DELIVERABLEProject Acronym: APOLLON Grant Agreement number: 250516 Project Title: Advanced Pilots of Living Labs Operating in Networks D.5.2 Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia Revision: FINAL Authors: Eric Legale (Issy Media) Sébastien Lévy (Issy Media) Project co-funded by the European Commissi on within the ICT Policy Support Programme Dissemination Level P Public X C Confidential, only for members of the consortium and the Commission Services
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Apollon - Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia
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8/8/2019 Apollon - Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia
The deliverable is organized as follows. After a short introduction of the research
subject and the main problems it attempts to approach, we will present several
eParticipation projects related to the technologies used by the Apollon pilots, followed
by a comparative SWOT analysis for the specified projects. More precisely, we will
present and compare the various tools and mechanisms used, in order to understand
which of the local results can be extended to a broader scale (regional, national,
European) and we will suggest potential improvements to the methods used by
describing how and in which contexts the tools should be used and how to combine
them to enable inclusive engagement. In the third part we will briefly define the mainproblems to be faced during the implementation and deployment process and we will
outline the major phases of an eParticipation project development (subject, user
identification, tools to be used, communication methods, engagement maintenance,
funding, business models and sustainability). In the conclusion we will summarize
what we could observe from our case studies and we will try to set out some practical
recommendations for deploying a successful eParticipation project connecting users,
SMEs and local authorities in the framework of Living Labs.
8/8/2019 Apollon - Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia
III. Overview/Analysis of the pre-existing eParticipationinitiatives in Living Labs
The objective of this chapter is to present an evaluation framework relevant to the
eParticipation practice projects operating in Living Labs and to present challenges
and difficulties on the basis of SWOT analyze of projects pilots. The examples used
are relevant to the tools used by the APOLLON pilots and to the cross-media context.
The analysis will take into account differences in the cultural and administrative
approach to eParticipation in different European countries. All the information used
on the analyze was collected mainly through a questionnaire sent to the members of
the European Network of Official Living Labs. As the responsiveness was quite weak,
we contacted Napier University and the European Commission in order to analyze as
wide range of information as possible. We took into account all information gathered
but we focused more particularly on the Living Labs approach on eParticipation
citizens and business oriented initiatives.
In reality the majority of eParticipation projects come from well developed countries,
where Internet penetration is quite high and access to technology is considered as
easy. The use of ICT for participatory purposes in general, is seen to be more likely
to occur in contexts that are less affected by the issues of digital divide where the
diffusion of the use and adoption of ICT is quite popular. Nonetheless, it is important
to keep in mind that access and presence of the technology does not guarantee an
elaborate use and understanding of the different technologies in place.
The cities that developed eParticipation initiatives in a framework of Living Labs they
have put in place services and human interface which considerably facilitate ICT useand diffusion. Besides differences in the level of interactivity and in the ways to
gather feedback, each city hosting LL focuses on ICT use to improve different
community services and to smoothen the communication between policymakers,
business and citizens.
The study cases analyzed below correlate with eParticipation through eMedia
concept as the pilots act on several different communication platforms. The purpose
of this analyze is to show the strengthens and the weaknesses of those approach in
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WISDOM is a community web service which organize, manage and update the
information concerning 5 rural communities on one website. The project was funded
by Carnegie Trust UK and it has benefited greatly from input by local community
network volunteers, District Council officials, Cumbria County Neighbourhood
Development Officers, and views offered by CN Media Group.
The main purpose of the project is to explore and built links between community
network (by giving them the capacity to develop & publish content concerning their
everyday life subject, for example their plans for collecting rubbish, prioritizing
highways work and parking schemes) and public sector organizations (includingcentral and local government) who seek to interact with the public on-line. A further
objective of the project is to consider aspects of national website models that are
devoted to the reinforcement of the community network and its social implications.
The website was developed over several years with the help of local residents and a
number of partner organizations and community groups, this group has been
involved in on-going development, including the design and feel of the web service,
site layout, and navigation– which has created a sense of ownership. They have also
helped determine editorial and moderating policies and some of them have been
trained to publish stories, videos and short films on the website. The aim was to
creatively involve local people in website content creation with a purpose to reach
citizens groups that are not normally interested in the use of internet e.g. middle aged
males and elderly people.
