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Uniting the Open Source efforts in eParticipation29. July 2008 – 08:42 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH) |
Almost all eParticipation projects are combinations of social methods and some sort of web based technology. At the BerlininJuly summit 2008 we discussed the aspect of open source technology for eParticipation which lead to some interesting thoughts and conclusions.
In many cases the persons developing these technologies want to share their ideas and advances with the greater eParticipation community. To do so some of them publish the work as open source projects which can be reused under some sort of open licence like the GPL. There are different ways to store the actual code of the software and manage open source projects from the technical side like Sourceforge or Google Code. These services do their job extremely well but they are scattered around the net and not specifically aimed at the topic of eParticipation.
On the other hand organizations looking into using eParticipation tools and methods are often confronted with the problem that they need to develop both the method and the technology needed and are not aware of already existing open source projects offering a solution. As a result many technologies are reinvented in different countries and different contexts even so the fitting technology would have been available. The conclusion of our discussion in Berlin was that there is a need for place on the web which lists and describes the openly available technologies in eParticipation. This page should focus on the technological side and therefore add value to the already existing best practice databases like ePractice.eu and e-Participation.net. It also does not make sense to be in conflict with the well working code repositories like Sourceforge which are already used by developers from the eParticipation community. The goal is to establish a simple site which helps developers to promote their technologies and hosts of eParticipation projects to find the technology needed.
Right now we should try to start an open discussion about where open source technology makes sense in the field of eParticipation and how in those cases where it does we can make use of it in the most efficient way possible. This discussion has to start before moving on to setting up a site as described aboth and will have to continue in the later stages because of the nature of the questions we have to deal with in this field.
A second step to achieve this could be that PEP-NET and BetaHaus from Sweden, who want to support this idea, will set up a wiki under the PEP-NET domain and ask the eParticipation community to post descriptions of their open eParticipation technologies there. These texts should link to use cases and best practice descriptions as well as to code repositories if possible. Later on in the process a more sophisticated solution to share can be put in place if necessary. How exactly the implentation should look like is of course dependent on what points where brought up in the discussion about moving forward.
So I invite you to start this discussion right here in the comments section.
Tags: eParticipation, inenglish, open source, repository, software
9 Responses to “Uniting the Open Source efforts in eParticipation”
By Madarász Csaba on Aug 2, 2008
I think it is a nice idea. More than nice!
But I would like to see not only the existing e-participation opensource community, but the communication, that support the existing opensource technologies to test how they’re knowledge and software would fit into the open source e-participation “topic”.
This would accelerate a bit the developments, am I right?
The CEE Citizens Network is ready to discuss the questions!
By Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin on Aug 5, 2008
In addition to the proposed actions, we could consider including in the Free Software Directory (a project hosted by the Free Software Foundation and the UNESCO, https://directory.fsf.org/), some new categories that are able to accommodate eParticipation systems and tools. Currently, their hierarchy is mostly technical, but I guess we all would benefit if software systems intended to have a social and political impact would enter this directory. This would give more visibility to the eParticipation systems and processes.
By Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH) on Aug 6, 2008
Do you know how to get in touch with the FSF to see whether we can bring this idea to live?
By Sabrina Scherer on Aug 8, 2008
The DEMO_net virtual resource centre (https://www.demo-net.org) is building up a knowledge base for eParticipation for research and practice. You can find general information and more details about:
* eParticipation projects: Information on projects of eParticipation research and practice is provided.
* Research papers & reports: DEMO_net has produced a number of scientific and technical deliverables and scientific publications. Also, DEMO-net booklets have been issued on specific topics which are targeted towards practice.
* eParticipation areas: DEMO-net differentiates among a number of participation areas. They are briefly described here.
* Technologies: Investigations on existing and emerging technologies are described with their potential for eParticipation.
* Tools: Tool categories and specific tools are described. Explanations are given on how these can be used for eParticipation.
* eParticipation standards: Standards that are used to implement eParticipation applications as e.g. MetaLex.
* Methods: Different methods of studying and constructing eParticipation are described.
* Glossary: Common definitions of terms that are used in eParticipation contexts are collected. The glossary terms are derived from joint discussion in DEMO-net. You can further contribute to shaping definitions of terms via the DEMO-net Wiki (registration required).
* Conferences & workshops: The thematical conferences and workshops organised by DEMO_net are documented.
* Links to other resources: Links to other web pages are provided, which may give useful information to the visitors of the DEMO-net knowledge portal.
The website is still under development but I think it fits some of the points mentioned above.
By Social Bookmarks on Oct 30, 2008
I don\’t normally leave comments… but I really enjoyed your post! I will be leaving a link back here in my blogroll! Thanks!
