1. Evaluation of digital youth
participation in
CeDEM14
Danube University Krems
21.05.2014 - 23.05.2014
Kerstin Franzl

2. General information
• Aim of the evaluation:
• Success factors for youth participation
• Recommendations for administrations
• Two kinds of local projects:
• Funded with 10.000€, deadline: December 2014,
consultancy support
• No funding, no deadline, consultancy support

3. www.ypart.eu
• based on the open-
source participation
software Adhocracy
• Mainly deliberation
• Individual configuration
of instances

4. Example of Analysis
• Project conceptions
• Project activity on the
different instances
• specific user data from
PIWIK and Jason (e.g.
when, where and how long
platform was used)
• the overall development
of user activity and
communication

5. Problems for Administrations
Initiation phase
• Novelty of Medium
• Novelty of participation processes
• Short resources
• Political Backing
No best-practices available
• Continuous participation
• Cyclic participation
• Competition
• Additional Juries
• Fostering of Engagement

6. Users
• Low participation rate (up to 5% of the youth citizens)
• Normal activity rate
• Very differing activity patterns
• Discontinuous participation
• No abuses, instead rationale discussions

7. Preliminary Recommendations
• Success Factors
 No unrealistic expectations,
 Take into account needed time for getting familiar with
the software and (online-) participation
 Shorter participatory projects
• Anchoring in administration
 Realistic resource planning
 Get reliable political comittment (resolutions)
 Relationship of trust between administration and
politics

8. Questions?
Thank you very much for
your attention!