As was already mentioned at last week’s Open Government Directive Workshop event in DC (see video, starts at around 1:14:20), the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has announced it will offer IdeaScale to federal agencies free of charge in order to help them comply with the tight deadlines presented in the Open Government Directive. From the press release: Further Opens Government, Launches Online Public Dialog Tool for Agencies
WASHINGTON – To help federal agencies fulfill President Obama’s Open Government Directive, the U.S. General Services Administration has introduced a public dialog tool to federal agencies at no cost. GSA hosted more than 70 government officials last week from more than 20 agencies to introduce the tool, answer questions, and gather feedback.“To help agencies answer President Obama’s call for a more citizen-centered, open government, GSA is making sure those agencies have the necessary tools to meaningfully engage the public,” said David McClure, Associate Administrator for GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Communications. “By leveraging a single solution governmentwide, GSA can simplify the public engagement process for both agencies and the citizen, helping to build and offer uniformity and consistency in how the public engages with their government and move toward making the process as efficient as possible.”On Dec. 8, 2009, President Obama issued the Open Government Directive requiring federal agencies to launch an open government Web page that incorporates a public feedback mechanism by Feb. 6, 2010. To help agencies meet this benchmark, GSA is providing this tool at no cost to agencies, along with technical, management, and policy support. Agency officials will be able to devote their attention to running, moderating, and analyzing public input.GSA’s public dialog tool will allow agencies to provide citizens a forum to share ideas, give feedback, and engage in Web-based discussions with their government.GSA’s Office of Citizen Services, which fosters public engagement by using innovative technologies to connect citizens to their government, will continue to develop additional tools and practices to help agencies provide more opportunities for the public to engage with their government.
CNET News has more details: Feds get new tool for online public feedback
The new tool, which was built by a company called Ideascale, is very cheap to work with and implement, said Bev Godwin, the GSA’s director of new media and citizen engagement. All told, she added, it is expected to cost the GSA just $3,000 and will be free to each agency that wishes to use it.
[...]
Although the tool will display real-time results of the most popular publicly-submitted ideas on each agency’s Web site, there are no guarantees that those ideas will ultimately be implemented. But the point, said Dave McClure, who heads up the GSA’s Office of Citizen Services, is that the tool empowers the spirit of the Open Government Directive, by giving the public an easy way to submit ideas and become involved in the decision-making process.
[...]
All told, McClure said, 21 out of 24 “major” federal departments have signed on to use the tool, which is not mandatory under the Open Government Directive’s guidelines.
As you may remember, IdeaScale was used during phase 1 of the Open Government Dialogue back in May of last year. Three issues were widely noted then:
- Little participation by the convener/host
- Lack of moderation
- Information cascades/herding: like most other tools in this space that allow idea generation and up-or-down voting to happen in parallel (while also exposing the leader board, often as the default view), IdeaScale tends to favor those ideas that gain an early advantage (see my detailed tracking notes on Flickr)
It will be very interesting to see if and how these issues will be addressed during upcoming projects.
To see how IdeaScale has already been used in practice, check out the IdeaScale entry on ParticipateDB. A handful of e-participation projects using this tool have already been captured. Looks like quite a few more will have to be added shortly.
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I think Ideascale sucks a lot if one talks about the available alternatives among ideation platforms out there. For example a user could vote his own idea a hundred times to make a fool of the government. The interface is almost web 0.6 version and I would go as far as saying that they are very poor quality product with little traction in the competitive private markets.
Robert A,
Alberta, Canada
New blog post: “GSA to Offer IdeaScale to Federal Agencies” — http://bit.ly/5zAYJl /cc @ideascale #gov20 #edem #opengov
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@adrielhampton http://bit.ly/5zAYJl < Remains 2b seen what “become involved n the decision-making process” means. Also note 3 issues cited.
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GSA to Offer IdeaScale to Federal Agencies http://bit.ly/6×4QqI
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