Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 17, 2011

Guest Beneblog by Patrick Ball, Jeff Klingner, and Kristian Lum After the earthquake in Haiti, Ushahidi organized a centralized text messaging system to allow people to inform others about people trapped under damaged buildings and other humanitarian crises. The text message stream doesn't help the decision process.

Statistics 263

Statistics Data Haiti Stream 263

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 28, 2012

Over the last 17 years, Kar and I crossed paths in Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia, and many times at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS. Kar was a forensic anthropologist who specialized in human rights cases, and she was a founders of our Colombian partner organization EQUITAS ).

Colombia 133

Colombia Guatemala Haiti Mentoring 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 28, 2011

The correlation found in Haiti is an example of a "confounding factor". Misunderstanding relationships in data is a problem because it can lead to choosing less effective, more expensive data instead of choosing obvious, more accurate starting points.

Issue 160

Issue Data Haiti Stream 160

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 7, 2011

Thanks to commenter Differance bringing up in response to to our last post on this topic that made me want to take a new tack. You're absolutely right that information quality comes from people and that data's fitness for a particular purpose is very contextual. To continue in this direction, let’s look at how people use this information.

Picture 140

Picture Data Disaster Map 140