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1st CFP: Workshop on Government and Citizen Engagement

http://cs.au.dk/~mkorn/citizengov/

in conjunction with
5th International Conference on Communities & Technologies (C&T 2011)
29 June - 2 July 2011, Brisbane, Australia

***** The Submission Deadline has been extended to April 8, 2011 *****
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The trend towards more user contributions on the web and an increased
interest in e.g. social media technology, from both governments and
citizens, leads to new potentials and challenges in designing for
citizen-government interactions.

In the workshop we will look at both of these sides: citizen
empowerment as well as governments as collaborators in these
interactions. Of course, these ideas are not new. However, while the
Internet has often been praised as a means to empower citizens in
democracies, research has shown that merely increasing the available
amount of information about public policy does not lead to increased
democratic engagement.

For several years now, governments have recognized the potential of the
Web 2.0 to bring citizens and their governments closer together.
Indeed, the social web holds the potential of supporting a better
two-way communication where citizens are engaged through public
consultations, contributing to the design of government policies. The
question is what role governments have to play in this development. How
do we best support the notion of government as a collaborator that is
more accountable, responsive and transparent?

In the workshop we wish to address challenges such as how to render
information more usable by citizens, how to strengthen citizen
influence through citizen-citizen collaboration, how to bridge the gap
between citizen deliberation and concrete citizen influence on
democratic issues, and how to promote a better two-way communication
between government and citizens, building citizen communities that are
facilitated by government to discuss and improve government services.

Participants are encouraged to present and demonstrate concrete
examples of citizen-government interaction design cases during the
workshop. We will also have interactive discussions to identify the
predominant challenges and opportunities in this area. It is our goal
that the workshop will lead to new insights on a conceptual level, as
well as new ideas for future research and design efforts regarding
citizen empowerment and governments as collaborators in
citizen-government interactions.

For more information please visit: http://cs.au.dk/~mkorn/citizengov/


Important Dates
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- Submission of position and experience papers April 8, 2011 (Extended)
- Notifications of acceptance April 30, 2011
- Final papers due May 27, 2011
- Workshop in Brisbane, Australia June 30, 2011


Topics of Interest
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- Data Sharing between Government and Citizens
- Citizen Influence on Policy-Making Processes
- Citizen-Citizen and Citizen-Government Collaboration and Community
Support through Web 2.0 Tools
- Boundary Objects in Citizen-Government Collaboration
- Situating Citizen Deliberation
- Introduction of Social Media into Government Agencies
- Grassroots Approaches and Activism
- Inclusion and Accessibility
- Designing for Local Conditions
- Privacy, Anonymity and Public Opinions


Author Guidelines and Submission
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Workshop contributions are expected in the form of papers addressing
previous experiences and, for example, case studies (6-8 pages), or
position papers on the opportunities and challenges ahead (3-4 pages).
Contributions should be formatted according to the ECSCW/Springer
template (get Word, PDF, and LaTeX templates from the website).
Submissions must not be anonymous and will be reviewed by the
organizers.

All submissions will be handled via eMail. The documents should be
submitted in PDF format to citizengov2011@gmail.com. If your submission
contains additional material (such as a video), then everything should
be packed in one ZIP file. If you have any questions, please email the
workshop's organizers.

The workshop proceedings will be published in the International Reports
on Socio-Informatics (IRSI) (ISSN 1861-4280) after the workshop
(post-proceedings). A draft version will be made available to the
participants prior to the workshop. Depending on the quality of
submissions, we may propose to edit a Special Issue for a journal as a
follow-up event.


Audience
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This full-day workshop aims to bring together passionate researchers
and practitioners in a shared forum to debate important issues emerging
in this rapidly evolving field. Participants are required to submit
position papers, or concrete design cases. Participants will be asked
to actively prepare and participate in the workshop. Apart from
academia, we highly encourage contributions from a wide audience, e.g.
social media design professionals and government.


Organizers
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- Scott Anderson, Human Services Portfolio Communication Division
- Nikolaj Gandrup Borchorst, Aarhus University
- Susanne Bødker, Aarhus University
- Nathalie Colineau, CSIRO
- Amanda Dennett, Human Services Portfolio Communication Division
- Matthias Korn, Aarhus University
- Cécile Paris, CSIRO