Apollon - SOTAs for eParticipation through eMedia

DELIVERABLE

Project Acronym:

APOLLON

Grant Agreement number:

250516

Project Title:

Advanced Pilots of Living Labs Operating in Networks

Deliverable: D.5.1 SOTAs for eParticipation through eMedia

Revision: FINAL

Authors: Sébastien Lévy (Issy Media) Eric Legale (Issy Media) Dave Carter (MCC, MDDA) Paul Carruthers (MBS)

Project co-funded by the European Commission within the ICT Policy Support Programme Dissemination Level P

Public

C

Confidential, only for members of the consortium and the Commission Services

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The information in this document is provided as is and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose. The user thereof uses the information at its sole risk and liability.

Statement of originality:

This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise. Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.

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Table of Contents 1. Project Summary ............................................................................................ 4 2. Scope and Context of the Deliverable ........................................................... 5 3. eParticipation .................................................................................................. 8 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 8 3.2 eParticipation methods, tools and ways ........................................................ 13

4. eParticipation in the European Union ......................................................... 16 4.1 eParticipation at the Local level ................................................................... 16 4.2 eParticipation at National & Regional levels..................................................32 4.3 European Cooperation Projects .................................................................... 45

5. eParticipation in other parts of the World.................................................. 51 6. eParticipation at the International Scale .................................................... 62 7. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 64

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1. Project  Summary   The main issues addressed by APOLLON (Advanced Pilots Of Living Labs Operating in Networks) are the present lack of Living Lab harmonisation and collaboration, and the serious difficulties of SMEs in engaging in cross-border innovation.

APOLLON will demonstrate the positive impacts of cross-border domain-specific Living Lab networks, by setting up an advanced pilot composed of 4 thematically focused European-wide Living Lab experiments. SMEs are enabled to take part in cross-border Living Lab experiments beyond their home markets, and are supported by large industrial companies, academic centres and other stakeholders.

The APOLLON pilot aims to share and to harmonise the Living Lab approaches and platforms between exemplary European networks as well as the subsequent evaluation results and the set up of sustainable domain-specific networks on a European and global level.

APOLLON addresses 4 major domains in which ICT products and services innovation may benefit most from cross-border Living Lab networking. These are: 1) Homecare and Independent Living

3) eManufacturing

2) Energy Efficiency

4) eParticipation

The project consortium of the domain 4 is composed of: Issy Media ( France), UniversitĂŠ de Paris VIII (France), IBBT (Belgium), Manchester City Council ( United-.LQJGRP ' )UDQFH 1DYLGLV )UDQFH DQG 3HRSOHÂśV Voice Media (France)

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2. Scope  and  Context  of  the  Deliverable  This document is the first deliverable of Work Package 5: eParticipation. The objectives of Work Package 5 are the following: ž Sharing and comparing technologies/ methodologies in order to understand to which local, regional, national results can be extended to other contexts and which common technology/methodology can be built for generalization. ž Adapting technologies/methodologies to the European context. ž Integrating technologies/methodologies to overcome fragmentation of service ž Promoting citizens innovation to eMedia participation in Europe and evaluating if cross-border user testing can help existing projects to open to the European audience.

7KH SUHVHQW GHOLYHUDEOH DV ZHOO DV WKH VHFRQG GHOLYHUDEOH RI :RUN SDFNDJH ³' Methodology for eParticipation IQQRYDWLRQ´ ZLOO FRQWULEXWH WR WKH GHILQLWLRQ RI WKH SURMHFWœV ³([SHULPHQWDO 'HVLJQ 6FHQDULR DQG 3URWRFRO´ '

The realisation of the corresponding pilot should start in month 9.

2XU YLVLRQ RI WKH H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ LQ WKH IUDPHZRUN RI $32//21 LV WR ³YLUWXDOL]H´ WKURXJK the use of e-Media and 3D media, the real world in order to broaden and deepen political participation in the decision-making process as well as citizens involvement in innovation and creation processes and technologies development. ³7\SLFDO´ H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ LQ /LYLQJ Labs consist on cooperation between firms, public authorities and citizens in order to create, prototype, validate and test new services, businesses, markets and technologies in real-life contexts, such as cities, city regions, rural areas and collaborative virtual networks between public and private players. The citizens contribution in the real-life and everyday contexts both stimulate and challenge research, development and an open innovation process.

The case studies presented within this report seek to demonstrate the above points: that social media tools are relatively easy to implement and the used examples could be replicated in other localities, even taking into account geographical differences such as language and organizational structures. The examples used aims to put in evidence that

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eParticipation processes in the field of public and private e-Services are beneficiary for citizens in both: services as such ± impacting per se on their lives and businesses ± and of ICT based or supported services, where this novel user-centric approach can improve customization to their individual needs and requirements.

Where the goal is to improve engagement with the general public, the examples cited EHORZ FRXOG EH µSDFNDJHG¶ DV VWate of the art exemplars and applied elsewhere.

The objectives of the Apollon project in the domain of e-Participation are to: ¾ Share and compare the various tools (blogs, online social networking, broadcasting etc.) and mechanisms (eVoting, Internet petitions etc.) used, in order to understand which of the local results can be extended to a broader scale (regional, national, European) and to determinate what is the best and most efficient technology and methodology that can be used as a model.

¾

Adapt the technologies and methodologies to cope with users in other regions.

The Pilot must identify how to adapt the solution, while extending existing technologies to the European context, taking into account country specificities (such as habits, acceptability, involvement of the users, language, copyright, and legal issues).

¾ Integrate technologies and methodologies to overcome fragmentation of services in specific domains. This is done through a common pilot test method of ³VLPXODWHG WHFKQRORJLFDO LQWHJUDWLRQ´ and guidelines which will set-up cross border experimentation in the future (given that cross border cooperation and integration are innovation sources for new services, new technologies).

¾ Promote citizens involvement through eMedia participation on an European scale at the early phases of the designing process. This will help to evaluate if crossborder user testing can help existing projects to open to an European audience.

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The eParticipation experiment results in the development of integrated services using various new technologies. These will be deployed and validated on a larger scale. The services will increase the dialogue between citizens as well as between citizens and governments or public and private organisations and thus contribute to the empowerment of the users. The experiment will also provide practical insights and guidelines on how to address and involve communities in eParticipation projects or applications. On a more technological level the experiment will result in a better understanding of new technologies like 3D, social media and RFID as such and their value for eParticipation services.

The present deliverable provides a State of The Art on previous eParticipation projects made in both Living Labs and eDemocracy. The second deliverable will be a methodological approach and will highlight what are the most common pitfalls of current eDemocracy experiences, such as: lack of active involvement from citizens and/or stakeholders, mistrust from the people, skepticism from the politicians, and ultimately a low reusability of upcoming results within the public decision making process. The aim of the second deliverable is to provide a conclusion on what is the best methodology and technology to use while developing European Living Labs scale eParticipation projects.

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3. eParticipation 3.1 Introduction Over the last few years eParticipation - which is a concept that includes all the processes of public involvement in government and governance, open innovation, urban planning, economic and technological development via information and communication technologies - became a highly political issue although it was formerly something only experts were interested in.

Today, there is consensus to consider eParticipation as a fundamental right in a democratic society. eParticipation is expected to improve a transparency, usability, efficiency, economic competitiveness and cost effectiveness of the public and private sector by giving to the citizens a possibility to co-creation to interact and to modulate their local, national, regional environments1.

Moreover many of the old European democracies consider that eParticipation holds SRWHQWLDO WR UHYLWDOL]H SXEOLF GHOLEHUDWLRQ DQG WR RYHUFRPH LQFUHDVLQJ SROLWLFDO ³DSDWK\´ and the decreasing citizenV¶ LQYROYHPHQW2.

For the UN organization, eParticipation has the potential to establish more transparency in government by allowing citizens to use new channels of influence which reduces barriers to public participation in policymaking3. As a matter of fact, it represents a big challenge for a public administration to follow these changes and to encourage citizens to become active participants in the public life. Moreover year 2009 will mark an important stage in this domain. Barack Obama, first black president in the history of the country, quickly required more transparency and more participation of the citizens in the decisions of his Administration. According to the strategy which he had used to gain his campaign, he recommended the appeal to the social media to reach these objectives.

1

The impact of the Economic and Financial crisis on e-­‐Government in OECD Member Countries, http://www.epractice.eu/files/European%20Journal%20epractice%20Volume%2011.1.pdf 2 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/policy/eparticipation/index_en.htm 3 Towards Understanding eParticipation from an Institutional Perspective; Christine Secher http://www.gov2u.org/publications/Demo_net_MappingeParticipation.pdf

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His arrival to the head of the country provoked a chain of reactions in the American Administration, as well as in other countries in the world. In the months which followed his election, a multitude of eParticipation Web 2.0 based projects appeared.

Table 1: the percentage of the eParticipation initiatives in the world4 Â

The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations publishes every two years an e-Government Survey5 which measures how a country can access and realize its eParticipation potential. This index assesses the quality and usefulness of information and services provided by a country for the purpose of engaging its citizens in public policy through information and communication technologies. ,Q WRWDO FLWL]HQVÂś informative and participatory services and facilities were assessed across 189 countries, in instances in which these services and facilities were online and where data was available. The last edition of the eParticipation Index was printed in 2008 and we are waiting for the 2010 edition in a few weeks. Â

                                                           4  Source:  www.unpan1.un.org  5  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan028607.pdf

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Table 2: eParticipation Index 2008: Top 10 Countries6

Ranking

Country

2008 Index

1

United States

1.0000

2

Republic of Korea

0.9773

3

Denmark

0.9318

4

France

0.9318

5

Australia

0.8864

6

New Zealand

0.7955

7

Mexico

0.7500

8

Estonia

0.7273

9

Sweden

0.6591

10

Singapore

0.6364

eParticipation does not concern exclusively civil society-government collaborations on a local, regional, national or international scale but as the projects range from research in wearable computing involving test sites in the Aerospace, Construction and Automobile industry to projects working on environmental friendly lighting in urban areas and different ICT tools sets facilitating work environment. For example for the companies the use of social media can be targeted at both improvement of internal and external communication. Early adoption of social media within the public or private sector was often focused on internal use, with the aims of improving collaboration amongst individuals, teams, departments and entire organisations. Centrally funded projects such as the Improvement & Efficiency Agencies Communities of Practice7 and TALK8 sought to facilitate collaboration and communication within teams and departments through the use of forum, blog and wiki technologies. Although their remit is to engender crossboundary collaboration, they remain internally focused and do not seek to engage with the general public. Applied internally, social tools often change the way the people work.

6 Source: www.unpan1.un.org 7 http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/welcome.do 8 http://www.talknet.eu

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Wiki technologies may look to replace the use of word processors and the process of creating such documents. However, the barriers to use remain high because wiki technologies are not widespread in their use and are still alien to the vast majority of people both in their work life and general use of the Internet. Put simply, they resist the change as they do not yet see the benefit to do so ± essentially the technology is outpacing the demand for change. UK TALK project was much more valuable as a blogging community, again because blogs are better understood and the requirement to change processes is low ± workers can just read a blog and there is little action required on their part ± wikL¶V UHTXLUH PXFK KHDYLHU LQYROYHPHQW Similarly, the Communities of Practice website9 saw much larger uptake because it is rooted in the use of forum software. Forums have been around for many years and their use in the public sector in the UK is widespread. Consequently they are well understood, the barriers to use are perceived to be lower and people are more inclined to use them.

Many of the mainstream sites are free to use and hosted environments are now common, meaning that organisations can outsource the implementations of systems that they may have struggled to maintain internally. For example, Ning (http://www.ning.com) enables any group or organisation the capability to build and promote a fully featured, branded social network. eParticipation processes in companies can strengthen the involvement of employees and their belonging feelings by giving them the opportunity to bring new ideas, which often support innovation There is a direct correlation to the application and use of social media technologies when seeking to improve engagement on an external basis. As the use of social media in the mainstream public has become more widespread, focus has shifted to improving external communication and engagement ± from within organisations out to the general SXEOLF ZKR µFRQVXPH¶ WKHLU VHUYLFHV In addition to that eParticipation procedures applied at a company level can help these companies to increase the understanding of their customers and thus allows the companies to bettHU NQRZ WKHLU FXVWRPHUV¶ QHHGV The ENGAGEMENT db study10 showed significant positive financial results for the companies who measure as having the greatest breadth and depth of Social Media

9 http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/welcome.do 10 www.engagementdb.com

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Engagement. The social media use growth companies revenues on average by 18% over the last twelve months. The study reviewed more than 10 discrete Social Media channels including Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikis, and discussion forums. The top ENGAGEMENT brands are Starbucks, Dell, Ebay and Google11.

Today there are 1.73 billion Internet users in the world. When considering whether the Internet has the potential to positively impact social capital, we can draw on evidence gathered by Megan Alessandrini in 2006 stating WKDW ³LW DSSHDUV OLNHO\ WKDW WKRVH ZLWK Internet access are more likely than those without to engage in activities normally expected to create and HQKDQFH OHYHOV RI VRFLDO FDSLWDO´12. In support of this, the December 2008 study of how Canadian UHVLGHQWV¶ use of the Internet affects social life and civic partLFLSDWLRQ IURP 6WDWLVWLFV &DQDGD ILQGV WKDW ³H[DPLQDWLRQ RI GLIIHUHQW VRFLRdemographic groups reveals that they have embraced technology not to escape social FRQWDFW RU RWKHU WUDGLWLRQDO DFWLYLWLHV EXW WR HQKDQFH WKHP´ 13 In a purely business perspective, eParticipation can be seen as a service providing organization concepts in the topic of R&D and innovation, contributing to more suitable products and services design, development and testing.

