Social science sites of the week
Gov.uk launched.
Beta site opens for public testing. It is the intention that this will eventually replace Directgov as a single one stop shop for citizens to access uk government information. Try it out to give your opinion.
Other good places for finding commentary on e-government in the UK are
The E-government bulletin from Headstar which discuses and summaries news stories.
PEPNET – network of interested citizens, public bodies interested in e-participation.
Socitm- membership association for all ICT professionals working in Local Authorities but some news releases offered for free. Se the free downloads from meetings.
LSE Digital Library Launch
The LSE has recently launched a digital library. The first collection is the diaries of Beatrice Webb.
Beatrice Webb was born in 1858, the eighth daughter of Richard Potter, a wealthy businessman, Beatrice records the activities of her daily life, the interactions with friends and family, and her most private thoughts and fears. In 1883 Beatrice took up social work in London, acting as a rent collector for the Charity Organisation Society and working undercover as a seamstress in a sweatshop in 1888. She began writing on social subjects and eventually started moving in the same circles as Sidney Webb, her future husband. The Webbs devoted their lives to socialism, becoming central members of the Fabian Society, founders of the London School of Economics, and constant campaigners for the welfare state
Entries we particularly liked:
Take a look at these pages – written in 1937 which describe her attitude towards psychoanalysis and the new science of psychology which might help with war insanity!
Take a look at these pages – written just before the 1910 election in which Beatrice Webb discusses ‘ the rotten issues’ that have recently dominated British politics, the possible impact of the payment of MPs and women’s suffrage!
Other useful page includes her famous comments that the 1926 general strike will fail and criticisms of Miner’s leader AJ Cook in the 1920s.
This is due to be the first of many launches of collections relevant to social science, economic and social history.Keep checking the digital library for more updates
Kuwait elections this week.
See the coverage in our blog.
If you are looking for Middle East information. Good starting points are
TEIM Election WatchAn excellent site for monitoring elections in the Middle East and Arab World.
Administered by Observatorio Electoral (Election Watch TEIM)
Taller de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Includes country profiles, newsletters and reports on elections from Morocco and Mauritania in the West to Malaysia and Indonesia in the East. Good assessments of whether elections are open and democratic. Free access to background reports on recent and forthcoming elections. an electoral calendar .
Other good sites for academic studies of for Arab elections are
Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (Pogar)A United Nations Programme.
Which aims to promote reform. Includes reports on anti-corruption programes, parliament and democracy
Arab Reform initiative.
A network of policy institutes based in Arab, North American and European nations which aims to promote and research economic, social and political reforms in the region. A key place for finding recent project news, research publications
Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS)
A non-governmental organisation which promotes and studies human rights across the region Its website has reports covering justice, the death penalty and parliamentary democracy
Latest Global think tanks ranking 2011
Compiled by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) at the International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania. Ranks the most influential research centres worldwide. Categories include top by region, top by area of research (includes health, environment, development, economics, social policy) website also has a useful think tanks directory by region and/or theme.
Get ahead of the games.
Site launched by Transport for London on behalf of the Olympic Delivery Authority, London 2012, the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency, National Rail and the Mayor of London. Includes information and maps of travel hotspots likely to be effected by the London 2012 Olympic Games. See interactive maps of different times of the day.
For research on the Olympics see the UK web archiving consortium initiative. which is creating a permanent web archive of sites created by key organizations during this period. There are currently over 240 being saved. Browse the collection.
National Railway Museum online posters collection.
Browse online this fascinating collection of several hundred historic railway advertising posters from the UK.
Fascinating for study of advertising history, social history see this example of attitudes towards gender and travel some items are records only. Others have full colour images. Each has date copyright details. Sort by region, company.
Creative Diversity Network
Membership forum which seeks to make the business case for increased diversity. Membership includes BBC channel 4, Sky ITV. Includes ethnic and other forms of diversity. For instance see this report on age diversity in TV broadcasting. A good place for finding out about projects/ research covering bias in the media coverage,
FlackCheck.org
A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, it aims to check and hold the us media accountable for reporting of political issues with frequent use of humour and parody.
There is currently a section for presidential debates. Coverage of political campaign ads in Florida
Value of the web
Interesting site supported by Google which aims to provide quantitative data research on the value of the internet to society. Contributors include: Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte Access Economics, McKinsey Global Institute, Nomura Research Institute, Sogang University Research, Institute for Market Economy.
The site posts reports that emphasise the positive impact on such sectors as the economy. It includes worldwide examples.
Bangladesh Journals OnLine (BanglaJOL)
Free access to a collection of over 75 academic journals published in Bangladesh
Covering a range of topics. There is an emphasis upon scientific topics but there is also coverage of health and development topics. good for locating materials which may have been missed by the more mainstream journal indexes Journals Online project as part of the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERii) which provides support to researchers around the world through access to information and training and support for the use of information. Other JOL projects are: Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL), 67 titles Philippines Journals Online (PhilJOL) 43 titles and Sri Lanka Journals Online (SLJOL) over 300 titles many with full text articles.
Other good free listing of Ejournals include: African journals onlineand doaj which is a great listing of titles from
Lund University currently over 7,400 listed covering all disciplines.
