epractice.eu - Social computing for public services 2.0 Community

Email as the central and broken tool for online communication

2009-11-03 10:45:27

Today social networks and other online messaging tools all use email as the central method to notify users of events (e.g. new messages, content) on their platforms. But email is not able to handle the task of being the unifying tool for online communication very well. This development also negatively effects public administrations which try to use email and other forms of online communication depended on email to engage with citizens. The Mozilla Raindrop project steps forward to solve this problem by providing automatic tools to separate the important messages from the less important ones. This effort poses both challenges and opportunities for public administrations. By adapting to the changing realities of email use today the engagement with citizens could be improved. It is therefore necessary to keep a close watch on the upcoming developments in this field. A short overview of Raindrop is provided on the Pan European eParticipation Networks site: http://pep-net.eu/blog/2009/11/03/mozilla-raindrop-the-unified-intelligent-inbox/

howto dutch goverment 2.0 competition and conference

2009-03-15 15:29:52

Howto Government 2.0 competition and conference. 1 Is this for you? Do you work at national level (at a ministry for example)? Do you wish to organize a conference about web 2.0 and government? Do you have some experience in organizing conferences for > 100 participants? Do you have some knowledge already about web 2.0? Are you at least a team of two? Do you have an idea which companies could help you with organizing? Do you like a lot of stress? Answered yes? Continue. 2 Why should you read this then? This howto explains step-by-step how you could copy our competition and conference. It took place last fall 2008. We think of it as a success. It may help you in avoiding some of the mistakes we made. Or you can use it as an outline for another kind of conference of your liking. We were inspired by showusabetterway. 3 What should be at your disposal if you decide to go for it? Approval by your minister or state secretary (or equivalent) At least 6 months for preparation. The last weeks you and your collegue will be working almost fulltime on it. A company that does the actual organizing (like logistics) for you and knows how to attract attention to the competition and event (in the blogosphere). At least 80.000 (for a conference for 250 participants). It cost us 125.000. And money to fund your prize-winning ideas. We had 3* 25.000. Take into account any restrictions set by your own organization. 4 What else should you take into account? Expenditures differ by country. The size and activity of the countrys blogosphere as well. Take into account the public opinion on government spending on web 2.0 activities. Theres a certain risk of not getting enough good ideas from the public. Be flexibel. Some criticism on the competition: ideas were sent in mostly by people that already had some interest and knowledge about web 2.0 and government, on the conference: it could have been more interactive. 5 Step-by-step 1. Get a team together. Make a proposal. Set the date for closing the competition at least 5 months further and the conference at least 6. Get the people above you behind it. Involve some peers of other sections of your organization but dont expect too much of them. 2. Choose a company that can take as much of the organising as possible out of your hands and provides for an inspiring location. 3. Get your competition going as soon as possible (within 2 months). Construct a website (showusabetterway used wordpress, we used Ning now well have our own platform that you can use at overheid20.nl). Decide how open your website will be. Be open and explicit about the selection and its criteria (application should be open source, use social networks, be unique in your country, etc). Decide if you want visitors to your site to be able to rate the ideas of others. Our question: how could web 2.0 improve how government works (public services, democratic processes, surveillance, inspection). Focus the marketing on the blogosphere, dont spend too much money on it (we did). 4. Send the invitations to your future conference participants. Decide if you want to, besides other civil servants, invite consultants (we didnt) and other organizations (we should have invited more people from grass-roots local organisations). Decide on the program. Get a lot of speakers (we had about 25) if your theme is broad. 5. Select a jury (of 5: government officials, academic expert, expert of practice) that nominates a small amount of ideas (6 nominees, out of 17 ideas that our team selection with the criteria out of 124 sent ideas). Prepare the nominees to present their ideas on the conference. 6. At the conference, have the participants vote for the ideas. The best (e.g. one, we had budget for 3) wins, announcing it at the end of the conference. That makes your participants stay the whole day. Use your participants knowledge to make a wiki, which you can build upon later (we neglected to invest in it right after, which is a shame, though were still planning on putting it to good use). Present the wiki at the end of the day. 7. Dont let your participants go but get the enthousiastic ones together in a smaller and more permanent setting. Start as quick as you can with the winners (our winners are still in the lead of realizing their ideas as project leaders, you may choose to do otherwise). 6 More information Tjabbe Bos, Arnout Ponsioen, Chris Smissaert (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations). overheid20prijsvraag.ning.com overheid20.nl 7 Feedback Please let us (above) know if you have any comments, or if you used this howto.

