Fourth International Conference on Online Deliberation: June 30 – July 2, 2010 in Leeds, UK

From the website:

30 June – 2 July, 2010
Leeds University Business School, UK

The widespread diffusion of the Internet and a growing trend towards democratisation worldwide have encouraged new modes, projects and visions of citizen participation in decision making and governance.

OD2010 aims to bring together researchers, developers and practitioners from a wide range of academic and applied backgrounds to provide a unique opportunity to better understand the notion of deliberation in a virtual environment and to discuss specific advances in online deliberation from a number of different disciplinary perspectives.

The conference is aimed at those who wish to update themselves on recent developments in online deliberation, understand how other groups are applying the tools and techniques and exchange ideas with leading international experts.

OD2010 follows the traditions of previous high-level scientific conferences. It is organized by key experts in the field and is supported by a multidisciplinary programme committee. This is the first time the conference has been held outside the USA.

The fourth OD conference focuses on, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• current research on online deliberation;
• research challenges which deliberation, and in particular online deliberation, pose for researchers, governments, communities and citizens;
• socio-technical design of online deliberative spaces;
• links between theories of deliberative democracy with experience with online deliberation;
• descriptions of tools and techniques that are already being tested or fielded;
• deliberative platforms using novel or unusual settings, technology or approaches;
• experiences and findings related to relevant technological theories (such as Web 2.0) and/or relevant social theories of deliberation and governance (such as public sphere, government 2.0 and civic intelligence); and
• case studies in applying and evaluating online deliberation in various formal and informal engagement domains.

Lots of deliberation heavyweights are involved.  The final conference program is still forthcoming at this point.

I was able to spend a few hours at Tools for Participation, the 2008 conference, and enjoyed it greatly. Definitely check out this one!

Related posts:

1. Connect the Dots National Student Conference: March 3-6, 2010 in Point Clear, AL
2. Intellitics at “No Better Time” Conference, University of New Hampshire, July 8-11, 2009
3. National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation: October 3-5, 2008 in Austin, Texas

Tagged as: od2010