Rialtas.net - Government 2.0

Apologies for the hiatus, I have been completing my  MSC dissertation (on Web 2.0 and Knowledge Management) but I’m back on the air..

I see the UK Civil Service have published some ‘Principles for online Participation’

Here also is a common craft video explaining Social Media in plain english.. its very good… (thanks to Steve Dale for highlighting it..)

The Joint Committee on Broadcasting and Parliamentary Information has arranged Webcasting of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. Live and archive Webcasting may only be viewed in accordance with the Rules of Coverage.

The Webcast Windows Media Player service is available on the Internet, and on educational and research networks, provided in association with HEAnet. The IPTV Web MPEG2 service is available on the Internet, where service providers permit multicast IP, also provided in association with HEAnet. The IPTV Gov MPEG4 service is available to Government Departments, Offices and agencies on the Government Networks, provided in association with the Department of Finance. The RF cable service is available in Leinster House and nearby Government buildings, provided in association with the Office of Public Works.

Would it be an interesting enhancement if there was an opportunity for members of the public to submit questions or to participate Live in some of these sessions? Perhaps even the facilitation of a public ‘back channel’ using Twitter or similar as is becoming so prevalent at many conferences and seminars today (or perhaps require user registration and do it on a subsidiary website)? This would allow members of the public to engage with each other on the issues being discussed rather than interacting directly with the speakers, and perhaps the TDs and Senators could be given the backchannel transcript at the end of the session for their own reference? This could represent another step toward true e-democracy.

The Dáil and Seanad Webcasting service commenced on Tuesday 11 October 2005.

Link

‘EUtube’, the European Commission’s new channel on YouTube, was officially launched on 29 June 2007. By offering an additional way of communicating Europe to its citizens, EUtube indicates that some of the European Institutions are starting to keep pace with some of the newer developments on the web. EUtube is another example of the use of the ‘Web 2.0’ communication technologies at EU policy level.

YouTube is a popular video-sharing website where users can upload, view, share, and rate video clips. Both the average ratings and the number of viewings are made public. As such, YouTube is a typical ‘Web 2.0’ communication IT tool, allowing viewers not only to receive information but also to publicly comment it, react and confront points of view. About 50 % of YouTube users are under 20 years old.

Following the conclusion of a non-exclusive arrangement between the EU Commission and YouTube, the EUtube channel now offers approximately 50 video clips on a wide range of topics that explain EU workings on main issues from across the 27 Member States. Topics covered by EUtube stretch from the EU’s first post-war historical steps to current environment concerns or even the EU’s ‘Help!’ campaign against smoking.

As for the regular YouTube contents, EUtube users can post comments and rate the video clips. At present, there is content in English, French and German with plans to add more languages wherever possible.

In presenting the main reasons for setting-up the channel, Commission spokesman Mikolaj Dowgielewicz stated: “We have audiovisual material on our own website…but people don’t know it exists… It’s part of our strategy to use the tools that people use,” he added.

This is not the first of the EU’s moves towards ‘Web 2.0’ communication technologies. Already implemented is the practice of blogging, which was adopted by several EU Commissioners.

http://www.youtube.com/eutube 

Oxford Internet Institute : Webcast, University of Oxford.

For over a decade UK government has been busy moving online. This has made some progress, for example in driver and vehicle licensing, but is yet to take off in terms of usage in the way of some spectacular contemporary Internet examples like Facebook and iTunes.

Is this inevitable? Are there good reasons why government and public services do not engage people in the way music, shopping and social networking do? Or is government not yet going about this in the right way, and does the success of the contemporary Internet have important lessons for the design of public services and public engagement? How can we improve value for money, and achieve higher returns on investment, better services and improved operational efficiency? How can the government build public trust and protect privacy?

Over 10 hours of video presentations and panel discussions are available for viewing or download here:

http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20080125_209

Speakers:

* Dr Ian Brown (Oxford Internet Institute)
* Professor David Cope (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, POST)
* Professor Jim Norton (Institute of Directors)
* Martyn Thomas (Visiting Professor, Oxford University Computing Laboratory)
* Professor Ross Anderson (Cambridge University Computer Laboratory)
* Alun Michael, MP
* Jerry Fishenden (Microsoft)
* William Heath (Ideal Government)
* Tom Steinberg (mySociety)
* Simon Davies (LSE)
* The Earl of Erroll (House of Lords)

http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20080125_209

Speaking of the OECD Review of the Irish Civil Service ….

…reminded me of another OECD related resource… On October 2007, in Ottawa, Canada, the first international policy forum on the participative web brought together policy makers, academics, business executives and a wide range of civil society to address these questions:

What does the future hold for the participative web? What are the trends and impacts on knowledge creation for business, users and governments? How can confidence and trust be enhanced in an increasingly participative Internet environment? What is the government role in providing the right environment for stimulating innovation and economic growth through the use of digital content and information?

The full conference programme is available online the website linked here has links to all of the keynote speeches at the forum in addition to a number of archived webcasts and full session transcripts. I would say this should be essential reading/viewing for everyone but most especially for policy makers and interested influencers.

Link

The presentations and discussions around the themes of creativity, confidence and convergence will contribute to the OECD Ministerial Meeting on The Future of the Internet Economy in Seoul, Korea, 17-18 June 2008.

Link

Video of Tara Hunt Presenting her talk on Government 2.0 “Architecting for Collaboration” (May 26th 2007) to some New Zealand Government officials and staff at GOVIS and here also are the accompanying slides (hosted on slideshare.net). Its an excellent and inspiring presentation on Government as a platform, discussing 2.0 technologies and their role in enabling engaged citizens to collaborate with government organisations in decision making and progressing government in this new web 2.0 era, the main themes are openness, collaboration and community.

Here also is another excellent presentation from Tara called “Government Next” also available on slideshare.net. I highly recommend anyone who is working in IT in government or is interested in IT and government to watch these presentations. Tara has collected a lot of thought from various sources in addition to her own insights she is obviously influenced by Tapscott and Williams book ‘Wikinomics‘ and Chris Anderson’s book ‘The Long Tail’. She also covers Microformats, wikis and a number of other Web 2.0 technologies. Essentially encouraging government organisations to serve as a platform for the development of business and industry. She calls for governments to open APIs to their data and enable businesses to build new services on top of this data, to enable corporate mashups and perhaps to imagine and deliver new services that the government organisations might never have foreseen. Here are two examples of citizen created ‘mashups’ : Chicagocrime.org and the Irish Dartmaps, although in the case of Dartmaps at least, its creator had to ’scrape’ the data from a government website instead of connecting to a useful government created API.

Overall the case for government organisations opening their public datasets to their citizens and industries using open APIs seems a strong one, and after all, it is the public’s data in any case.

Finally here is the video ‘Day of the Long Tail ‘ which is referred to and presented during Tara’s architecting for collaboration presentation listed and linked above..