Concerning the tools, project coordinators rejected expensive software and they have
used for the website a bespoke Content Management System which provides
flexibility and usability. The Website is set up to deliver a range of cross-media
services, including text alerts when the roads over the moors are liable to become
blocked by snow or ice and a lift sharing service or a local TV service which is
available to promote community cohesion through shared on-line culture.
Even if the site has been successful the project coordinators had reported several
difficulties while its deployment and implementation process.
The main obstacles were high cost of delivering services to dispersed rural and
remote populations, a lack of capacity (people unable to offer support and training in
8/8/2019 Apollon - Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia
new applications), low access (PCs and broadband) and content (relevant, timely
information).
Thanks to the report sent by the project coordinators we could analyze some of the
portals created for the WISDOM project.
Alston Cybermoor Community Portal
The site appears to be well used and with an average of 22,000 visitors per month.
One of the objectives of the e-consultation was to collect qualitative feedback from
the community to support the Community Travel Plan process and the Local
Transport Plan 2 and to meet some of the County Council’s core objectives of
encouraging community participation in transportation issues and promoting
discussion and understanding of the modern transport agenda.
Phase I of the online consultation started on December 3rd 2007. The consultation
provided an overview of the history of the Alston Moor Community Travel Plan and
the aim of producing a prioritized list of highway improvements the local community
felt was necessary in their local area. Comprehensive background material was also
made available, namely relevant transport plans and meeting reports, as well as an
overview to the Local Government system and links to other websites. A list of
suggestions was also presented showing highway improvements already made by
the community to be included in the Community Travel Plan, as well as a map of the
area highlighting the different priorities. Users were asked to comment on the plan
and the priorities already identified via the online forum. 52 contributions were
received via the online forum and 6 comments were flagged on the map. Phase 2 of the consultation began on December 7th 2007 and ran until January 7th 2008.
Members of the community were asked to complete an online survey and to vote on
five schemes they felt would be the most beneficial to the community. The budgeted
cost of each scheme and the Local Transport Plan (LTP) Assessed Priority as well as
a copy of the scoring sheet used by Cumbria Highways to assess the schemes were
made available. It was agreed at the Alston Moor Traffic Management Meeting held
on 29th January to reopen the online survey with a new closing date of February 15th.
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simple and effective but would now benefit from some modernization. Comments in
relation to “marketing and promotion‟ of the web-site suggest that if the site were to
be re-launched in a new format it would provide a real opportunity to create new
interest. It was felt that “educating community users to have the website as their
homepage is effective if they have a computer…however, there are still many people
not connected.“ The web address is constantly promoted in Parish magazine and
Parish Council newsletter. The coordinators have also developed an email list which
is used to send alerts and links to the site for those opting into it – but this service
may be taking project into the Data Protection area and could create problems.
The interest and use of the site has developed very slowly but it's definitely
something that many people on the community have now started getting comfortable
with and would feel very disappointed to lose - slowly creating a dependency!
Without a doubt, barriers and brakes on development were down to money and time.
When asked whether volunteers could or should be paid from income generated by
the site, the website developer said: Certainly when income is generated it should be
reinvested for marketing for users and advertisers. There are always specific taskswhich could be completed with the incentive of reimbursement eg collating all the
businesses within the parish, contacting all businesses to canvass for advertising
revenue. The site is limited to how much advertising can be placed so the revenue
would be finite and only moved upwards by the rate. When asked the extent to which
it was likely/unlikely that people want to take part in a civic discussion forum, the
answer was as follows: This would be entirely dependent upon the type of user. Who
currently uses forums? Yes, if people were to use them they would be a very useful
tool if there was someone moderating and collating it. Our site doesn't visually
encourage the use of forums which may be an issue with the low take up.
When considering how people could best discuss aspects of where they live eg. what
is good and needs to be preserved as well as what needs to be improved, the
response was that this is probably best led by the county council (who may have
more funding) and fed out through an individual parish council as a pilot? The
following strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and risks were also identified
by the Witherslack website developer as noted below in her own words.
