Post in Read any useful research lately, unanswered research questions

Sep 26 18:35 UTC

I've drafted up some of the research questions/topics to share at the EDem2008
conference in Krebs next Monday.

These are some of the things that as a "practitioner" I am interested in seeing
research that helps shape effective action in the field.

Do you like any of them?

Steven Clift

Research Questions/Topics - 20 Questions.

1. Time use studies - Where are people (and different types of people) actually
spending their time online/on-screen? Insights would be much more useful than
just what people are clicking on regularly or have done once or regularly.
Governments et al continue to underestimate the value of e-mail and have little
understanding of the preciousness of an actual "citizen" site visitor .

2. How do you design personalized information services about politics and
government that people will find useful?

3. Is Facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn etc. building a sense of "public life" -
bridging social capital? Does it manifest itself in local communities? Are
there blocks/barriers that keep networking oriented to private/business life?

4. Civic/government video on-demand via cable television, Tivo access, etc.
advantages/possibilities versus computer/Internet-only.

5. How does one have the greatest influence on open source projects in terms of
introducing social good goals? Can you gain support for integrating geographic
support against the expectation that the Internet is global and helps one
escape place?

6. We need broad baseline representative survey that moves beyond Internet use
in elections or political news seeking to participation in governance,
community building, neighbor to neighbor connection etc. -

7. With Issues Forums and other local e-democracy "interventions" we
longitudinal starting point surveys on general population/participant/former
partiticipant online political activities/trust in government/civic
desires/forum expectations/etc. that allow comparisons before and after
interventions.

8. Cost-benefit analysis - With limited funding, what can a community get out
of 10,000 Euros, 100,000 Euros, 1,000,000 Euros - what creates the most value
now, what investments lower costs for next generation activities.

9. Research on government staffing and budget allocations to e-democracy
activities. Does a government have staff assigned to provide e-democracy
services? If yes, how many and where are they positioned? Does a government
have a "democracy portal" (or website section) and do public participation
staff (if they exist) or public information (PR) staff maintain that
directory/content? Compare governments to other governments, per capita
spending on e-democracy. Allowances for parliamentary/executive structural
differences would be required.

10. Interview those in power anonymously about their real attitudes toward
public participation and e-democracy opportunities. Would they allocate
resources (how much) to provide personalized notification of new
decision-making content even if it would provide the public timely access and
potentially reduce their power? Quantitative and qualitative surveys of elected
officials and civil servants.

11. Compare the legal frameworks and recent law/rule changes that require the
use of the Internet for greater government transparency, openness,
consultation, etc. Identify what brought about those changes (election
promises, agency proposals, citizen lobbying, etc.) and draft model legislation
with policy options clearly laid out.

12. Identify the resistance points to timely and deep online access to
decision-making information and public meeting documents - before, during, and
after meeting.

13. What is the impact of timely information access - some before and after
research.

14. Estonia. Estonia. Estonia. The document register, e-cabinet, x-road, TID,
consultation portal, etc. - dig in and provide analysis of who, what, when,
why, where, usage, and lessons.

15. Open source opportunities for e-democracy. What are the twenty top
candidates for e-democracy tool creation of mutual interest by
governments/civil society/media? Compare potential costs and sustainability of
new stand alone tools versus creating modules for use with leading open source
content management systems.

16. What is the path to direct legislative, etc. database sharing in XML from
government to third parties? Why do groups like MySociety (UK), GovTrack (US),
etc. need to "scrape" legislative data from websites to convert into XML for
others instead of direct real-time government provision? Related question -
Most local governments do not have legislative information systems like
national and regional parliaments. Design a prototype local legislative
(decision-making) system and open standards.

17. What are the best models for parliamentary/legislative
technology/information staff to work together to advance online services -
vision, staffing, future features? What features do these inside leader
see/seek to develop and how can they be supported?

18. Compare opportunities for public investment in public interest content and
interactivity online with and beyond the confines public broadcasting. Compare
public broadcasters, major media/news web 2.0/e-democracy/e-participation
strategies and approaches within and across countries.

19. Analyze citizen-based "local-up" uses of online tools and models for
political participation.Document success/failure factors.

20. Model a system that provide yearly distribution of 10 Euros/Dollar per
capita from government in your country to support civil society and multi-level
government e-democracy/public interest online content/interactivity/servces.
Design a mechanism that distributes those resources and provides for
accountability and the leveraging of experience, technology, and project
accountability.