An important point to keep in mind is that eParticipation is a recent concept still in its infancy. As few countries have actively promoted it the examples of a good practice are rare and eParticipation impact on the public life is not significant enough yet to be generalized, confirmed or disapproved. To obtain serious results on the impact of the eParticipation, the evaluations need to be made over the years.

11 http://www.engagementdb.com/Report 12 http://www.webology.ir/2006/v3n4/a33.html 13 http://chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/stats_can/statscan.pdf

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Table 3. eParticipation projects themes14

3.2 eParticipation methods, tools and ways

Today, a vast majority of the discussion about the social impact of ICTs are focused on Web 2.0. The term Web 2.0 has many definitions, and includes the use of tools such as social networking sites, video-sharing sites, blogs and wikis. However, what makes Web 2.0 new and important is its capacity to change the relationship between the Internet and its users. Web 2.0 is about among others interacting with web-based content, adding comments, or uploading files. Each visitor is able to have shared ownership over a site.

This implies a change in power structures and a shift in organizational thinking towards models based on equal partnerships rather than elite dominance15.

14 Source: Momentum

http://www.epmomentum.eu/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=XqhojqGxEyw%3D&tabid=88&mid=489 15 Jackson, N. A. & Lilleker, D.G. (2009). 'Building an Architecture of Participation? Political Parties and Web 2.0 in Britain', Journal of Information Technology & Politics, p.232-­‐250

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Some of the most popular Web 2.0 tools in terms of social networking and user contents are Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and Twitter. Younger generations expect now to communicate using those sites. If continued engagement with the public is desirable, organisations must seek to embrace social technologies to better ensure that they reach the younger demographic. Underpinning this, recent statistics point to an upswing in 7ZLWWHU XVDJH DPRQJVW WKH XQGHU ¶V.16 Tools Worldwide Twitter users overtake 12 million, up an impressive + 700% vs. one year ago making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category. In addition to that 85% of the users publish at least one tweet per day.

Facebook has 350 million users in the world which represents 20 % of the worldwide Internet users.

0\6SDFH LV GRZQLQJ ZLWK LWV XVHUV QXPEHU DQG LW¶V KDYLQJ WKLV GD\V PLOOLRQ XVHUV LQ the world17.

¾ The tools of expression allowing citizens to express their views online x

Publications Tools such as : Blog platforms (Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress), Wiki platforms (Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Wikia), Mikroblog platforms (Twitter, Tumblr, Identica) News and citizens journalism portals (Digg, Wikio, Le Post) Livecast tools (JustinTV, Ustream, BlogTV)

x

Discussion tools Social network (Facebook, Myspace) Forum platforms (phpBB, Phorum) Video forums (Seesmic) Services of the commentary management (IntenseDebate, Cocomment, Disqus, BackType);

¾ Services allowing publication and files sharing

16, 17 http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/174901

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Video (YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo),

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Pictures (FlickR, SmugMug, Picasa, Fotolog),

x

Documents (Slideshare, Scrib, Slideo)

Table 4: Most popular eParticipation tools used by countries

Countries using email to update their citizens

22%

26% 22%

Countries using RSS to update and involve their citizens Countries using Openweb Forums for discussing topics Countries publishing results of public opinons

30%

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4. eParticipation in the European Union

4.1. eParticipation at the Local level The good performance of local eParticipation initiatives can be explained by the proximity with the interests, needs and questions of the citizens. The citizens are more inclined to participate when the issues discussed have a direct interest for them. Indeed citizens participate more easily and with a bigger interest for issues such as the construction of a new kindergarten than the definition of being European launched by the European Union.

The bigger successes of eParticipation initiatives at the local scale can also be explained E\ D VLPSOH DULWKPHWLF¶V DQDO\VH HPSRZHULQJ D IHZHU QXPEHU RI FLWL]HQ LV HDVLHU DQG more effective than empowering a large group of citizens.

These cases are funded in order by local resources, European Union, national funds and regional funds. The voluntary funding is very rare.

At the local level the participation areas covered are first Deliberation followed by Information Provision and Consultation.18 One of the more surprising characteristics of local scale eParticipation initiatives is the multilingualism. Indeed there are comparatively more multilingual cases at the local scale than in national or regional scale. The importance of the multilingualism can be explained by the fact that the local level initiatives take into account the different types of population and the immigrants.19 In the eParticipation case for the community, it is important to choose an existing popular social platform (like Facebook or Youtube). Community Administrators should conclude with this platform a partnership in order to promote it to the users, so that it is emphasised as the service "recommended" or "legitimised" by the community.

18

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/docs/reports/eu_eparticipation_summary_no v_09.pdf 19 http://www.epractice.eu/files/7.2.pdf

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Technically, this strategy can be translated by the implementation of widgets (external modules) integrated on the site of the community. In practice, the partnership takes especially the shape of a simple exchange of link. The community thus has no direct technical mastery of the actions. In practice it is integrating the social platform directly into the site and into the information system of the community.

France Issy-les-Moulineaux City Panel Case Study In 2001, the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux (Paris, France) established a representative panel of the population, composed of about 900 inhabitants. Members of this "Citizen Panel" are regularly consulted to answer online consultations, on topics of local interest and satisfaction with municipal services. The launch of this electronic tool should be put in a double context: the early development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Issy on the one hand, and the efforts of the municipality in terms of participative democracy, on the other hand.

Information and communication technologies have also been used to improve public VHUYLFHV WR FLWL]HQV 7KH FLW\¶V ZHEVLWH ZDV ODXQFKHG LQ VSULQJ DQG UHFRUGHG LQ 2009 1.2 million visits. Via Issy.com, people can order administrative documents, pay school meals, make reservations in entertainment centers, book tickets to the theatre, or manage their documents in the library. Issy was also the first French city to create a local and interactive Web-TV: launched in 1997, T2i renamed Issy TV in 2000, provides many videos about local life. In recent years the city has also developed mobile services, enabling residents to receive information by SMS (weather warnings, dates of council meetings, cultural events, etc..), or pay for car parking with their mobile phone, download multiple podcasts (audio or video files), including those with major events in the town every month. This global commitment of the city for the development of new technologies has been awarded by the French label "Internet City" and the presidency of the Global Cities Dialogue20, an international network of mayors committed to promoting an "information society open to all". In addition, Issy-les-Moulineaux was ranked in 2005,

20 http://www.globalcitiesdialogue.com/

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2007 and 2009 among the "Top 7 Intelligent Communities" worldwide (international ranking of cities whose economies are strongly linked with their technology policy).21 The development of e-democracy could not be properly completed if it was not based on a positive and democratic culture embodied in the willingness to further engage citizens.

The citizen panel is part of the development of participative democracy, an ancient approach in Issy since the city was the first in France to create a youth council in 1985, and other committees such as: the Economic and Social Council (in 1989), the local youth (for 18-25), and the council of elders (2001). Regarding the tools for electronic democracy, in 1997 the city created « interactive council meetings » thanks to the local web-TV: citizens can watch meetings live on the city's website and can intervene by telephone or internet during breaks in the sessions (3 breaks each of 20 minutes) by expressing their point of view or asking questions. The e-vote was also experimented with on several occasions, notably during the elections for the residents' association in 2002, 2005 and 2008. As a sign of the city's commitment to e-democracy, in 2000 the Mayor of Issy, André Santini, created the World Forum for e-Democracy, an international meeting held annually.

The citizen panel is an additional decision-making tool for the consultation and participation of citizens, in addition to traditional methods such as public meetings, the opinions transmitted by the neighbourhood councils, the opinions of citizens expressed during interactive council meetings, etc.

Created in 2001, the citizen panel is the product of a meeting between the city council and OpinionWay, a consultancy specialised in opinion polls. OpinionWay had developed a methodology for online surveys and the city, active for several years in the field of electronic democracy, showed interest in the new tool. Issy-les-Moulineaux was the first French city to put the tool into place. Today, several towns use this kind of panel although its deployment remains relatively limited in France.

The Citizen Panel allows the state of opinion and its members generally express themselves in a more direct manner, more spontaneously and frankly compared to other consultation methods. The purpose of the Citizen Panel is not simply to gain knowledge

21 http://www.intelligentcommunity.org/

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but also to facilitate the elaboration and evaluation of public policies. It can also play the role of a warning by helping counsellors to better measure the importance of certain issues among the population.

The participation in the panel is open to all residents who simply have to register online via the city's website. Consultation is carried out in a regular manner: once or twice per year the members of the panel are invited by email to reply to an online survey: a link in the email connects them to the questionnaire which is generally composed of twenty to thirty questions. The identity and the replies of the internet user communicated to OpinionWay are anonymous and confidential, in respect of the law on IT and liberties.

The consultation lasts between ten and fifteen days maximum (sometimes a week) and the results are delivered to the council within a couple of days. On average, between 300 and 400 people respond to each survey. To ensure the representativeness of the sample results weight is based on a quota method. The data which form the basis for establishing these quotas (in terms of age, sex, socio-professional categories) come from the INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques) census.

Parallel surveys carried out by the municipality both to the citizen panel of internet users and a grRXS RI WKH SRSXODWLRQ TXHVWLRQHG E\ ³WUDGLWLRQDO´ VXUYH\ KDYH DOORZHG WKH similarity of responses of the two samples to be verified. The citizen panel presents certain specificities when the subject relates to ICT, for the rest the members respond as other residents would have.

The questionnaire includes stable indicators. It allows the evolution of opinion on different subjects to be measured: opinion on quality of life and security in the town, satisfaction and expectations with regard to municipal action in general and in specific domains (activities, youth, ICT, economic development, senior citizens, schools, traffic, etc), opinion on the evolution of the situation in Issy in general and concerning certain subjects (employment, tidiness, cultural activities, etc), portfolios considered priority in the coming three years or even confidence in the future. The internet users on the panel are also questioned about current topics. In 2001 for example they gave their opinion on security, associations, neighbourhood councils, traffic, postnatal support, online services

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proposed by the council, urban projects such as the upper Issy transport link, etc. The results of these surveys are published and are available on the city's website22.

The citizen panel contributes, alongside other consultation and participation methods, to the improvement of the functioning of local democracy. It presents specific advantages linked to the use of the internet: simple to use, the tool allows results to be obtained quicker and at a lower cost. This allows consultation to be carried out more frequently and numerous and diverse subjects to be addressed.

The use of a specialised and independent institute is a guarantee of seriousness and impartiality, as much in the constitution of the panel as in the interpretation of the results of the survey.

Two examples show the benefits which this instrument has provided for the municipality.

The results of a survey concerning traffic showed several years ago a state of great dissatisfaction. Contrary to other cities, in Issy-les-Moulineaux traffic was considered a primary problem; this encouraged counsellors to make it a priority and to take decisions LQ WKLV ILHOG 7KH SROLF\ ZDV SRVLWLYHO\ MXGJHG WKH SHUFHQWDJH RI SHRSOH ³VDWLVILHG´ ZLWK the actions of the municipality regarding the traffic having increased from 26 to 48% between December 2004 and August 2006. In 2004 a survey carried out among mothers on the citizen panel indicated real needs in terms of post-natal support. This allowed the DHSXW\ 0D\RU 5HVSRQVLEOH IRU :RPHQœV $IIDLUV 0DULDQQH %XKOHU WR UDLVH WKLV WRSLF DW the heart of the municipality and among actors in the sector (healthcare professionals and social services). In 2005 an association supporting a project for a post-natal open house was founded.

Today the municipality envisages developing further tools for consulting the population.

For one it would like to widen the methods used by including qualitative surveys in the form of online focus groups (by chat), accompanied perhaps by a discussion forum.

I-Folio Case Study                                                         22  www.issy.com

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In January 2009 the city launched a new service called  I-Folio , the first local network for participative debate on the internet. A kind of local version of Facebook, as a local QHZVSDSHU FDOOHG LW ³7he aim is to reinforce the debate on the major subjects FRQFHUQLQJ OLIH LQ ,VV\´ IRU Mayor $QGUp 6DQWLQL ³7R ORYH \RXU WRZQ LV WR ORYH exchanging and dialoguing with all those that live and work there. We want to engage in direct dialogue with the residents of our town using this site for debate, discussion and WKH SURSRVDO RI LGHDV ´ 7KLV LV WKH PHVVDJH WKDW WKH UHVLGHQWV RI ,VV\-les-Moulineaux can read on the homepage of I-Folio. Each month several themes are proposed by internet users in order to develop local democracy. The debates cover the actors of solidarity in the city, redevelopment projects or the development of city transportation.

The principle is simple. Via the municipal website, the citizen connects to I-Folio. Once ³RQ VLWH´ WKHUH DUH WZo scenarios. Firstly a simple visitor can consult all the contributions.

Then, if he wishes to contribute to a debate he will have to give his name, the area of Issy where he lives and optionally a photo to be registered. I-Folio is based on the logic of establishing a social network like MySpace or Facebook in order to constitute a truly local network in order to create links between residents.

There are several others local eParticipation projects running in France like twitter for the city of Rennes, Facebook application for the city of Paris, Flickr group for the city of Issyles-Moulineaux, DailyMotion and YouTube channels for the city of Lyon Culture site.

The 3D Living Innovation Case Study La Fabrique de Future23, a French NGO has lately presented another interesting eParticipation project conception called 3D Living Innovation24. The project is not developed for the moment but is very interesting to follow the evolution of this case as it seems to be very close to what will be developed in a framework of APOLLON project.

                                                        23  http://www.lafabriquedufutur.org/   24  http://www.lafabriquedufutur.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=37

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It is a thematic, cross-border project consisting on a set of 3D-related resources and tools aimed at offering organisations co-creative imagination and innovative solution by the capability to interact directly with their markets to invent, to test and to evaluate future new products and services. The project intended to soon become international as 3D Living Innovation wants to become a strong reference in Europe of the potential offered by the 3D world. The goal of the system is to enhance creativity, develop collaboration and reduce time to market while keeping costs as low as possible. The services provided by this project will be: -

3D Ideation

-

3D Co-conception

-

This range of services aims at helping our clients and stakeholders to coconceive new innovative products and services. It can be declined in several offers

-

Rapid 3D Simulation

-

Rapid 3D Prototyping

-

Rapid 3D Testing

-

3D Promotion & marketing - 3D Engineering, consulting & services

The application areas of the project are very wide as they potentially concern all sectors of activities (of course with focus on B2C sectors, where users are involved): city planning and housing, education, health, domestic services, aging and disabled population, transport & mobility, tourism & leisure, eco-conception, etc.

The 3D Living Innovation is focused on the use of 3D and 3D related resources: Virtual Worlds (metaverses), augmented reality, ambient intelligence, imagery technologies, etc.

United Kingdom As part of Manchester City Council, Manchester Libraries and Information Service25 (MLIS) deliver cultural, learning and information services through a network of more than 20 libraries across the Manchester region. With over 130,000 active library members, MLIS issues over 2 million items and attracts more than 3 million visits each year.

25 http://www.manchester.gov.uk/libraries/

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In 2008 MLIS began to use a range of Internet based social media sites and tools as their presence on the main Manchester City Council site was difficult to find and communication hampered by having to work through official channels. Implementing a presence on various social media sites has sought to raise awareness, provide improved communication to the community and build stronger links with existing and new service users.

As part of this activity, MLIS maintain active profiles on Flickr26, Facebook27, Twitter28 and a literary blog29.

3HRSOHÂśV 9RLFH 0HGLD &DVH 6WXG\

3HRSOHÂśV 9RLFH 0HGLD30 are a not-for-profit social enterprise based in Manchester who has expanded to include projects running in other parts of the UK. Their aim is to help empower individuals, groups and communities to develop and promote social and campaigning initiatives through the use of social media.

The individual is very much at the heart of this effort and significant emphasis is placed on ensuring that those in the community are able to use and maintain social media skills, thereby removing reliance on 3rd parties.

7KLV HWKRV KHOSV 3HRSOHÂśV 9RLFH 0HGLD SURPRWH SULQFLSOHV RI RSHQQHVV WUDQVSDUHQF\ diversity and equality in the community.

A number of social media initiatives are currently active within local communities, initially IXQGHG DQG VXSSRUWHG E\ WKH RUJDQLVDWLRQ 7\SLFDOO\ 3HRSOHÂśV 9RLFH 0HGLD SURYLGH services in disadvantaged and regenerating communities. In the Greater Manchester region these areas include Ordsall and Broughton in Salford as well as the Beswick, Clayton and Openshaw districts in east Manchester.

                                                        26  http://www.flickr.com/people/manchesterlibraries/   27  http://www.facebook.com/mancitycouncil   28  http://twitter.com/#!/ManCityCouncil   29  http://manchesterlitlist.blogspot.com/   30  http://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk/

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Three of the core offerings are the community reporters programme, the establishment of social media centers and the content delivery network31.

Manchester Libraries on Flickr Case Study

 Manchester Libraries maintain a profile on Flickr32 that provides an additional channel for visitors to access items of specific interest. Additionally, Flickr has been used to crowdsource photographs from visitors to support specific initiatives of interest to local communities, such as the opening of a new library and the temporary closure of the iconic Central Library in Manchester city center.

Using a blend of traditional media, visitor workshops and Flickr, MLIS sought to promote the opening of a new library in the city. The blended approach enables the service to capture the interest of a wider range of the community than if they used a single, more traditional media approach.

The project outline is as follows: Visitor workshops at the library gathered photographs of the new facility. The workshops enlisted the services of a number of photographers sourced through Flickr, who all gave their time for free.

These workshops wHUH DWWHQGHG E\ D PL[WXUH RI ORFDO LQWHUHVW JURXSV FKLOGUHQÂśV homework clubs and people who were just walking past the library.

The photographs were uploaded to Flickr thereby enabling access via the Internet and exposing the participant images to a wider audience.

Some of the best images have been transferred to canvas and are now on public display in the library33.

The event was very successful, in no small part due to the blending of social media and face-to-face workshops, with the incentive of the participants knowing that their image

                                                        31  http://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk/what-­�we-­�offer   32  http://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterlibraries/

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could be part of a public art installation at the end of the process. Flickr has been used to re-inforce that incentive and bring the images to wider attention.

Overall, the library service has found that using Flickr has generated a small but HQWKXVLDVWLF FRPPXQLW\ DURXQG WKHLU DFWLYLWLHV 7KH Âľ0DQFKHVWHU &HQWUDO /LEUDU\Âś SKRWR pool34 has attracted over 140 images and 40 members who are all motivated to add their own small piece of photographic documentation of what is an iconic building in the city.

Manchester Libraries on Facebook Case Study

 The Manchester Libraries page on Facebook35 KDV DWWUDFWHG RYHU ¾IDQVœ ZKR DUH interested in being kept up to date with library activity via their chosen social network.

At a first glance this may not seem to be impressive. However, if we consider that these are potentially 1,100 people who may well not previously have engaged with the library at all, who would have struggled to be aware of events and who would have no direct communication channel to the library, then we can see that Facebook provides a valuable engagement tool.

In fact, two recent events sold out following their promotion within libraries, the traditional press and on Facebook. Staff at the libraries knew that the attendees were new to the VHUYLFH DV VRPH EHFDPH PHPEHUV DQG RWKHUV FRPPHQWHG WKDW WKH\ GLGQÂśW NQRZ WKDW events were held there.

The library uses their Facebook page as a direct channel. Anyone can come to the page DQG ZULWH RQ WKH ÂľZDOOÂś HQDEOLQg either the library or other fans to respond to their query.

7KURXJK WKH FRPPHQWLQJ RU ÂľOLNLQJÂś IHDWXUHV RI )DFHERRN LW LV SRVVLEOH IRU WKH OLEUDU\ WR gain rapid feedback about events or features that they are promoting on the site. This enables staff to fine tune the type of content that they display on the page, knowing that this will increase the likelihood of their fans being interested in it.

There are many other facets to the use of Facebook by the library. Access has been provided to the Central Library book and music catalogues via the page, giving visitors

                                                        34  http://www.flickr.com/groups/manchestercentrallibrary/  35  http://www.facebook.com/manchesterlibraries

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easier searching capabilities for items they may be interested in borrowing. Similarly, specific items of interest are highlighted via photos and events are promoted in calendar and longer narrative formats.

Some use has been made of the Facebook Markup Language to customize the page to the specific needs of the library. This has been done on a self-taught basis with the author seeking and receiving assistance through both the Facebook and Twitter networks.

Manchester Libraries on Twitter Case Study

Twitter36 has proven to be particularly successful for the library team in raising awareness about upcoming events or acting as a direct communication channel for their followers.

With the directed nature of Twitter conversations it is easy for other users to ask specific questions of the library and quickly receive a response. This has proven to be easier than having to navigate the main City Council website searching for the correct person or department to contact.

More importantly, Twitter has worked very effectively as a method of attracting new attendees to events held at the library. In particular, the promotion of one upcoming event via the channel has attracted over 30% of the attendees, highlighting that when used in conjunction with more traditional promotional methods (posters in the library), Twitter can extend the reach of the library to a demographic and market that they ZRXOGQ¶W SUHYLRXVO\ KDYH KDG DFFHVV WR Use is carefully managed to ensure that the 1,400 followers do not feel they are being µVSDPPHG¶ DQG D FRPELQDWLRQ RI XVHIXO OLQNV DQG SURPRWLRQDO PHVVDJHV DUH XVHG ,W LV very important that followers feel they are receiving useful, additional information that WKH\ ZRXOGQ¶W W\SLFDlly have access to as well as informational messages about the library.

36 http://twitter.com/manclibraries

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The Manchester Lit List Blog Case Study

 The Lit List blog37 aims to provide more in-depth insight into some of the campaigns and events that the library runs than is possible on Twitter or Facebook. Blogs lend themselves to this form of dissemination as readers expect the content to be more detailed and thoughtful. Facebook and especially Twitter are more suited to short, frequent updates that are designed to grab followers or fans.

The blog focuses on literature content ranging from the latest books in the library to poetry and writing competitions. This is definitely an effort that is tuned specifically to those who are literature buffs, in much the same way that the Flickr presence appeals to those interested in photography.

Engagement is difficult to measure, but the library recognizes that in order to gain and maintain interest, updates must be frequent and varied. Although the level of comments is low, this is to be expected with blogs where typically the ratio of readers to commentators is very low and should not be an indicator of successful engagement.

Other indicators of successful engagement through the blog are evident. For example, a free lecture series run in 2009 and promoted via the blog was oversubscribed by more than 200 people. The library service had to stop inline promotion of the series as demand was too great. $V D SRUWDO WR WKH OLEUDU\ÂśV RWKHU VRFLDO PHGLD DFWLYLW\ WKH EORJ LV XVHG PLQLPDOO\ ZLWK links through to Facebook. This is one facet that could be improved with additional links to Twitter and Flickr.

TRAIL Technologies for Rurality, Ageing and Independent Living Case Study The main objective of the TRAIL project38, which started in January 2008, is to develop participative methods that identify the unmet health-related needs of ageing citizens in rural locations in the region of the North of Ireland. TRAIL creates service and product

                                                        37  http://manchesterlitlist.blogspot.com/  38  http://trail.ulster.ac.uk/  Â

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innovations that will enable rural and age-impaired citizens to live independently in the heart of their communities. Project aim is to set up socially inclusive open innovation models in business as well as in public sector. The current activity of the project concerns healthcare and issues related to the aging population. This project could improve their health and safety and stimulate the creation and evaluation of the new products and services. Two programs were set up during the project MyHealth@Age39 and Nestling Technology Initiative40. MyHealth@Age consists on development of new products and services through participatory research in close cooperation with elderly people, healthcare and welfare organizations, ICT-companies and Universities in Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Examples are mobile safety alarm with wirelessly connected fall sensor with assistance support suitable both for alarm centers and for friends and relatives, prescribed Healthcare that support own diagnose measurements, medication support and secure messaging between patients and healthcare staff including graphical diagnose measurement, enhanced social networks that will improve isolated elderly peoples social life.

7KH FXVWRPHUV¶ FHOO phones are equipped with GPS and an alarm so that the alarm center can locate the person in need. The cuVWRPHUV¶ SKRQH LV DFWLYDWHG PDNLQJ LW possible to talk with the person in need even if that person can't reach the phone. Alarms can only be made when the mobile phone is connected to the mobile network. If a fall sensor is used, it has to be wirelessly attached to the mobile phone to transfer alarms to the alarm centre.

Concerning the prescribed healthcare the data are visualized and shared between the elderly person and the healthcare staff. The prescription or evaluations of the diagnose measurement can be made on the elderly people mobile phone or at a web-browser.

The project has so far specified the requirements and developed a prototype in close cooperation between elderly people, healthcare and welfare staff, ICT companies, researchers, education and implementation of the trial products has been made successful in Northern Ireland, Sweden and Norway nut no objective quantitative measurements are available so far.

39 http://trail.ulster.ac.uk/activities/myhealthage/ 40 http://trail.ulster.ac.uk/activities/nestling/

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Other eDemocracy projects TweetyHall41 is a service that aims to connect the public with politicians, commentators and others who help shape the local political landscape in the UK. There are over 400 local councilors representing over 230 authorities that currently use Twitter in an attempt to better engage with the people who they have been mandated to serve. TweetyHall enables easy location of local councilors and their recent Twitter activity statistics on how active they are as well as a link to their Twitter page.. Visitors to the site can search by location or political party. TweetyHall has been developed by FutureGov Consultancy, a London based organisation that seeks to use web based technologies to actively influence the development of policy, communication and engagement in the Government sector.

The Pledgebank in Brixton42 is a sort of archive containing information on successful pledges, ranging from campaigning for vegetarian marshmallows to protecting civil liberties. Pledges have been set up on local, national and international issues. The pledge creator provided background information, to the people who sign-up to it.

Surrey County Council project43 explored the use of video to engage local young people in council processes and dialogue with local councillors through a series of ILOPLQJ HYHQWV XQGHU WKH EDQQHU ³0RUH WKDQ MXVW D 9RLFH´ $ PRELOH YLGHR NLRVN ZDV purchased and young people were encouraged to make short (1¹5min) films about issues that affect them. The project also worked with a group of young people from the traveller community to make a film and ran a number of studio-based events involving interviews with young people and with decision makers.

Campaign Creator44, a pilot project funded under the Office of the Deputy Prime 0LQLVWHUÂśV H-Innovations grant fund and run by Bristol City Council, is an attempt to offer citizens resources to organize themselves around issues of shared concern. The project put together a suite of online and offline tools and information resources to enable FLWL]HQV ZKR GRQÂśW KDYH DQ\ H[SHULHQFH RI DFWLYLVP WR UXQ D FUHGLEOH DQG VHULRXV

                                                        41  http://tweetyhall.co.uk/  42  http://pledgebank.com  43  http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/ 44  http://.campaigncreator.org  Â

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community campaign. Within 10 months of launch over 500 users had registered on the website to start a campaign.

