Projects

From DoWire Wiki

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Strategy

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Advanced Web Comment Forms

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Budget Proposals Online

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Brazil:

Estonia:

Estonia is putting a lot of energy in developing ICT based services aiming at having a total ICT administration system. They are very eager to develop as many applications as possible such as the payment by SMS and aim at being a government as transparent as possible with initiative as national budget online which allow citizens to see on real time the figures of the state expenses. (Source: Buser 2003)

Finland:

For several years now, Tampere has launched the plan for the municipal budget by surveying the citizens' priorities. The results of the surveys are taken into account in determining the priorities of the budget. For the sake of equality, the same survey has been conducted in paper form, but the Internet survey has clearly been more popular, and its results are easier to analyse. It has been even tried a survey with authentication in order to be sure that the participants live in Tampere and thus are the right persons to participate. (Source: Buser 2003)

France:

Electronic mail has already shown it to be a tool that requires increased reactivity and speed in its processing. It also means that the population can be consulted more regularly on questions affecting local life. Using this tool, Issy-les Moulineaux launched two more initiatives in 2002:
- the constitution of a « Citizen Panel » of 650 people who are a representative sample of the population of Issy and therefore represent it and are regularly consulted on important issues via the Net.
- the set up of a participative budget at the level of district councils. Where every year, the district residents will be consulted in order to help the city council to decide top investments priorities. (Source: Buser 2003)

Germany:

Esslinger Haushalt im Dialog
(Dialogue about the local government budget in Esslingen, southern Germany)
- Link: project site (german)
  - description (english)
- In 2003 the city of Esslingen started an online dialogue on the city's budget, especially in order to identify ideas for cutting costs. The project was in many ways innovative, e.g. citizens were trained to facilitate the online discussion themselves. The focus on the presentation was on interactive questions & answers, rather than a glossy flash animation.
- The example is from 2003. It was not repeated in 2004, the city council members were opposed to it, mainly because they thought it would diminish their power
- It is about a dialogue, not a presentation of the budget proposal. The best flash animation sometimes does not transport the message into peoples minds, if they do not involve them. Maybe a dialogue can make things much clearer, if the q&a get it right.
Emsdetten
- Alle van Meeteren 07:50, 28 Dec 2004 (PST) remarks:
  - I think a good and clear presentation, with interesting grafics.

India:

indiabudget.nic.in

Poland:

bip.gov.pl
- Public Information Bulletin - With the adoption of a new Freedom of Information law in 2001, the online dissemination of information, including local government spending information, is required

United Kingdom:

redbox.gov.uk
- UK Treasury has a tool for children understanding the principles and process of budgeting

United States of America:

Federal budget
State of Florida
- Includes the ability to generate personalized reports from their Governor's recommendations
State of Minnesota
- Pie charts on government revenue sources and total spending (Minnesota, like most U.S. states, faced a large budget shortfall in 2003. One demonstration of the ability of the online medium to interactively build understanding of the tough choices government representatives must address is the Budget Balancer exercise developed by Minnesota Public Radio. It is located online from: news.mpr.org

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Community Portals

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Content Syndication

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Democracy Portal

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Your Government Seattle
1. This website follows the model that we are looking for in terms of a direct link from the city council website to the section on strengthening citizen participation.
Queensland Government- Get involved with Government
1. The Queensland Government staffs a full time edemocracy unit through their community engagement division of the department of community affairs.
City of Vancouver- Citizens Participate
1. The city of Vancouver has been able to incorporate their existing offline efforts into their city website.
City of Yamato
1. Yamato City has enabled direct communication between citizens and public officials in the e-forums combined with mailing lists.All messages from citizens to the e-forums are automatically sent to all members of the staff.Public officials reply to messages that they believe are relevant to their jobs. Staff members remind each other so that messages from citizens are not left unanswered.(Source: Ichiro Shinkai)
city of Bologna, Italy. (Italian)
1. They directly encourage the online dialogue between citizens, organizations and municipal departments.

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Democratized Navigation

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Archive of documents from US Department of Transportation
1. The 25 most visited documents are presented
kulturforum-dialog.de Kulturforum
1. The senat of Berlin, Germany launched an online consultation about the architectural development of the Kulturforum, a quarter of the town, next to the former east-west border and location of many famous cultural buildings. The online consultation was part of a larger consultation effort with exhibitions, public face-to-face meetings, and expert-workshops.
  The online forum used the forum technology of the discourse machine, which features the ranking of articles and comments through a fine tunable system of criteria. These criteria (hits, number of comments, internal user links, quotes...) can be set by the moderators or by the users themselves. The discussion showed, that this system allowed an effective, but transparent filter for the contributions and fostered a more effective and result-oriented discussion.
2. Contact Information: Hans Hagedorn, Zebralog
Town of Chili, New York, USA
1. Chili, New York uses an open source content management system called PHP-Nuke. This system used for a number of technology-oriented online communities. One of the features included is the "Most Popular" feature. The top three items are the street map of Chili, the map illustrating the different school districts that service the town and the 2010 Plan Sub-Areas master plan. Much of the longer list includes meeting minutes.