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deliverable 5.1 three types of projects such as the WLANd project in Salzburg,
ADAME- Ile de France regional website or Ucount4eu European project which main
objective is to increase citizens’ awareness, government transparency and
information share with citizens, A second category of projects is exemplified by the
UK Talk, I-Folio of the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux, People Voice Media projects of the
Manchester libraries site or Lahti –Finish. They are seeing to facilitate the free flow of
shared knowledge between citizens and policymakers, organizations and R&D
departments. The third project category involve opportunities for citizens to exploit
‘the wisdom of the crowd’ and thereby exercise influence on government and politics
and initiate policy ideas. The Estonian TOM, UK Tweety Hall or Scottish Parliamentprojects provide examples of the various forms that such initiatives can take.
There is often a narrow connection between participation areas, tools used and
engagement level. Most eParticipation initiatives do take place at sub-national and
national level, with only 24% of 255 surveyed initiatives having an Europe-wide or
transnational character. That allows drawing the conclusion that relatively small
target audience of eParticipation initiatives (region, city and district) is more willing to
engage in the more specific initiatives.
Local eParticipation projects, from the socio cultural point of view, allow more active
participation and greater capacity to reach tangible decisions and its inclusive and
horizontal character seems to stimulate openness and offers an effective means of
mobilizing support, as well as disseminating information and providing advice on
specific issues. The most popular subjects of participative applications are mentioned
in table below:
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When dealing with user centric service delivery the identification of an ideal users
(who are composed of both citizens and also business) seems to be determining
factor during for a project conceptualization. One of the most important drawbacks to
current eParticipation initiatives is the large and diverse range of stakeholders which
have different needs and preferences, diverse interests, backgrounds, perspectives,
and linguistic and technical capabilities. In the foreseeable future there will remain
citizens who only use technology minimally, citizens who have a wide range of skills
and experience in the latest technologies and citizens with a wide range of literacy
and communication skills. In addition, there will remain citizens who like talking about
civic issues and want more opportunities to do so and there will be others who will
only be involved when an issue is close to their own interests.
A lack of understanding of principal participatory behaviors and expectations may
lead to the project failure as the attention has to be paid not only to different types
and profiles of citizens, in terms of their e-skills, attitudes, and use of information and
communication technologies, but also their social groups and customer segments.There are two main groups of users: moderators of the tool (experts, elected
representatives, private company, civil society organizations...) and users of the tool
(experts, elected representatives, professional or lay stakeholders, (non-)randomly
selected or self-selected participants…).
Unfortunately it is very difficult to proceed to certain conclusions as there is no
literature showing how to shape users up in a single framework. After the analysis of
existing documentation and case studies it is only possible to arrive at some general
reflections on a following variable to be used while choosing your target users:
• Demographic (e.g. gender, marital status, income, occupational prestige, and
home ownership)
• Attitudinal and behavioral (e.g. interest in the campaign, access to political
information, general political knowledge, strength of partisanship, feelings of
civic duty, internal and external efficacy, personal skill acquisition, altruism,
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• Social (e.g. interpersonal communication, social identification, group
consciousness, socialization, political disagreement, and social capital)
Depending on the history and tradition of a country’s constitution(s), the roles and the
impact of the user groups vary among the different countries. While choosing target
users, is vital to precisely identify their role and engagement level in the process with
a purpose to clarify what is expected from them and how they should proceed
(accordingly to their skills and capabilities) to achieve those expectations.
Patterns of users' behavior and needs will still appear and it’s important to take intoaccount possible cultural differences when designing user experiences. There aren't
that many products or interactive systems that are really used by "everybody".
Targeting "everybody" with an interactive system is not easy, nor cheap. User
requirement analysis can contribute to defining precise target audiences that are
more likely to use it.
An obvious requirement is to have usability testing with local practitioners, to ensure
that local user needs will be taken in to account. As it is transparent, the surveyed
best practices from the eParticipation projects analyzed in the second chapter cluster
around the local organizations and/or local government initiatives, implying that the
most relevant dimension for the development of e-Participation is the City dimension.