Howto dutch widgets project

2009-03-15 15:27:27

Howto Widgets 1 Is this for you? Do you work for a government organization that wants to take some small 2.0 steps? Do you have dynamic and (for the public) interesting information? Do you wish to maintain control over your content? 2 Why should you read this then? This howto can help you as a sponsor to have some widgets developed for your organization. Were still in the process of realisation, so this how to is a work in progress too. 3 What should be at your disposal if you decide to go for it? If you have the technical skills yourself, it only costs you time. If you dont, you may use some of the online tools that exist already (netvibes, yahoo pipes, igoogle). If those dont deliver what youre looking for, get a company to make it for you. That was the case for us. Your information source should be open, like in xml format. 4 What else should you take into account? Making a widget is just a small step in a broader trend called open government. If you information is already open (through xml or API for example), you may not need to make widgets yourself but have your end users make them themselves (you could facilitate that). For us, its an experiment in itself. 5 Step-by-step For a technical how to, go to http://alper.nl/dingen/2008/12/widget-distribution-and-other-considerations/ Were at the process of building the widgets now. 6 More information Chris Smissaert 7 Feedback If youd like to know more, then please let me know so Ill add to this howto.

howtos dutch open government project and overheid20.nl project

2009-03-15 15:25:07

I couldt get around to writing the howtos on the Government 2.0 platform and our open data project. However, there is some interesting material for you to read, written by the people involved. This one is about open government, by Ton Zylstra: http://www.zylstra.org/blog/. About the government 2.0 platform, the platform itself is supposed to be a howto. So check it out at http://www.overheid20.nl/. Blogposts are in Dutch, so use Google Translate or send me an e-mail for further information.

Open innovation, uncomfortable parallels

2009-02-28 13:01:12

When we (Dutch ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations) started with our government 2.0 projects last year, we chose to embark on a perilous journey called open innovation. Well, for as open as we thought government might be. That meant we needed to follow through the idea that the best ideas on improving the workings of government by web 2.0 would probably always come from outside our high-security buildings (anyone ideas for a physically open government?). So, innovative as we civil servants are, what we did was to steal from the UK (showusabetterway) the idea for a contest. Last Oktober, we put out the following question: âhow would you improve government with web 2.0â? We set up a ningsite (overheid20prijsvraag.ning.com), did some e-marketing and waited. Within 1,5 months, we had 124 ideas that everybody could comment and improve upon, from all over the country (yes itâs a small country). Really inspiring, and a real success that we hoped for, but absolutely werenât sure of beforehand. We had the money to fund three start-ups. The selection went as following: first we made a long list of ideas that really followed the criteria they should have (they were known from the start). A jury of web 2.0 experts and government figures nominated six ideas. On this six ideas, over 200 participants of the conference we held in December had to vote for the best three. At the end of the day, we had three winners: âhulp bij dit formulierâ (help me with this e-form), âde overheid maakt het mogelijkâ(government makes it possible: helping people proactive with getting the benefits that theyâre entitled to) en âjij en de overheidâ (you and government, a bottom-up portal that makes government information and services more accessible). The people behind the ideas have turned their ideas into real projects and themselves into project leaders. We participate, but from a distance. Thatâs not to say that we donât have difficult negotiations on what exactly the project should be like and aim for, just like the start of any project. But allâs going quite well. So yeah, pretty happy with ourselves. And yet...a little uncomfortable. We hope that this projects will become major successes, but what if they actually do? We have many e-government programs, and even our own government 2.0 activities, which have so many potential connections with these projects that may now or in the future be a cause for conflicts, whether it be interoperability, accessibility of just plain personal (how could you have helped create a cheaper, more popular application that competes with my own!). Yes we try to be as open and connected as we can be, but still, do you understand what Iâm talking about? So what to do. The plan for now: keep the citizenâs interest at heart, deal with uncomfort, deal with resistance and see what happens! Maybe weâll make our services obsolete somewhere, is that so bad?

the future of social media in government

2008-12-29 16:25:16

Hi all, The W3C eGoverment Interest Group (http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/) is working on several topics being one of them the use of social media in government. The Chairs have recently authored a paper (http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/papers/egov-social-ws), were we review discussion we had in the Group so far, for the upcoming W3C Workshop on the Future of Social Networking (http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/). The Group is open to the publc and is compiling use cases to show main issues on a number of topics, including this one and Open Government Data among others. We are already drafting an issues document that we plan to publish mid year with an early draft coming out around February. As you can see there, we are focusing a bit more on the technical aspects and are interested in input. If you have anything to say, please do join the Group or participate in the mailing list; see http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/participation or email me. We cannot try to fix something if we don't know it's broken, and you help on indentifying it would be very welcome. ps: thanks to David, Silvain and the others involved in the project for starting this community.

who designs and what software for epractice

2008-12-22 17:55:25

Hi I run a community of practice on inclusive entrepreneurship (COPIE) and also work for URBACT an EU funded programme which runs 30 learning networks of cities across Europe involving 300 cities. For copie we already run a NING, a second site and a knowledge platform of case studies called http://wikipreneurship.eu with a lot of practice especially from the EQUAL programme. In both situations we need a better social networking platform than we have currently. We have looked at things like ELGG, webcrossing etc but I have to say I am impressed by how epractice itself is designed. Does anyone know who is the go to person on epractice and what software drives it (bespoke or not). Thanks a lot. peter

Social computing webmonitor

2008-11-20 11:49:58

In April 2008 a list of cases was published on this community. These are more than 100 initiatives related to social computing in public services. This is a work in progress, useful to identify the key areas of impact and "what you can do" with social computing. But it is also a useful ressource in itself. This is not meant to be exhaustive, but continously updated. The cases are now available via an online database at: http://webmonitor.ict.tno.nl/. Short descriptions of the cases are available under the statistics tab and at a later data overviews of descriptive stats will be shown here. Please inform us about missing projects or incorrect information, by contacting TNO or replying to this post. When suggesting new projects, please specify the name, the URL, the description (including why it is about social computing) and the public service for which it is relevant. The databse will also be used to map services that are not specifically related to the public domain.

Administrator issues

2008-11-20 11:43:18

Due to a mistake made while adding a new administrator to the community, all members were added. The good folks at ePractise have helped us to correct this error.

How do you, as a user, experience the impact of ePractice.eu?

2008-11-20 09:34:08

Dear fellow community members! TNO Research Institute invites you to take part in a quick survey on the user experience and impact of ePractice.eu. This survey contributes to a study that helps policy makers and researchers to better understand the impact of web 2.0 on the public domain (e.g. health, government and education). The survey contains 10 questions and will take a few minutes. Thanks for your time! Click here, http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=fXYQPnZ1IT9X..., to take the survey

more than guidelines: teaching public servants to blog

2008-11-12 12:55:05

The British government is going proactive: the Norfolk country council launched a campaign to teach blogging which includes videos, booklets and events http://civicsurf.org.uk/about-cllr20/ We should highlight this on ePractice! (hat tip: Craig Thomler, http://egovau.blogspot.com/2008/11/teaching-public-servants-to-blog.html)

please post your guidelines for web2.0 usage

2008-10-24 16:06:19

I am here in Dublin at an interesting training on web2.0. Interesting presentation on the "your mental health" campaign, on the Bebo social network www.bebo.com/yourmentalhealth Derek Chambers who presented the projects also mentioned they have GUIDELINES to help moderating their work on Bebo. Derek will send me the guidelines or post them on the website. In the meantime, if you have guidelines to help you "govern" your web2.0 presence, please post them on this community. There are already the UK and NZ guidelines for blogging available. Thanks

