California Government Technology
California Will Start Scoring Information Technology Contractors
Lawmakers questioned Department of Technology Director Ramos and Consumer Affairs Director Awet Kidane about why the BrEZE project is on track to cost nearly four times its original $27 million budget. [“The Department of Consumer Affairs is very excited to announce that a new online program is coming that will revolutionize the way we do business, the way our licensees and license applicants do business with us, and the way consumers interact with us. It’s called BreEZe – BreEZe, because many of the tasks that were paper-based and took some time and effort to complete will now be a, well, BreEZe. https://www.dca.ca.gov/dca/about_dca/breeze/index.shtml]
Accenture provided the only bid for this project and the contract was said to be “unusual.” “Accenture… required the terms as a condition of taking the work. State officials didn’t want to put the contract out to bid again. So they accepted terms – since renegotiated –that could pay Accenture tens of millions of dollars even if it stops working on BreEZe.”
–Ortiz, J., Sacramento Bee, 3.23.14
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article16112972.html
Government Technology
White House building a ‘Yelp’ to rate federal services
The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) announced that it would develop a rating system device for consumers to provide instant feedback. In other words, consumers using agency services could immediately record their pleasure or displeasure electronically. Lisa Danzig, associate director for performance and personnel at the OMB called this device a “federal feedback button…kind of like a Yelp for the federal government.” The initial rollout will only include a few websites while Danzig works with other agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This may seem ambitious, but Danzig believes “the agency [TSA] could compare millions of customer experiences a day across hundreds of airports, data that could lead to further innovation and improvement in the customer experience.”
–Andy Medici, Federal Times, 3.24.15
http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/it/2015/03/24/yelp-pilot/70378800/
Health Technology
Health Information Exchange: Lessons From Libraries
Apparently medical staffs trying to successfully use Electronic Health Records are living in a “nightmare.” The primary care provider is still using multiple fax lines and “prints stacks of paper from the EHR to fax machines to the specialist’s office, where it is scanned in heaps as unstructured data into the chart…” Without universal standards for the same process, there cannot be seamless use of the EHR systems between offices next door from each other. There isn’t yet a universal standard used to code medical diagnoses for example, and coding for different labs and imaging processes can also be different. The “model for information exchange,” is libraries. Library standardization began with the Library of Congress, went on to MARC records (using taxonomy – further standardization) allowing for the storage of standard descriptions, to the creation of OCLC. OCLC, when cataloged, is “interoperable”, allowing users everywhere to locate the exact status of a book or journal. This is the sort of standardized system necessary for the eventual success of Electronic Health Records as initially assumed. “We need a governing body as influential as the Library of Congress to initiate development and promote standards in the best interests of national health.”
–Takaro, C. 3.26.15
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/perspectives/2015/health-information-exchange-lessons-from-libraries
Libraries and Librarians: Resources
ProQuest and Google collaborate to improve researchers’ workflows
“ProQuest will enable the full text of its scholarly journal content to be indexed in Google Scholar, improving research outcomes. Work is underway and the company anticipates that by the third-quarter of 2015, users starting their research in Google Scholar will be able to access scholarly content via ProQuest.”
–ProQuest Press Release, 3.25.15
http://librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=20452
LexisNexis Academic will soon be accessible through OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services
“OCLC and LexisNexis are working together to make the LexisNexis Academic database available to mutual subscribers through OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.”
–OCLC , 3.25.15
http://librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=20460
Open Access
Major Publisher Retracts 43 Scientific Papers Amid Wider Fake Peer-Review Scandal
“…the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), a multidisciplinary group that includes more than 9,000 journal editors, issued a statement suggesting a much broader potential problem. The committee, it said, “has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers.” BioMed began the search for “deceptive reviewers” in November based on evidence of what appeared to be fabricated reviews. In the process of their investigation they heard from authors about third-party reviewers who promised “favorable reviews,” for example, among those third parties that are honorable. A search under “retraction” in the BioMed search box provides a list of the articles retracted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/27/fabricated-peer-reviews-prompt-scientific-journal-to-retract-43-papers-systematic-scheme-may-affect-other-journals/ AND Retraction Watch
http://retractionwatch.com/2015/03/26/biomed-central-retracting-43-papers-for-fake-peer-review/ AND BioMed Central
http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2015/03/26/manipulation-peer-review/
Privacy
DMV Photo-Sharing, Facial Recognition Nixed from California Strategic Plan
“More than 1,500 Californians over the last two weeks joined EFF in an email campaign to defeat a proposal by an obscure committee within the California Department of Justice that would have compromised the privacy and security of their driver-license photos…the CLETS Advisory Committee (CAC) voted unanimously to delete “Goal 8,” which encompassed both the image sharing and facial recognition, from its strategic plan. (CLETS, by the way, stands for the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, the statewide police information-sharing network.)”
–Dave Maass, EFF, 3.26.15
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/03/dmv-photo-sharing-facial-recognition-nixed-california-strategic-plan