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[PAST EVENT] Computer Science Colloquium
November 1, 2013
3pm
AidData is a partnership between the College of William and Mary, Brigham Young University, and Development Gateway that seeks to make aid information more accessible and usable to researchers, policymakers, practitioners, journalists, and civil society groups. AidData originated with a 2003 grant from the National Science Foundation, and after ten years of work by more than a dozen faculty members, several hundreds of student research assistants, and a large number of university and non-profit affiliates, AidData has attracted more than $30 million in competitive grants and contracts from private foundations, government agencies, and international organizations. AidData has established itself as a global leader in the provision and analysis of detailed, reliable, and comprehensive information about foreign assistance projects. Its methodology for sub-nationally geo-referencing the precise latitude and longitude coordinates of individual foreign aid activities has become a new global reporting standard under the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). AidData's new online platform, which can be accessed at {{http://www.aiddata.org}}, also makes it vastly easier for both technical and non-technical users to import, collate, visualize, analyze, and export high-resolution, spatial data on aid, poverty, health, education, conflict, environmental degradation, and governance. Going forward, AidData plans to introduce a range of user feedback functionalities to the aiddata.org platform, including the ability to comment on individual aid projects, upload documents, videos, and photographs, and challenge the accuracy of individual data points. Ultimately, AidData aspires to make its online platform a place where citizen monitors and civil society groups can access and provide real-time or close-to-real-time information about the status and performance of individual development projects. This will require that AidData strengthen its internal capabilities to source, store, manage, and analyze vast stores of structured and unstructured data.
Bio:
Brad Parks is Co-Executive Director of AidData, Research Faculty at the College of William and Mary's Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, and a Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Brad has written and contributed to several books and articles on aid allocation and impact. Most recently, he co-authored Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (MIT Press, 2007). Brad holds an M.Sc. in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science and B.A. in International Relations from the College of William and Mary.
Michael Tierney is a co-founder of AidData, Director of the Institute for the Theory & Practice of International Relations, and Director of International Relations and Associate Professor of Government at William & Mary. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2003. His interests include international organizations, international relations theory, political economy of development and institutions, and foreign aid. He has written numerous articles and book chapters applying agency theory to cases in international relations.
Bio:
Brad Parks is Co-Executive Director of AidData, Research Faculty at the College of William and Mary's Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, and a Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Brad has written and contributed to several books and articles on aid allocation and impact. Most recently, he co-authored Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (MIT Press, 2007). Brad holds an M.Sc. in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science and B.A. in International Relations from the College of William and Mary.
Michael Tierney is a co-founder of AidData, Director of the Institute for the Theory & Practice of International Relations, and Director of International Relations and Associate Professor of Government at William & Mary. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2003. His interests include international organizations, international relations theory, political economy of development and institutions, and foreign aid. He has written numerous articles and book chapters applying agency theory to cases in international relations.
Contact
[[xshen, Xipeng Shen]]