A Social Sector Digital Information Laboratory
Proposal by the Center for Digital Information
Confidential Draft // last updated: April 16, 2013 3:08am
Proposal by the Center for Digital Information
Confidential Draft // last updated: April 16, 2013 3:08am
The Center for Digital Information (CDI) was formed in 2010 to help policy research organizations, foundations, and academic research institutes more effectively inform our public dialogue using digital technology. The Center's strategy is to rethink the field's traditional output of reports, white papers, policy briefs, books and journal articles to use the emerging capabilities of modern digital media. In short, CDI's mission is to take social sector policy research "beyond the PDF document."
The trends leading to the creation of CDI continue. Internet penetration has topped 80%. More than three in five American homes (62%) now have broadband. Adoption of new digital devices such as smartphones (50%) and tablets (19%, doubling from December to January) has been rapid. The internet has surpassed all other media except for television as a source of information on public issues (43% now use the internet for news on national and international issues). Social networking use is skyrocketing (53% now use social media). And new tools and techniques for programming digital interfaces have changed expectations of how online material should look and behave.
Note: These trends are documented on the new CDI Dashboard.
In response to these trends, information industries are completely re-imagining their products for digital media. Newspapers, books, magazines, textbooks and other documents are being recreated, not as digital facsimiles as they were in the recent past, but as new interactive experiences built specifically for the medium. These industries are acting on the realization that to stand pat with a two-decade-old digital product is to fail.
While others adapt and innovate, social sector information — a vital resource in our public dialogue and policymaking, and a major area of investment by foundations and others — remains well behind the digital curve. The field's wealth of in-depth, rigorous analysis and data on public issues still ends up as PDF documents on web sites 98% of the time. This is a visible symptom of an outdated method of rendering and communicating information. As technology progresses, information consumption on public issues moves online, and the traditional intermediary of commercial journalism unravels, this old but nearly universal strategy leaves the social sector poorly positioned in an increasingly digital public arena. The sector's product line needs a refresh.
CDI has been effective in describing this problem, identifying its origins and proposing possible remedies. It has begun to strike a chord with stakeholders in policy research and philanthropy. CDI convened a roundtable of foundation representatives in late 2010 to introduce the Center and its mission. It subsequently secured funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in 2011, established an affiliation with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and created a presence in Washington, DC. CDI has engaged in a series of pilot projects with RWJF research grantees, resulting in several model digital information products. On February 15, 2012, CDI brought together more than 40 leading policy research organizations, government agencies and the White House for a discussion appropriately titled Beyond the PDF: Think Tanks in a New Digital Age.
CDI continued to build momentum by hosting foundation leaders and sector experts at Philanthropy and the Digital Public Dialogue, a special session at the Council on Foundations annual conference in Los Angeles on April 30. The roundtable drew a standing-room only crowd of conference attendees.
There appears to be agreement that the field needs to be more innovative in order to remain effective into the future. There is a strong desire for a partner like the Center for Digital Information to help show the way. However, the path forward must be marked by more than conversation. The time is right for more direct action.
As its centerpiece program going forward, CDI proposes the creation of CDILAB — a social sector digital laboratory — tasked exclusively with rolling up its sleeves to reinvent policy research for modern digital media.
CDILAB will combine the following assets:
Talent – digital designers and programmers, fellows from key technology fields, and a director to channel their skills to social sector information
Space – a physical space for collaboration, experimentation and mutual capacity building among researchers, foundation representatives, and the lab's digital production talent
Technology – the required technological infrastructure to run the laboratory and publish its output
A laboratory model will enable the experimentation, flexibility, rapid prototyping, testing, ongoing evaluation, training and capacity building necessary to succeed in a shifting digital landscape. These are difficult and cost-prohibitive to achieve when continually outsourcing one-off web projects.
Input to the lab will be traditional knowledge products: reports, white papers, policy briefs, books and journal articles. The lab's output will be production-quality interactive digital resources: interactive graphics, database tools, mapping applications, mobile and tablet presentations, and more.
These projects will be pushed out of the lab in three ways:
A – to a new social sector digital brand with the working title "Almanac" (almanac.org). Rather than another archive of existing material, Almanac will be a digital imprint applied to the range of new interactive products emerging from the lab.
B – back to research partners to publish on their own digital properties, present to policymakers, or use as prototypes in future research proposals.
C – to media partners, who — other than a few large players in journalism — also find themselves constrained in their efforts to develop high-value online presentations.
Following a staged growth plan, the lab will eventually consist of 12-15 staff members, including interaction designers, developers, project managers and a director. The lab will also house fellows-in-residence plucked from technology, design, digital journalism, publishing and related fields.
The lab will invite collaborators from policy research organizations, foundations, academic research institutes and other nonprofits that develop and disseminate policy-relevant information as part of their mission. In addition to collaborative project work, the lab will place an emphasis on helping these partners propose and fund future policy research initiatives to directly integrate modern digital output.
CDILAB will be located in Washington, DC. This will provide ready access to the experts within policy research organizations and research-focused nonprofits. It will also give the lab and its partners access to key audiences such as journalists, policymakers and other researchers.
CDILAB will not be a fee-for-service operation. It will sustain itself initially through major grant funding from large foundations, sponsorships of digitalinfo.org features or for work in particular issue areas, and contracts with operating foundations. Fellows will be supported through stipends and donated time from their parent companies. These companies will also provide supplemental funds for shared office space, technical resources and operating costs.
CDILAB's fundraising target is $3 million or more per year over an initial three-year period to cover staffing, space, technology, supplies, travel, meeting expenses, communications, outreach and overhead. This level of backing will enable the lab to attract and retain top talent, and signal a major commitment to placing social sector knowledge first in line for digital innovation.