Collaborating with citizens to add value to government data

Over the last six months a collection of libraries and museums from around the world, including the Library of Congress in the US, the Toulouse Library in France and Australia's PowerHouse Museum, have been placing copyright free images from their photo collections online in Flickr, allowing the online community to add information and commentary.

As discussed in the article Flickr, Library of Congress find something in 'Common', in USA Today, the approach has seen over 500 photos have new information added to them, from identifying individuals, locations and providing context for the images.

This approach of tapping into an existing online community of enthusiasts (Flickr is the world's largest community of photographers), providing them with public data and seeing what value the community can add (free of charge) is applicable across many different areas of government.

This isn't a unique instance of this approach. Other, and quite different examples of government-community online collaboration include;

• the SETI@Home program, which uses unused processing power on millions of home users' PCs to analyse astronomical data in the search for intelligent life,
  
• the Police Wiki Act, which was passed as an Act of Parliament last year as the first piece of New Zealand legislation to be written, analysed, discussed and finalised online involving hundreds (if not thousands) of community contributors, and
  
• the UK government's mash-up competition, where the UK is looking for community innovation in creating useful online applications involving government data released especially for this purpose.

The final example is particularly interesting as the UK government has phrased the competition as 'show us a better way', acknowledging that citizens are able to come up with better ideas than the government.

There's many other forms this type of collaboration could take. All it requires is some goverment data and the will to work with communities.

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AGIMO releases consultation blog report

Earlier this month AGIMO released a report regarding consultation with government online.

This concludes a yearlong consultation program during which AGIMO has consulted a range of stakeholders to assist development in the online consultation space.

It's taken me a little while to get to it, but the report has been very useful in directing my thinking regarding how my agency can more deeply engage customers and stakeholders in meaningful dialogue.

The report indicated that people did feel it would be of value to have an online consultation space for government, In fact 96.9 percent of those responding to the online survey were in favour.

This space would potentially involve blogs, discussion forums and details of public consultations, similar to that already in place for QLD's Get involved consultation website.

The report also suggested that there needed to be steps taken to encourage participation as people not already engaged in online or political discussions may not participate in such a site.


I found the section detailing techniques to make people more interested in participating particularly useful and relevant to any such website, and will be applying them as my agency moves towards greater online consultation - both with staff and with stakeholders and customers.

The points raised included that people would be more likely to participate if;

• the discussion topic were relevant to their personal circumstances;
• they had the opportunity to nominate the topics for discussion;
• discussion forums included the participation of Government officials;
• a range of registration options were available;
• the site was well designed, easy to find and use;
• participants were free to express their opinion without censorship; and
• it were unbiased in its operation.

Of all of these points, the one that came through most clearly to me from the report was the need to establish credibility - that any online consultation was being taken seriously by the Minister and senior public servants involved.

As it stated in the report:

It was seen by many respondents, especially those participating via the online survey, that Government officials and Ministers would be able to prove their interest in, and commitment to, the various topics under discussion by participating. Many noted the need for political impartiality. The success of any public online forum was seen to depend on the willingness of those in power to participate in the debate and respond to the issues presented.

While many respondents expressed their cynicism about Government actually participating in the discussion, some respondents were optimistic and believed that Government officials would take the website and its discussion forums seriously.

In other words, participation proves commitment to process.

I am looking forward to further guidance from AGIMO as to how they intend to move forward to develop such a consultation site.

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Government using virtual worlds for recruitment purposes

The government of Ontario has launched a job recruitment program in Second Life, one of the best known virtual worlds.

The program allows potential employees to virtually practice being a firefighter, civil engineer, medical technician or another public service profession to gain some insight into the demands of the role before deciding whether to seek a job in the area.

Quoting from the launch release,

The attraction is open 24/7 in the virtual world, and allows users to self-select the tasks they'd like to do. Once users have experienced the range of experiences available to them in Second Life, they can choose to be contacted in the real world to obtain more information about a job or to arrange for an interview. Second Life, an online, 3D social network, is home to the experience, and all users need do is sign up for a free account, and teleport themselves to the OPS Careers Island, a part of the Activ8 Island Complex owned and operated by TheSLAgency.

The interactive shop organized the virtual experience in Second Life as a part of their strategy to bring other government and public service clients into the virtual world. Managing Partner Joe Mastrocovi notes: "No longer do job seekers have to be bored by static websites explaining what jobs they could have; the virtual world offers us the opportunity to create virtual experiences for people so they know instantly whether this type of job is suitable for them."

This isn't the only government initiative in Second Life. A selection of other agencies around the world have begin using the virtual world as a testbed for various initiatives, ranging from Victoria's Melbourne Laneways to NASA's Explorer Island.

A selection of other government initiatives are listed in the Second Life wiki.

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Why senior public officials need to be web-savvy

In The Techie in Chief, appearing in next week's Newsweek, Anna Quindlen provides a strong case why no-one at senior levels in the public sector can afford to be unfamiliar with modern telecommunications technologies.

One key reason she highlights is that leaders need to lead - they need to be out in front of the pack, rather than trailing behind.

If not, they are vulnerable to faster moving opponents, as well as to loss of respect from their constituents and staff.

Quindlen also points out that without making effective use of modern telecommunications tools government-agency heads can become blind to how their policies really work for ordinary people, and political figures can be insensible to undercurrents amongst their constituents.

So fundamentally senior public officials need to be web-savvy because they are senior figures with decision-making responsibility.

If they do not embrace emerging technologies they will be increasingly unable to understand their environment or make appropriate decisions in order to deliver relevant outcomes for citizens.

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US releases eGovernment satisfaction results - useful benchmark for Australian sites

ForeSee Results has just released the findings of the latest quarterly US eGovernment satisfaction survey, looking at citizen satisfaction with over 100 US government websites.

Available as a PDF download, the E-Government Satisfaction Index (PDF 1.2Mb) uses a uniform system to compare satisfaction across US sites and was selected as the US government's standard measure in 1999.

Based on the results of this latest survey, there has been a small increase in average satisfaction to 72.9 percent, the first rise in a year.

The report does a good job of identifying the US government sites with the highest level of citizen satisfaction, which can be used by Australian government as good benchmarking examples.

It identifies the major priorities for improvement across agencies, with search topping the list (88% of agencies identified it as a top priority) followed by functionality at 59% and navigation at 41%.

The benefits of higher satisfaction have also been identified in the report, being that highly satisfied customers (scores of 80 or more) are;

• 84% more likely to use the website as a primary resource
• 83% more likely to recommend the website
• 57% more likely to return to the site

The use of a standard government website satisfaction methodology, as I have previously suggested, makes it much easier for government agencies to compare their performance, identify and learn from successes and address issues. It is also an excellent accountability tool for Ministers and agency heads.

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