Archive for the ‘good practice’ Category
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3. March 2010 – 13:38 by John Heaven
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My name is John Heaven and I started work at TuTech Innovation on 1st March 2010. I will be working on - amongst other things - PEP-NET. Part of my role will be to work together with Bengt Feil on establishing what members would like to get out of PEP-NET membership, how we can improve what we offer to them, and ultimately ensure that PEP-NET can support itself into the future.
But before I set about that, I thought maybe you’d like to hear about where I’m from and what I’ve been doing until now, especially around eParticipation!
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Posted in Uncategorized, good practice | 4 Comments »
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14. February 2010 – 12:13 by Francesco Molinari
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I have just come back from an intensive 2-day workshop in Barcelona, beautifully organised and managed by QeC-ERAN - a Brussels based network of cities once affected by socio-economic breakdown - under the umbrella of a EU-funded initiative entitled Local Forums for Developing Participatory Democracy (link). The workshop aimed at highlighting the potential of multimedia tools to enhance political participation of young adults (18-30) and raise awareness of their fundamental rights and responsibilities as citizens of the Union. A notable number of young people came in from the various partner cities (the countries represented were Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and the UK). Several EU-level experiences were presented, including PEP-NET 
and a Twitter based discussion entitled Why vote?. Sound evidence was shown regarding the creation of several Local Forums at the various partners’ locations in order to bring together ideas, make innovative experiments with multimedia tools and build new expertise to be shared internationally. An online community of practice is now being setup to further make the promotion of participatory democracy to young people more sustainable at local/regional level. Proposed instruments to facilitate the community: chat, instant messaging, whiteboard and discussion tables; voting and survey tools; document sharing facilities such as googledocs and a wiki to write together and produce text with shared visions. My comment: I spotted a lot of ingenious creativity and serious engagement in these people. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. Worth a second look soon.
Posted in Events, Projects, good practice | No Comments »
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5. February 2010 – 23:52 by Francesco Molinari
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Another Electronic Town Meeting - seventh in a row since 2006 - is about to be celebrated in Tuscany right tomorrow. After using it to elicit the informed judgement of hundreds of people on such diverse policy issues as health expenditure, “lawfulness”, climate change, and the “living will” (to name but a few), the Regional Government is now gathering about 100 randomly selected citizens in 5 different locations simultaneously, in order to launch a discussion on the priorities and limits of landscape planning - another primer for this topic and for the use of this eParticipation instrument in Europe.
The Electronic Town Meeting is the modern version of a form of structured participation in local government that has been practised in the US region of New England since colonial times, and in some Western States since at least the late 19th century. Participants receive structured information on a given topic, then they can express themselves individually within small groups and the discussion results are reported, clustered, given back in real time and finally prioritised by means of an electronic polling system that involves everyone in the room in a transparent, yet privacy respectful, way.
The 6th February Town Meeting is all but a trivial exercise. In fact, everyone has in mind the “postcard” image of Tuscany as praised by innumerable writers and film makers all over the world. Yet the region today is also a land of contradictions, for instance between tourism and industrial development, cultural heritage and modern infrastructure building. One only example: the impact of installing renewable energy plants such as windmills could jeopardise the centuries old beauties of the Tuscan landscape irreversibly according to some. Would it be better then to stay dependent on fossil fuels and avoid this permanent loss of quality, and ultimately reputation, of the Regional lifestyle?
The event has been jointly organised by the Councillors of Urban Planning and Civic Participation of the Regional Government of Tuscany. It will be broadcasted in real time web streaming at the following URL: http://stream.rete.toscana.it
More info (in Italian): http://www.regione.toscana.it/regione/export/RT/sito-RT/Contenuti/sezioni/ambiente_territorio/paesaggio/visualizza_asset.html_1661919580.html
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24. January 2010 – 21:57 by Roberto Zarro
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In connection with the launch of data.gov.uk, the new British government website offering free access to a huge amount of public-sector data for private or commercial reuse, the UK Guardian has published the World Government Data Search, a search engine that collects datasets and other open data services provided by governments around the world. At the moment the service searches across the UK, US, New Zealand and Australian governments’ data sites. The Guardian published also a gallery of the 10 best mash-ups built on top of government data provided in the United Kingdom and a similar gallery dedicated to the experiences promoted in US, New Zealand and Australia
Posted in News, good practice | 1 Comment »
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14. December 2009 – 19:34 by Eric Legale
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It is “a simple, friendly and easy to implement project”. In these words, Daniel Roleff, editor of the German portal politik-digital has introduced e-Participation.net, during the last eDemocracy Awards workshop. It is a joint initiative of the German website and the British Council, the British cultural agency in Germany to create an interactive database on projects and initiatives aimed at strengthening citizen participation in Germany and the United Kingdom.
If, today, the e-participation.it website identifies e-Democracy initiatives in Italy, the aim is to open this database to all European experiences.
To see the video
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8. December 2009 – 15:31 by Bengt Feil
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Urban planning is one of the areas in which eParticipation has been used very successfully. There are several articles on the PEP-NET blog taking a look at different tools, processes and cases of eParticipation in planning as for example “Urban planning 2.0: How eParticipation adds value” or “DEMOS-Plan tool for participatory processes in land use planning successfully implemented and awarded price”. It is clear that there is great potential for the use of social media in urban planning.
Crystal Wilson PlaceVision from United States has posted a great presentation giving an overview of how social media tools can be used in planning contexts:
Another presentation takes a closer look at mapping and visualisation tools:
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2. December 2009 – 21:27 by POLITECH
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World’s news agencies join in interactive hub for Copenhagen climate conference!
Eleven international news agencies have launched a joint Facebook page to interact with news consumers across the globe during the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen.
The Facebook fan page, called The Climate Pool, will bring the news agencies together in an unprecedented collaboration to spark a global conversation about climate issues. The purpose of the Facebook hub (http://www.facebook.com/TheClimatePool) will be to engage readers in direct communication with the world-class journalists covering the U.N. conference Dec 7-18.
Participating are Agence France-Presse, ANP of the Netherlands, The Associated Press, APA of Austria, APcom of Italy, Canadian Press, dpa of Germany, Kyodo of Japan, Lusa of Portugal, Press Association of the United Kingdom and RIA of Russia.
The climate page on Facebook will feature a blog format, providing a behind-the-scenes view of the event and linking out to important coverage of the talks from the agencies and the media outlets they serve. Twitter also will be used to attract followers for the blog and related coverage.
The agencies have come together for the Copenhagen project under the auspices of MINDS International, a global news agency network.
“The climate summit in Copenhagen will affect the lives of billions of people, and it is likely to grip the attention of news consumers all over the world,” said Wolfgang Nedomansky, managing director of MINDS. “The Climate Pool will provide a unique outlet for Internet users to discuss climate change with some of the world’s most experienced journalists covering the conference.”
The Climate Pool page will be produced in English and will incorporate blogposts and multimedia content from the participating agencies, along with links to coverage from around the world.
The Portugese News Agency, Agencia de Noticias de Portugal (LUSA), partner of EMPOWER, an eParticipation Trial Project co-funded by the European Commission under the EU eParticipation Preparatory Action, is a leading force behind this interesting initiative.
The eMPOWER e-Petition platform will serve as an interface between decision-makers at National and European level on one hand and NGOs and citizens on the other hand, while using and testing new forms and methods of civil participation as well as enhancing the role of National News Agencies in promoting and supporting relevant initiatives and ensuring a wider outreach of the project’s results.
Posted in Events, News, Partners, Projects, good practice | No Comments »
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25. November 2009 – 11:37 by Eric Legale
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World e-Democracy Forum Award 2009, EuProfiler.eu help the european citizens to access to a detailed mapping of some 300 political parties. Through multiple-choice questions, an algorithm evaluates the sensitivity and determine the political affiliation of Internet users. It has been used during the last European Parliament elections in June, with around 2.5 million unique visitors who used it.