The success of this project has brought considerable international interest in New Zealand, Canada, Tanzania, USA, Tajikistan, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Belgium, Ireland, Ghana, Australia and Switzerland.

Finland Lahti Case Study Lahti is located in the Southern Finland, 100 km from Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

Lahti's population has climbed from around 3000 in the 1900s to over 98 000 today, making it the seventh largest city in Finland. Lahti has a diversified industrial structure.

The city is still the centre of Finnish furniture industry, when at the same time the service sector and high technology companies are increasing their importance. Nowadays design, quality and environmental technology are the main sectors developed and invested in. In August 2009 Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lahti School of Innovation and the City of Lahti have launched an eParticipation project to study different PHWKRGV RI UHVLGHQWV¶ LQYROYHPHQW LQ WKH GHYHORSPHQW RI WKHLU OLYLQJ DUHD E\ XQRIILFLDO ways. The target group was habitants of three suburban area called Tonttila, Riihelä and Metsäkangas. The main emphasis behind this project is to use the innovation potential of ordinary people. Today there have been about 150 project members participating in 3 urban areas. The tool used in Lahti project is Facebook and social forums where citizens can discuss and post their ideas. In one group, there have been 114 discussion openings and several potential ideas, some of them are very detailed level (like design of skate ramps). One idea concerning transportation information is brilliant according to technology provider and Transportation Company. The most important type of engagement in this project is idea generation however citizens can also receive some information or consult the stage of projects evaluation. Concerning effective contribution to the decision making process is still too early to define since the public servants, present in the Fb group, do not respond to citizens directly. They do not want to create H[SHFWDWLRQV ZKDW VR HYHU DV WKH WLPH VFDOH EHWZHHQ FLWL]HQV¶ LGHD DQG SRWHQWLDO implementation of it, is long (could be even a year). As to project dissemination the

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management team thinks that the best way to advertise the project is via social network because it is a place where citizens are anyway, but also press and events.

Germany

Berlin Budget Online Dialog Case Study The Berlin borough of Lichtenberg (population of 260.000) has conducted a participatory budgeting project Online-Dialogue45 in the second half of 2005. After the successful activity local council has decided to implement participatory budgeting as a regular task.

This platform enabled citizens to get information on the issue, to direct questions to officials, to propose and discuss ideas for the budget, and to cast votes in order to select the most adhered to proposals. The borough's council members of all parties signed a declaration, which describes in detail, how they were to use the results in their policy decisions. The main objectives of the project are: x

Mutual agreement in policy decisions;

x

Effective and fair budgeting;

x

Transparency and comprehension for financial matters;

x

Lively discussion and un-bureaucratic solutions

The specific SA tools and methodologies being used are paper survey, public meetings, online-dialogue with detailed information section, moderated discussion forum, budgetcalculator, proposal-wikis, preference-polling, newsletter, editor's interviews with politicians, etc.

The advocacy and media tools such as posters and leaflets, information stands at local festivals, mass media coverage, online banners are being used to advertise the project In total 4000 people have participated in the different formats of the pilot year. The paper survey has reached a representative share of the local population. The online-dialogue has reached mainly young and mid-aged citizens up to 50 years of both genders. The level of education was higher than in the total population. As in all (online-) dialogues the two main challenges were:

45 http://zebralog.de

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-to reach disadvantaged target groups (in terms of education or income) -to involve participants in the complexity of the problem (to get transparent, fair and rational results) The first challenge was worked on by the advocacy and media activities described above and had decent results. The second challenge seems to be especially important and difficult in budgeting matters.

The methodology and technology of www.buergerhaushalt-lichtenberg.de has helped a great deal to work collaboratively on the budget. There were human moderators, a shared editing function (wiki), and a budget calculator for the concrete proposals. The specific challenge was to design these tools with a simple usability, but also with a complex functionality.

4.2 eParticipation at National & Regional levels

The majority of the national eParticipation initiatives are covering the areas of Participation of Deliberation, Information Provision and Consultation and that they are in a major part founded by the national and private funds. The United Kingdom and Germany are the two European countries leading in a number of identified national

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eParticipation cases (26 for UK and 15 for Germany)46. As one can expect the eParticipation initiatives are available in the languages of the country. There is multilingualism in Belgium and Switzerland as both have several official languages. The national scale initiatives are in general funded by national and private funds.

The regional scale eParticipation initiatives are mainly funded by the EU and the concerned regions47.

United Kingdom Within the United Kingdom Public Sector, at local, regional and national levels there has been a significant increase in the use of social media tools and technologies with the specific aims of improving public engagement and communication.

Tweetminister Case Study

Tweetminster48 is a service that aims to connect the public with politicians, commentators and others who help shape the national political landscape in the UK. It is built using a combination of the Twitter Application Programming Interface (API) and custom developed code and provides an aggregated view of the Twitter activity from 03¶V DQG 3ROLWLFDO 3DUWLHV In essence the site aims to digitally replicate the Houses of Parliament.

The added value that Tweetminster brings is in providing a single location for those who aUH LQWHUHVWHG LQ WKH 7ZLWWHU DFWLYLWLHV RI 03¶V ,QVWHDG RI KDYLQJ WR WUDZO WKURXJK WKH main Twitter site or specifically configure their twitter client, visitors can easily find their local MP on the site and follow their recent activity. They do not need to be a Twitter member to do this, but to engage in the conversation then a Twitter account is required.

46, 47 http://www.sora.at/fileadmin/images/content/Pages/euyoupart_ergebnisse_finalcomparativereport.pdf

48 http://tweetminster.co.uk/

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The developers have also extended the basic aggregation of Twitter feeds to provide a number of value added applications that can be installed on individual computers or embedded in 3rd party websites.

Tweetminster is providing a valuable service by making it much easier for people to identify and locate their local MP (if they have a twitter account of course) as well as directly contact them to join in the active debates. By aggregating this across the political VSHFWUXP DQG DOO 03¶V ZKR XVH 7ZLWWHU LW D OD\HU RI VLPSOLFLW\ WKDW VLJQLILFDQWO\ HQKDQFHV this communication channels.

The service has gained recognition in both the mainstream and digital press channels with coverage in the Financial Times, The Times newspaper, wired magazine and New Media Age amongst others.

The Tweetminster twitter ID has over 10,000 followers and is used to provide updates on QHZO\ MRLQHG 03¶V DQG RWKHU SROLWLFDO DFWLYLWy.

Scottish Parliament Case study

One of the most successful and renowned national scale eParticipation project was launched by the Scottish Parliament in 200449 (http://scottish.parliament.uk). This project revolves around the idea of online petitioning which is one of the oldest forms of eParticipation. The Scottish Parliament e-petitioner system is quite unique as it allows any citizen to propose and sign an e-petition and to comment any online discussion. This project also integrates the multichannel approach as citizens can choose to participate via e-SHWLWLRQ RU YLD ³UHDO´ SDSHU SHWLWLRQV The Scottish Parliament objective is to respect the principles of sharing power; accountability; access and participation; as well as equal opportunities. These principles perfectly fit with the situation in Scotland as the population is very dispersed. The implementation of e-Petition is one of the best way to erase and to overcome the space barriers to participate and to provide a better accountability by setting up processes

49 http://scottish.parliament.uk

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which results are published online and transparent. It has also increased transparency by clearly formalising the stages for handling petitions.

Moreover the transparency of the process is also guaranteed by the fact that visitors can track the petitions progresses through the parliament or local authorities, for example via D ³SURJUHVV LQ SDUOLDPHQW´ EXWWRQ This initiative has a significant impact as it favoured the involvement of the Scottish population in the Scottish Parliament's decision-making. The issues submitted to the Public Petitions Committee via e-petitioning are key citizens issues. The subject of the ePetitions could vary from road crossing to telecom masts, Post Office closures, etc.

The Scottish parliament is carefully respecting data protection laws as the VLJQDWRULHV¶ names are displayed and personal data are stored privately.

The system automatically deletes duplicate signatures and it provides administrators with graphical indicators on the validity of the signatures. These automated verifications are based on the link between IP and e-mail addresses.

The follow-up of the petition is simple as the system automatically generates figures of the numbers of signatures and their origin (regions of the signatures).

As the Scottish Parliament is recognized as one of the leaders in e-petitioning and its projects has interested other Parliaments and institutions. The OECD acknowledged in WKDW ³IHZ FRXQWULHV KDYH XVHG WHFKQRORJ\ WR HQDEOH HOHFWURQLF SHWLWLRQLQJ WR WKH extent RI WKH 6FRWWLVK 3DUOLDPHQW´50. Today the system has already been successfully piloted and transferred to other local authorities in England.

The e-Petition system of the Scottish Parliament does not use expensive and new technologies. It only needs Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) and a SQL Server database to hold the petitions data. For the website, it uses the open standard XHTML 1.0 for web page mark-up, and (Open Database Connectivity standard to connect to the database. The disk storage require for the application is less than 10MB51.

It is important to note that objectively the technical innovation level in this initiative is low; indeed petitions sent by e-mail or put on websites are not new. However what is new is

50 http://itc.napier.ac.uk/itc/NewsItem.asp?ID=14

51 http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-­‐SQL-­‐Server-­‐2000/Scottish-­‐Parliament/Electronic-­‐Petitions-­‐Enhance-­‐

Public-­‐Influence-­‐and-­‐Participation-­‐in-­‐Democratic-­‐Process/49640 ; http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/spes

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the process52, once the e-petition has been submitted, the role of the petitioner does not end. The e-petitioner53 continues to have an active role: - he/ she can respond to comments made on the discussion forum, the submitter can also exchange and debate on issues rose by a petition with a wide range of citizens. The e-petitioner is able to come and defend his petition before the Public Petitions Committee on issues and question raised by the Committee's investigation.

This example illustrates that innovative technologies and ICT tools are not the milestones for the success of an eParticipation initiatives. The important point is to set up processes that encourage the stakeholders to make an interactive platform. It also shows the importance of a multichannel approach allowing the citizens to use the channels which fit the most with his/her skills and tastes. It also highlights the needs of transparency for citizens.

Denmark

ROSTRA Case Study 5455

Rostra

(http://e-demokrati.borger.dk) Â is an online system for public debate and

expression of opinions through voting facilities based on the Danish Digital Signature, started in June 2007. The tool is a part of the Danish citizens portal borger.dk developed by the Danish National IT and TelecoP $JHQF\ ,W IXQFWLRQV DV D QDWLRQDO ³GHEDWH DQG YRWLQJ SRUWDO´ DOORZLQJ FLWL]HQV EXVLQHVVHV SROLWLFLDQV DQG MRXUQDOLVWV WR SDUWLFLSDWH LQ debates and votes organized by levels of government, subject, etc. The tool can handle debates and votes at the local, regional and national levels and it is possible to authentify user identity through login with the Danish Digital Signature.  In its modernization programme, the government has committed to the use of ICT to XQGHUSLQ ³FUHDWLRQ RI D PRUH RSHQ XVHU-orienWHG DQG GHPRFUDWLF DGPLQLVWUDWLRQ´56 where

                                                        52  Challenges  of  Expanding  Internet:  eCommerce  eBusiness  and  eGovernment,  IFIP  International  Federation  for  Information Â

Processing,  E-­â€?Petitioning:  Enabling  Ground-­â€?Up  Participation;  Nicholas  J.  Adams,  Ann  Macintosh  and  Jim  Johnston  http://www.springerlink.com/content/7x225285377139j2/  53   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-­â€?Petitioner  54  http://e-­â€?demokrati.borger.dk  55  http://www.epractice.eu/cases/Rostra   56  http://www.eurospacegroup.com/file/pubblicazioni/20091005_convegno.pdf  Â

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both citizens and businesses have greater access to the workings of government and are able to participate in strengthened dialogue with politicians. While this commitment has not translated into any specific goals under the e-Government strategy, it has nonetheless been acted on at the all of government level from the development of the online system for public debate and expression of opinions through voting facilities based on the Danish Digital Signature.

The impact of the ROSTRA tool was development of a new voting system for binding election regarding the Danish parochial church councils. To secure the secrecy of the ballot and to ensure unique identification of the voter, the voting process is developed around the Danish Digital Signature. It was possible for all potential voters to cast their vote digitally in a period for 10 days before the physical election took place, November 2008. To ensure that there will be no connectivity between the voters personal information and the vote itself, it has been decided, that once you vote digitally, the option

to

physically

place

your

vote

at

the

voting

facility

is

suspended.

This e-election is a pilot project between The Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and The National IT and Telecom Agency.

Austria

WLANd Salzburg Ȃ a multimedia on-­‐line tourist Guide 7KH OLPLWHG JHRJUDSKLFDO DUHD RI 6DO]EXUJ¶V $OWVWDGW ROG FLW\-part of Salzburg) is an ideal test-bed for rolling-out wireless-LAN with complete internet coverage everywhere and at all times. The initial phase of WLANd Salzburg57 is an information packed wireless mobile city-guide that uses city maps in combination with GPS to show the actual position of the tourist, plans and the surrounding attractions.