Invitation to expert validation "Impact of Social Computing on Public services"

2008-09-30 10:02:36

Dear members, On behalf of the TNO Research Institute and the Danish Technological Institute (DTI), I would like to invite youÂ to participate inÂ a briefÂ online expert validation. TNO and DTIÂ areÂ conducting a comprehensive study on the impact of social computing onÂ the public sector, a research which has been commissioned byÂ the European Union'sÂ Joint Research Centre IPTS (http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/). The overall aim of the study is to analyse the effects of social computing trends (take-up and use of social networking websites such as MySpace) on public service sectors (e.g. healthcare and education sector). Currently, we are in the stage of the identification of key areas of social computing impact in public sectors. We have tried to reveal public sector domains in which social computing initiatives have significant impact. We found four types of impact in all public service sectors, namely: political, social, organisational and legal impacts. For instance, donations in online communities affect the campaining process and the use of cross-agency wikis the organisational structure. The identification of key areas of impact yieldedÂ 8 hypotheses onÂ the convergence or divergence of social computing trends withÂ currentÂ policyÂ within the European Union.Â Your input will be used to gain insight into the plausibility and desirability of the hypotheses. As a participant, you will be able to react on the hypotheses in this online survey. Completion of the survey will take approximately 20 minutes. Although analysis and dissemination of the results are anonymous, we would kindly ask you to fill out your e-mail address, so we can monitor the progress of the survey, monitor the representation of different expertise domains and inform you about the results of the study. The online validation tool, including instructions, can be reached by the following link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OI78A1n_2ftgOx3o3VxcpiKQ_3d_3d We would highly appreciate your effort and will keep you informed about the results. We are happy to receive your input before the 10th of October. In case you have any questions, suggestions or comments, do not hesitate to contact me. Kind regards, On behave of the research team, Tijs van den Broek ResearcherÂ / Advisor TNO Information and Communication Technology EÂ Â Â Â Â tijs.vandenbroek@tno.nl IÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â http://www.tno.nl

cross reference: see the community on governance and policy modelling

2008-09-18 05:52:57

Hi just to inform you that I wrote some blog entries on the other community, ICT for governance and policy modelling. They are relevant for social computing as well. In addition, I have a private blog on this topic, htt://egov20.wordpress.com, regularly updated. What do you think: should I copy the same posts in here? thanks david

Welsh civil servant sacked for blogging

2008-07-14 15:33:34

After the civilserf affair in England, another interesting case of problems with civil servants blogging. This time in Wales http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2008/07/11/dooced-welsh-civil-service-blogger-goes-to-industrial-tribunal-today/ These cases are interesting to start building the framework not only for blogging, but for individual engagement of civil servants in web2.0 initiatives. Any similar case outside the UK?

ELDY - bringing the computer to the elderly

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:37:01 UTC

Eldy is a project to bring elderly to an enriching web and computer experience. Eldy is the name of the project, the name of the freeware software and the name of the no-profit organization behind the initiative. With Eldy senior can use email, browse the web, chat, get weather info, see digital pictures, streaming, etc, in a clear GUI, with big labels in a friendly language. Eldy is both easy and nice - so the experience is effective and entertaining. Eldy has over 150.000 users in Italy and is a fast growing community given the strategy of Local Public administration, that is strongly helping the diffusion of the software (i.e : over 1.400.000 cd's are being distributed and a lot of training initiatives are being put on place).

Gencat 2.0 - redefining radically the eGovernment portal concept

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:42:28 UTC

Gencat.cat (the Internet website of the Catalan Regional Government) is an example of a radical redefinition of the eGovernment portal concept, and a mass-scale deployment based on transparency and web 2.0 philosophy in Public Administration, fully backed by a policy-driven political strategy focused on an integrated citizen-centric approach. With its 70 million visits/year, gencat.cat is the 6th most-visited website in Catalonia and the 30th in Spain, according to the latest internet-user survey carried out by AIMC (Association for Communications Media Research), positioned at the level of mass media or financial services.

