Interesting new project brewing over at Knight Foundation: Engagement Commons: A new tool to empower civic engagement
With the explosion of open data, we’ve seen a proliferation of civic software aiming to get community information on everything from road closures to restaurant inspections into people’s hands.
The apps have great potential for engaging people in improving their communities. But often the people closest to the data — city leaders and staffers — have a difficult time finding and weeding through all the software to determine what’s right for both their needs and their community.
That’s why we’re building Engagement Commons, a comprehensive catalogue of civic engagement software. It’s a project of Civic Commons, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Technology for Engagement Initiative, which funds projects that use technology to inspire on-the-ground action.
Specifically, Engagement Commons is a dynamic wiki, an editable catalogue of applications that foster civic engagement. The catalogue will include comprehensive information regarding the purpose, features and uses of each application; reviews of each app; technical requirements and options for deploying the app; as well as listings of locations each app is being used in.
Engagement Commons is scheduled to launch this Spring.
In the meantime, make sure to check out Civic Commons, a non-profit initiative that “helps governments build and use shared and open technologies to improve public services, transparency, accountability, citizen participation, and management effectiveness, all while saving money.” Their recently launched market place already contains more than 300 apps.
Naturally, there will be overlap with existing directories such as ParticipateDB, but that is a good thing. We certainly hope to learn about many new e-participation tools we weren’t aware of yet.
Found via Code for America blog: What’s next for Civic Commons
Related posts:
