Implementation plan of evidence-based policy

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Scope

How can the better policy practises identified in Yhtäköyttä-project be implemented into national governance? Especially actions that support the government are examined.

Answer

The implementation plan includes three new social innovations, that will be taken into use in the decision support for the government's work. These are a) shared understanding as a goal for knowledge work, b) variables in structuring and interpreting of information and c) respect theory to motivate the production of information.

Shared understanding as a goal for knowledge work

Shared understanding between two individuals about a particular topic means a situation where each individual is able to correctly explain what the other thinks about the topic and why. This definition can be extended also to a larger group. Here shared understanding is a written description of the topic that covers the thinking and reasoning on the topic of all members. In this group setting, not everyone needs to be able to describe everyone else's thinking, but everyone should agree that the written description correctly contains their thinking about the topic. In this way, although not everything is known by everyone in the group, the written description effectively represents the shared understanding of the group. Importantly, online tools such as wikis can be used to develop shared understanding even about complex topics among large groups.

It is important to notice that shared understanding is not the same as consensus or agreement. In shared understanding people can still disagree on the topic, but they agree on what opinions there are about it. While the purpose of agreement in decision-making is to conclude about the best option and act based on it, the purpose of shared understanding is to identify one or more poor decision option that should be rejected. This is analogous to the scientific method. Instead of attempting to find the truth directly, it critically evaluates hypotheses and rejects all that are not plausible in the light of observations. As the scientific method has proved to be the best method known for developing knowledge about the world, shared understanding may prove to be an effective way to make public policy.

Shared understanding in the work of the government

In decision support using shared understanding, for example in drafting a bill, it is not enough that a law text is created with valid arguments. It must also be described what other points of views there were and what were their arguments. Even views that were once suggested seriously but that turned out to be invalid will be described. This is important so they don't resurface when people not familiar with the previous work join the project. This could also be important for getting the acceptance of the public and others who have not participated.

To promote shared understanding as a practice, the law preparations will need a new, open web-workspace. It can be fully open (in the internet) or, if the situation requires, only open to those participating in the preparations. From the point of view of trying out the method, completely open preparation would be the most educational.

Additionally the work must be done with shared information odjects, meaning all separate thing has their own page in the workspace, and all connected material is gathered on the page no matter who produced the information. The research question is precisely defined, and the purpose of the work is to produce the best possible answer to it. This means a transfer from a person-based information structure to a topic-based information structure. This way everyone participating in the preparation will have at hand the same information and tools, and are capable of evaluating what information is still missing from the goal of shared understanding. The schedule and to-do-list for the project will also be open, so following the case is easier. Separate to-do-lists are avoided, because they make it harder for the information to spread.

Thus the goal of shared understanding creates the following action proposition:

Action 1. Shared understanding is taken as a spelled out goal in the projects that want to use the implementation plan.
Action 2. The preparations for the projects are done in an open web-workspace. The existing tools can still be used, but all information will be brought to the workspace without delay.
Action 3. The information is structured in the workspace by topic. Research questions for each topic are defined.
Action 4. The person in charge of the project opens the schedule and to-do-list of the project for everyone to see and maintains it for the durations of the project.

Info crystals to structure the interpretation

Info crystals helping decision support

Recently impact assessments have been made to support the preparation of laws. This is needed, and the know-how and resourcing should be developed further. Variables help with this work. Their basic idea and structure enable them being used directly or at least easily in a new, similar assessment. This saves resources and increases the quality of the content.

In the national sector- and expert institutions have huge resources and expertise in their field. However, their working pace doesn't go well with the quick pace of preparation of laws, and thus it's hard to get concrete and comprehensive expert support when it's needed. Open variables will help with this too, because they are precisely built by experts for decision impact assessments.

So far these info crystals have been rarely produced, even though the conditions are often good for it. Take for example Simuloitu Suomi aka Sisu-model. It is a comprehensive microeconomic description of how taxation and social support effect the population in Finland. However, it is a complex and huge model and there are only a handful of experts in Finland who can use in with a few days' notice. Most of the information from the model is thus only usable if one of these experts has the time to use the model exactly when the knowledge is needed. A special problem is the population data required for the model, because it's not accessible by other people because of privacy protection issues.

