Web-based tools for policy evaluation 1

Abstract. Current research in e-democracy has so far focused on the early stages of political decision making. Information-and communication technology (ICT) has been shown to facilitate participation in agenda setting and alternative selection. But ICT also has the potential to facilitate evaluation of existing policies. This paper examines policy evaluation from local politicians view. What web-based tools are useful for policy evaluation, and what kind of information do these tools provide

Connecting Policy, Research and Practice: What does it mean in practice?

In this paper we discuss a case study-based methodology for evaluation and policy development within the Department of Labour (DoL), which was jointly developed with the Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business (WEB Research) between 1997-2002. We illustrate the particular role of research in bridging policy and practice, and discuss our experiences in developing and using this methodology to understand the systemic linkages between regulation, firm behaviour and policy.By using a developmental research approach (Engestrom, 1996), distributed teams and the eo-construction of research tools, the case study-based research and evaluation methodology has generated expansive learning cycles (ibid.) for government agencies, researchers and stakeholders. Examples are drawn from the work undertaken by the Department of Labour and WEB Research, in particular evaluating Accident Insurance and Employment Regulation The paper examines some of the methodological issues and challenges involved in such an approach; as well as the implications for processes of policy formation, and for contract and project management

How can scientists bring research to use: the HENVINET experience

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health concerns have driven the European environmental policies of the last 25 years, with issues becoming more complex. Addressing these concerns requires an approach that is both interdisciplinary and engages scientists with society. In response to this requirement, the FP6 coordination action “Health and Environment Network” HENVINET was set up to create a permanent inter-disciplinary network of professionals in the field of health and environment tasked to bridge the communication gap between science and society. In this paper we describe how HENVINET delivered on this task.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The HENVINET project approached the issue of inter-disciplinary collaboration in four ways. (1) The Drivers-Pressures-State-Exposure-Effect-Action framework was used to structure information gathering, collaboration and communication between scientists in the field of health and the environment. (2) Interactive web-based tools were developed to enhance methods for knowledge evaluation, and use these methods to formulate policy advice. (3) Quantification methods were adapted to measure scientific agreement. And (4) Open architecture web technology was used to develop an information repository and a web portal to facilitate collaboration and communication among scientists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty-five organizations from Europe and five from outside Europe participated in the Health and Environment Network HENVINET, which lasted for 3.5 years. The consortium included partners in environmental research, public health and veterinary medicine; included medical practitioners and representatives of local administrations; and had access to national policy making and EEA and WHO expertise. Dedicated web-based tools for visualisation of environmental health issues and knowledge evaluation allowed remote expert elicitation, and were used as a basis for developing policy advice in five health areas (asthma and allergies; cancer; neurodevelopmental disorders; endocrine disruption; and engineered nanoparticles in the environment). An open searchable database of decision support tools was established and populated. A web based social networking tool was developed to enhance collaboration and communication between scientists and society.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>HENVINET addressed key issues that arise in inter-disciplinary research on health and environment and in communicating research results to policy makers and society. HENVINET went beyond traditional scientific tools and methods to bridge the communication gap between science and policy makers. The project identified the need for a common framework and delivered it. It developed and implemented a variety of novel methods and tools and, using several representative examples, demonstrated the process of producing politically relevant scientific advice based on an open participation of experts. It highlighted the need for, and benefits of, a liaison between health and environment professionals and professionals in the social sciences and liberal arts. By adopting critical complexity thinking, HENVINET extended the traditional approach to environment and health research, and set the standard for current approaches to bridge the gap between science and society.</p

Genesis of Altmetrics or Article-level Metrics for Measuring Efficacy of Scholarly Communications: Current Perspectives

The article-level metrics (ALMs) or altmetrics becomes a new trendsetter in recent times for measuring the impact of scientific publications and their social outreach to intended audiences. The popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin and social bookmarks such as Mendeley and CiteULike are nowadays widely used for communicating research to larger transnational audiences. In 2012, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment got signed by the scientific and researchers communities across the world. This declaration has given preference to the ALM or altmetrics over traditional but faulty journal impact factor (JIF)-based assessment of career scientists. JIF does not consider impact or influence beyond citations count as this count reflected only through Thomson Reuters' Web of Science database. Furthermore, JIF provides indicator related to the journal, but not related to a published paper. Thus, altmetrics now becomes an alternative metrics for performance assessment of individual scientists and their contributed scholarly publications. This paper provides a glimpse of genesis of altmetrics in measuring efficacy of scholarly communications and highlights available altmetric tools and social platforms linking altmetric tools, which are widely used in deriving altmetric scores of scholarly publications. The paper thus argues for institutions and policy makers to pay more attention to altmetrics based indicators for evaluation purpose but cautions that proper safeguards and validations are needed before their adoption

