2009-06-12
Bringing Together and Accelerating eGovernment Research in the EU (Brussels)
Of the different fields constituting eDemocracy, eParticipation appears to be both the most dynamic and the most promising with regard to enhancing the democratic process. This is manifested by the range of existing applications such as eConsultation, ePetition and eDeliberation and the breadth of research recently pursued. The latter encompasses diverse teams throughout the world with main disciplines ranging from political and social science to specialised ICT systems supporting content management, argumentation, privacy, identification and others.
eParticipation activities (Thanassiss Chrissafis)
EU: e-participation and e-voting
US: transparency and observation rather than e-Voting
EU: e-participation and e-voting
US: transparency and observation rather than e-Voting
eDemocracy in Europe (Ioannis Kotsiopoulos)
Problem e-participation fatigue
e-participation has uneven political effects some parties may benefit more than others
Funded research: CIP, PEP-NET
What’s the ecology of e-participation? Actors, processes, linkages, dependencies?
How are actors and processes linked?
Geneva a-voting: Uses new security system?
Problem e-participation fatigue
e-participation has uneven political effects some parties may benefit more than others
Funded research: CIP, PEP-NET
What’s the ecology of e-participation? Actors, processes, linkages, dependencies?
How are actors and processes linked?
Geneva a-voting: Uses new security system?
Momentum (Daniel van Lerberghe)
Methodology for monitoring evaluating and consolidating projects
In France 18-34 year old was majority of non-voters
WAVE project visualizes output of discussions
But missing: Results of pilots and trials not published only finished websites (at most?)
Also missing: projects aimed politicians getting hold of Web 2.0 –important to link both groups politicians and citizens
Methodology for monitoring evaluating and consolidating projects
In France 18-34 year old was majority of non-voters
WAVE project visualizes output of discussions
But missing: Results of pilots and trials not published only finished websites (at most?)
Also missing: projects aimed politicians getting hold of Web 2.0 –important to link both groups politicians and citizens
DEMO net (John Shaddock)
Started 2007, Suspended 2008, Terminated 2009
Reasons? What can we learn?
Aim: link practitioners and researchers
Industry: don’t know yet how to develop monetize
Government : why never beyond pilot stage? If successful than gets killed for power issues. Politicians fear loosing power. For those using pen and paper, e will be a threat
e-participation – threat or opportunity for politicians? fear of losing control or chance to link closer to citizens?
Explain, show it in operation
Discussion: link e-participation with e-government
e-government is now about cost-cutting most IT focus on saving money, better processes
better: community engagement people target political social issues
representative us. Participative democracy
how do we link the capacity to make decisions it’s about leadership at local levels
Started 2007, Suspended 2008, Terminated 2009
Reasons? What can we learn?
Aim: link practitioners and researchers
Industry: don’t know yet how to develop monetize
Government : why never beyond pilot stage? If successful than gets killed for power issues. Politicians fear loosing power. For those using pen and paper, e will be a threat
e-participation – threat or opportunity for politicians? fear of losing control or chance to link closer to citizens?
Explain, show it in operation
Discussion: link e-participation with e-government
e-government is now about cost-cutting most IT focus on saving money, better processes
better: community engagement people target political social issues
representative us. Participative democracy
how do we link the capacity to make decisions it’s about leadership at local levels
Role of eEnvironment (Jiri Hrebicek)
Various effects: Transparency, prevention, standardization
Principle 40
eEnvironment monitoring use and effects of natural resources and allow public access to information
single information space in environment issues (SISE) can support SEIS
Shared environmental information space SEIS for transparency and participation on environmental issues
information tools for allowing citizens to cooperate and be informed about environmental issues
Various effects: Transparency, prevention, standardization
Principle 40
eEnvironment monitoring use and effects of natural resources and allow public access to information
single information space in environment issues (SISE) can support SEIS
Shared environmental information space SEIS for transparency and participation on environmental issues
information tools for allowing citizens to cooperate and be informed about environmental issues
Social media to support e-participation (Elenora Panto)
Sanpablo: citizens discuss problems and solutions (but public services who sponsor the problem don’t notice)
Icity: semantic assistant to provide targeted information on touristic things (OWL, sends feedback)
Multichannel platform to collect information from different sources
Literacy: participation media (access mostly solved, equipment, broadband)
Example: on berlusconis blog are thousands of comments but how to get the comments from the network??
Sanpablo: citizens discuss problems and solutions (but public services who sponsor the problem don’t notice)
Icity: semantic assistant to provide targeted information on touristic things (OWL, sends feedback)
Multichannel platform to collect information from different sources
Literacy: participation media (access mostly solved, equipment, broadband)
Example: on berlusconis blog are thousands of comments but how to get the comments from the network??
