IFIP ePart 2010, Lausanne 2. September 2010 – 17:00 by Centre for E-Government

The sub-catagories of the ePart 2010 (dedicated to topics on eParticipation and eDemocracy) were foundations, eParticipation initiatives, understanding & evaluation and ICT & eVoting. The conference was colocated with and held in parallel tracks to the EGOV 2010.

KEYNOTE

ANN MACINTOSH (UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS):  ARGUMENT VISUALISATION ‐ THE KEY TO UNLOCKING ONLINE DELIBERATION?

„The trouble with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings.“ (Oscar Wilde)

Macintosh presentation focused on argument visualisation with reference to it’s possible value for policy making. Before combining these two research topics, she summarised the history and current state of research in the field of online deliberation by browsing to the main arguments of the following book titles which argue the need for deliberation:

• Hay 2007: Why we hate politics
• Stoker 2006: Why politics matter: Making demoracy work
• Fishkin 1991: Democracy and deliberation
• Dryzek 200: Deliberative democracy and beyon

Others then claimed a potential of the internet for enhancing deliberation, like Dahlgren 2005: The internet public sphere. Whilst this is not a new research area (see Dutton 1992: Political Science research on teledemocracy), with the more sophisticated technology of today we are moving from the traditional text-based to a new form of deliberation. And with people using the web 2.0 a much bigger audience is attracted. Macintosh argued that the linear form of information in debate fails to capture real life argument patterns and does not enable people to think of arguments. The capacity of technology has not been like we expected it in the 90ies. It’s potential to enhance democracy has not been realised yet. Why is that? The overall reason might be to many expectations: One one hand, we are expecting too much from governments and politicians (they need to give up power), on the other hand too much of the citizens (e.g. with reference to the digital divide). Not least we’re also expecting too much of technology.

Online deliberation presents large problem spaces. Coming up with an own opinion and to formulate an informal contribution is difficult, especially when taking into account the complexity of policy development. From the socio-technical perspective, the problems are the following:

• making sense of unstructured text
• knowing what critical questions to ask
• ensuring inclusive deliberation.

This is where argument mapping comes into play – seen as a tool to make sense of unstructured text and visualising language. Argument visualisation provides an alternative way of representing text in online deliberation forms. TheODET 2010 workshop was dealing with online deliberation tools emerging from the labs. If you are interested in argument mapping it is worth browsing the posts tagged „argument mapping“ on http://digitalcitizenship.co.uk where you’ll find a video covering some of the tools presented at the conference.

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IFIP E-GOV 2010, Lausanne 2. September 2010 – 14:20 by Centre for E-Government

From August 29 to September 2 both the EGOV 2010 and ePart 2010 conferences (the ninth conference of the IFIP WG 8.5 group) took part in Lausanne, Mouline – a rather rural but overally nice area (one was literally facing cows when getting off the metro). This year the conferences were hosted at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration – IDHEAP. Some minutes of the keynotes and selected presentations of the first two days.

EGOV 2010 OPENING

The EGOV 2010 was taking place outside the DEXA framework for the first time this year, starting with some facts and figures about this year’s papers and the invitation to the next conference in Delfth (15 min. from Amsterdam) 2011. Keynote K. Holkeri from Finland focused on open and inclusive policy making.

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The Conference Season Is Open 27. August 2010 – 16:54 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

speicherstadt by Jens Pletsch

As we head full-speed towards autumn, this weekend will see the first eParticipation conference of the season: the EPart2010 conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, which is into its second year and aims to lay the foundations for interdisciplinary eParticipation.

We have a lot to look forward to in terms of conferences: also in its second year is the Personal Democracy Forum Europe taking place in Barcelona from 4^th to 5^th October, which comes shortly after our very own PEP-NET Summit on 23^rd September.

Speaking from our experience of organising the first ever PEP-NET Summit, there is certainly demand for eParticipation conferences from delegates and speakers . Perhaps people have had enough of lazing around on Europe’s beaches and are looking forward to coming together to plan the next steps for eParticipation and think about where to invest their newly-acquired energy and enthusiasm.

