From the monthly archives:

December 2009

Earlier yesterday via Twitter, I came across this paper from the December 2006 issue of the Electronic Journal of e-Government (a bit less recent, yet still valid today): On the Road from Consultation Cynicism to Energising e-Consultation (PDF, 144KB) by authors Simon Stephens, Paul McCusker, David O’Donnell, David R. Newman and G. Honor Fagan.
Abstract: A major [...]

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In a post on the White House blog today, Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology Officer and the Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, follows up on some of the questions that went unanswered during the FAQ on Tuesday: Answering Your Questions on the Open Government Directive
Russ Gaskin of Washington, DC commented: [W]ould [...]

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And the Winner Is… Transparency!

by Tim on December 11, 2009

Now that the Open Government Directive is finally out, it’s been interesting to sift through the reactions and read what people think about it.
As several people have noted (here, here), the Open Government Directive’s immediate focus — at least quantitatively — seems to be much more on transparency than on the other two pillars, participation [...]

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Being eagerly awaited by many in the field, the Open Government Directive was released this morning: Open Government Directive (PDF, 84 KB)
Here’s a summary of snippets that deal with participation and engagement:
Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of information [...]

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Here’s one reason why I believe Google Wave (or whatever similar service will emerge in the future) holds a lot of potential for the world of e-participation:
As Bengt Feil outlined in his excellent interim summary of our e-participation wave, one potential application for using Wave are small-group online dialogues or deliberations. On the web, these [...]

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Anonymity in Public Participation

by Tim on December 3, 2009

Following their recent informal survey, Lucas Cioffi just shared a comprehensive list of arguments why requiring citizens to register on government websites with their real names may not always be such a good idea: Protect Anonymous Comments Online
Here’s the comment I just left:
Nice list of arguments.
I wonder what opportunities there are to design systems that offer [...]

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