Government on the Web

We are excited to announce an open position for a Big Data Research Officer, who will contribute to three exciting Big Data projects at the OII (Leaders and Followers in Online Activism, Big Data: Demonstrating the Value of the UK Web Domain Dataset for Social Science Research, and The Internet, Political Science and Public Policy). We are looking for an individual with strong computer science skills and an interest in the social aspects of online technologies.

Applications close 16 March, and further information, contact details, and application information are available on the University of Oxford's Job Search website.

The Government on the Web team is pleased to announce the publication of Government and IT—"a recipe for rip-offs": Time for a new approach: Further Report by the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee. The report incorporates the Government's response to the Committee's Twelfth Report of 2010-12 of the same name and includes comments from Professor Helen Margetts, Oxford Internet Institute, and Professor Patrick Dunleavy and Jane Tinkler, LSE Public Policy Group.

Presented by Helen Margetts and Peter John at the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) general conference in Rejkavik on 26 August 2011.

This paper tests whether the social information provided by the internet affects the decision to participate in politics. In a field experiment, subjects could choose to sign petitions and donate money to support causes. Participants were randomized into treatment groups that received varying information about how many other people had participated and a control group receiving no social information.