If you have had enough of the beach and like the idea of discussing eParticipation amongst Hamburg’s canals in the historic Speicherstadt, then make sure you register soon on the PEP-NET Summit page because places are very quickly filling up. We promised that things would “get loud” at our Summit; judging by the number of people signing up, we weren’t wrong. So put away your bucket and spade, get your trousers on and come and make some noise. Register now to avoid disappointment.

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Argument Visualisation tools helping eParticipation 27. August 2010 – 12:26 by POLITECH

Argument visualisation might not be seen as a suitable tool for eParticipation at first sign. However, when properly deployed, it can serve as a useful tool for eParticipation projects, where citizens can engage in stimulating brainstorming, exchange of information and knowledge, as well as in active involvement on the issues in interest.

An example of such deployment of an argument visualisation tool in an eParticipation project can be found in the WAVE Project. WAVE aims to improve the inclusiveness and transparency of EU decision making at the national and European level by using highly integrated, state-of-the-art argument visualisation techniques to make the impact of complex EU environmental legislation on climate change more accessible and easy to understand for citizens, special interest groups and decision makers alike.

WAVE has deployed Debategraph as an innovative argument visualisation platform, in a multi-lingual, cross border context. The project has launched 3 pilot websites in the UK, France and Lithuania where the tool is being tested and where the citizens engage in stimulating discussions on the environmental issues relevant to their countries and local communities. Each pilot has its own portal and argument visualisation mans in the national language, making it possible for every citizen to actively engage in the discussions.

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The MOMENTUM Project has reached its conclusion. 25. August 2010 – 14:27 by POLITECH

MOMENTUM launched in January 2008 and was designed to last for 30 months (until the end of July 2010). The Project aimed to monitor the existing and on coming eParticipation projects co-funded by European Commission, to consolidate their results and to provide feedback to them and to the respective EC bodies and other designated stakeholders, advancing the high-level political and institutional engagement.

MOMENTUM was acting as a support action to the ongoing eParticipation Projects funded in 3 rounds. Until the end of MOMENTUM’s activities, 2 rounds of projects have completed their actions. The last round of projects funded under the 2008 call will finish their activities at the end of 2010.

Despite MOMENTUM reaching its conclusion, the website will be kept online for anyone wishing to use the resources available there.

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WAVE’s Workshop at ePart2010: “On the Use of Argument Visualisation Tools to support Policy Formulation” 23. August 2010 – 16:25 by POLITECH

WAVE will participate at the 2nd International eParticipation Conference that will be held between 31 August and 2 September 2010 in Lausanne, Switzerland (http://www.demo-net.org/epart).

Specifically, the first day of the conference WAVE organises a workshop titled “On the Use of Argument Visualisation Tools to support Policy Formulation”. Apart from presentations and discussion, hands-on exercise on the WAVE platform will also be offered during the workshop for elaborating on EU policies relevant to climate change.

Moreover, the second day of the conference a scientific article on WAVE’s technical details will be presented. The article’s title is “Integrating Argument Visualisation Tools in Social Platforms to Facilitate Online Political Debates: The WAVE Platform” and is authored by the following members of WAVE consortium: Deirdre Lee, Yojana Priya, David Price, Efthimios Tambouris, Vassilios Peristeras and Konstantinos Tarabanis.

Visit WAVE Project’s website www.wave-project.eu

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ECI Advisory Group 20. August 2010 – 17:01 by Fraser Henderson - ICELE

The European Citizens’ Initiative is plagued with implementation challenges, particularly in terms of the digital domain.  Thankfully there’s already a bunch of people and projects who are making sense of these -  not least the EC funded EuroPetition project.

Hence, in an attempt to bring all this knowledge (and information) into one place, a new group and website has been assembled:-

YourECI website

The Digital ECI is an important aspect of the ECI and this is an opportunity for practitioners in the field of eParticipation to demonstrate that they can add value based on current best practice.

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Bahraini Delegation visits London and Kent to learn from the leading UK figures involved in implementing eGovernment 20. August 2010 – 12:16 by Olga Lacigova - 21c

The Kingdom of Bahrain has recently moved from 42 to 13 on United Nation’s 2010 Global eGovernment Survey and is keen to build on this achievement through their upcoming five year strategy. To design the most effective approach, the Bahraini key eGovernment Authority representatives have asked 21c Consultancy to host a Study Tour to meet with leading UK figures involved with implementing eGovernment.