57 Dz ȋ Ȍdz Noella Edelmann, Center for E-­‐Government, Danube University Krems,

Krems, Austria ; Johann Hoechtl, Center for E-­‐Government, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria; Peter Parycek; Austrian Federal Chancellery, Vienna, Austria http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1616908

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WLANd Salzburg is a virtual information layer that makes use of information from many sources concerning tourist attractions. The information is distributed upon user request IURP PRELOH FRPSXWHUV DQG 3'$ÂśV DQG LV YLHZHG E\ XVH RI VWDQGDUG EURZVHUV As tourists are phyVLFDOO\ ZRUNLQJ WKH VWUHHWV RI 6DO]EXUJÂśV $OWVWDGW WKH\ FDQ DOVR EH accompanied by a virtual city-map with access to location-based information about historical buildings, museums, fine arts, restaurants, and many other attractions, as they emerge on their mobile devices.

Mitmachen and Jugend2help Case Study In Austria, two recent eParticipation projects focused on adolescent citizens since 77% of the young people (18-29) are everyday Internet users. The first project, ³mitmachen.at ¹ move your future´ ZDs to provide initial experiences with an H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ WRRO 7KH VHFRQG SURMHFW ³Jugend2help´58

59

, applied the lessons learned

IURP WKH ³PLWPDFKHQ DW´ SURMHFW WR LPSURYH WKH $XVWULDQ SXEOLF DGPLQLVWUDWLRQ ZHE SRUWDO for adolescent citizens. In both projects, the results indicate that web portals and H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ VHHPV WR VXLW WKH DGROHVFHQWVœ LQIRUPDWLRQ DQG FRPPXQLFDWLRQ QHHGV Involving the users is central to the development of an eParticipation process or platform VR WKDW WKH XVHUVœ VSHFLILF FKDUDFWHristics (age, skills), needs and interests are included appropriately. Austrian youth eParticipators were asked to decide on the content and features of their Help space. The Jugend2help project was very successful with around 900 contributions and 2000 votes.

The conclusions60 concerning the project are important for the future projects setup and they reveal that the most important for a success of the eParticipation projects are good PR (in social media but also in Schools and Public institutions) and Web accessibility.

7KH WDUJHW XVHUVÂś FKDUDFWHULVWLFV DUH DOVR LPSRUWDQW IRU GHYHORSLQJ D PDUNHWLQJ VWUDWHJ\ which is able to reach them. Other issues which must also be considered in eParticipation are accessibility, inclusion and possibly gender.

                                                        58  http://www.jugend2help.gv.at  59  http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/jugend2help Â

60  jugend2help.gv.at   E-­â€?government  for  young  people  ,  Danube  University  Krems Â

http://www.epma.cz/Docs/EEEGD09/prezentace/J2H_7th_eGovDays_Prag_20090424.pdf Â

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The phases of Jugen2help project: Phase 1 DzDiscussion

Phase 3

or Commentsdz

DzRatingdz

Online

Export data

Phase 2

Import

DzElaborationdz

data

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Online or Offline

Phase 4 Results Publication

Finland Päijät-Häme Case Study Lahti Living Lab61 project purpose is to bring people into the center of innovation and to KHOS FRPSDQLHV DQG RUJDQL]DWLRQV GHYHORS XVHU FHQWHUHG SURGXFWV ZLWK FRQVXPHUV¶ participation in the innovation process. Lahti Living Lab is a sort of consortium bringing together public corporations, companies, academia and users with an aim to open new solutions and business opportunities by promoting innovation in a challenging environment. The special focus of the Lahti Living Lab is also to develop and study innovativeness and productivity in the public sector. The methods of involving and activating the users vary, there are methods based on ICT but also on face-to-face communication.

Lahti Living Lab is situated in the Päijät-Häme region in southern Finland. The region has app. 200 000 inhabitants, which makes the region large enough for piloting usercentered applications for the public services. The region also has favorable conditions and structures for the public sector innovativeness (that the first public utility of social and health care in Finland was founded in the Päijät-Häme region). The variety of

61 http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/livinglab/lahti-­‐living-­‐lab

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projects related to the restructuring of public services and management of innovativeness can be characterized as an ambition to improve the quality of life for a whole citizens group and at the same time act as the start of a new and successful business venture. The ongoing projects concentrate for example on involving ageing people in generating ideas for a future welfare centre service concept. For example The Patient Advice (Asiakasneuvo) programme developed under the guidance of LUT Lahti School of Innovation began in autumn 2008. Programme has created a new way of utilising patients' service experiences in developing services with many different sources of information exploited. The user not only supplies information to the developers, but also is a part of the development team generating ideas and prototypes.

Estonia

Estonia has been previously assessed by various E-readiness reports as one of the most successful adaptors and up takers of new communication technologies in CEE countries.

TOM Case Study Started in June 2001 TOM62

63

(www.eesti.ee/tom) government initiative also enhanced

dialogue between citizens and public officials. The project was administrated by state Chancellery and promoted in Estonia as Direct Democracy Portal. It has been incorporated in the Osale.ee64 eParticipation site on June 4th, 2008. The main idea of the project was to improve public participation in political decision making process by providing the opportunity to propose and discuss new legislatives initiatives via internet.

The policy documents are presented for discussion by minister, on the eParticipation portal and everybody can follow discussions but only registered users can submit the proposal and participate in it. The way of considering the ideas was following: x

the idea is presented to the citizens on the portal

x

citizens have 10 days to comment and discuss it

62 www.eesti.ee/tom

63 http://tidplus.net/project/analysis-­‐of-­‐the-­‐tom-­‐tool/analysis-­‐of-­‐the-­‐tom-­‐tool-­‐usage-­‐statistics 64 http://www.osale.ee/

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x

this period is followed by 3 days period of editing and 3 days for secret voting

x

only ideas getting more than half of votes in favour are considered further

x

ministry has 1 month for analysis and answer

x

the answer is posted on TOM

During the activity of the project65 1140 ideas were presented (64% voted in, 34% voted out). 654 proposals were sent to the ministries (89% answered among those 6% with a possible implementation, 48% negatives, 7% supportive). The TOM portal had 6910 registered users and about 100 to 150 visits per day (up to 300 when mentioned elsewhere for example in blogs or forums). This is the most readily available and most often used data concerning TOM performance from its launch in 2001 to the end of 2006.

65 http://www.slideshare.net/Metamorphosis/eparticipation-­‐case-­‐study-­‐direct-­‐democracy-­‐portal-­‐today-­‐i-­‐decide-­‐by-­‐ms-­‐nele-­‐

leosk-­‐egovernance-­‐academy-­‐estonia

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Source http://tidplus.net/project/analysis-of-the-tom-tool/analysis-of-the-tom-tool-usagestatistics/

The positives sides of TOM were as follow: x

possibility to rise political issues

x

obligation of state administration to respondents

x

communication between users

x

communication with state administration

x

ability to follow proposals and discussions

The main problems of TOM were: x

many non constrictive proposals

x

passive discussions-low level of the idea author's involvement, only 35% participated in latter phase

x

few votes

x

small number of active users

x

no publicity, buzz

x

rejection of proposals by state administration on formal grounds

x

little dialogue between citizens and political decision makers

x

few ideas implemented

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In 2005 Estonia became the first country in the world66 to hold an election allowing voters nationwide to cast ballots over the Internet. By Oct. 12, the final day of voting, 9,317 people had successfully cast their vote electronically.

The voting mechanism was fairly simple: Estonian citizens needed an ID card, a computer and an ID Card-­‐Reader. The ID card identifies the voters uniquely, and they could then cast their vote on a secure site. They finally had to confirm their choice by entering a PIN. About 60% of Estonian voters have the ID cards, which has been in use since 2002 for online access to bank accounts and tax records. But many ID card users still lack the reading device, which explains the low turnout of online voting.

One percent of registered voters participated online in the elections for mayors and city councils across the country and officials hailed the experiment conducted on October 10 to October 12 as a success. Election officials in the country of 1.4 million said they had received no reports of flaws in the online voting system or hacking attempts. The IT solution for casting votes cost about 250,000 euro. In the future, the same software was used for conducting national polls. In 2007 some 30,000 out of 940,000 eligible voters chose this option.

Romania Beautiful Romania Case Study The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Romania re-launched in 2008 the online presence of the Beautiful Romania project67 68(http://www.beautifulromania.ro)

66 http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/webethics.shtml 67 http://www.beautifulromania.ro/en

68 http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/306907

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The platform aims to promote the initiatives and activities related to urban regeneration and cultural heritage protection among central and local stakeholders, as well as individuals interested in these issues in Romania.

This initiative is expected to boost urban employment in these regenerated sites while initiating the process of revitalisation of currently neglected and degraded historical buildings in the centres of several Romanian cities. The project provides training and employment opportunities for young people from vulnerable groups, supports the Romanian Government and municipalities in the rehabilitation of the country's urban heritage. In this way, the project supports the Government's efforts towards increased social and economic development. For these purposes, the Beautiful Romania project team has developed an interactive online resource centre that will gather and promote best practices around the world, potential project ideas to be developed in Romania, resource organisations and information on legal framework and volunteering/internship opportunities. The platform integrates several web 2.0 technologies which aim to facilitate the communication and interaction with a wider audience.

Regional scale eParticipation initiatives have many similar characteristics of the national scale one. Indeed the participation areas addressed are Information Provision, Deliberation and Consultation In Europe the United-Kingdom and Germany are as well leaders in term of regional scale eParticipation projects. However Spain is also active in those fields with 6 cases identified. These can be explained by the fact that in these 3 countries, regions have a lot of power and that the regional identity of the citizens is very strong.

Generally regional scale eParticipation Initiative are available in the languages of the countries, except for Spain which uses two languages: Catalan and Basque.

France Ile de France Region-ADEME Case Study

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, the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management has recently

launched a new web site on territorial climate and energy information. The new website, www.pcet-ademe.fr KDV EHHQ ODXQFKHG LQ WKH IUDPH RI ³7KH (QYLURQPHQW 5RXQG 7DEOH *UHQHOOH (QYLURQQHPHQW ´ ZKLFK LQYLWHV DOO FRPPXQLWLHV ZLWK PRUH WKDQ 50 000 inhabitants to establish a Territorial Climate-Energy Plan (PCET). This site aims at facilitating the implementation of the Territorial Climate Energy Plan and acts as unique database identifying information and useful tools for the concerned communities. The VLWH LV GLYLGHG LQWR PDLQ VHFWLRQV WKH ³PHWKRGV´ VHFWLRQ ZKLFK SUHVHQWV DQ RYHUYLHZ on the PCETs and on the necessary steps for their implementation and financing; the ³DFWLRQV´ VHFWLRQ LOOXVWUDWHV WKH PDLQ ILHOGV ZKHUH DFWLRQ DJDLQVW FOLmate change should EH WDNHQ ³WRROV´ JLYHV LQIRUPDWLRQ RQ PDQDJHPHQW DQG FRPPXQLFDWLRQ WRROV DQG LQWURGXFHV UHIHUHQFH GRFXPHQWV ZKLOH WKH VHFWLRQ ³REVHUYDWRU\´ PRQLWRUV WKH DFWLRQV VR far taken and constitutes a discussion reference point for the communities through forums and newsletter.

4.3 European Cooperation Projects More than half of the eParticipation projects

70

on the European scale are initiated and

funded by the European Commission and the European Parliament. Some others are initiated by other European institutions, political parties and non-profit organisations.

European eParticipation projects are often available in several languages due to the fact that the European Union has 23 official languages.

Naturally the language most frequently used in more than half of the projects, is English followed by German and French. Still one third of the initiatives at the European scale are only available in English.

                                                        69  http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/306903  Â

70  European  eParticipation  Study  and  supply  of  services  on  the   development  of  eParticipation  in  the  EU,  eParticipation  good Â

practice  cases   and  diffusion   Deliverable  D4.2c    Final  version   Authors:  Eleni  Panopoulou,  Efthimios  Tambouris,  Konstantinos  Tarabanis   http://islab.uom.gr/eP/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=97&Itemid=82   Â

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Most of the European eParticipation initiatives cover the area of information provision, dissemination, deliberation and consultation, followed by the area of community building, polling, campaigning, voting and electioneering.

EC has launched its first eParticipation initiative called the Interactive Policy Making Tool in 2001. The goal of this initiative was to allow both Member State Administrations and EU Institutions to have a better understanding of the needs of citizens and companies.

To increase the participation of the EU citizens, the European Commission has also set up in 2001 a GHGLFDWHG SODWIRUP FDOOHG ³Your Voice in Europe´ DYDLODEOH LQ languages, allowing citizens to consult information, discuss and exchange via a Forum.

The main objective of this platform is to improve European governance and to introduce better regulation. The very broad scope of discussions include environmental issues, the (XUR (XURSH V ERUGHUV WKH (XURSHDQ VRFLDO PRGHO WKH (8ÂśV VWUDWHJ\ IRU JURZWK DQG jobs...

PSD Party portal Case Study "The Alliance & Progressive Socialist Democrats in the European Parliament has launched an interesting and successful initiative at the European scale which is an interactive section on the website where citizens can interact. The members of the group DQG ³VLPSOH´ FLWL]HQV FDQ GLVFXVV RQ WKHPHV ZKLFK LQWHUHVW WKH 3ES and they can both add their ideas and comments. The website also provides information in order to enrich and to arouse the debates. The information are viewable in 4 languages: English, French, German and Spanish. The website's audience has doubled in one year, thanks to Twitter" said Tony Robinson, head of the Internet Unit for this Parliamentary Group in Strasbourg during the 2009 European e-Democracy Award presentation. A distinction was also awarded by the 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.

