Overview: The Interactive Democracy Inventory (prepared by Chun Li)

For a complete transcript, see Nov 21 Transcript

Thank you to all who attended this online Unchat session on the Interactive Democracy Inventory project.  Democracy experts representing various institutions participated in this virtual event.  The main purpose of our hour-long discussion was to introduce the project, define its mission and brainstorm additional features and functionality.  For more information about the Interactive Democracy Inventory, please peruse the materials on this site or contact mailto: bnoveck@nyls.edu     

Mechanics & highlighted goals of the project  (Beth Simone Noveck)

Beth Noveck began with a discussion of the project background.  She pointed out that although there were a number of good “bibliographies” of democratic projects and scholarship currently on the web, they require extraordinary maintenance and do not necessarily capture all that’s out there.  Building on work done on web-site rating and filtering, this project aims to create a web site that allows people worldwide to post their own projects and scholarship as well as describe them. She discussed the proposed interactive questionnaire, which will prompt users with questions based on their responses to prior questions.   In addition, sets of draft data labels have been created for users to identify their work.  The main sets of labels are: theoretical, ideological, and activity-oriented “labels.”  The web site will act as a clearinghouse and repository of information and will be funded by the Council of Europe, AmericaSpeaks (via Hewlett Foundation), and New York Law School.  It will be hosted and maintained at New York Law School, possibly mirrored at other places for maximum visibility.  Additional funding is sought for improvements to the site and added functionality.

Uniqueness: Existing web sites?

In assessing the merits of the project, Brook Manville raised the issue of whether or not there were web sites in existence already that overlap with the project.  Ned Crosby also added the question of how different this web site would be from those of the Teledemocracy Action News Network (TANN) and the Civic Practices Network (CPN).  These questions elicited the following responses:

-   This will be a self-labeling site with a dynamic set of labels; people will be able to use multiple terms to describe themselves and their work (Beth Noveck)

-   Searching capabilities on TANN and CPN are much more limited (Chun Li)

-   TANN and CPN web site databases are not up to date; there is nothing resembling this project as far as one knows (Joseph Goldman)

-   The CPN has not been updated since 1998 (Sandy Heierbacher)

The discussion did not reveal similar web sites but further examples are welcome.

Mission/Purpose:

Brook Manville emphasized the importance of defining a mission and purpose for the project, exploring the particulars of the features and functions afterwards.  

-   To keep practitioners and academics aware of all of the other good work (participatory/deliberative democracy) going on in other parts of the country/world (Joseph Goldman)

-   To establish collaborations, share their successes and tools with others, provide a place for the public to learn about these issues (depending on the language that is used), etc.  (Sandy Heierbacher)

-   To create an exchange of information about work, research and practices related to, in some sense of the word, "democracy" as defined by those who contribute the information.  (Brook Manville)

-   Gathering more information in order to improve democracy and deepen participatory practices (Beth Noveck)

-   To provide a tool to help practitioners and researchers find each other (Beth Noveck)

-   Should not exclude too many people by stating the terms “participatory” or "deliberative” democracy (Sandy Heierbacher)

Point of View:

Brook Manville also raised the issue of zeroing in on the point of view that the web site will take.  He emphasized the importance of having a normative point of view to make the site engaging and create an incentive for people to post material.  Jed Miller remarked that establishing a point of view carries with it a much bigger risk and a narrower reach.  However, responded Manville, a point of view will make the site much more interesting for those who suffer from information overload.  A debate emerged as to the what constituted a proper point of view that the web site should take.  This was inconclusive, but the following were some ideas from the participants:

-   Healthy democracy (Ned Crosby)

-   Relating to advocacy, promotion, etc. (Brook Manville)

-   To strengthen democracy, we need to involve ordinary citizens and stakeholders in decisionmaking or; healthy democracy, defined broadly as citizen involvement (Sandy Heierbacher)

-   Pro-democratic, pro-citizens, participation, etc. (Beth Noveck)

Target Audience:

The web site seeks a global audience of people who are devoted to fostering democracy.  Michael Weiksner asked the question of who the target audience was for the web site.  Beth Noveck replied that the audience would include global practitioners and scholars in the field of democracy.  

Features & Suggestions:  What are the incentives to attract users?

Michael Weiksner raised the issue of motivation.  What motivates users to fill out the registration and keep the information up to date?  The committee responded with suggestions to entice, remind, and encourage users to maintain their information.  Following is the list of the suggestions:

-   A 6-month email notification system to remind people to keep content updated (Beth Noveck)

-   A section containing groundbreaking news in the field (Joseph Goldman)

-   Links to tools (Joseph Goldman)

-   A mailing list, which participants could choose to join when they first register (Caio Pereira)

-   A blog-style area for discussion of ongoing news (Robert Heverly)

-   Entries should expire automatically after some time unless updated or extended (John Spady)

-   Each potential group to be contacted with something of a personal touch (Ned Crosby)

-   Feeds and partnerships with like-minded news agencies, journals, magazines (Jed Miller)

Other Comments:

The assembled group suggested additional functionality enhancements and some helpful to-dos for this or later versions.

-   Initial input of data by internal staff to pre-populate the site (Sandy Heierbacher)

-   Gathering Materials from some larger existing web sites and putting them up (Ned Crosby)

-   Publicity is key, it will be important to have local partners in many countries contribute (Caio Pereira)

-   Consult with the list of references that Tom Atlee has compiled; he has done extensive work on his democracy innovations web site (Ned Crosby)

-   Brief definition needed for the labels so that people can self-identify themselves appropriately (Sandy Heierbacher)

-   Create sub-categories, such as for public discourse (intergroup dialogue practitioners, non-violent communication practitioners, dialogue facilitators) (Sandy Heierbacher)

-   Web site will need a point of view in order to survive (Brook Manville)

Tasks:  Next Steps 

-   An MS-Word version of the labels and questions will be created and distributed

-   Expert participants will provide feedback and specific comments on the labels and questions that have been drafted for this project (Emailed to Beth Noveck and Chun Li)

-   A proposal for another debate on mission, point of view,  and “normative” slant of site was made by Brook Manville; date to be scheduled

-   A proposal for another discussion of next steps and who would be willing to contribute to the project by uploading info, helping with publicity and getting the word out.