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Blockchain is frequently claimed to be a democratizing technology. However, its relationship to both law and broader democratic institutions remains uncertain. One claim regarding blockchain's democratic potential is that it is radically transparent and can bring such transparency to existing systems of governance. This paper interrogates that claim in three different ways. Firstly, it examines blockchain technology against broader theories of transparency. Secondly, it examines the relationship between transparency and democracy, questioning how blockchain technologies could mediate that relationship. Finally, it examines how blockchain technologies could impact a particular exercise of transparency, freedom of information requests. This paper finds the relationship of transparency itself to democratic ideals is complex, contested and highly context‐dependent; the “democratizing” technological transparency built into blockchains could easily prove undemocratic in application. Blockchain technology cannot meet broader transparency goals without addressing political gatekeepers and the legal, social, and cultural needs that animate those goals.

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Searching as learning work is growing in interest, however definitions of ‘learning’ in this space have been somewhat narrow. Here we propose a panel sponsored by SIG InfoLearn that will feature presentations from three scholars whose work falls in the domain of “searching as learning,” followed by a synthesis presented by a fourth scholar along with one of the panelists, who will draw key conceptual intersections among the three empirical research papers and then explicate linkages to existing research in the learning sciences that has potential to further inform the ongoing development of the panelists' and others' work in this domain.

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