Orange dots = Flickr photos; blue = tweets; white dots = bothPicture: Eric Fischer

Networks for Citizen Consultation and Citizen Sourcing of Expertise: Exploring Innovations in the Public Sector

Cristobal Cobo, Ph.DResearch FellowOxford Internet InstituteUniversity of Oxford

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8638292/Amazing-maps-show-Twitter-and-Flickr-activity-around-the-world.html?image=18

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http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/09/the-middle-eastern-nation-most-vulnerable-to-internet-shutdown/244507/

“We are making technology work for us, by capturing the images of

the perpetrators on CCTV – so even if they haven’t yet been

arrested, their faces are known and they will not escape the law”.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-in-england/

Prime Minister David Cameron

“Under social media, Mr Cameron includes Facebook, Twitter and specific technologies such

as text messaging”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14493497

Between 6 and 10 August 2011

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London: The centre of the city. Twitter activity and photographies. Orange dots = Flickr photos; blue = tweets; white dots = both

Picture: Eric Fische

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8638292/Amazing-maps-show-Twitter-and-Flickr-activity-around-the-world.html?image=18

Can the new technology make a positive difference?

(+) Yang and Zhiyong Lan (2010): Internet has reduced the disparity in resources between policy experts and citizens. (+) Bohman (2004): the tension between experts and citizens can be reduced through the ICT, fostering participatory opportunities.Castells (2011): Internet facilitates changes in all aspects of life, society, the economy and culture (‘Arab spring’). (+) Brabham (2009): ICTs enable deeper levels of engagement between people and governments. New methods for harnessing collective intellect and creative solutions from networks of citizens). crowdsourcing 3

(-) Alexander and Pal (1998): Information availability is different from information utilisation. (-) Van Dijk (2010): ICT does not cause more political and societal interest among citizens.(-) Yang and Zhiyong Lan (2010): Avoiding techno-reductionist approach. The Internet can improve democratic public policy making but those changes depend on education, institution building, culture and trust relationship formation. (-) Hardy, Lawrence and Grant (2005): Avoiding oversimplifications. Many collaborations fail to produce innovative solutions.

Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jun/06/social-media-documentary-makers

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Zhang et al. (2009): Civic Participation (activities that address community concerns through non-governmental/non-electoral means), Political Participation (activities aimed to influence the election public officer).

Source: http://15m.bifi.es/

581.749 messages from 87.569 users using

different social networks

The boom in social media networks: novel mechanisms of communication.

Social media tools: (Web 2.0, participatory media, social networking platforms. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).

2011-2015 European Action Plan A more open (pro-active) model of design, produce and deliver online services that foster collaboration between citizens.

The adoption of social media to effectively involve citizens and businesses in the policy-making process.

Spain: 15 May demonstrations

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A participatory technology & services

understood as a continuous socio-

technical process that require community

engagement.

Electronic Government Cicles (adapted from Caldas, 2008)

Appropriate conditions: The right social media tools; social capital; digital literacy; climate that supports public participation (new models of crowdsourcing).

Yang and Zhiyong Lan (2010) 6

OII and McKinsey Technology Initiative (MTI).Dutton, William H., Paul A. David, and Wolf Richter. (2008).

Source: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=45

‘wisdom of crowds’ – the idea that ‘the many are smarter than the few’ (Surowiecki), where a large number of ordinary people can outperform a few experts by sharing information and solving problems.

+ peer production+ social production + co-production + co-creation + mass collaboration

(e.g. see Surowiecki 2004; Benkler 2006; Tapscott and Williams 2006).

atlas.chdeveloper.mozilla.org

innocentive.comsciencecommons.org

digg.com sermo.com

seriosity.comwikipedia.org

aswarmofangels.com

The Performance of Distributed Problem Solving Networks:

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Management depends on Type of CNO 1.0 Sharing 2.0 Contributing 3.0 Collaborating

Architecture One to many Many to many Many to one

Openness and Control

Open, Low Control

Managing access Tiering, management control structures

IPR Information shared

Platform Co-created product

Performance Viewers Quantity of Contributors

Engaging targeted experts, producers

William Dutton. Capturing the Value of Networked Individuals: Strategies for Citizen Sourcing. University of Oxford. Presentation to ‘NETworked Organizations’, organized by SINTEF, at Kanonhallen, Oslo, Norway, 10 November 2010

1.0 sharing documents, data, and other digital objects. Hypertextual/ 2.0 supporting contributions to (limited) collaboration. Hypertextual/ UGC3.0 supporting cooperative co creation. Hypertextual/ UGC /Cooperative Work

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The aims of this study :1. To explore relevant online public initiatives from the EU public sector to identify if they facilitate the creation of networks for citizen consultation (citizen sourcing for expertise). 2. To analyze different eGovernment websites and identify to what extent they adopt the levels of 1.0.Sharing; 2.0.Contributing and 3.0.Co-creating of knowledge. 3. Evaluate the usefulness of the methodology adopted in this study, considering it applicability in further research.

The key research questions :• How are governments implementing strategies to foster online –’many-to-many’ communication between citizens and public administration bodies? • What online mechanisms are the governments adopting to incorporate crowdsourcing and ‘distributed problem solving’ from the citizenship?• Are the online public platforms a relevant space to facilitate collaboration from citizen to citizen?

