Ann Macintosh

Characterizing e-participation in policy-making

This paper argues the urgent need to better understand the e-democracy pilots that have taken place so far and that are currently being developed. It addresses the issues of what should be characterized in e-democracy pilots so as to better identify types of citizen participation exercises and the appropriate technology to support them, as such it offers an analytical framework for electronic participation. Over the last decade there has been a gradual awareness of the need to consider the innovative application of ICTs for participation that enables a wider audience to contribute to democratic debate and where contributions themselves are broader and deeper. This awareness has resulted in a number of isolated e-democracy pilots and research studies. It is important to consolidate this work and characterizes the level of participation, the technology used, the stage in the policy-making process and various issues and constraints, including the potential benefits.

Towards an evaluation framework for eParticipation

Purpose – The paper seeks to demonstrate the use of a range of perspectives and methods to evaluate eParticipation initiatives. It aims to argue that there is a need for coherent evaluation frameworks employing such perspectives and methods, the better to understand current eParticipation applications and learn from these experiences.Design/methodology/approach – A case study of eParticipation evaluation for four local authority led projects from the “top down” stream of the UK Local e‐Democracy National Project is presented.Findings – Applying the eParticipation framework resulted in an assessment that was considered fair by participants. However, the framework needs further development. More consideration needs to be placed on how and when to use tools in which contexts, also, on how to combine tools to enable inclusive engagement. The evaluation timescale meant important aspects of the framework were downplayed.Research limitations/implications – Further research is needed in two main areas; first, on ...

eParticipation: The Research Gaps

eParticipation is a challenging research domain comprising a large number of academic disciplines and existing in a complex social and political environment. In this paper we identify eParticipation research needs and barriers and in so doing indicate future research direction. We do this by first setting the context for eParticipation research. We then consider the current situation and analyse the challenges facing future research. The future research direction was identified through conducting workshops and analysing published papers. The results are six main research challenges: breadth of research field; research design; technology design; institutional resistance; equity, and theory. These six challenges are described in detail along with the research direction to address them.

Electronic democracy and young people

This article examines action to address young people’s apathy to the democratic process and politics in general, by considering possibilities for using information and communication technology to engage young people. The article describes two e-democracy systems in use in Scotland, which provide young people with opportunities to participate in and understand democratic decision making. The systems are designed to allow young people to deliberate issues of importance to them. The Highland Council initiative involves young people in the design of a web site for their youth parliament with online debates and Internet voting. The Young Scot initiative is a national youth portal, including an e-democracy channel. The emphasis here is on content management and moderation of e-consultations for young people. Research indicates that democracy is best taught by practicing it and that many young people are comfortable using new information and communication technologies. These ideas form the basis of both projects.

Knowledge management through multi-perspective modelling: representing and distributing organizational memory

Full and accurate representation of an organizations knowledge assets, which together constitute “organizational memory”, requires multi-perspective modelling at a number of levels of detail. We propose that the perspectives which need to be represented can be characterized as who, what, how, when, where and why knowledge; these perspectives, and necessary levels of abstraction, are captured by the Zachman framework for Information Systems Architecture. We suggest modelling techniques that might be appropriate for different perspectives and levels of abstraction, and illustrate using examples from a medical domain. We also describe how an individual perspective can become the user interface of a knowledge distribution system, and illustrate this by describing the protocol assistant, a Web-based knowledge-based system capable of representing and reasoning with best practice guidelines (“protocols”) in the medical domain.

Digital Democracy through Electronic Petitioning

The International Teledemocracy Centre at Napier University has designed an innovative e-democracy toolkit to support participation in the democratic decision-making process. Electronic petitioning is one of the web-based applications in the toolkit. It can be found at www.e-petitioner.org.uk and has the functionality to create petitions; to view/sign petitions; to add background information, to join discussion forum; and to submit petitions. On 14th March 2000, the Scottish Parliament agreed to allow groups and individuals to submit petitions using the e-petitioner system for a trial period. The special arrangement between the Teledemocracy Centre and the Scottish Parliament has allowed both parties to start to evaluate the use and civic impact of electronic petitioning in Scotland. The development, deployment and evaluation of e-petitioner have demonstrated how straightforward computing techniques can enhance public participation in the newly established Scottish Parliament. As well as the system being used to submit e-petitions to the Scottish Parliament, it is also hosting the first ever e-petition to the British Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing St.

Knowledge management techniques

This paper describes knowledge management teaching and dissemination concepts to support the training of professionals in an organization to manage their knowledge assets. They are based on AIAIs experience of working with large organizations to establish a technical knowledge management framework and to support their personnel in implementing the framework.The concepts support organizations who embark on a knowledge management programme. They promote the importance of knowledge management and the awareness of how knowledge management can be accomplished within, and across, operational divisions: create an awareness of a framework to achieve knowledge management; and establish a group of personnel who have skills in knowledge management techniques to enable them to facilitate the development, maintenance, use and sharing of the organizations knowledge assets.The main objective is to ensure that knowledge management techniques are rolled out across the organization. Importantly, these concepts provide the organization with the necessary training in the use of techniques to identify, analyse and manage knowledge assets.

Knowledge management applied to e-government services: the use of an ontology

This paper is about the development and use of an ontology of e-government services. We identify the knowledge required to deliver e-government transaction services. Based on the SmartGov project, we describe the use of a domain map to assist in knowledge management and motivate the use of an ontology as a domain map. We describe the development of the e-government service ontology and give a few examples of its definitions. We explain why the SmartGov project has adopted taxonomies, derived from the ontology, as its domain map. We highlight issues in ontology development and maintenance.

Computer-Supported Argument Maps as a Policy Memory

This article investigates to what extent computer-supported argument visualization can be designed to encourage debate and deliberation by citizens on public issues. Such argument maps use icons and arrows to represent the structure of a series of related viewpoints, reducing the amount of text necessary to convey the ideas, thereby clarifying the issue under consideration. Argument maps have the potential to provide a readily accessible medium by which citizens can follow and join in public debates on policy issues. In this article we describe our approach and the type of maps we have chosen to use and then demonstrate the potential of a collection of maps to form a “policy memory” to support policy development. Our case study is the development of the “smoking in public places” policy in the Scottish Parliament. Our overall aim is to engage citizens in democratic decision making, leading to better policymaking and a more engaged citizenry.

Citizen Participation in Public Affairs

Reflecting on the European Commissions stated aim to broaden democracy this paper examines the nature of e-participation and considers concepts of democracy and issues surrounding citizen participation in pubic affairs. The paper describes how citizens are engaging with government and with each other about policy related issues that concern them, using technology specially designed for the purpose. The paper describes a case study of electronic participation developed for the Environment Group of the Scottish Executive in Summer 2001. Using the empirical data from this study the paper explores best practice guidelines for governments who wish to engage citizens in policy-making. The difficult task of addressing the requirements of all stakeholders, i.e. government, civil society organizations (CSOs) and citizens in designing the technology is discussed. The use and moderation of the electronic tools over the engagement period is assessed. Finally, the paper considers how the use of electronic tools can be monitored and their impact on citizen participation and the decision-making of government be assessed