Ucount4eu Case Study

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(www.ucount4eu.eu) is an initiative which has been launched by

71

GOV2U a NGO which aims to increase the awareness of the European citizens of the LPSDFW RI WKH (8 DQG LWV LQVWLWXWLRQV LQ WKHLU GDLO\ DFWLYLWLHV ³8FRXQW HX´ DOORZ FLWL]HQV WR discuss in a forum, and to initiate online petitions (e-Petition) which can be potentially passed to the Parliament for discussion once it gathers one million signatures. ³8QFRXQW HX´ FRYHUV WKH IROORZLQJ DUHDV RI SDUWLFLSDWLRQ LQIRUPDWLRQ SURYLVLRQ deliberation, and polling.

CitizenScape Case Study CitizenScape

72

is a 2 years project initiated in 2009 which objective is to empower

citizens, to debate and to contribute to the legislative and decision-making processes on the national and EU levels. CitizenScape involves actors from the civil society as well as from the public institutions. &LWL]HQ6FDSH LV DQ RQOLQH GHPRFUDWLF VSDFH DGDSWLQJ ³WKH EHVW RI EUHHG´ WHFKQRORJLFDO solution with many advanced functions. It also applies the public-i webcast methodology to create a structure to engage citizens to the project and to moderate their inputs. It integrates two types of tools ± informal social networking and Web 2.0 technologies (Facebook) and more formal ones (such as petitioning). The CitizenScape project works on 4 pilot sites, in Bristol (UK), Donegal (Ireland), Genova(Italy), Zilina (Slovakia), each acting as an independent platform.

The main critical successes of the project: x

,QFUHDVH RI WKH FLWL]HQV¶ SDUWLFLSDWLRQ LQ WKHLU ORFDO GHPRFUDWLF LQVWLWXWLRQV

x

Development of a methodology which encourage citizens engagement

x

Acceptance and use of the CitizenScape services by local authorities

x

Reliable access and delivery of the services to all users.

One of the early challenges of the CitizenScape approach is to ensure that a new Civic Space is co-created ± and this involved coaching for both the citizens and council participants.

                                                        71  www.ucount4eu.eu Â

72 Â http://citizenscape.org/ Â

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The issue of identity management is also critical in order to move seamlessly from Social Web Spaces to the Civic Space. This is an important topic to explore in future projects.

While the CitizenScape pilot trials are the alpha run of the Web 2.0 eParticipation VHUYLFH Âł3XEOLF-i" is now running the services as a Virtual Town Hall beta run by deploying a fully commercial service to Local Authorities across the UK and Europe.

The CitizenScape project has defined a set of Evaluation Criteria and a Pilot Trials Monitoring Plan, providing evaluation of the CitizenScape Pilot service in 4 varied Legislative Authority contexts, countries and languages. It was supposed to be reported at the end of the 12 month Pilot Trials in December 2009.

HuWY Case Study HuWY project73 74 (Hub Websites for Youth Participation), launched on January 2009. It aims to get young people involved in decision making processes by talking about policies and laws which affect the Internet, like cyber bullying, child abuse, ID theft, privacy and phishing, file-sharing. All those discussions are transferred to European governments and parliaments. Youth groups discuss on these questions using their own online spaces: youth group forums, social networking spaces, multimedia gatherings etc. and they post the results on Hub websites (Hubs) provided by the HuWY project. The RQOLQH +XEV KROG VXSSRUWLQJ LQIRUPDWLRQ VSDFH IRU WKH UHVXOWV RI \RXQJ SHRSOHÂśV discussions and feedback from Policy Makers.

Suggestions, tags and feedback from the national Hubs are collated into an EU Hub addressed to international policy-makers.

                                                        73  http://huwy.eu/ Â

74 Â http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/huwy Â

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The main objectives75 are: ¾ Encourage young European citizens to be active within the EU democracy ¾ Involve young people in policy development related to the Internet and its governance ¾ Support positive Internet use and to foster initiatives to agree on Internet policies ¾ $GYDQFH H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ DV D WRRO RI IXWXUH FLWL]HQV¶ LQYROYHPHQW The technologies used on the project are electronic mail, file sharing, filtering technology, folksonomy engineering and groupware. The following software tools are deployed for the implementation of the Platform: WordPress MU-blog and Content Management System (Chat rooms, Web blogs, Web Portals) and Media wiki. However participant groups may use any tools they like to support their discussions.

The authors of the project think that the alternative solution regarding the tools/technologies they have deployed in this platform could be Drupal (another open source tool).

LEX-IS Case Study LEX-IS76 project was launched in January 2007 and was tested at the Austrian, the Lithuanian, the Hellenic and the Model European Parliament. The principal tool used for these projects was DOC ASSET which automates the workflow of document capturing and creation, protocol labeling, use, review, approval, coordination, following, archiving and retrieval and in generally the whole life cycle control of the documents and Organization receives or sends. LEX-IS objective is to increase citizens-especially young people- involvement and participation in the public debate and decision making procedures. It aims to demonstrate that what citizens need in order to participate in the EU political activities is not a special knowledge but only well structured, evident and clear information LEX-,6 SURMHFW¶V REMHFWLYes77 is to enhance cooperation between citizens, businesses, non-governmental organizations and Parliamentarians in the stage of preparation and

75 http://www.ep-­‐momentum.eu/eParticipationProjects/HuWY/tabid/99/Default.aspx 76 http://www.eu-­‐participation.eu/lex-­‐is/

77 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/apps/projects/factsheet/index.cfm?project_ref=EP-­‐06-­‐01-­‐018

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debates with the use of the state-of-the-art information technology tools and methodologies. That is for example to provide citizens better information on the EU activities and on the different stages of legislation proposal (those stages typically include scanning of the overall environment the proposed law is going to act upon, early identification of social problems and needs, as well as establishing the need for a policy.

Realization of this project requires to settle a LEX-IS consortium (Parliament, University, ICT companies) in order to create a network with key players from the local and national representative entities.

LEX-IS has the ambition to be explored to the wider audience in a pan-European level by sharing experiences through the LEX-IS forum and by creating liaisons with existing related initiatives and projects. The project has already a significant success which is the interest of the Model European Parliament (MEP), an organization that drives the "European Parliament of the Youth" in 25 European Countries with the active participation of more than 1,000 students every year who follow the processes and real issues of the European Parliament..

LEX-IS should create a web platform which is supposed to be a base of content for citizens and businesses who want to deepen their abilities: x

to query and view the legal structures and elements (draft laws, legal components, legal documents, supportive information) in multiple levels of abstraction and decomposition, using content management engines and legal metadata schemas already available within the consortium.

x

to view the argumentation structure of a law that is under formation, using semantic annotation and argument visualization techniques.

x

to express opinions around legal components, arguments that are presented by the participating organizations, or opinions of other parties, in a structured way that promotes participative decision-making.

7R LQFUHDVH FLWL]HQ¶V LQWHUHVW LQ WKLV SURMHFW DQG WR DWWUDFW WKHP WR SDUWLFLSDWH LQ WKH /(;IS network, some events and communication channels should be organized. .

Openparlamento Case Study

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Openparlamento.it78 is another initiative which allows the citizens to follow politics activity. This complex web application offers to the citizens the possibility to gather information on the follow-up of files presented by national elected representative, from their submission to their approval by the Chamber of representatives and the Senate.

The website also enables to follow the process of an act and votes, give information on WKH VLJQDWRULHV DQG SUHVHQW WKH 3XEOLF RIILFHUV¶ VSHHFK RQ WKH DFWV 7KH ZHEVLWH UHQGHUV available the texts which can be modified by the users and comments thanks to an online communication tool. Thus the users can describe using their own vocabulary the parliamentary acts.

Moreover a dedicated webpage and a personalized digital newsletter solely composed of news related to the acts, the politics or the debate followed by the users, is directly send to him by email. This allows the users to follow nearly in real time what is going on.

The idea to materialise on a web site, in live, the principles of transparency of the activity of the elected representatives, has guided the conception of this project. The authors of the projects declare: « We wanted to build a place on the Web where the citizens can informed themselves and et control the activities of the elected representatives at the National Parliament », All those digital initiatives allow the citizens to better understand the cogs of the Parliament, to follow the activity of their representatives and to comment their acts. In a way, it contributes to bring together the citizens and the MPs which representing them.

5. eParticipation in other parts of the World

Countries worldwide are exploring different ways of developing interactive mechanisms to encourage e-Engagement and e-Participation. Coherent government policies and strategies are needed to ensure that digital technologies and services reach far and wide DFURVV DOO D FRXQWU\¶V UHJLRQV DQG VRFLRHFRQRPLF JURXSV /RQJ-term vision and

78 http://pep-­‐net.eu/blog/2009/07/21/openparlamentoit-­‐lets-­‐monitor-­‐the-­‐italian-­‐parliament/

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consistent, even-handed policy implementation are called for. The recession, however, has forced governments more recently to think also about the short-term and long-term economic impact of investment in ICT programs and infrastructure. Several rich and digitally well-endowed countries are using ICT infrastructure spending as a form of economic stimulus. These include Taiwan79 (16th), which has launched a project to blanket every major city with wireless broadband infrastructure, and the US, where Congress has earmarked US$ 7bn of a larger stimulus program to fund broadband rollout projects.

0DQ\ JRYHUQPHQWV DUH DOVR VWULYLQJ WR H[SDQG WKH VFRSH RI ³H-SDUWLFLSDWLRQ´²the use of ICT by citizens to engage in the political process. In recognition of the growing use of digital technology in political life, the Economist Intelligence Unit has incorporated the 81¶V H-participation index scores in the rankings model this year.

This indicator

assesses the quality and usefulness of information and services provided by governments for the purpose of engaging citizens in the public policymaking process.

79 E-­‐readiness rankings 2009 The usage imperative ; The Economist Written in co-­‐operation with The IBM Institute for

Business Valuehttp://graphics.eiu.com/pdf/E-­‐readiness%20rankings.pdf

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source E-rediness report 2008: www.unpan1.un.org We have chosen some relevant worldwide applications of eParticipation good practices at the National and Local levels and their challenges as follow: The United States of America This wind of change provoked by Obama pulled an outfit of construction sites in the American administration, the construction sites which aimed, among others, at satisfying the ambitions of the new president. The White House gains, as for her the Golden Palm of the presence of the American administration on Facebook with its 327 592 followers.

Even the NASA or the State Secretariat (U.S. Department of State) as well as the government of several States are now precursors and models to be followed in the innovative adoption of the collaborative applications.

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National level-Baracobama Case Study One successful and interesting Case is www.barackobama.com

80

which is an American

illustration of national scale eParticipation initiative.

YouTube-sponsored the Democratic Presidential Debate in the United States highlighted the blurring of the lines between politics and citizens. The use of YouTube for 3UHVLGHQWLDO 'HEDWHV JDYH FLWL]HQV ³D SODWIRUP WR TXHVWLRQ FDQGLGDWHV RQ LVVXHV WKDW mattered to them. Political campaign Web sites that contain candidate profiles and blogs have become major aspects of election campaigns The www.barackobama.com website was launched as the presidential campaign ZHEVLWH 7KLV ZHEVLWH ZDV DFWXDOO\ WKH KRVW RI WKH SURMHFW µ2UJDQL]H IRU $PHULFD¶ ZKLFK reveals the main objective of the website. During the campaign, the website played an important role in engaging individuals and groups by using Web 2.0 tools. When we look at the contents of www.barakobama.com , we see that it has a variety of links and tools for visitors to use. These links are grouped under three major headings, issues, volunteers and blog, which each lead to different pages with rich contents.

After the election the website has become a platform for promoting the projects of Obama Administration and sharing political information.

Looking at these, we can argue that on the website, interaction with users is emphasized to a great extent. Only the issues page is dedicated to a one- way communication by sharing information with the visitors. Even from this page, however, visitors can access Web 2.0 tools. On every page of the website, the links to major tools are provided: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, Eventful, Linkedin, Blackplanet, Faithbase, Eons, Glee, MiGente, MyBatanga, AsianAve and DNC Partybuilder. The tools include applications ranging from social networking to video sharing thereby enabling people to choose the type of communication/tool they like. The main tool for

80 Web 2.0 in the Process of e-­‐participation: The Case of Organizing for America and the Obama Administration; auteur Aysu

KES-­‐ERKU, Visiting Scholar; Department of Sociology University of Massachusetts Amhers & R. Erdem ERKU, Doctoral Research Fellow, National Center for Digital Government , University of Massachusetts Amhert

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interaction between users is the blog page. Visitors can join this blog page and post their comments by creating a user account, which is a very common, user-friendly application.

The popularity of Barack Obama pages on Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace shows that the use of existing tools, which are already popular, is a major factor in the success of e-participation. $V WKH 8. PRYHV WRZDUGV D *HQHUDO (OHFWLRQ LQ 03ÂśV DQG SROLWLFDO SDUWLHV KDYH looked to learn from the Obama campaign for ways to increase their engagement with their communities.