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Orange dots = Flickr photos; blue = tweets; white dots = bothPicture: Eric Fischer

www.epractice.eu/awards

From 31 countries, 52 cases have been shortlisted as finalists.

eGovernment: • Supporting the single Market; • Empowering citizens; • Empowering businesses;• Enabling administrative efficiency & effectiveness.

sample: the non-biased nature of this list gives us objective criteria for inclusion 10

Levels of collaboration

Architecture Value Openness Value Control Value Modularization Value TotalValue

“1.0. Sharing”: Here the information can be shared, sold, or advertised. (Hypertextual)

Focus on open sharing of documents (one to many)

1 Enables access to information through deep searching (open)

1 The control of individual's participation is low or limited (low)

1

Contributors have limited level of intervention in contents (low)

1 3

“2.0. Contributing”: The Web to facilitate group communication, thereby reshaping who contributes information to the collective group (Hypertextual- User Generated)

Enables user-generated content (many-to-many).

2 It allows sharing insights, information and opinions. (networked)

2 The platform's management is based in the levels of participation (moderate, reputation).

2 Modularization keeps the task at a manageable level (moderate, simple task).

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“3.0. Co-creating”: It allows attracting and sustaining relevant contributors or co-creation to the creation of information products or services. (Hypertextual- User Generated – Cooperative Work)

Allows collaborative production of information products (many-to-many).

3 Creates a hierarchy of rights and privileges (managed).

3 Hierarchical levels of control over who and how participates (high).

3 Keeping tasks modular, precise and easy to complete (high).

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Matrix of Collaboration

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To see the classification and ranking of these websites please visit http://tinyurl.com/EUwebsites

Only 49 of them were active and providing public information (February, 2011)

Results

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Results

Social Media ToolNumber of Websites

that include“social media tools”

Average of the total websites of the study

Twitter 8 16.3

Facebook 6 12.2

Youtube 4 8.2Flickr 4 8.2Linkedin 1 2

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Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn Flickr0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

12.2%

16.3%

8.2%

2%

8.2%

Number of European Public Websites that include “social media tools”

Number of European Public Website that include “social media tools”

[e-Catalunya] # 12ecatalunya.gencat.net (Spain)

[PloneGov] # 12 plonegov.org (Belgium)

Participa Andalucía # 10 participaenandalucia.net (Spain)

[Participatory Budgeting –Cologne] # 9 buergerhaushalt.stadt-koeln.de

(Germany)

[Interoperability Infrastructure for Serv. Transf.] # 10 ermis.gov.gr (Greece)

+Thematic citizens dialogue. + Self organized communities.+ No external social media tools.+ Variety of participation tools.+ Self developed mechanism of transactions.

+Open Source Community.+Facilitate the transfer of citizen knowledge.+ Ecosystem of meta-collaboration + Resources exchange (avoid duplication)

+ Citizens: propose, exchange and promote ideas.+ Direct interaction with local authorities.+ Linked to FB & T to disseminate citizen ideas.+ Crowdsourcing (vote for the ideas)

+ Interoperability public admin. serv.+ Citizens suggest & discuss ideas.+Anonymity or authentication.+ Promote the submission of ideas.+ Add or co-create based on previous contributions.

+ Participatory budget (environment & educ.)+ Add, discuss & compete for the better ideas.+ First 100 ideas > studied by local admin.+Cologne City council> deliberation.

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1. Social media tools in public service website > by no mean synonymous of citizen participation or transparency. (Appropriate climate of participation: information availability; existence of adequate social tools; social capital digital literacy, trust and transparency).

2. Majority of ‘1.0 Sharing’ websites. Preference for traditional channels (e-mail & phone). 1-to-1: Limited citizen participation > 76.9% were 1.0. Sharing); 7.7% as 2.0. Contributing and 9.6% as 3.0. Co-creating.

3. Low adoption of ‘many to many’ tools: Despite the visibility of social media tools and the EU 2011-2015 Action Plan citizens distributed collaboration there is a gap between the EU policies and the practices. Opportunity to redesign the G2C interaction (and add new value).

4. Outsourcing collaboration: Diversity of strategies to embrace the social media tools (developed or adopted). Low cost but also low control of privacy/security of data.

7 Conclusions

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5. High concentration of social media tools in a small number of public websites. It raises new questions regarding the familiarity (digital literacy) of those who design new communications between G2C.

6. Further research are needed to identify the motivations and strategies of

those who administrate these kinds of public platforms. New studies to evaluate the SWOT these social media tools in the C2G interaction.

7. Useful Methodology: The collaborative matrix (and its taxonomy) was a useful and replicable approach to adopt in future studies. Helpful to categorize, qualify and better understand different flows of information exchange of different online platforms.

7 Conclusions

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Acknowledgments: This study was supported through the Knetworks project (Knowledge Dissemination Network for the Atlantic Area www.knetworks.gov.pt) and prepared in collaboration with the Socio-Economic Services for European Research Project (SESERV www.seserv.eu).

Cristobal Cobo, Ph.DResearch FellowOxford Internet InstituteUniversity of Oxford

@cristobalcobo http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=189

thanks!