Verwaltungskooperation

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:12:11 UTC

Authorities cooperate in various ways. Sharing knowledge about collaboration projects is the aim of the Web portal Verwaltungskooperation.at, where a wiki approach has been used to facilitate best practice documentation with Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technology.

EU: Launch of the Financial Transparency System

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Currently under the test phase, the Financial Transparency System (FTS) website is one of the building blocks in the Commission\'s wider European Transparency Initiative (ETI). The FTS focuses on the beneficiaries of budget lines directly managed by the Commission and the executive agencies set up to manage certain EU programmes, as well as other forms of operational support.

The data can be accessed through a web-based search engine providing various search criteria such as the country of the beneficiary, the Commission department which administered the grant or contract, the relevant budget line or the amount. This new search engine will thus allow users to analyse and compare information on beneficiaries and policy areas more easily.

The FTS information is extracted from the Commission\'s accounts of the previous year and provides the financial amounts comprised in the budget regarding these activities. The first year covered is 2007. The beneficiaries of 2008 will be published in 2009 and in 2010, the system will be enhanced, so as to include the procurement contracts provided by the Commission for its day-to-day administration.

It is worth noting in parallel that Member States have to put in place by 30 September 2008 a website containing information on the payments from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), made between 1 January and 15 October 2007. Each website shall, for all beneficiaries, provide details such as the name of the beneficiary, the municipality of residence and the total amount of all public funding received (Community and national).

The Commission has set up a web portal which provides access to these national websites. By 30 April 2009, Member States must have published the details of the recipients of all other agricultural payments.

Further information:

HU: Space information system to support decision-making

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The Regional Interactive Space Information System has been established to support the work of the politicians, decision makers and scientific experts dealing with these issues and being responsible for support and development. However, the online database is also available for all of the interested people.

The system provides the most important data pertaining to the regions at national, regional and settlement levels, namely: the Hungarian population number, its age group breakdown, the unemployment rate, the infrastructural data, the most important Hungarian institutions operating in the area, as well as the amount and main sources of the foreign and domestic support to the region.

The searched data can be depicted with the help of Google Earth, so their spatial distribution becomes visible. According to the plans, the regional space information system will offer great help in locating mistakes in political development measures. At the same time, the system is expected to facilitate cooperation among the Hungarian counties, as well as with the neighbouring countries, for participating in calls for applications.

Further information:

HU: Anti-lop bringing citizens on-line to combat corruption

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The site was launched by Gordon Bajnai, Minister for Local Government and Regional Development, who invited citizens to use the site to report any incidences that may come to their attention concerning irregularity or abuse in connection with EU funding.

Anyone may file a report through the new site. All that is needed is a valid email address, no name or registration is required. When a report is filed, the person concerned will receive a registration number that appears on the web page. In general, a case is investigated within 30 days, but if it requires more time the person reporting the case will be informed of this after 15 days.

The minister acknowledged complaints that the site encouraged Hungarians to snitch on each other but commented that this may well be, but we have to choose between whether we are more afraid of this, or of Hungary losing peoples trust, adding it is in the interest of the country to ensure maximum transparency.

Bajnai pointed out that Hungary is about 40th in the world ranking list of Transparency International and noted that he would like to improve this ranking by ten places. He further noted that the best antidote against corruption is publicity, transparency and easily understood regulations.

Further information:

BG: New anti-corruption portal for citizens

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Officially announced just before Christmas, the government\'s anticorruption portal www.anticorruption.bg had already received 90 corruption reports by mid-January. Complainants are given the option to decide whether they wish to identify themselves or not. The government guarantees anonymity and has assured users that it has not installed any software capable of tracking down the source computer. The greatest number of complaints received to date concern medical professionals, policemen and customs officers. School teachers, managers of state-owned enterprises and municipal officials are also among those reported for corruption offences. However, so far there have been no complaints against senior government officials. Most of the cases reported seem to concern small-scale corruption. The web portal has implemented measures to ensure that each case is properly followed up. Once submitted, a corruption report cannot be erased from the system. The site offers track-and-trace functionality enabling complainants to see what happens next. Once the ball starts rolling, it becomes quite serious. Rather than just being published, the submitted reports are forwarded to the internal compliance units of the institutions concerned (known as inspectorates) for detailed investigation. There is a statutory period of two months within which the inspectorates must provide feedback. The period can be extended for cases of greater complexity.

At the end of the day, if the circumstances of the case are duly verified and confirmed, the wrongdoer is penalised. Depending on the gravity of the case, sanctions can vary from administrative measures to imprisonment.

The site is sponsored by USAID and forms part of the government\'s overall anti-corruption strategy. Other key state institutions in Bulgaria also maintain their own facilities for citizens to submit corruption complaints. These include the Ministry of Interior (http://nocorr.mvr.bg/), the Ministry of Defence (hotline), and the Commission for Protection of Competition (http://www.cpc.bg/public/index.php?id=2363).

Further information:

Government Portal (in Bulgarian)
Anticorruption Portal (in Bulgarian)
Ministry of Interior (in Bulgarian)
Commission for Protection of Competition (in Bulgarian)

EU: Web 2.0 in Government: Why and How?

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Description (short summary):
Since 2003, a new wave of web-based applications, which now go under the name of web 2.0, have been launched with very little investment and have encountered dramatic success in terms of take-up. These applications rely on the concept of the user as a producer: of content (blog, wiki, Flickr), of taste/emotion (Last.fm, de.li.cious), of contacts (MySpace), and of reputation/feedback (eBay, TripAdvisor).

The report looks at how these applications are used and can be used in government-related activities. Based on a survey of existing initiatives in the public and private sector, it argues that web 2.0 applications affect both front and back office activities, such as: regulation, cross-agency collaboration, knowledge management, service provision, political participation and transparency, and law enforcement. For each of these domains, it spells out the key implications and analyzes existing cases. Finally, it draws some lessons to be learnt from existing cases, as well as possible policy options for government. Overall, web 2.0 is already used in many areas of government activity, often without the authorisation or even the knowledge of governmental institutions. To start experimenting with these applications appears to be not only potentially beneficial, but probably the safest option for government.

Original URL:
http://www.jrc.es/publications/pub.cfm?id=1565

Number of pages:
58

Web 2.0 in egovernment: why and how?

2008-03-19 02:03:00

Tutorial held at the lisbon Ministerial Conference on eGovernment (www.egov2007.gov.pt)

Good practice exchange from a Web 2.0 point of view

2008-03-29 00:15:10

In this paper the authors summarize their findings, explore three significant initiatives and try to identify future trends in the interconnection of good practice exchange and 2.0 potentialities.

Presentation of the PS20 community

2008-04-04 12:05:42

This is the presentation we gave at the ePractice workshop.

The first 100 cases collected by the project

2008-04-30 12:49:39

Here is an excerpt of the database, prepared by TNO, where more than 100 initiatives related to social computing in public services are presented. This is a work in progress, useful to identify the key areas of impact and "what you can do" with social computing. But it is also a useful ressource in itself. This is not meant to be exhaustive, but continously updated. Please inform us about missing projects or incorrect information, by replying to this post. When suggesting new projects, please specify the name, the URL, the description (including why it is about social computing) and the public service for which it is relevant.

Report of workshop "Public Services 2.0"

2009-09-04 16:21:28

Here is the final draft of the ePractice workshop held on March 16th (http://www.epractice.eu/publicservices) WE CALL all participants to the workshop to help improve the report. PLEASE COMMENT by September 11th. You can EDIT directly the conclusions here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aa7ILf5BATiJZG52dnBmcV83ODhkbXRjcWdnZw&hl=en_GB Thanks