E-consultation for Dgov students 2008

Place

Peter Froggatt Centre 311 (computer lab)

Time

1100-1230 on 13 Dec. 2008

Here are links to web sites that will be used during the session.

Preparation

Near the beginning you will need to set up an account on Facebook (for use later in the session), and complete a quick survey on which technologies you have experienced (so you can spend time on the less familiar ones).

• The QUB Dgov group on Facebook
• Web survey on your consultation and technology experience, run using Lime Survey

Contrasts

• America Speaks runs large-scale 21st Century Town Meetings. See the America Speaks videos.

versus

• Consultation NI, a list of current consultations in Northern Ireland; or DARD active consultations.

Types of knowledge

Do you want to collect explicit knowledge using quantitative techniques (see Lime Survey above), or tacit knowledge (e.g. feelings, experiences, stories) using qualitative techniques?

• Patient Opinion has stories about their experiences of NHS services.
• A story-collecting site for The Wheel's input to the Taoiseach's task force on active citizenship, set up by the E-Consultation Research Project.

Or do you want to link stories to places?

• Fix My Street lets people report local problem on a map, and when they are fixed.
• Community Walk map of NI probation office locations

Consultation stages

1. Defining the problem, identifying issues

• Scottish Parliament e-petitions
• Issues forums

2. Exploring the problem

• Advice NI's eConsultations. These engage advice workers across Northern Ireland, who then bring their clients to enter their stories.
• Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team.
• Pilot e-consultation on a Broadcasting Bill run by a joint committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas. See Areas selected ... and ECRG Evaluation ...

3. Choosing and developing solutions

This includes both choice of options, and writing documents.

• Writing wikiwiki pages (e.g. Wikipedia)
  • David Milliband set up a wikiwiki site at DEFRA, inviting people to write an environment contract between citizens and government.
  • The Guido Fawkes bloggers group edited it to satirise New Labour.
• Other structures for collaborative writing
  • GRASS was developed by Aldo de Moor so that loggers and environmentalists could co-write a forestry policy for British Columbia.
• Ranking alternatives
  • The de Borda preferendum