For the 17^th and 18^th of June 2010 21c has arranged personal meetings with high dignitaries within the UK ICT central and local departments starting on the 17^th with a presentation by the Deputy CIO at the UK Cabinet Office on the UK eGovernment Strategy followed by a visit to the Local Government Information Unit where the Head of Children and Social Services, presented their approach to Web 2.0 and Service Delivery. The delegation had also a chance to visit the Department of Health and learn about the NHS Choices programme and meet Bob Gann the department’s Head of Strategy & Engagement.

The second day was devoted to local government strategy and the delegation travelled to Kent County Council to visit the leading centres for innovation in digital service delivery. The delegation was introduced to a wide array of award-wining digital initiatives, including Kent TV and ‘Pic n’ Mix’ Innovation.

The entire delegation found the information and knowledge presented enriching for the development of the Bahraini eGA 2011-14 strategy.

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PEP-NET Summit: Let’s Get Loud! 17. August 2010 – 18:32 by Rolf Luehrs

The calm of Hamburg’s historic Speicherstadt is not usually disturbed by anything more than the chatter of tourists exploring the picturesque surroundings in the sun, or a sprinkling of rain sending ripples across the canals. (Here is a nice video as appetizer).

But on 23rd September 2010, we’re hoping to make waves that spread well beyond the canals of Hamburg to the furthest corners of Europe!

Along with the keynote speeches from the movers and shakers of European eParticipation, we will be hosting 14 half-hour presentations in our presentation corners. That’s a total of seven hours’ presentations of groundbreaking eParticipation projects in an informal atmosphere, where you will be able to move from one presentation to another and discuss with other participants.

As many as four presentations will be running in parallel, allowing you to move from one to the other according to what you find most interesting. It will get loud in there, but that will only add to the lively hustle and bustle and make sure that this is so much more than just another flashy conference.

We’ve got presenters from all across Europe: Germany, Scotland, England, Estonia, Slovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The topics discussed will range from open government to grass-roots citizen participation in local politics via participatory budgeting. Our presenters themselves are a diverse bunch, in terms of nationality, areas of expertise, and organisations they work for: we’ve got academics like Peter Cruickshank from International Teledemocracy Centre at Edinburgh Napier University, Civil Servants like Hille Hinsberg from the Estonian Cabinet Office, and Dominic Campbell, founder and Director of UK consultancy and social innovation incubator FutureGov. Then there’s Chuck Hirt, of the Central and Eastern European Citizens Network, André Basten and Hanss Christian Lange from the City of Hamburg … and I could go on. Full details will be published soon together with the final agenda at the summit page - so stay tuned!

The PEP-NET Summit is all about participation, and we have really tried hard to keep that in focus: a glance at the agenda will confirm that there will be plenty of time for discussion, whether in the presentation corners, during the question and answer sessions at the end of each keynote session, or at the end of the day when there is an hour dedicated to summarising and discussing what was said. If that isn’t enough networking for you, make sure you come along to the dinner in the evening. Finally, on the following morning we are offering a tour of Hamburg with an eParticipation focus.  Look forward to seeing you in Hamburg!

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New ICT PSP Project OurSpace Successfully Kicks Off in Athens on the 23rd of July 17. August 2010 – 15:50 by Olga Lacigova - 21c

The OurSpace project, selected as one of the top proposals from the last ICT PSP call, has officially kicked off on the 23rd of July in Athens. The meeting was organised on the premises of NTUA by the project coordinator – the Athens Technology Centre – who will lead the OurSpace consortium for the next 3 years.

OurSpace plans to create a unique online collaboration space designed to actively engage young European citizens in the moulding of their future society. The platform will incorporate all the latest social media tools and applications and will be designed with help of the end-users themselves to ensure high attractiveness and usability of the platform.

The project success will not depend only on the technical delivery of the platform but mainly on the high participation rate of the end-users and OurSpace consortium has on board partners such as UK Youth Parliament, Café Babel Magazine or Google Ireland with links to millions of young people from Europe so we all hope that OurSpace will be a success story!

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