Steven Clift's global e-democracy listening post picks up and offers us Reports - Local Council e-Consultation Guide (Australia) and E-Democracy in Bristol (UK):
First go down under, for an upside down view, or is that right side up?, with the 70 page Local Council e-Consultation Guide written for Australian local government put together by Jackie Bailey and Monika Merkes with Darebin City Council with Lucas Walsh at Deakin University. More details here. In general, Australia and New Zealand are great international B.S. filters (no wonder my posts get blocked … hmmm) - they sit on the edge of the world always importing and mashing together ideas with a sharply critical eye.
And next check out the 65 page E-Democracy in Bristol report produced by Kevin O’Malley et al. It has a snappy 2 or 3 pages per concept covering over 20 e-democracy tools/approaches (for something not quite so pretty, see the complementary 15 “how-to” briefs on DoWire.Org).
Steven helpfully adds the table of contents from the Local Council e-Consultation guide:
1. About this guide 5
2. What is e-consultation? 6
3. What can I use e-consultation to do? 7
4. Why should local councils do e-consultation? 11
5. The tools of e-consultation 13
6. E-forums: Key elements 14
7. E-forums: Examples 18
8. Darebin eForum: A case model 21
9. E-polls and e-surveys 28
10. Resources necessary for e-consultation 31
11. E-forums: Step by step guide 35
12. E-forums: Moderator guidelines 46
13. E-forums: Rules 54
14. E-forums: Legal issues 56
Appendix 1: Sample forum rules and disclaimers 57
Appendix 2: e-Forums: Frequently asked questions (for council staff) 64
Appendix 3: References and useful links 66
And the table of contents for E-Democracy in Bristol:
Section 1: Information, preparing for take-off 5
1.1 Webcasting 8
1.2 SMS and Email Alerts 10
1.3 Consultation Finder Database 13
1.4 Blogs 15
1.5 Games and Simulators 18
Section 2: e-Consultation, revving the engines 21
2.1 Quick Polls 24
2.2 Online Surveys 26
2.3 E-Panels 28
2.4 Discussion Forums 31
2.5 Deliberative Polls 33
2.6 Live (VIP) Messaging 35
2.7 Interactive Voting 38
2.8 Street Kiosks 40
2.9 SMS Text Voting 42
Section 3: e-Participation, learning to fly 45
3.1 E-Petitions 48
3.2 Pledges 50
3.3 Photo Sites 52
3.4 Video Views 55
3.5 Local Issues Forums 57
3.6 Online Campaigns 59
Conclusion – Meeting the Digital Challenge 61
I'll look at the reports in more detail later - but my immediate thought is that Drew and I could develop a "designing e-democracy" game on the lines of others we have here, linked to the contents of these reports ... and so help get them out of the pdfs.
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