As a solution to this example problem is that instead of using real population data the model uses a statistically equivalent fake data that doesn't involve the privacy protection problems. Then the model could be built perfectly workable and open in the internet. It could also be built so that anyone could run the sub-models or look for precise information produced by model runs. When the amount of users increases, also know-how increases and expertise can spread wider and do more. This is possible if the model is updated to consist of open variables, aka info crystals.

Research institutions could aim their operation in a way that one central product (along with expert reports and scientific publications) would be info crystals.

The use of info crystals creates the following action propositions:

Action 5. Producing info crystals is added to the goals of national research institutes and the progression of this operation model in different institutes is followed annually.
Action 6. Education on producing info crystals is held for experts in all sectors.
Action 7. A law preparation project is chosen for which the preliminary assessment is done by using impact assessment based on info crystals. Things learned from the trial is used in following projects.
Action 8. Sisu-model (or some other significant model) is turned into a model working in the internet with info crystals. Simultaneously experiences are collected about open use and development of a model large and complex but useful in decision-making.

Respect theory to motivate knowledge production

The respect theory is a draft of what kind of social reward system would encourage people and communities to work for a better society. Respect is measured in onors. The amount of onors given for a certain respectable act is figured out by asking: "How valuable is the act from the point of view of the society, meaning how many onors should the person doing it recieve? Note that onors don't measure financial gain, but is measured separately and measures the part that isn't measurable by money."

Benefit, responsibility or virtue?: The respect theory doesn't say what kind of ethics should be followed: whether the respectability of an act comes from the benefit (Joth Stuart Mill), the meaning (Immanuel Kant) or virtue (Aristoteles). What's relevant is that the act is respected in the society. It's also relevant that respect is measured orthogonally in respect to economic gain. Some act can be economically very profitable, but is indifferent in a moral or aesthetic sense. That's when the economical meter, money, itself tells about the meaning of the act to society, and respect is zero. For example creating jobs and finding meaningful things to do to people brings companies onors, but making profit doesn't.

How is respect measured in practise?: There are two parts to measuring respect. On one hand it is estimated how much respect should be given for a certain act, meaning how different acts relate to each other in the eyes of respect. On the other hand evidence that someone has done an honourable act is evaluated. To the theory the first question is more important. As to evidence, it's mostly just assumed it exists and is valid. Because my purpose is to first apply the respect theory to openly published data, the evidence won't be a problem: through server logs it's possible to trace who has published some knowledge for everyone to see and where and when this has happened.; The principle of measuring respectability is simple. People interested in issues of the society come together in the internet to discuss the respectability of different acts and the arguments for it. After that every one can give the amount of onors they feel is right for the act by answering the question above. One's respect for an act can be changed over time if needed. This is how the respectability of an act is constantly determined in the markets. So that the discussion could get started, the value of one onor will be set at the amount of acts helping society that a citizen can be assumed to do during one day. Or, adapting the guideline of scouts: do one good deed a day, get one onor.

How do onors relate to money?

The purpose of the respect theory is to motivate people to do acts that help the society, and the purpose of onors is to work as moral rewards on their own. The onors one has earned are public information, and the society's task is to keep up the respect given by onors. However, doing good acts takes people's time away from other things, like a paying job. It might be beneficial for the society to support economically people who want to concentrate on doing things that gain you onors, but in the current economical system doesn't gain you money. Here is a proposition to be a base for a conversation:

A person earns onors as follows

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle o_t = \sum_i o_{i,t} n_i,}

where o_t is the amount of onors a person earns at time t, o_i is the amount of onors a person earns by doing the act i, n is the number of good acts provably done by a person and t is a moment in time. It is worth noting that the onors for the same deed can change in time as the values of the society change.

A person can reclaim their onors in money as follows:

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle m_{t,i} = n_{i,k=2} a_t (\sum_i o_{i,t} \sum_{k=1}^2 n_{k,i})^{b_t}}

so that

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n_i = \sum_{k=1}^3 n_{k,i},}

where m is the amount of money the society pays for the onors reclaimed in the case, a is the "conversion rate" for onors (euros per onor^b), b (0 < b < 1) is a progression coefficient, and k = 1,2,3 so that 1 means the acts from which the onors are already reclaimed, 2 those that are now being reclaimed and 3 those that have not yet been reclaimed. A person can so reclaim the monetary value of the acts they want. Onors stay with people permanently, but after reclaiming them they no longer hold economical value. Unlike the total number of onors, the amount of reclaimed onors is not public information. In the equation the b in the power is meant to cause progression, because the reclaiming of money is supposed to support the long lasting work of big masses of people instead of rewarding with huge amounts of money those who are able to create some new, society changing innovation. The smaller b is, the steeper the progression and the more small amounts of onors are valued. If b = 0 what we're talking about is actually a civil salary, because the respect for ones acts doesn't affect the sum paid.