Teledemocracy center (Peter Cruickshank)
eRepresentative: whats new, what do colleagues and experts think, what do we decide
don’t develop shiny e-participation apps ,understand the needs and motivations of politicians and citizens, their own perceptions
substantive content of information
how use shapes organizational context
HUWY project: young people inspire problem solving, politicians use as info source
ePetitioner: looking local, Bundestag evaluates, moves to another system (which one, what was the problem?), public-i develops OSS version
needed: long-term studies on participation, not just making an application work, how to promote engagement
transparency: citizens must be able to tract the policy process
benefit must be clear, show how democracy works
Euro Petition: 40% of petitions rejected because of EP was not able to deal with issues (national)
Initiation through local authorities
Tools to support petitioner to market petitions (mobilize others)
Benefit: feeling of self-efficacy
What factors support long-term deployment
Missing: multi-language, Open source tools
eRepresentative: whats new, what do colleagues and experts think, what do we decide
don’t develop shiny e-participation apps ,understand the needs and motivations of politicians and citizens, their own perceptions
substantive content of information
how use shapes organizational context
HUWY project: young people inspire problem solving, politicians use as info source
ePetitioner: looking local, Bundestag evaluates, moves to another system (which one, what was the problem?), public-i develops OSS version
needed: long-term studies on participation, not just making an application work, how to promote engagement
transparency: citizens must be able to tract the policy process
benefit must be clear, show how democracy works
Euro Petition: 40% of petitions rejected because of EP was not able to deal with issues (national)
Initiation through local authorities
Tools to support petitioner to market petitions (mobilize others)
Benefit: feeling of self-efficacy
What factors support long-term deployment
Missing: multi-language, Open source tools
ICT infrastructures and architectures for participation and mass cooperation (Michael Kaschesky)
E-participation research: Linking networks to policy making, Rigorous e-participation research, C*PEG iPolis research program
Research questions: Meta-models for public governance, IT architectures for public participation
Relevant theory: Political science and sociology, Management and organization studies, Information systems approaches
Valid and robust methods: Qualitative & quantitative analysis, Architecture governance framework
Coherent & explicit approach: iPolis –Conceptual framework, Example –Local information management, Challenge –Global information management
Replicate across studies: Planned - Testbedsand livingLabs, Best-practice framework metrics
Scrutiny and critique: Practitioner & expert feedback, Peer-reviewed dissemination
Open Legislative Council (Cyrille Velikanov)
No tools exist for mass cooperation.. only communication.. Web 2.0 is about chatting.. much less about deciding and doing
Open access
Well-informed for discussion
Equal playing field for all
Requirements: good posts on top, filtering out bad contributions, grouping comments per action, show relevant links, several contribution types, criteria for assessing quality of contribution, possibility to shown if supportive or not of previous contribution, rating of posts and users (prevents mobs attacks and oligarchic ruling , two major problems)
No tools exist for mass cooperation.. only communication.. Web 2.0 is about chatting.. much less about deciding and doing
Open access
Well-informed for discussion
Equal playing field for all
Requirements: good posts on top, filtering out bad contributions, grouping comments per action, show relevant links, several contribution types, criteria for assessing quality of contribution, possibility to shown if supportive or not of previous contribution, rating of posts and users (prevents mobs attacks and oligarchic ruling , two major problems)
Wiki Democracy (Jennifer Shkabatur)
Biennale Democrazia
Debate of going open access at European University
Mash-Up of Google map and crimes, Wiki crimes using Google maps
Biennale Democrazia
Debate of going open access at European University
Mash-Up of Google map and crimes, Wiki crimes using Google maps
DISCUSSION
Questions: what’s the goal of participation? Participatory designs? Inequalities among participants! What are the results?
Proper evaluation methods
Incentives to participate
What if people are not interested? They don’t need to participate only need to knew that they could (Empowerment)
Think of open source some only say what bothers them
They participate when feel that they have an impact
You need tool to extract valuable information from comments
Editing can be done participatory
Different views on democracy
Everyone involved or just bystanding and agreeing?
Proper evaluation methods
Incentives to participate
What if people are not interested? They don’t need to participate only need to knew that they could (Empowerment)
Think of open source some only say what bothers them
They participate when feel that they have an impact
You need tool to extract valuable information from comments
Editing can be done participatory
Different views on democracy
Everyone involved or just bystanding and agreeing?
two perspectives on democracy.. get involved if it bothers you (us/uk) vs. collective effort
Thanks for the summary
Good summary, though I would disagree when you when you class the UK in with the US in its approach to democracy - collective effort and engagement are considered important here too: in fact the CLG ministry has just published a big report on the subject [PDF] which has been commented on over at PEP-NET's site.
More seriously, what was your overall feeling of the day's usefulness? Did you come away with any feeling of what would be the concrete outcome of the day?
Usefulness of the day
Thanks for the link to the brand new report.. I will definetly look at it in more detail.
I simplified quite a bit but let me explain. On one extreme, you have those who fine their citizens for not partaking in civic "duties". On the other side are those who are quite happy to see government in the role of management and administration serving the people. From our discussion, I had the feeling that some discussants were more "demanding" of citizens duties whereas other discussants were emphasizing that means to participate must exist but that citizens must not always choose to participate.
The workshop was useful as an update but also exhibited the lack of orientation when it comes to e-participation. The projects did not convince me that e-participation was grounded in real needs of local communities. E-participation must get close to the people.. I hope I'm not alone with that view.