Regional level-Virtual Alabama Case Study

Virtual Alabama81 82, inspired by hurricane Katrina, is an implementation of Google Earth system which improves disaster response through better data sharing and allows city, country and state agencies to collaborate in innovative ways. Having seen more than 450 tornadoes strike the state during his time in office, Gov. Bob Riley wanted to create a data base which will help to assess the damage and apply for federal aid, by giving them the information on how the region looked like before. The solution was to build Virtual Alabama using locally owned imagery on a secure, permission-based Google Enterprise platform in order  to visualise all GIS information in 3D model (3D buildings, 3D models, shapes). 3D models are proven to be easier to understand and encourage users to explore. All common OS, platforms and browsers are supported and data can be presented as an overlay on a map. The solution is integrated into existing legacy systems and data registers with images, 360 photos, documents cross-referenced to the map. Getting started was relatively inexpensive as the state spent less than $150,000 for WKH VRIWZDUH OLFHQVHV DQG KDUGZDUH ,WœV DOVR YHU\ LQWHUHVWLQJ WR NHHS DOO GDWD VWRUHG LQ on the platform as the cost of computing systems is constantly dropping. The system contains location data for sewer, water and power lines; radio towers; police cruisers; fire hydrants; building schematics; sex offenders' addresses; approved landing zones for medical helicopters; inventories of hospitals and cached medical supplies, such as

                                                        81  http://www.govtech.com/featured/Virtual-­â€?Alabama-­â€?Facilitates-­â€?Data-­â€?Sharing-­â€?Among.html  82  http://www.dhs.alabama.gov/virtual_alabama/pdf_files/VirAL_Fact_Sheet.pdf Â

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respirators; evacuation routes; shelters; land-ownership records; and assessed property values. Virtual Alabama's platform is accessible only to government employees with the proper permissions but in a case of danger then access can widen. The connection is established in real time and data is streamed to everyone who needs to have this kind of information.

Local level-CapStat Case Study CapStat83 project is a resource for a District of Columbia resident to track how District Government is working for them. They can use these pages to track the performance of individual agencies, find neighbourhood statistics and learn how their government is responding to the city's most pressing challenges. CapStat provides dynamic information about the operations and performance of DC government. Thanks to the CapStat the administration is committed to transparency and accountability, as citizens are able to look closely into every aspect of the government's performance. Citizens are also invited to use TrackDC84 to tell what do they think about the government activity and how they imagine it to do those things better, so that the government can truly be 'of the people, by the people, and for the people. The CapStat is using several applications like mapping application. This application was designed to allow citizens access to Government data and provide a tool for quick mapping by location and time.

Nongovernmental initiatives-SeeClickFix Case Study SeeClickFix85

86

is an American non-governmental initiative with an international

application in local areas all over the world. It works by exploiting three basic principles: x

Empowerment, SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track non-emergency issues anywhere in the world via the internet. This empowers citizens, community groups, media organizations and governments to take care of and improve their neighbourhoods.

83 http://capstat.oca.dc.gov/ 84 http://track.dc.gov/

85 http://seeclickfix.com/how_seeclickfix_works

86 http://www.thealter.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=10&Itemid=61

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Efficiency, two heads are better than one and 300 heads are better than two. In computer terminology, distributed sensing is particularly powerful at recognizing patterns, such as those that gradually take shape on a street.

x

Engagement, citizens who take the time to report even minor issues and see them fixed are likely to get more engaged in their local communities. It's called

self-reinforcing loop. This also makes people happy and everyone benefits from that.

Citizens vote on neighbourhood issues, or promote more efficient community governance by instantly forwarding them to a person who might be able to help.

Neighbourhood groups, elected officials and advocates monitor key issues, and publicly propose solutions on how to resolve them. Governments and other entities responsible for the public space (such as utilities and property owners) become more accountable to the public by acknowledging problems and providing effective communication about solutions.

It uses widgets, smartphone applications open data resources as GeoRSS, KML JSON, maps, Facebook, Twitter as well as forums and blogs integration. It is available in many languages.

Canada In Canada, e-participation services are organized by category which makes it userIULHQGO\ DQG UHVSRQVLYH WR FLWL]HQVÂś GHPDQGV87.

In order to gauge the efficacy of their services, the government uses a unique Canadian outcomes analysis approach called 'Citizens First' in the case of individuals and families, and 'Taking Care of Business' in the case of companies, which used further surveys against the Common Measurement Tool that the government officials responsible for GOL have developed. With this tool the government has been able to PHDVXUH FOLHQWV Âľ H[SHFWDWLRQV SULRULWLHV DQG WKH DFWXDO SHUFHQWDJH RI VDWLVIDFWLRQ ZLWK government services at all levels of government, and track how that is changing.

In a recent survey, GOL Canada was assessed to have not only service maturity (i.e. the level to which a government has developed an on-line presence in terms of service

                                                        87  An  Overview  of  eParticipation  Models  prepared  by  Nahleen  Ahmed  ,  Division  for  Public  Administration  and  Development Â

Management  (DPADM)  ;  Department  of  Economic  and  Social  Affairs  (UNDESA)  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023622.pdf Â

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breadth and service depth), but also customer service maturity, which measured the extent to which government agencies manage interactions with their customers and deliver service in an integrated way across all channels.

The political will to engage its citizens in policy discussions and to improve public services is amply manifested by the development of a measurement tool to gauge the usefulness of the information and services provided on its website. This is an encouraging first step for the future of e-services and e-participation in Canada, which aims to design its services based on public demand and user needs.

Croatia Pollitika Case Study "Independent but not neutral"88 is the self-definition of Pollitika (www.Pollitika.com) Launched in 2006 by Marko Rakar, known for his political notes on his blog about the political situation of this south European country of 4.5 million inhabitants, Pollitika.com has become an inevitable website about politics. Three thousand bloggers are enrolled and contribute to the website. About 2.000 new articles are published every year for 150.000 visitors per month. Mark Rakar is a passionate man. During the visit of the French National Assembly, proposed to the participants of the last World e-Democracy Forum, he enjoyed every moment and every picture. Curious by nature, quoting the American strategist Joe Trippi and convinced that an electoral campaign is "too serious matter to be left to political parties", it was not a surprise that he is one of Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. During the e-Democracy Awards workshop, last October, he explained how Pollitika.com strengthened democracy in Croatia.

Singapore

88 http://www.edemocracy-­‐forum.com/2009/12/croatia-­‐pollitika.html

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Singapore e-government readiness reflects a strong commitment from the government to promote access and use of ICTs. It maintains excellent, informative, and up-to-date site www.ecitizen.gov.sg with easily accessible information. More significantly, it also

Â

includes a Government Consultation Portal http://app.feedback.gov.sg/asp/index.asp which encourages feedback from citizens regarding policy, as well as a forum www.cutwaste.gov.sg for suggesting ways to cut government waste.

7KH PRVW QRWDEOH DVSHFW RI 6LQJDSRUHÂśV89 overall online presence is the integration

SURFHVV ZKLFK PDNHV LW RQH RI WKH ÂľEHVW SUDFWLFHVÂś IRU LQWHJUDWHG SRUWDOV DQG RQH-stopshop sites, and therefore an effective way forward in eGovernment.  A  noteworthy  factor  ‹Â? ‹Â?Â‰ÂƒÂ’Â‘Â”Â‡ÇŻÂ• ‘Â?Ž‹Â?‡ ’”‡•‡Â?…‡ ‹• –Š‡ ™ƒ› •‡”˜‹…‡ delivery  has  been  integrated  to  facilitate  ƒ……‡•• –‘ …‹–‹œ‡Â?•Ǥ Â?•–‡ƒ† ‘ˆ †‡˜‡Ž‘’‹Â?‰ ǎ•‹Ž‘•ǯ of  information  by  separating  information  by  departments,  they  are  grouped  under categories,  which  makes  the  site  extremely  user  friendly.   The  government  portal also  actively  encourages  feedbacks  from  the  public  in  order  to  improve  its  services. The portal also allows citizens to take advantage of m-technology by providing its citizens the option of receiving SMSs from the government on diverse matters including passport renewal, road tax renewal, an e-government newsletter and even notifications of overdue library books. The Government of Singapore implemented 6LQJ3DVV LQ 0DUFK WR VXSSRUW 6LQJDSRUHÂśV H-Government Vision and to transform public service into a Networked Government. SingPass is the common password for the SXEOLF WR DFFHVV WKH JRYHUQPHQWÂśV H-services. Citizens and foreigners working in Singapore only need to remember one unique ID and password assigned to them.

Today, about 40 government agencies authenticate users with SingPass for access to about 370 e-services requiring secure user identification.

The Republic of Korea

                                                        89  An  Overview  of  eParticipation  Models  prepared  by  Nahleen  Ahmed  ,  Division  for  Public  Administration  and  Development Â

Management  (DPADM)  ;  Department  of  Economic  and  Social  Affairs  (UNDESA)  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023622.pdf Â

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7KH 5HSXEOLF RI .RUHD¶V QDWLRQDO SRUWDO KWWS ZZZ NRUHD JR NU KDV D VWURQJ eParticipation presence. The portal provides citizens with online consultation and encourages its people to engage in issues affecting them. It allows citizens to create online submissions and payments and lets them track the progress of their submissions.

All this is done on a secure network that ensures electronic signatures.

In the city of Chuncheon, in Korea (www.chuncheon.go.kr) citizens have direct access to the Mayor through the Chuncheon City website. Through this website citizens can suggest ideas and proposals and forward comments on the services provided to the 0D\RU¶V 2IILFH 7KH VXJJHVWLRQV DUH WKHQ UHYLHZHG E\ WKH 0D\RU¶V 2IILFH DQG IHHGEDFNV are provided to the citizens. In addition, citizen groups and local residents participate in WKH FRPSLODWLRQ RI WKH FLW\¶V EXGJHW WR HQVXUH D WUDQVSDUHQW SURFHVV The United Arab Emirates (UAE)

One of the countries that have made tremendous strides in advancing its eParticipation activity are the UAE90. The gain is largely attributed to a revamped national site that integrates information and services into a single gateway where its services can be easily located. The UAE national site was not only completely re-done but also rebranded. Furthermore, the government took steps to provide participatory features on one of its ministry websites, i.e., the Ministry of Education, which is one of the few government sites in the Middle East to offer an open discussion forum.

An interesting feature on the UAE gateway is the organization of the site by topics that are geared towards addressing the needs of the end-users, integrating information, services, and transactions under separate sections for residents, business, visitors, and government, thereby enhancing its interactive presence.

The government has articulated a vision for its e-government strategy with the intention of "enabling integrated policy formulation by facilitating a knowledge-based world class

90 An Overview of eParticipation Models prepared by Nahleen Ahmed , Division for Public Administration and Development

Management (DPADM) ; Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023622.pdf

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JRYHUQPHQW ,W SXUSRUWV WR GR VR E\ VROLFLWLQJ ³LGHDV DQG IHHGEDFN IURP H[WHUQDO VWDNHKROGHUV ´ 2Q LWV ZHEVLWH WKH JRYHUQPHQW DOVR H[SOLFLWO\ RXWOLQHV WKH QHHG WR develop performance indicators, both quantitative and qualitative, in an effort to be transparent and accountable. It goes on to state that specific performance targets and tangible benefits to the government also need to be outlined in order to measure performance and success. Although the e-government strategy does not explicitly refer to e-consultation and eParticipation processes, the experience with the Ministry of (GXFDWLRQ LV QHYHUWKHOHVV D VDOXWDU\ H[DPSOH RI WKH JRYHUQPHQW¶V RSHQQHVV WR HQJDJH citizens in a participatory process in the future.   South Africa  Country provides some facility for public comments on its government portal. Although the range of public services offered on the website is not very extensive, it nevertheless offers citizens the opportunity to comment on a number of public documents on issues that are under consideration by policy-makers.

A particularly notable feature is the launching of a national accessibility portal in 2004 to make ICT available for four million people with disabilities, as part of their social inclusion strategy. Termed as the South African National Accessibility Portal91 (NAP), the site is a one-stop information, services and communications channel that support persons with disabilities, caregivers, the medical profession, and those offering services in this domain.

This is an example of an e-government portal that is beginning to evolve from solely eInformation to e-Consultation. There is clearly an attempt to organize the information according to the perceived needs of the public, and in several different languages.

Furthermore, the number of documents available for public comments is quite LPSUHVVLYH ZKLFK LQGLFDWHV WKH JRYHUQPHQW¶V GHVLUH WR VROLFLW IHHGEDFN IURP WKH FLWL]HQV before finalizing the documents for legislative actions. It is not clear, however, how the government intends to publish the results of its consultative process and assess the performance of its portal.

                                                        91  An  Overview  of  eParticipation  Models  prepared  by  Nahleen  Ahmed  ,  Division  for  Public  Administration  and  Development Â

Management  (DPADM)  ;  Department  of  Economic  and  Social  Affairs  (UNDESA)  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023622.pdf Â

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Brazil

Brazil egov portal92 is one-stop-shop eParticipation site. It is perhaps the most effective in Latin America, with the most pertinent information and services on the main page organized in easily defined categories. They range from tax payment and health services to legislation information and utilities. The image logos make the site particularly user friendly. As for engaging citizens in discussing key policy issues, the portal offers limited choice of topics for online discussion. The e-procurement website for government contracts for goods and services provides information on relevant legislation and current news on economic development issues. It includes an online bidding site for government contracts, as well as links to services for new and emerging businesses in Brazil. To use the online services, the website installs speciILF VRIWZDUH IRU WKH XVHU¶V FRPSXWHU DQG allows for online registration of potential government contractors.

92 An Overview of eParticipation Models prepared by Nahleen Ahmed , Division for Public Administration and Development

Management (DPADM) ; Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023622.pdf

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6. eParticipation at the International Scale International eParticipation projects are often initialised by NGO or Civil Organizations (CSO) which launches websites in English language that in majority cover the area of information provision, deliberation and promotion. They all aim to inform the worldwide citizens and to reinforce their involvement and issues that International organization, NGOs and CSOs judge as global and thus concerning every citizens.

