Reflection Paper Outline
Interactive Democracy of Information Giving More Information to the Public: A Case Study using Public Records (will make title more succinct)
I. Explain the function of the files and how this relates to democratic information
a. providing and opening access to records
b. extracting data from paper records while preserving the original format
c. providing some of this information digitally which may alleviate the need to use paper records
d. creating a service learning environment for interns and showing them that their service will make a difference to citizens who need access to this information
II. Specifics of the Coroner Project
a. discussion of intended audience and potential for impact
b. value added if potential users have computers/literacy, also discuss how this project improves access to those who may be on the other end of the digital divide.
c. enabling citizens to have knowledge of the past which is considered a benefit in a democratic society
III. Specifics of Service Learning Project
a. student interns as service learning guinea pigs
b. evaluating student motivation and reporting on student experience both graduate and undergraduate level
c. evaluating my expectations, growth, and flexibility with the experience
d. learning outcomes-did it lessen the digital divide?
IV. Theory (this will likely be peppered throughout the paper and not its own section)
a. will explore the support/detract scenario for democracy of information
b. will specifically address privacy in the digital realm comparing it with past concepts of privacy
c. specifics of democratic process and its relationship to accountability
d. equality/inequalities in other social realms should be irrelevant when providing access
e. more will come to mind when writing!
Sources so Far (not including our 4 books for this course)
MacNeil, Heather. Without Consent. The Society of American Archivists and The Scarecrow Press, Inc: Metuchen, N.J. 1992
Heather MacNeil introduces the concept of the risk-benefit model which is typically used in the area of biomedical research, and alerts us that there are really no comparable methodological predictors when assessing privacy within social science research
Allegheny County Office of the Coroner, Case file records, 1887-1973, AIS198207, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
The actual project my service learning is based on- 800 cubic feet of paper records recording coroner/autopsy results as well as personal and social information through affidavits, eyewitness accounts, police reports, suicide notes, and other means.
http://www.coronercasefile.pbwiki.com
This wiki was created to enhance and help track the project as well as making our findings open to the public.
Randall P. Bezanson. The Right to Privacy Revisited: Privacy, News, and Social Change, 1890-1990. California Law Review, Vol. 80, No.5 (Oct., 1992)
Excellent discussion as Randall Bezanson refers extensively to the work of Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis who, in 1890, published The Right to Privacy. Bezanson traces the evolution of legal and social construct during this time period which neatly correlates to the industrial era of the records I discuss.
Sherratt, Yvonne. Continental Philosophy of Social Science: Hermeneutics, Genealogy, and Critical Theory from Greece to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006
Will draw on this book and O’Hara in the theory section. Sherratt’s book is helpful as it traces time periods and the evolution of thought.
Smith, Janna Malamud. Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life. Reading, Massachussets: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1997
May use this book as it provides a discussion of the concept of personal privacy and again establishes how ideas of privacy have changed so much over time.
Dervin, Brenda. “Information ßà Democracy: An Examination of Underlying Assumptions.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 45, no. 6 (1994)
Brenda Dervin discusses and deconstructs some of the myths associated with the democratization of information and the societal view that freely available information is “good” while inaccessible or hidden information is “bad.”
Heylighen, Francis. “Introduction, Principia Cybernetica Web Project.” 1993. Accessed September 29, 2007.
Memetics, an approach that looks at the transfer of human cultural information such as ideas, mannerisms, and other individual traits to other humans. I might use this to discuss knowledge transfer-I also may decide that it makes the paper to long!
Privacy and Confidentiality Perspectives, eds. Menzi L.Behrnd-Klodt and Peter Wosh, Society of American Archivists, 2005
Excellent collection of articles by archivists who have teased out a number of the privacy issues faced within archival material. In particular for this paper I may use information from Barbara Craig’s article about protecting the confidences of health information.