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Democratic Process Multimedia

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E-democracy Marketing

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Elected Official Videos

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Link: Lancashire

Members of scottisch parliament

Minnesota House

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E-mail Response Policy

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1. US Senator for New Mexico, Senator Jeff Bingaman

The webpage devoted to Senator Bingaman’s explains he will respond to any correspondence from New Mexico residents or people with ties to the state via e-mail, or in the constituent’s preferred manner. The Senator cannot return an electronic response to people who do not meet these criteria. If constituents state they do not want a reply in the text of their message no response will be sent. If requesting a response, constituents should receive such within two weeks. If three weeks lapse without a response, constituents are encouraged to phone the Senator’s office, check whether the message was received and submit another copy were it not. While quick responses are possible, two months may pass before correspondence may pass through the Senator’s lengthy response and tracking process. The amount of research required to formulate an answer and the total volume of mail his office receives determine how long a reply may take.

2. East Dorset District Council: Email Response Policy

East Dorset District Council has a webpage devoted to their ERP. It states that Council aims to respond to all email enquiries from the public within two working days. If it is not possible for Council to provide a full response within this timescale, they will email the sender within two days to provide a likely timescale for them to resolve the query. The sender is asked to inform Council if they do not receive a response within this timescale by contacting Council’s ‘e-government officer’.

3. United States Senator for California, Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Boxer's e-mail webform

Senator Boxer does not explicitly state the she has an email response policy, however the essential features are communicated in the two web pages linked above. The first page asks citizens to note that it may take up to three weeks to for e-mails receive a response due to the large volume of such the Senator receives. The second page explains that only Senator Boxer’s constituents, Californian residents, will be responded to. Other citizens are directed to contact a senator from their home state. There is additional information for constituents explaining for which queries the e-mail web form is best to use, and how to enquiring about other particulars.

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E-Newsletters

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Prime Minister of Japan's E-mail Magazine(English Version) see archive

a weekly magazine of the President of Japan (not local), in which he is promoting his own policy.
in number 168 the President cites out of e-mails from 'ordinary' citizens. Is that democratic? The examples are well chosen.

CityNewsBytes - Atlanta, Georgia - See center column for many e-mail update options as well as the icon (bottom left currently) for the CityNewsBytes newsletter.
1. Example Newsletter
2. archive

weekly, started march 2004
brings the cityhall nearer to the citizen

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E-Notification

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Geographic Personalization

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M-Democracy - Mobile Content

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Online Polls and Surveys

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Open Appointment System and Directory

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Public Meeting Announcement and Notification System

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SMS Citizen Input

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Universal Inbox for Elected Officials

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Voter Education Online

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For examples of this kind of project, go to Online communities Richmond upon Thames, visit any of the websites there and in the Journal, right column "borough-wide" box you find the May Poll and Online Hustings
National Election Commission, South Korea
1. Link: http://vote2004.nec.go.kr - Young Voters
2. Link: http://home.nec.go.kr - Main page, "epol" election 2004 candidate directory is now offline
3. Background: http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@lists.umn.edu/msg00173.html
4. Describe usage and results: South Korea leads the world in broadband usage and content. Their government-sponsored election information web sites for their April 2004 election were the most comprehensive, interactive, and content rich of any government-based online voter education effort to date.

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Voting Records in XML

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Webcasting Public Meetings

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Wireless Internet

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Barcelona Wireless BCN
- Wi-Fi technology reached the whole of Barcelona, with eleven connection points established in the ten city districts.
Atlanta Wi-fi
- The city of Atlanta most recently has been able to use wi-fi in the city council chambers and is agressively moving forward on promoting wi-fi at the muncipal level.

Austin Wireless City
- This is a collaborative project involving the city and the creation of a non profit to faciliate wi-fi. The map of hot spots indicates that they are offering wi-fi in their municipal buildings including city hall.

Sanfrancisco Wi-Fi Initative
- Mayor Newsom launches Wi-Fi Service In Union Square. Free Wireless Broadband Internet Access Now Available to the Public

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