Reason Against the Machine: Future Directions for Mass Online Deliberation

Designers of online deliberative platforms aim to counter the degrading quality of online debates. Support technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing open avenues for widening the circle of people involved in deliberation, moving from small groups to "crowd" scale. Numerous design features of large-scale online discussion systems allow larger numbers of people to discuss shared problems, enhance critical thinking, and formulate solutions. We review the transdisciplinary literature on the design of digital mass deliberation platforms and examine the commonly featured design aspects (e.g., argumentation support, automated facilitation, and gamification) that attempt to facilitate scaling up. We find that the literature is largely focused on developing technical fixes for scaling up deliberation, but may neglect the more nuanced requirements of high quality deliberation. Current design research is carried out with a small, atypical segment of the world's population, and much research is still needed on how to facilitate and accommodate different genders or cultures in deliberation, how to deal with the implications of pre-existing social inequalities, how to build motivation and self-efficacy in certain groups, and how to deal with differences in cognitive abilities and cultural or linguistic differences. Few studies bridge disciplines between deliberative theory, design and engineering. As a result, scaling up deliberation will likely advance in separate systemic siloes. We make design and process recommendations to correct this course and suggest avenues for future researchComment: Adjusting title and abstract to arxiv metadat

On Online Collaboration and Construction of Shared Knowledge: Assessing Mediation Capability in Computer Supported Argument Visualization Tools

Collaborative Computer-Supported Argument Visualization (CCSAV) has often been proposed as an alternative over more conventional, mainstream platforms for online discussion (e.g., online forums and wikis). CCSAV tools require users to contribute to the creation of a joint artifact (argument map) instead of contributing to a conversation. In this paper we assess empirically the effects of this fundamental design choice and show that the absence of conversational affordances and socially salient information in representation-centric tools is detrimental to the users' collaboration experience. We report empirical findings from a study in which subjects using different collaborative platforms (a forum, an argumentation platform, and a socially augmented argumentation tool) were asked to discuss and predict the price of a commodity. By comparing users' experience across several metrics we found evidence that the collaborative performance decreases gradually when we remove conversational interaction and other types of socially salient information. We interpret these findings through theories developed in conversational analysis (common ground theory) and communities of practice and discuss design implications. In particular, we propose balancing the trade-off between knowledge reification and participation in representation-centric tools with the provision of social feedback and functionalities supporting meaning negotiation

Does discussion lead to opinion change within Political Science students? A pedagogical exercise of deliberative democracy

While the model of deliberative democracy gives a crucial role to dialog, empirical evidence has not yet established if discussion helps to reach a better understanding of political issues and, above all, if individuals are prepared to change their views. It is still unclear when the deliberative model, and more specifically discussion, could be usefully employed as a teaching tool, to improve students’ knowledge. This article presents an exercise performed within the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the LUISS University of Rome. Students were asked to discuss in the classroom the issues related to the course, and to cast a vote on selected issues before and after deliberation. Although our sample is not representative, we have gathered evidence from the same population on a rather large number of issues. Students changed their view in 24.6% of cases, and they agreed that discussion increased their understanding, while those with strong ex-ante views resulted more reluctant to change their opinions because of discussion. The analysis also showed the presence of individuals that are more likely to be permeable to discussion while others that are more likely to be impermeable

Proceedings of the EACL Hackashop on News Media Content Analysis and Automated Report Generation

Peer reviewe

Managing Water Resources in Large River Basins

Management of water resources in large rivers basins typically differs in important ways from management in smaller basins. While in smaller basins the focus of water resources management may be on project implementation, irrigation and drainage management, water use efficiency and flood operations; in larger basins, because of the greater complexity and competing interests, there is often a greater need for long-term strategic river basin planning across sectors and jurisdictions, and considering social, environmental, and economic outcomes. This puts a focus on sustainable development, including consumptive water use and non-consumptive water uses, such as inland navigation and hydropower. It also requires the consideration of hard or technical issues—data, modeling, infrastructure—as well as soft issues of governance, including legal frameworks, policies, institutions, and political economy. Rapidly evolving technologies could play a significant role in managing large basins. This Special Issue of Water traverses these hard and soft aspects of managing water resources in large river basins through a series of diverse case studies from across the globe that demonstrate recent advances in both technical and governance innovations in river basin management

Scholarly insight 2016: a Data wrangler perspective

We are pleased to offer you our first Scholarly insight 2016: a Data wrangler perspective. The OU is going through several fundamental changes, whereby strategic, pedagogical informed research and insight what drives student learning and academic performance is essential. Making sense of Big Data in particular can be a challenge, especially when data is stored at different data warehouses and require advanced statistical skills to interpret complex patterns of data. In 2012 the Open University UK (OU) instigated a Data Wrangling initiative, which provided every Faculty with a dedicated academic with expertise in data analysis and whose task is to provide strategic, pedagogical, and sense-making advice to staff and senior management. Given substantial changes within the OU over the last 18 months (e.g., new Faculty structure, real-time dashboards, increased reliance on analytics), an extensive discussion with various stakeholders within the Faculties was initiated to make sure that data wranglers provide effective pedagogical insight based upon best practice and evidence-based analyses and research (see new Data wrangler structure). Demand for actionable insights to help support OU staff and senior management in particular with module and qualification design is currently strong (Miller & Mork, 2013), especially a desire for evidence of impact of “what works” (Ferguson, Brasher, et al., 2016). Learning analytics are now increasingly taken into consideration when designing, writing and revising modules, and in the evaluation of specific teaching approaches and technologies (Rienties, Boroowa, et al., 2016). A range of data interrogation and visualization tools developed by the OU supports this (Calvert, 2014; Toetenel & Rienties, 2016b). With the new ways of working with Data Wrangling, first we have provided our basic statistical analyses in form of our Key Metrics report. Second, from January 2017 onwards we will focus again on dealing with bespoke requests from Faculties, and where possible share the insights across all Schools and Faculties. Third, this Scholarly insight has a different purpose to previous Data wrangler work, namely we aim to provide state-of-the-art and forward looking insights into what drives our students and staff in terms of learning and learning success. Based upon consultation with the Faculties, seven key cross-Faculty themes were identified that influence our students’ learning experiences, academic performance, and retention. The first five chapters focus on how the OU designs modules, formative and summative assessments and feedback, helps students from informal to formal learning, and how these learning designs influence student satisfaction. All five chapters indicate that the way we design our modules fundamentally influences student satisfaction, and perhaps more importantly academic retention. Clear guidelines and good-reads are provided for how module teams, ALs, and others can improve our focus on Students First. In Chapter 6-7, we specifically address how individual student demographics (e.g., age, ethnicity, prior education) and accessibility in particular influence the students’ learning journeys, with concrete suggestions how to support our diverse groups of students. Note that each chapter can be read independently and in any particular order. We are looking forward to your feedback

