Presentation at International e-planning workshop 2012 citizens, cities and technology. April 23, 2012 Sciences Faculty, University of Lisbon

1. Digital Mediation
for
Public Participation
Luis Borges Gouveia
University Fernando Pessoa
lmbg@ufp.edu.pt
Artur Afonso Sousa
Polytechnic Institute of Viseu
ajas@di.estv.ipv.pt
Pedro Agante
Libertrium
pedroagante@libertrium.com

2. Problem
Communication gap between citizens and politicians
TV debates,
TV clips, newspapers,
radio station,
political
parties/government
websites,
Facebook, Twitter
politicians emails, calls,... citizens
Emails, calls
Blogs
Facebook, Twitter, ...
citizens politicians

3. The Project aims to
• Narrow the gap between citizens and politicians
• Enable independent online interaction and Communication
between the stakeholders in a democratic process
• Encourage citizen participation
• Foster debate, deliberation and knowledge sharing
• Create wide eDemocracy communities

4. Solution
Create from the ground up a dedicated communication channel between citizens and politicians
Democracy for a New Age
www.liberopinion.net

5. Solution
Create from the ground up a dedicated communication channel between citizens and politicians
Governmeter enables monitoring and Liberopinion units , in a single, neutral and
deliberation about the government activity regulated place, citizens and politicians, and
and performance enables multidirectional communication
between them

6. Liberopinion
A Web application, based on Social Media principles, that unites, in a single,
neutral and regulated place, citizens and politicians, so as to allow structured
and multidirectional communication between them.

7. Liberopinion – Scenario 1
 Elections  Liberopinion Elections
 Identify the best questions submitted and voted by the
community (e.g. Top 10)
 Collect and compare the candidates’ answers
 Identify the best ideas from the community members to
address key campaign issues
 Debate and rate the candidates’ electoral program
 Poll the community about campaign issues
 Live debates with campaign figures

8. Portuguese Parliamentary Elections 2011

9. Liberopinion Elections – Timeline
Election Month Year
Portuguese Parliamentary Elections (iLeger) June 2011
21.486 unique visitors – 1,5 week
Portuguese Presidential Elections (iLeger) January 2011
23.512 unique visitors – 2 weeks
Elections for Head of the Portuguese Medical Association December 2010
Test version (iLeger)
Partnership Portugal Telecom Portal - SAPO December 2010
Local Elections in Portugal October 2009
Test in VISEU
Parliamentary Elections in Portugal September 2009
Test in VISEU

10. Liberopinion – Scenario 2
Local government  Liberopinion City
 Citizens propose topics to debate during City Hall meetings
 Questions from citizens to City Hall members (e.g. for
interviews)
 Identify the best ideas from the community members to solve a
specific local problem
 Poll the community about local issues
 Live debates with politicians and experts
See a demo in http://city.liberopinion.com

11. Liberopinion City – Questions
Interview with …

12. Liberopinion City – Questions
Questions to a political/experts panel
and comparison of answers

13. Governmeter
Main Features:
• Graphic display of the main statistical
indicators.
• Citizens submit their own analysis
about the evolution of the statistical
indicators.
• Citizens give their point of view about
whether the Government objectives
have been fulfilled.
• Citizens debate the measures
proposed by the Government and
Parliament.

14. References
For more information:
Afonso Sousa, A., Agante, P., Borges Gouveia, L.: iLeger - a Web based
Application for Participative Elections. Third International Conference on
eParticipation - ePart 2011, Springer-Verlag LNCS 6847, pp. 228-239, Delft,
Netherlands, 2011
URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/x24p3m43r18628w1/
Afonso Sousa, A., Agante, P., Borges Gouveia, L.: Governmeter: Monitoring
Government Performance. A Web based Application proposal. EGOVIS 2010 -
International Conference on Electronic Government and the Information
Systems Perspective, Springer-Verlag LNCS 6267, pp. 158-165, Bilbao, Spain,
2010
URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/2114107728885251/
Afonso de Sousa, A., Agante, P., Borges Gouveia, L.: Liberopinion:
Democracy for a New Age, Presentation in the World E-Gov Forum for
the European eDemocracy Award 2010, Paris, France, 13-15 October
2010.
URL: http://www.slideshare.net/lmbg/liberopinion-democracy-for-a-new-age

15. Call for interaction
• Develop frameworks to evaluate the quality of:
– Citizen submitted contents
– Deliberation
– Participation
• Use Liberopinion Elections in the US Presidential Elections 2012
• Assess impact of Liberopinion and Governmeter in local public participation
– Comparative analysis of case studies
• Assess application of Gamification principles into eParticipation projects
• Comparison of algorithms for identifying and preventing duplicate submissions
– Semantic analysis of eParticipation submissions/data
• Use of data Mashups in eParticipation projects
• Create manual of best practices for eParticipation projects

16. Other references
Afonso de Sousa, A., Borges Gouveia, L., “Governmeter: a Web Application for Monitoring Governmental Activity”,
Proceedings of 6th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies – CISTI2011, Chaves, Portugal, 2011.
IEEE-CS.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5974199
Afonso de Sousa, A., Agante, P., Borges Gouveia, L., “Liberopinion: a Web Platform for enhancing e-Democracy”, In
Proceedings of eChallenges e-2010, Warsaw, Poland, 2010. IEEE-CS.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5756585
Afonso de Sousa, A., Agante, P., Borges Gouveia, L., “Liberopinion as an enabling platform for elections 2.0”,
Proceedings of the 8th Eastern European eGov Days: Changing Concepts & eGovernment as a Service, Prague City
Hall, Czech Republic, April 2010.
Afonso de Sousa, A., Borges Gouveia, L., “Liberopinion: a Web Platform for Elections 2.0”, Proceedings of 5th Iberian
Conference on Information Systems and Technologies – CISTI2010, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2010. IEEE-CS.
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5556648
To appear:
Afonso de Sousa, A., Borges Gouveia, L., “Proposta de mediação digital para a participação pública direta em
períodos eleitorais”, Proceedings of 7th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies – CISTI2012,
Madrid, Spain, 2012.
Submitted:
Afonso Sousa, A., Agante, P., Borges Gouveia, L.: A worked proposal on eParticipation for state wide elections. EGOVIS
2012 - International Conference on Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective, Vienna,
Austria, 2012.