DzAmnesty Internationaldz 93Ǥ Dz dz worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. On Dz dz ǡ Dz dz Ǥ The main areas of participation in this case are Information providing in four various languages (Arabic, English, French and Spanish) and campaigning. ³Greenpeace International´ LV DQ LQGHSHQGHQW JOREDO FDPSDLJQLQJ RUJDQLVDWLRQ WKDW acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by:. Its website offers audiovisual information to the citizens all over the ZRUOG DQG SURPRWHV WKH H[FKDQJHV YLD IRUXPV DQG EORJV 7KH ³*UHHQSHDFH ,QWHUQDWLRQDO¶V´ ZHEVLWH FRYHUV WKH GHOLEHUDWLRQ DQG LQIRUPDWLRQ SURYLVLRQ µDUHD RI participation.

We can also find some eParticipation projects94 where NGO are not involved such as eParticipation initiative at trans-national scale are scarce. Although many expect from trans-national scale eParticipation initiative to facilitate and reinforce the dialogue between citizens on issues that interest both sides. We can expect from trans-national

93 http://www.amnesty.org/ 94 European eParticipation Study and supply of services on the development of eParticipation in the EU / eParticipation good

practice cases and diffusion Authors: Eleni Panopoulou, Efthimios Tambouris, Konstantinos Tarabanis http://islab.uom.gr/eP/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=97&Itemid=82

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eParticipation initiative to strengthen the cooperation and the understanding both leading to peace and economics welfare.

DigiActive (www.digiactive.org) is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use the Internet and mobile phones to increase their impact. Our goal is a world of activists made more powerful and more effective through the use of digital technology. The purpose of DigiActive is to promote and explain the digital tools of social change so activists can use them effectively. The activities of DigActive include, but are not limited to: x

Explaining how to use various digital tools for activism

x

Reviewing digital activism guides and resources created by other organizations

x

Sharing stories of successful digital activism campaigns around the world

x

Hosting virtual events where activists can learn from expert digital activism practitioners

x

Alerting activists to digital actions taking place around the world.

x

Fostering community among digital activists from around the world

Western Balkans 7KH SURMHFW¶V SULPDU\ DLP95 is to establish a communication and information management network hosted by the National News Agencies of the Western Balkan countries. The network will take the online form of: x

a thematic portal (the communication environment) to enable sharing of public information (supporting a range of multimedia formats);

x

a community forum which will support interactive e-democracy processes based on a discussion forum, questionnaires and polling mechanisms.

95

http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=PROJ_IST&ACTION=D&DOC=19&CAT=PROJ&QUERY=1207128137887&RCN=80549

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The environment will be unified across the 3 Western Balkans countries involved, governed by a shared set of specified procedures and a common code of ethics. The project aims to involve policy makers and stakeholders from Western Balkans - including relevant Governmental Organisations (Ministries), Public News Agencies and citizens ± in the use and outcomes of the network.

The project brings together 8 partners representing three Western Balkan Countries (Albania, Serbia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) as well as two Member States (Greece and United Kingdom). The project is funded under the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme: FP6-045003-Web-Dep.

7. Conclusion

eParticipation should be used to support, complement or enhance the activities and understanding of representative government, and should not undermine the value of representative democracy. The adoption of ICT tools in decision-making is a process of innovation and learning and requires sustained political support to be successful.

One of the major challenges of e-participation is social and political complexity, which implies the necessity to reflect the various needs and demands of different groups in the society. Wherever possible, tools should incorporate an expectation of such divergence and provide opportunities for negotiation, mediation and consensus building.

The second challenge is the integration and the responsiveness which requires that the mechanism exists to manage the process, analyse inputs, to respond to them and feed them into the policy process.

It is important to create every eParticipation project in a committee setting so everyone can have the possibility to express his opinion on the subject and website design (website colours and images). Successful eParticipation project must be centred, designed, adapted and thought around the targeted stakeholders and issues addressed to them. The objectives of the project (policy-modelling, legislation, campaigning...), the

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target and the reason must be clearly indicated in order to get valuable and focussed citizen participation. A clear and concise definition of these elements is the first step to efficient participation.

From previous experiences we know that the success of an eParticipation project depends first and foremost on the level and scope of the project. The most successful eParticipation initiatives are those realized at the local level. Initiatives at the European level are definitely much more complex (e.g. in terms of multilingualism, specific social and political heterogeneities and diverging national interest) and thus more difficult to realize.

Furthermore for the moment the feeling of belonging to the European Union is still not strong enough to be comparable with a national or local identification so European eParticipation project have more difficulties to attract large audience.

To have a successful eParticipation project, eInformation presented needs to be accurate, complete and reliable, in order to reach an effective participation and transparency. The information must be useful and easily reachable and in an understandable language. The type of information must of course be adapted to the targeted audience both in languages and means to obtain the information. eInformation empower citizens and render governments more accessible and transparent.

Despite the numerous ICT tools available for eParticipation projects (blogs, online forum, online consultations and polls), they are often not effectively used± which is rather unfortunate as these ICT tools could contribute to increase transparency. To engender use of ICT it is vital that offline events are implemented to identify and encourage the motivating factors that will improve uptake.

It is primordial to acknowledge the participation effort of the citizens, the government needs to show that the feedback is important and that the policy makers are interested and attentive to the inputs given by the citizens. The citizens must have the impression that his or her participation is meaningful and has an influence on the government policy.

All those elements participate in the trust and transparency required for encourage the participation of citizens.

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A cross-media approach is essential for democratic processes. Successful eParticipation initiatives cannot be purely virtual, since one third of the EU population is not online and H[FOXVLYH ³H´ FKDQQHO Fould deepen the digital divide and create a gap in the sense of ³SROLWLFDOO\ LQFOXGHG´ DQG ³SROLWLFDOO\ H[FOXGHG´ FLWL]HQV Media in our context gather all tools allowing communities to talk to each other, to spread news, and to give everyone a voice and a platform from which to use that voice.

The same content should be presented on several different platforms (for example 3D Interactive Environment which allow citizens explore and shape augmented-reality public spaces or RFID tags which bring digital media contents to the real world and support the interaction between virtual and real communities) in different forms (for example online survey versus paper survey, digital video-conferences, TV sessions versus face-to-face meetings) to reach as wide range of audience as possible.

Final remarks The present deliverable is a first step of the State of the Art and will find its continuation in the second deliverable RI :RUN SDFNDJH ³' 0HWKRGRORJ\ IRU H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ ,QQRYDWLRQ´ ZKLFK ZLOO FRQWULEXWH WR WKH GHILQLWLRQ RI WKH SURMHFWœV ³([SHULPHQWDO 'HVLJQ 6FHQDULR DQG 3URWRFRO´ '

The purpose of the second step of this deliverable is to make a review of the existing methodologies in order to define the best methodology that will ensure the successful implementation of the European eParticipation projects in the Living Labs context.

The main criteria to be studied in the methodology will be: - Finance - we will try to define a funding base which will ensure the sustainability of the project -Domain / Areas in this part we will define according to the examples used in the present deliverable what are the best methods used to generate an environment

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(subjects, area) that facilitates the participation and what basic conditions need to be accomplished.

- Ways- we will try to define the best way of eParticipation to keep user motivated and involved and what should be done to keep users informed about contribution evolvement -Tools - we will define the usability of the eParticipation applications, tools, channels and devices taking into account what is the social acceptability and what is the level of compliance with ICT- to conclude if a trainee program is necessary or not - Enhancement ±we will try to find the way to increase engagement and motivation on both sides.

-Support- we will indicate ways the input should be used to reach final destination -Dissemination activities- we will make an overview of means to advertise project in order to choose the one which will attract the largest audience.

-Monitoring/Evaluation ±we will indicate what kind of monitoring methods can be used to improve the effectiveness of the project However we need to underline that for the moment it is not possible to indicate any particular successful methodology to be applied since no quantitative or qualitative measurement and data had been published so far. Moreover previous studies of eParticipation have focused on the technical and institutional perspectives but there was no evaluation offered by a social-cognitive approach.

All the findings we were able to collect allowed us to establish an evaluation of existing approaches what could be a first attempt to define an effective methodology for providing information, support and tools for the pan-European Living Labs eParticipation project.

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Reference 1. The impact of the Economic and Financial crisis on e-Government in OECD Member Countries; Barbara-Chiara Ubaldi http://www.epractice.eu/files/European%20Journal%20epractice%20Volume%2011.1.pdf 2. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/policy/eparticipation/index _en.htm 3. Towards Understanding eParticipation from an Institutional Perspective; Christine Secher http://www.gov2u.org/publications/Demo_net_MappingeParticipation.pdf 4. www.unpan1.un.org 5. www.engagementdb.com 6. http://www.webology.ir/2006/v3n4/a33.html 7. http://www.ep-momentum.eu 8. Jackson, N. A. & Lilleker, D.G. (2009). 'Building an Architecture of Participation? Political Parties and Web 2.0 in Britain', Journal of Information Technology & Politics 9. http://www.socialmediatoday.com 10. http://www.globalcitiesdialogue.com/ 11. http://www.lafabriquedufutur.org/ 12. http://www.manchester.gov.uk/ 13. http://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk/ 14. http://trail.ulster.ac.uk/ 15. http://tweetyhall.co.uk/ 16. http://pledgebank.com 17. http://scottish.parliament.uk 18. http://itc.napier.ac.uk/itc/NewsItem.asp?ID=14 19. http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2000/ScottishParliament/Electronic-Petitions-Enhance-Public-Influence-and-Participation-inDemocratic-Process/49640 ; http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/spes 20. Challenges of Expanding Internet: eCommerce eBusiness and eGovernment, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, E-Petitioning: Enabling Ground-Up

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Participation; Nicholas J. Adams, Ann Macintosh and Jim Johnston http://www.springerlink.com/content/7x225285377139j2/ 21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Petitioner 22. http://e-demokrati.borger.dk 23. http://www.epractice.eu/cases/Rostra 24. http://www.eurospacegroup.com/file/pubblicazioni/20091005_convegno.pdf 25. ³H3DUWLFLSDWLRQ IRU $GROHVFHQW &LWL]HQV LQ $XVWULD ´ Noella Edelmann, Center for EGovernment, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria ; Johann Hoechtl, Center for EGovernment, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria; Peter Parycek; Austrian Federal Chancellery, Vienna, Austria http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1616908 26. http://www.jugend2help.gv.at 27. http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/jugend2help 28. jugend2help.gv.at E-government for young people , Danube University Krems http://www.epma.cz/Docs/EEEGD09/prezentace/J2H_7th_eGovDays_Prag_20090424.p df 29. http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/livinglab/lahti-living-lab 30. www.eesti.ee/tom 31. http://tidplus.net/project/analysis-of-the-tom-tool/analysis-of-the-tom-tool-usage-statistics

32. http://www.osale.ee/ 33. http://www.slideshare.net/Metamorphosis/eparticipation-case-study-direct-democracyportal-today-i-decide-by-ms-nele-leosk-egovernance-academy-estonia

34. http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/webethics.shtml 35. http://www.beautifulromania.ro/en 36. http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/306907 37. http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/306903 38. European eParticipation Study and supply of services on the development of eParticipation in the EU, eParticipation good practice cases and diffusion Deliverable D4.2c Final version Authors: Eleni Panopoulou, Efthimios Tambouris, Konstantinos Tarabanis 39. http://islab.uom.gr/eP/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=97&Itemid= 82 40. www.ucount4eu.eu 41. http://citizenscape.org/

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42. http://huwy.eu/ 43. http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/huwy 44. http://www.eu-participation.eu/lex-is/ 45. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/apps/projects/factsheet/index.cfm?project_ref=EP -06-01-018 46. http://pep-net.eu/blog/2009/07/21/openparlamentoit-lets-monitor-the-italian-parliament/ 47. E-readiness rankings 2009 The usage imperative ; The Economist Written in cooperation with The IBM Institute for Business Valuehttp://graphics.eiu.com/pdf/Ereadiness%20rankings.pdf

48. Web 2.0 in the Process of e-participation: The Case of Organizing for America and the

Obama Administration; auteur Aysu KES-ERKU, Visiting Scholar; Department of Sociology University of Massachusetts Amhers & R. Erdem ERKU, Doctoral Research Fellow, National Center for Digital Government , University of Massachusetts Amhert

49. http://www.govtech.com/featured/Virtual-Alabama-Facilitates-Data-Sharing-Among.html 50. http://www.dhs.alabama.gov/virtual_alabama/pdf_files/VirAL_Fact_Sheet.pdf 51. http://capstat.oca.dc.gov/ 52. http://track.dc.gov/ 53. http://seeclickfix.com/how_seeclickfix_works 54. http://www.thealter.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=10 &Itemid=61 55. An Overview of eParticipation Models prepared by Nahleen Ahmed , Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) ; Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023622.pdf 56. http://www.edemocracy-forum.com/2009/12/croatia-pollitika.html 57. http://www.amnesty.org/ 58. European eParticipation Study and supply of services on the development of eParticipation in the EU / eParticipation good practice cases and diffusion Authors: Eleni Panopoulou, Efthimios Tambouris, Konstantinos Tarabanis http://islab.uom.gr/eP/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=97&Itemid= 82 59. http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=PROJ_IST&ACTION=D&DOC=19&CAT=PROJ& QUERY=1207128137887&RCN=80549

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