By openpolis on Nov 13, 2008
Hello everybody. I took part at the meeting in Berlin where this discussion came out originally and posted some ideas few months ago in the google group discussion.
I am reporting those thoughts in here, hoping to re-inject the discussion.
I think that for the kind of problem that we face, we could create a sort of
simple, very light, *patterns repository*.
Patterns identify solutions to problems in a domain, solutions that emerge
from best practices, and that’s exactly the meme of information that we want
to reference.
For various situations:
– I have to set up a policy consultation site with 10k users.
– My consultation process involves urban planning, with discussions on
architectural projects.
– I have many small municipalities that want to get involved in a cheap
consultation process (less than 1k users each).
– …
We could ask questions such as:
– What problem does this pattern address?
– What kind of processes and work-flows are known to work better?
– Which type of software tools coud be used (CMS, light framework, from
scratch)?
– Are there any known examples of working solutions?
– What other patterns this one relates to?
– …
Patterns express in structured terms, the rationale of each problems and
propose actual solutions, presenting working examples. They’re used in
Enterprise Software Engineering, but are mutuated from Construction
Engineering and Architecture (i.e. are not confined to technological
domains).
All in all I think we should consider the task of creating a repository of
ideas on a more abstract basis than we thought initially.
A simple wiki, with dozens of different examples could not be enough.
I agree with Hans. Telling someone that his problem was already faced by
someone else only helps a little, but telling her that her problem can be
decomposed into two or three patterns, that are widely known and already
analyzed and *solved* can rally make her day.
A software tools repository, as initially emerged in Berlin is a little too
reductive, to me. ePartecipation it’s not just about sofwtare, it’s about
processes, work-flows, and social interaction and networking, too.
The big problem with patterns is that they are boring. Have you ever try to
read a Design Pattern Book? Well, don’t, unless you suffer from insomnia.
That’s why we have to make it light, or … agile, just to use a buzzword of
our times.
Maybe we can start by trying to go through the data we gathered in Berlin
(features and whish lists, go /no go areas, best practices, opportunities,
dangers) and organize them into proto-patterns. Some of this data are
available in the Berlin In July web
site,
for the others: Christian, can we have the contents of the Yellow and White
cards we filled up? And the big white sheets we wrote those funny things on,
too, btw.
We could, even more practically, try to make a list of possible *situations*,
and structure a pattern for each situation, using the list of
*questions*above. That could be a good starting point.
Gathering the patterns on a web site and make them modifiable in a more or
less open way, should not be a problem for hackers like us.
I don’t know if there’s anyone out there who’s experienced with Design
Patterns, I am not (sorry), but just in case, this is the time to step out.
Guglielmo
2008/7/22 Hans Hagedorn :
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> Dear Bengt, dear partners,
> I do agree to the analysis that organizations are often not aware of
> already existing socio-technical solutions. And I am very interested
> to work on this problem.
> However, I am not yet convinced, that a specialised software-
> information-site will solve this problem. The main problem is – as you
> already describe – that every software applies its own combination of
> social methods and web technology. Which means, that a potential user
> will often become lost in the jungle of socio-technical requirements.
> I am not sure how to deal with this. I have the feeling, that instead
> of an all-inclusive info-website we rather need a *non-inclusive*
> collection of recommended software tools. Because telling a person
> that there are 100 solutions to his 1 problem does not help him
> much
> What we do need is the standard open source application for e-
> participation cases. Compare it to the blogosphere: If you want to set
> up a Weblog, WordPress is a good choice. There are good alternatives,
> but in many cases the standard solution is more than sufficient. So if
> you want to set up a policy-consultations for participants 10.000 and
> above – what is the standard open source tool?
> Do you think, we have a chance to tailor one single OSS distribution?
> Hans
–
Guglielmo Celata
microcredito online – https://www.kiva.org/lender/guglielmocelata
per una politica trasparente – https://www.openpolis.it
By Rolf Luehrs on Nov 25, 2008
@depp/
Hi Guglielmo,
just spotted a project called “designing social interfaces” (https://www.designingsocialinterfaces.com/) which is both a wiki and a book to appear soon. (Authors are Christian Crumlish (curator of Yahoo!s pattern library) and Erin Malone; the book will be published by O’Reilly Media and Yahoo! Press).
The main purpose of the wiki (https://www.designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page) is to create a pattern library for the design of social interfaces. There is already a lot of content available, some of which is relevant for eParticipation as well! Maybe we should join as PEP-NET and add specific eParticipation patterns to the library. What do you think?