Jacob Kathman at the University of Buffalo has an article in the current issue of Conflict Management and Peace Science about his new dataset on the numbers and nationalities of all peacekeeper contributions by month since 1990. This is a pretty fantastic undertaking since peacekeeping data is often difficult to find, and no small feat … Continue reading Disaggregating Peacekeeping Data: A new dataset on peacekeeping contributions
Data
Matrix Math and Paul Revere
This week has been a rather stat oriented week of posts. I blame this on the fact that political economy and peacekeeping has been dominating my official academic life in the form of a comprehensive exam. The silver lining is that I will soon have political economy and peacekeeping content galore. To keep everyone entertained this … Continue reading Matrix Math and Paul Revere
Unpacking P-values: Turning statistical significance into practical significance
I often get questions about the veracity of using statistics to understand conflict and political behavior, especially when using predictive or confirmatory analytic methods. The questions are well founded, since a recent article found that potentially up to 54% of statistical results in the medical field are spurious. This should give social scientists pause, since … Continue reading Unpacking P-values: Turning statistical significance into practical significance
Rob Baker: Managing risk in the open data and crowdsourcing space
Rob Baker, currently a Presidential Innovation Fellow with USAID, was willing to sit down with me earlier this year to discuss risk management and ethics in crowdsourcing in disaster and conflict-affected regions. He's incredibly smart, insightful, and brings a deep technical expertise to the practice of crisis mapping and crowdsourcing given his many years of … Continue reading Rob Baker: Managing risk in the open data and crowdsourcing space
My TechChange Swan Song
Cross posted from the TechChange blog This past Thursday and Friday (May 8 & 9) I participated in the ICTs and Violence Prevention workshop hosted by the World Bank’s Social Development Office. We had an excellent collection of experts from across academia, NGOs, and government who discussed the complexities of using technology for violence prevention. One … Continue reading My TechChange Swan Song
Crowdsourcing 2013’s Content!
So with the new year starting Tuesday, I will be continuing to blog into 2013. The past year has mostly focused on my interest areas, political science, conflict and technology. But I've also mused on things that are not my "core expertise", such as gun control and domestic politics. Since I'll be finishing coursework this … Continue reading Crowdsourcing 2013’s Content!
Amnesty Australia talk
Big shout out to the TechChange team, especially to Gerard McCarthy our Director of Asia/Pacific Programs to getting this video rendered, edited, and up for viewing. Just some thoughts on tech, human rights and small island states - the talk was given in July in Sydney, Australia.
A Musing on Tech for Peacebuilding
It's been ages since I posted, so instead of a targeted piece on some particular topic I thought I'd post something general. Consider it a shakedown post to get the rust off. A bunch of things happened this summer which have shifted my view on technology and peacebuilding. In some ways my belief that these … Continue reading A Musing on Tech for Peacebuilding
Unpacking PopTip: Real time polling is cool, but should I be convinced it’s “right”?
Rarely does a day pass when the team at the TechChange office misses an opportunity to say something like "hey data nerd, look at this and tell us what you think." Often these requests are made unceremoniously on Twitter, forcing me to respond or risk what little confidence the public has vested in my intellectual … Continue reading Unpacking PopTip: Real time polling is cool, but should I be convinced it’s “right”?
Wrapping up in Geneva
Greetings all! So I wanted to post something quickly before I head to London tomorrow, and then finally home on Tuesday. I'll have more to write, and some reviews of the papers from the Tech4Dev conference later this week when I can sit with the conference proceedings and give the papers a good review. I … Continue reading Wrapping up in Geneva
Charles P. Martin-Shields 