Participatory analytics for transport decision-making

This thesis investigates the design and evaluation of several software platforms that facilitate participatory outcomes in transport decision-making across operational, local and strategic scales. These platforms act as instruments to explore aspects of the research question: "How can urban dashboards be contextualised, designed & evaluated in a way that is sensitive to the changing role of digital democracy, immersive technologies and the increasingly collaborative nature of planning?". The concept of participatory urban dashboards is introduced, followed by process of participatory analytics. This process involves bringing more people on board with both using the dashboard (e.g., together or collaboratively) and allowing a more general audience of citizens or stakeholders to make sense and validate what is displayed. The research is applied to the city of Sydney, Australia. Sydney is a growing, global city with a wide variety of transport infrastructure ambitions and a strong, open-data ecosystem. Sydney’s transport system underpins the case studies of the operational, local and strategic digital artefacts assessed in this research. Participatory analytics outcomes as a result of interacting with these digital prototypes are evaluated. This will, in turn, help direct research and real-life applications and development of these tools. Further, it aims to build on research gap calling for further understanding of context-specific, user-centric design and evaluation of these participatory analytics tools

An Empty Promise? Digital Democracy in the Smart City

The digital transformation affects every part of our societies and everyday lives, including the processes and structures of our democracies. On the one hand, information and communication technologies have the potential to lower the threshold for political communication and participation. On the other hand, they can be used for large-scale data collection and surveillance, posing a risk to the public sphere. This thesis investigates the impact of digitization on the legitimacy of democracy. It first develops a novel framework based on the theories of participatory and deliberative democracy, drawing on recent work on deliberative systems. On this basis, digital democracy is examined as a system, consisting of different engagement spaces and actors within the smart city. The smart city is a particularly fruitful testbed for digital democracy as it is based on the promise of applying a high density of digital technologies to facilitate civic participation as well as better service delivery and governance. Through an in-depth case study of the smart city of Amsterdam, this thesis not only reveals the legitimacy dilemmas of digital democracy in the smart city, but also illustrates the limits of applying participatorydeliberative systems theory on a digital democracy ecosystem. The analysis demonstrates design conflicts between different online engagement platforms within the digital democracy system, as well as conflicting objectives among the actors behind them. The findings do not support the claim that digitization negatively impacts democracy’s legitimacy in the smart city of Amsterdam through marketization, large-scale data collection, and surveillance, as some authors warn. However, a significant positive impact of digitization on democratic legitimacy, through higher levels of inclusiveness, empowerment, or civic influence, is also not confirmed. The findings show that digital technologies’ promise of facilitating large-scale citizen participation and deliberation in the smart city does not live up to the normative ideal. The results from Amsterdam are exposed to smart city and digital democracy experts across the globe to test their generalizability, demonstrating that, despite its shortcomings, Amsterdam’s extensive digital democracy system is far advanced in international comparison. What may appear a contradiction in fact illustrates that we are still in the early stages of development, with potential to enhance the legitimacy of digital democracy, both in the smart city of Amsterdam and beyond

Digital Citizen Participation – Involving Citizens Through Immersive Systems in Urban Planning

Citizen participation is a democratic practice that became, especially on a local level, an important mean for the public to be included in the development of their immediate surrounding. With the digitalization of work and social life also the digitalization of the public sector, including governmental action, began. This process, as a research discipline called digital government, includes addressing how the interaction between citizens and their state should be designed. A meaningful way to do so are digital platforms that enable participation in governmental action. Digital Citizen Participation, a concept introduced in this dissertation, tries to include recent technological innovations in e-Participation platform design. This dissertation argues that these innovations might help overcome general barriers in participation processes. When it comes to construction projects in urban environments for example, public debates and protests may arise if architectural plans remain unshared or are not sufficiently accessible for the citizens they might affect. To involve the public affected by urban planning, offering easily graspable visualizations for citizens is key. This dissertation deals with the participation of citizens in urban planning through an e-Participation platform that makes use of immersive technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality. In this work, this idea is investigated through a design science research approach that uses qualitative and quantitative methods. While the first qualitative study puts for-ward a set of meta-requirements and design principles based on interviews with 27 individuals, the second study (n=339) and third study (n=382) evaluate quantitatively a prototype based on those design principles. The used methods are adequately contex-tualized and, in the end, a final prototype of the platform is demonstrated. This allows to show findings concerning the forms and levels of participation citizens and initiators are interested in when using immersive systems for public participation, and how an ideal platform should be designed. Among many other findings, the studies show that citizens have a high interest in using immersive systems for public participation and find their qualities for visualization to be highly valuable