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Public Comment “Toolkit” - great tool for analizing large data

3. May 2010 – 23:25 by Civil College

We always have the pleasure, to give news about great tools on the edge. One of them is released again, aiming reliable data analisys as an easy process.

Searh, classify, annotate, verify and report on text data. A great combination of social networking and social science.

Interested?

Dr. Stuart W. Shulman is an Assistant ProfessorUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate director at the National Center for Digital Government http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/index.html and also the director of the Qualitative Data Analysis Program at
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences http://www.umass.edu/qdap/

He is behind the development of the PCAT system, which is based upon Shulman’s award-winning Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT), also developed by QDAP. CAT enables researchers to code, validate, and analyze large digital, text-based datasets. CAT is designed for use with any digitized text dataset, whereas PCAT is tailored to improve analysis in the rulemaking process. “PCAT is an example of successful technology transfer from an academic laboratory to the government sector. It speaks to the needs of federal officials who must be responsive to the increasing volume of public comments in the new digital landscape.”

Although the tool is free and web based, it assists agencies in searching, analyzing, and responding to citizen comments submitted to federal regulatory agencies through sites such as www.regulations.gov. Regulations.gov is a centralized federal portal that enables “citizens to search, view, and comment on regulations issued by the U.S. government.” PCAT is designed to work seamlessly with bulk downloads from regulations.gov. It allows agency officials to review the hundreds, thousands, or at times hundreds of thousands of comments submitted to agencies in response to the several thousand federal rules proposed each year.

The previous functionalities are showing, that this software has been designed in the USA for federal usage- but it does not restircts its functions to the USA. It can extract data from

Federal Docket Management System archives
IdeaScale archives
RSS Feeds, archived or live
Email, Blog, Wiki, and other Web 2.0 documents
CAT-style datasets
Plain text, HTML, or XML documents
Extracted Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF document

What can you do with it?

Search for key concepts & code raw text
Annotate coding with shared memos
Remove duplicates and cluster similar comments
Auto-highlight unique and offensive language
Form peer and project networks
Establish multi-level credentials and permissions
Assign multiple coders to specific tasks
Easily measure inter-coder reliability
Adjudicate valid & invalid decisions
Generate reports in RTF, CSV or XML format
Archive or share completed projects online

I am really wondering, when our old Europe will have something like a Federal Docket Management System (http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#home). It might boost up some participation, but we would need to solve the language issues still…

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PEP-NET Workshop: Scientists and researchers vision and expectations

28. May 2008 – 09:30 by Danish Technological Institute

The PEP-NET kick-off meeting and workshop on 21-21 May 2008 in Hamburg (DE) brought together experts to discuss their visions and expectations for PEP-NET along with the possible advantages of the initiatives. One such discussion focused on the scientific and research community in particular. In addition to the formal vision and aims of PEP-NET the workgroup members discuss how each could bring their unique abilities and resources to the network. The outcome of the discussions relevant for scientists and researchers is highlighted below:

VISION

Bring together different aspects, domain and expertise for mutual learning and benefit and to further the scientific and research work related to eParticipation
Consolidate and further work of the eParticipation community
Act as a resource/hub bringing together practitioners, academia, public, private and stakeholder communities

EXPECTATIONS

Facilitate synergies between existing networks (e.g. DEMO-NET) and projects (e.g. eParticipation study) NOT duplication of existing initiatives e.g. good practice cases (ePractice.eu and DEMO-NET)
Mutual exchange and consultation between members of the network.
PEP-NET as a resource for expertise including for researchers (incl students) to identify examples for study and vice versa
PEP-NET as a dissemination channel of research relevant to the eParticipation community

ADVANTAGES

Access and contact with practitioners and public administration for research, gaining and sharing knowledge and cases for research
Good and bad practice exchange brought to practitioners and others outside the research community
Bring to other stakeholders scientific methodology, academic research and test-pilots
Exchange could reveal gabs for further research
Provide interesting network for potential partners

ABILITIES AND RESOURCES FOR PEP-NET

Bring in expertise from past, present and future projects and initiatives
Introduce our partners and networks to PEP-NET for synergies but also to increase awareness of eParticipation as a topic
Scientific methodology and research mapping relevant to decision makers (public and private)
Provide an scientific test bed
Dissemination of events, research done, new trends, proto types, solutions etc.
“exchange/recruitment” of staff could be an interesting aspect
Research community could in theory offer training (at what cost) or act as a source of competence development
eDemocracy Awards, dissemination and publicity channel
Multiplier effect in relation to the scientific and research community