At the e-Democracy awards workshop, professors Alexander Trechsel and Fabian Breuer explained their motivations.
A presentation to see in video: [To watch the video]
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12. November 2009 – 16:22 by Danish Technological Institute
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Much focus has been on Web 2.0 technology as an enabler for wider dissemination, awareness raising and not least participation and transparency. It is therefore interesting to see that Web 2.0 technologies are being used in various ways for a range of purposes in this year’s 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference, 18-20 November, in Malmö (Sweden) and 4th European eGovernment Awards.
Webcast of conference sessions
The plenary sessions and three of the parallel sessions at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference will be webcast live and on demand this year from the conference website www.egov2009.se. In addition the ceremony for the 4th European eGovernment Awards will most likely also be the subject of a webcast.
The programme is available on www.egov2009.se/programme
Twitter flies over Malmö 18-20 November
In addition to RSS feed, Twitter feed is available onthe Ministerial eGovernment Conference website www.egov2009.se. Participants are actively encourage to Twitter about the Informal Ministerial Meeting on eGovernment and the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference to use the hashtag #egov2009.
Online vote for European eGovernment Awards Public Prize
Following success of the first online vote in relation to the European eGovernment Awards 2007 in Lisbon (Portugal) the European Commission and the European eGovernment Awards Consortium decided early onto continue practicing what they preach. The objective has been to: increase the visibility and status of public sector ICT projects in Europe; encourage good practice exchange, and; to encourage active involvement and participating in the European eGovernment Awards by the epractice.eu and wider stakeholder communities.
The online voting for the European eGovernment Awards Public Prize was therefore launched late this summer and closed on 11 November at 18:00 CET. Members of the epractice.eu community have been able to vote for their favorite cases from among the 52 European eGovernment Awards 2009 finalists. The online vote is in addition to other ICT initiative by the awards consortium and the European Commission for a fully electronic submission process via www.epractice.eu and the remote evaluation of the received submissions by the jury in the first phase of the evaluation.
The voting is now closed but the 52 finalist cases remain published at ePractice.eu and are open to receive members’ comments. The winner of the Public Prize will be announced at the awards ceremony on 19 November at 18:30 – and likely to the subject of a webcast.
Virtual exhibition
For the first time the European eGovernment Awards finalist are accessible online through a virtual exhibition. The virtual exhibition can be visited on www.expopolis.com (NB: for practical reasons you have to register). Naturally an electronic version of the conference exhibition catalogue will be available on www.epractice.eu/awardsmediakit as of 19 November when the Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition opens.
Other news
Ministerial tour of European eGovernment Awards Finalist stands
A ministerial tour of the European eGovernment Awards Finalists stands will take place on 18 November 2009 at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition.
Finalist country fact sheets
To enhance the promotion of the European eGovernment Awards Finalists 2009 17 country factsheets from those European countries from which finalists have been selected for the European eGovernment Awards 2009. The factsheets are published in English but will be made available in the relevant national languages in the beginning of November. The fact sheets are available with other dissemination material on www.epractice.eu/en/awardsmediakit
News and background
www.epractice.eu/awards
www.egov2009.se
Danish Technological Institute/Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen - European eGovernment Awards Consortium Partner
Posted in Events, News, Projects, Tools, Twitter, good practice | 1 Comment »
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8. November 2009 – 19:43 by Eric Legale
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“The Alliance & Progressive Socialist Democrats in the European Parliament website’s audience has doubled in one year, because of Twitter” said Tony Robinson, head of the Internet Unit for this Parliamentary Group in Strasbourg during the European e-Democracy Award presentation for the 2009, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, last October 23.
A distinction awarded by Politech Institute and IP label for the variety of web 2.0 tools used and of the content of a website whose aim is to increase citizen participation in the European debate.
A presentation to see in video: [To watch the video]
Posted in Interview, News, Twitter, good practice | No Comments »
