Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the quality of life more widely in society. Examples of exercises with
wider significance and scale of impact include the Netmums consultation
exercise which had the potential for major impact on employment prac-
tices throughout the UK (Netmums.com n.d.).
In the Netmums consultation, parents of young children were given a
voice to make known their values and requirements in relation to employ-
ment and maternity rights via the Netmums network. Their views informed
the deliberations of Government on the issues and informed national pol-
icy as well as identifying clear challenges for both the government and for
employers in the UK.
The findings from the twenty cases examined show the varied impact of
participation/engagement on the lives of citizens. The most pervasive far-
reaching effects are seen where whole communities are transformed
through participation/engagement exercises, e.g. the
Reflect
ICTs projects
in India and Uganda, the K-Net project, the Macatawa and Chicago par-
ticipative neighbourhood planning initiatives. This does not however mean
that involving only a small number of people in the engagement process
limits impact. For instance, gaining understanding of complex and very se-
rious social issues such as domestic violence has been a most significant
outcome of the WomenSpeak initiative with the potential for major posi-
tive impact on society, although only a small number of participants were
involved.
6.1.6 Citizen Influence
The number of stages at which citizens have influence in the decision mak-
ing process is another important parameter of participation/engagement.
Each of the case studies described in this topic was examined to identify
which aspects of decision-making in the planning/design process were in
fact open to citizen influence (see Table 6.2). The table shows that, in most
cases, citizens were afforded the opportunity to engage in only a sub-set of
the planning, design and development stages of any given project. Most of
the exercises address only one or two elements of the complete decision
making process. Thus, for example, the Bundestag website project invited
the participation of a self-selected group of citizens in just one stage of the
decision-making cycle - the analysis and requirements definition stage.
The specific objective of the project was to better meet the information
needs of citizens regarding the functioning of parliament. From the docu-
mented reports, the exercise was well-received by its target audience and
successful. Certainly, the design outcome is likely to have achieved a good
match with the needs of the enthusiastic and engaged citizens recruited for
Search WWH ::
Custom Search