The findings of the comparative analysis allowed us to distinguish four different types
of ICT user groups.
They can be classified as follows:
1) Nonusers (high age - the majority in this group is 45 years and above, low
income and low education, low access to ICT)
2) Average users (the largest group of ICT users, use ICT not on a regular
basis, but now and then, low computer skills).
3) Instrumental users use (ICT for utility or for information acquisition, high
score on PC and Internet use in general, good ICT access, mostly males and
a higher education level)
8/8/2019 Apollon - Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia
It could be also considerably helpful to engage an external partner like NGOs or
business organizations in a dissemination processes since they reach wide range of
diversified public groups. The twin concepts of partnerships and networking are at
the centre of modern public services and are fundamental to the commissioning and
delivery of public services, developing and maintaining public infrastructure and
giving leadership to local communities. Bringing together public sector bodies,
businesses and third sector organisations, partnerships embrace co-production
between service users, commissioners and providers. Well organised and well co-
ordinated partnerships assume a shared vision as well as a willingness to share
resources and work together in a spirit of collaboration and co-operation.To conclude, it seems that the best way to attract users implies a multi-media
approach that combines the strengths of the 'old' media – newspapers, radio,
television, telephones and libraries, with 'new' media –Internet, e-mail, electronic chat
rooms and forums, SMS and MMS.
E. Enhancement, Engagement, Support of the users
Once the project reached its target users it is extremely important to define what
motivates users to participate in it (tagging, sharing, creating commenting content).
As we said above participating still remains unnatural so if people make an effort to
do so is definitely with a strict purpose to have things done. After the study of the
existing project we can conclude that is primordial to acknowledge the participation
effort of the citizens and that project coordinators have to stress the importance of the
feedback on the policy makers and their interest to the inputs given by the citizens.
People must have impression that their engagement is meaningful and has an
influence and that the time they are spending on the participation is worth it. The
moderator role seems to be very important as the feedback is needed in order to
illustrate what is happening and what changes are being made as a result of input.
Moreover we realized that whenever an online forum or platform was used,
moderation was also a key issue concerning the quality of the debate and its
“abordability” for an average, non expert user. The moderator role is also to respond
to the users questions in order to facilitate and make their participation smoother.
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and sustainable. The best way to know if an eParticipation initiative is worth pursuing
is to evaluate the ability to articulate what the citizens will gain if the project is
successfully implemented and what will be the benefits. That will definitely provide
better supporting evidence for a fundraising proposal. It is very important to estimate
what will be a true longtime cost of eParticipation project (financial and human
resources costs related to the ICT applications) in order to determine if project will
deliver a sufficient return to make it sustainable. There are several elements to be
taken into account will considering investments for the project , like software,
hardware and infrastructure, promotion and time which is a major budget cost from
training through ‘getting comfortable with the system’ and in building and maintaininga relationship with users in order to broaden their engagement. In many – if not most
– situations, the cost of hardware and software runs at below 30 per cent of the total
costs associated with preparing, launching and sustaining an ICT initiative. We could
learn from the projects we have analyzed that the simplest way to assess the
success of an eParticipation initiative is to focus on indicators which allows project
monitoring and evaluation. In reality for the moment such indicators are or very few or
they do not exist which makes it extremely complicated to manage the project that
are not measurable and not able to collect data.
Except EU, administrations and privet investors there are number of trust and grant
funders who look favorably on ICT applications but criteria and programs change
constantly so it is very important to check with the founder if the information you have
are still current. Some of the institutions who help developing eParticipation projects
are:
• Awards for All can fund projects that enable people to take part in and access
community activities, as well as projects that promote education, the
environment and health in the local community. As the funding criteria and
application process varies according to the country, see
www.awardsforall.org.uk for more information.
• BT Community Connections (BTCC) is a UK nationwide award scheme that
aims to connect local community and voluntary groups to the internet. For
more information, application form and criteria see the BTCC website -
www.btcommunityconnections.com
8/8/2019 Apollon - Methodology for eParticipation through eMedia