Successful Digital Dialogues

13. August 2008 – 14:43 by Fraser Henderson - ICELE

The UK Ministry of Justice has recently released it’s third phase report from a number of eParticipation pilots conducted by the various main UK government departments. This included blogs, Wikis and debate mapping tools.

Here are the ‘juicy bits’ from the Executive Summary:-

“Successful on-line engagement exercises stimulate high quality interactions: in such cases, moderators provide guidance to participants and invite reasoned input – quality rather than quantity of posts is valued and timely interventions (such as summaries and debate triggers for users) to keep discussion flowing are valued. Simply by explaining how user comments are being processed (or how the public can take part in the policy process) engenders high levels of user satisfaction.

When government departments were reticent, they courted controversy and disengagement became inevitable. Some websites failed to gain traction (measured through few repeat visits) because users did not believe that anyone was listening or responding to their perspectives; in such cases, departments were paralysed by a sense of ‘risk’ and failed to harness the range of engagement opportunities at their disposal – responding only on topics deemed ‘safe’.
The most successful websites devote resources (time, people and technology) to their online engagement exercise and this makes it possible to satisfy user requirements and provide professional standards of deliberation.

Some online engagement exercises are not designed to have a policy impact; in one such case, a blog set up to inform the public, had sufficiently high level of ministerial and policy team involvement that a user comment was nonetheless able to stimulate a policy review; websites that were disconnected from their policy or ministerial brief, or constrained by a long chain of command, engendered less user satisfaction (both among participants and the government officials running the exercise).

Most participating departments observed – at a minimum – that on-line engagement provided them with organisational, data handling and transparency tools; those with good marketing strategies (or who achieved media attention) noted that their exercise had led to the broadening out of engagement to people on the periphery of the policy process; those who were able to generate a sustainable community of practice noted that on-line deliberations allowed them to bridge space and time.

The government departments that benefit the most from on-line forms of deliberation engage the public (and/or stakeholders) at various stages in the policy process: where government departments were too fixed in their approach, they failed to capitalise on their investment; those with a reflexive and experimental approach were able to adapt to meet the challenges posed by on-line engagement.

Online engagement speeds up existing process; departments that connect their on-line and off-line processes are more likely to have an integrated and efficacious approach to policy; in such cases, democratic disengagement becomes less of a risk than in departments that lack a coherent approach.”

Share and Enjoy: