State Services Commission: Online Participation Project Case Study
From ParticipatioNZ
<Guide to Online Participation/4. Resources/4.2. Case studies
This is a case study about the State Services Commission Online Participation Project as at August 2007.
Contents |
About the Online Participation Project
The State Services Commission's Online Participation Project began in 2003. Its purpose was to examine the scope for e-government to improve the opportunities for the public and businesses to participate in government, and improve policy and services. A major output will be a Guide to Online Participation, which will help agencies with advice on the principles, strategies, implementation and evaluation of online participation projects.
The project has gone through several steps.
Research
- A review of international and national practices, barriers and enablers to online participation, compiled in “Participation through E-government, The Context,”.
- Attending international and local conferences and meetings on participation and government engaging with communities.
- Engaging elected representatives on how they are using technology to connect with their constituents.
- Engaging people on how they experience participation.
- Evaluating online participation -- theory and practice.
- Improving the experience of online participation through tighter feedback loops between people and agencies -- case studies, good practice, prototypes and future services.
- Submitting the draft guide for international review by experts from Canada, Finland and Western Australia.
Community building
- A Community of Practice was established in December 2006 to share knowledge and ideas on participation. This group has been involved in developing and drafting a Guide to Online Participation. Its more than 200 members include public servants, academics, members of civil society and the private sector located in New Zealand and internationally. This group has met through:
- workshop sessions in December 2006 and May 2007 to review and have input into the guide
- regular lunchtime presentations, to support networking, share knowledge and maintain momentum around online participation.
- the ParticipationNZ wiki, where members could contribute to drafting the Guide to Online Participation, and share news and knowledge.
- Other community building work has involved:
- connecting with international contacts, particularly the OECD
- connecting with civil society, through programmes like Uplift, and action research projects mentioned above
- connecting with New Zealanders through public panel presentations and a blog post on Public Address.
Policy formulation
- Drafting naked. Content for the guide was written directly online, where it could be reviewed instantly. There was no 'cut and paste' from an MS Word document -- where it could be refined in-house -- before being released to the community of practice. All revisions to the guide are transparent thanks to the 'history' function of the Mediawiki platform. Individual names are also associated with each revision, which increases the granularity of who contributed what and when.
- International quality review. Three leading experts in the field of online participation reviewed a draft of the Guide to Online Participation in May 2007. Don Lenihan of Canada's Crossing Boundaries National Council, and Provincial Advisor on Public Engagement to the Province of New Brunswick, Katju Holkeri, of the Government of Finland, and Jo Bryson, of the Government of Western Australia, reviewed and commented on the draft guide, and took part in a workshop session with community of practice members. They also met the Minister of State Services to discuss the project and the area of online participation more broadly.
- Internal management and quality control. A reference group made up of State Services Commission staff and representatives of the private sector, the Office of Community and Voluntary Sector and the Ministry of Economic Development, advised the project manager on project direction and links to networks.
- Community of Practice members scrutinised the developing Guide to Online Participation on the wiki, and at an intensive review workshop in May 2007. The Guide was also reviewed by one of the SSC's legal team. SSC senior management also had a strong hand in the project's direction.
Trialling a wiki
A wiki was set up to convene the Participation Community of Practice and facilitate the exchange of information and views.
The project team considered what functions were needed to support policy development and sharing of knowledge in an online environment. They then looked at the tools that could support those functions.
The wiki was chosen as one online option where members could collaborate, view and create content. It was described as a whiteboard where members could put up ideas, comments and diagrams, as you would in planning or developing a project, policy or service.
A beta version was launched on 30 March 2007 -- 90 members were given access. The wiki was demonstrated to the Participation Community of Practice at one of the lunchtime sessions before the launch.
An early evaluation of the tool was undertaken by contacting participants for their views and experiences. This information has contributed to improving the wiki and finding ways to help navigation.
The participation project team has received both international and local interest in the ParticipatioNZ wiki. An article was published in the Australian CIO Journal: NZ Looks to Wikis for Public Engagement
Blogging as a State servant
In February 2007, the online participation project team was represented on a public 'Digital Democracy' panel hosted by prominent media commentator Russell Brown. The panel included Chris Di Bona of Google, Alaister Thompson of Scoop.co.nz, Rob McKinnon of Theyworkforyou.co.nz, and David Hume of the State Services Commission. Listen to the panel online at Scoop.co.nz.
Following the panel, the SSC was invited to post about the participation project on the popular weblog Public Address. The guest post went up on 22 February 2007. It received 1650 views and solicited 16 responses, including responses from the post's SSC author.
Expected project outcomes
The expected outcomes for the Online Participation Project are:
- improved opportunities through ICT for people to engage with government
- improved policy and service design, development and delivery
- demonstrated leadership of the Development Goals for State Services
- improved working relationships and willingness to share knowledge within and beyond government
- improved informed decision-making and policy change through generating new ideas
- identifying issues, benefits and drawbacks
- improved capacity, learning and understanding within government of the costs and benefits of improving opportunities for public and business participation
- overt active support for implementing the Guide to Online Participation -- a framework that has been created with input from many sources, including the community of practice
- identifying tangible products that will help State Service agencies to implement online participation.
Feedback design learning
The conditions are:
- adopt a multi-channel approach for communications, both online and offline -- this approach is needed to encourage and support engagement with a wider community of interest. The 'channels' used to communicate with existing and prospective community of practice members have been email, face-to-face, phone and Web (wiki)
- make it clear what the terms and conditions of involvement on the wiki are
- realise that not everyone will interact in the online environment -- see the 1 percent rule
- provide opportunities for different voices to be heard and consider various ways to respond to those voices
- be transparent by enabling participants to access and share information and comment as policy is developed
- provide opportunities for the community to get to know each other -- membership information on the wiki, meeting at face-to-face sessions and workshops
- build trust in the community and the participation process
- technology is an enabler -- the first step is to identify what functions are needed to support the online engagement and then consider the technology options that are available.
One important philosophy adopted in the Online Participation Project has been to put participation into practice. This has meant applying the principles -- working with the community of practice to develop the guidance through to trialling online tools that will enable participation.
Feedback design opportunities
As the Online Participation Project progresses, there are opportunities to:
- further explore and implement the emerging tools and methods that can support feedback loops, particularly as wider input is sought on the Guide to Online Participation
- identify and apply various ways to make the information accessible in different forms, e.g. visual, oral
- work with the community of practice to improve feedback loops that will encourage the community to remain involved and grow.