When calculating the progression those acts are taken into account that have been reclaimed before or are being reclaimed now, but not those ones from which onors have been received but not yet been reclaimed. This is to avoid a situation, where new onors lower the economical value of previously gained onors and thus would tempt to reclaim them for tactical reasons. However, it is important to note that the economical value of onors are calculated based the rates for acts at the moment of reclaiming. This is because the value of many acts are often not understood until a lot later, and so the current rate is societally thinking better than the rate at the moment of the act or some other moment in time. This is true to both the reclaiming rate and progression coefficient. This is why room for speculation is left and cannot be removed.

Why should society build a respect system?: Economists have said that middle-class work is disappearing. In the future the most secure jobs are either expert tasks, that produce especially a lot of value, or the kind of practical jobs like barber or nurse that can't be moved abroad. Digitalisation and globalisation threat many middle-class current professions. However, sensible and meaningful social work isn't disappearing from the world. Instead the resources of the current economical system to invest in this kind of work ends, because from the point of view of market forces opening data, reading to children and listening to your neighbour's worries doesn't create demand on a market that runs on money. The respect theory offers a solution that doesn't involve the reader, the child or the neighbour having to pay for others to help them. Instead the motor would be people's knowledge that the society finds these acts respectable and has the practical motivator of handing out onors for good deeds, which also help one's economical situation. This is how a balance is found: people are motivated to do good to each other, and the society encourages this by offering meaningful experiences and by giving resources to support the activities.

Onors motivating governance and sector institutes

Social knowledge work isn't easily bent to the current copyright system that is based on preventing the use of information unless the user pays the producer of the information a compensation. However, it is seen in research that the highest benefits for a society are reached when knowledge is as wide spread and as well available to everyone as possible. Thus it's interesting to try out a reward system that doesn't limit but encourages the sharing of information.

Onors can be used in producing and using scientific knowledge, if the principles and practises of giving out onors and the respecting of the people who get them are agreed on. Finland could act as a visionary in freeing scientific knowledge, if onors are given real value in performance conversations and in position appointments. Currently almost the only thing giving a researcher credit is a scientific peer-reviewed published article. Even though international practises change slowly, it's possible to move faster in Finland and especially the government can make a difference to what things are emphasized in the ministry-governed expert and sector institutes. For example it would be justified that a researcher got onors when they published a research idea, the test setting, raw data, statistical analysis of someone else's data, or an article. Currently only the last is a formal merit.

Especially it would be possible to give onors to researchers and experts, who actively produce valid knowledge directly for decision support. On top of traditional expert work this includes producing info crystals aka. open variables or participating in building shared understanding.

The respect theory creates the following action proposals:

Action 9. A task force is set up to create rules for measuring respect in the knowledge work in decision support for the government. The taskforce is in charge of the work, which is done openly online and aiming for a shared understanding.
Action 10. The ministries bring opening knowledge and the merits that are given for producing it into conversation in the institutes they govern. The recommendations of the respect task force are taken into use in result guidance.
Action 11. Research institutes take onors related to opening data into use in personnel performance reviews.
Action 12. Onors are taken into use also in the preparation of laws so that anyone taking part in the preparation can earn onors with their actions.
Action 13. The government starts a campaign to bring into use a motivation structure, like described in the respect theory, in Finland. The costs and other effects of taking the system into use is investigated.

Rationale

Here is a conversation about what different actions can be taken. The best ones will be taken into the result.

Built slowly during the entire work based on previous parts.
Deliverable: Practical actions to carry out, so the use of knowledge in decision-making gets better.
- Actions by VNK (incentives, developing the governing processess)
- Actions by national research institutes (the forms of knowledge and its production, decision support, in for example the for of assessments)
What should the implementation plan be like?
- Bold enough to draw attention and create conversation. Not too utopistic, so it is still possible to turn into actions. Shouldn't be too obvious or mainstream, because then no added value is gained.
- It should be integrated in some already existing programmes or processes, so the integration would occur smoothly. The first things that come to mind are the government's impact assessment development project and VKN's impact assessment group.

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