com/labs/flights/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/explorations-flight-httpflinklabscomlabsflights

Giving kids better health outcomes

This hack isn't simply interesting, but important for supporting parents and health professionals to improve the health outcomes for their kids by understanding local issues.

The data is currently only for South Australia, but hopefully will be increased to cover the entire country.

View it at: http://www.unleashed2013.org/dashboard
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/giving-them-better-chance-life-analytics-meets-early-childhood-development

Survival kit for international students going to NSW

This site provides information for international students on where the best places are for them to stay, relative to the university they are going to attend.

I like it because it fills a need for a group who otherwise might struggle to make the best decision for themselves due to lack of familiarity with Australia.

View it at: http://govhack2013.kelvinism.com/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/stay-here-not-there-survival-kit-international-students-coming-nsw

The open index

How can the public critically assess which government agencies are being the most open? For that matter, how can agencies and politicians assess this?

The open index provides a useful way of measuring openness, using a variety of measures and approaches. Agree or disagree with the weightings (and it does need some work - for example more overdue QoNs is not a good thing), it is a valuable approach for providing some kind of comparison between agencies.

View it at: http://theopenindex.org/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/open-index

Where do my taxes go?

I like this Govhack entry as it demystifies where tax money goes - something that is very hard to get in a snapshot from the budget or any other government information.

This is the type of tool I expect to see from modern tax agencies. The fun facts are a blast too.

View it at: http://christonkin.id.au/govhack/final/index.html
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/where-do-my-taxes-go

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Australian open data goes CKAN - but remains fragmented by jurisdiction

In the run-up to GovHack this weekend, Australian governments have been hard at work preparing new or updated open data sites, many using CKAN as their base technology.

This includes the new Australian Government beta data.gov.au site, the new South Australian government's data.sa.gov.au and the NSW government's new data.nsw.gov.au/data/.

We also have Queensland's data.qld.gov.au, Victoria's data.vic.gov.au and the ACT's data.act.gov.au (which uses Socrata) at state level.

Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have yet to launch open data sites, although I know at least two of these jurisdictions are considering how they begin.

It's fantastic to see Australian jurisdictions opening up their data, as well as the increasing mandate at political levels, highlighted by Queensland's appointment last year of an Assistant Minister for eGovernment, and the recent Australian Government announcement that they were joining the international Open Government Partnership (OGP).

However, let's hold the horses here a moment.

Why are Australian jurisdictions each launching their own open data site when we could have a single whole-of-government site - which would provide easy access to any data, from any Australian jurisdiction, side-by-side?

Why not set common naming conventions for datasets across jurisdictions, common data formats for its release and common field (and field names) in each common dataset?

Unfortunately this fragmented approach is still the reality for Australia - even when there's a commitment to the same direction or approach, various governments prefer to 'go their own way' rather than work together to save costs and improve efficiencies.

Each jurisdiction sees itself as a 'special case' and there's limited capability across governments to coordinate a single solution that wouldn't get mired in politics - at both political and bureaucratic levels.

So while Australia is stepping forward with open data, it's also revealing the issues in our system of government. Cost-efficiency is often trumped by political advantage or concerns that certain jurisdictions are not carrying their 'fair share' of the load.

Given it is unlikely that jurisdictions will solve these issues quickly - what I would really like to see out of GovHack this year is a project that aggregates all of Australia's open data into a single repository, matches it and presents it in a common data format.

This would allow people seeking common datasets from different jurisdictions to find them all in one place and use them easily due to a consistent format, rather than having to go to six or more sites to find the data and having to convert it for use.

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