The Benefits and Costs of Online Privacy Legislation

Many people are concerned that information about their private life is more readily available and more easily captured on the Internet as compared to offline technologies. Specific concerns include unwanted email, credit card fraud, identity theft, and harassment. This paper analyzes key issues surrounding the protection of online privacy. It makes three important contributions: First, it provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the estimated benefits and costs of regulating online privacy. Second, it provides the most comprehensive evaluation of legislation and legislative proposals in the U.S. aimed at protecting online privacy. Finally, it offers some policy prescriptions for the regulation of online privacy and suggests areas for future research. After analyzing the current debate on online privacy and assessing the potential costs and benefits of proposed regulations, our specific recommendations concerning the government's involvement in protecting online privacy include the following: The government should fund research that evaluates the effectiveness of existing privacy legislation before considering new regulations. The government should not generally regulate matters of privacy differently based on whether an issue arises online or offline. The government should not require a Web site to provide notification of its privacy policy because the vast majority of commercial U.S.-based Web sites already do so. The government should distinguish between how it regulates the use and dissemination of highly sensitive information, such as certain health records or Social Security numbers, versus more general information, such as consumer name and purchasing habits. The government should not require companies to provide consumers broad access to the personal information that is collected online for marketing purposes because the benefits do not appear to be significant and the costs could be quite high. The government should make it easier for the public to obtain information on online privacy and the tools available for consumers to protect their own privacy. The message of this paper is not that online privacy should be unregulated, but rather that policy makers should think through their options carefully, weighing the likely costs and benefits of each proposal.

Connecting Policy, Research and Practice: What does it mean in practice?

In this paper we discuss a case study-based methodology for evaluation and policy development within the Department of Labour (DoL), which was jointly developed with the Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business (WEB Research) between 1997-2002. We illustrate the particular role of research in bridging policy and practice, and discuss our experiences in developing and using this methodology to understand the systemic linkages between regulation, firm behaviour and policy.By using a developmental research approach (Engestrom, 1996), distributed teams and the eo-construction of research tools, the case study-based research and evaluation methodology has generated expansive learning cycles (ibid.) for government agencies, researchers and stakeholders. Examples are drawn from the work undertaken by the Department of Labour and WEB Research, in particular evaluating Accident Insurance and Employment Regulation The paper examines some of the methodological issues and challenges involved in such an approach; as well as the implications for processes of policy formation, and for contract and project management

Evaluation Of An Open-Source Collaborative WebGIS Prototype In Risk Management With Students

Over the past decades, advancements in web services and web-based geospatial technologies have led to increasing delivery, access and analysis of rich spatial information over the web. With the use of open access data and open-source technology, it has become possible to make better, transparent and informed decisions for policy and decision makers. Under the framework of the European Marie Curie CHANGES project, a prototype web-based collaborative decision support platform was developed for the evaluation and selection of risk management strategies, mainly targeting flood and landslide hazards. The design of the conceptual framework was based on the initial feedback and observations obtained from field visits and stakeholder meetings of the case study areas of the project. A three-tier client-server architecture backed up by Boundless (OpenGeo) was applied with its client side development environment for rapid prototyping. The developed prototype was tested with university students to obtain feedback on the conceptual and technical aspects of the platform as well as to analyze how the application of interactive tools in the exercise could assist students in studying and understanding risk management. During the exercise, different roles (authorities, technicians, community) were assigned to each group of students for identification and selection of risk mitigation measures in the study area: Cucco village located in MalborghettoValbruna commune of North- Eastern Italy. Data were collected by means of written feedback forms on specific aspects of the platform and the exercise. A subsequent analysis of the feedback reveals that students with previous experience in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) responded positively and showed interests in performing exercises with such kinds of interactive tools for learning, compared to the ones with fewer or no GIS experience. These results also show that the prototype is useful and supportive as a decision support tool in risk management while userfriendliness, interactivity and practical aspects of the platform could be further improved

Competitiveness of Croatian Destinations Through Online Marketing Indicators

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether destinations in Croatia follow the trend of the modern market by ensuring first impression quality through an online campaign. The World Tourist Organisation (UNWTO: 2008) takes into consideration categories of web page quality evaluation such as: information level of the destination web site, level of accuracy, level of consistency, type and quality of interaction with visitors, value of visual identity. Web site development requires a user centered design process with permanent evaluation of the evolving design. The aim of this research is to explore web site design quality factors in order to adopt web page quality to a profile of destination visitors. This paper analyses online marketing concepts as new tools and processes that enable customer relation systems and ensure an interactive approach to potential customers. The fundamental empirical research was based on 11 Croatian destinations, both inland and coastal types, in order to analyse and identify levels of standardisation in online marketing quality. The focus was on the official local tourist board sites as destination tourism organisations. Destinations included in the research were: Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik, Opatija, Osijek, Zadar, Šibenik, Varaždin, Plitvice, Hvar and Rijeka. It is confirmed that the Web structure did not meet the requirements of modern tourists according to the selected categories. For example, the Šibenik official page is written only in the Croatian language. Furthermore, it is found that in addition to a non-existent domain policy, there is no commonly accepted visual identity that would be followed. The platforms of the web sites do not have a common system or tool. The evaluation indicates that only Zagreb's site offers a direct booking engine which proves that the destination is in line with the modern trends of online marketing. There is a strong, positive and statistically significant connection between the quality of internet pages of chosen tourist destinations and the number of tourist arrivals in that destination. From the web designers perspective, this research should help in the future web site development process in order to define the business objectives, context and key scenarios of use

Implementing GIS technology. A spatial decision support system tool to study the impacts of land uses

The need of soil consumption control and of the conservation of eco-systemic values of existing resources are the basis of this attempt to implement the GIS technology as a web-based Decision Support System. Following the European Community guidelines, an instrument for limiting, mitigating and compensating soil sealing is set in place, ensuring that the hydrological response of a given area during precipitation must remain constant before and after transformation. It is presented a practical approach with a technological improvement through a GIS evolution in the field of anthropic impact analysis. The web application makes use of the SCS-CN Soil Conservation Service-Curve Number method developed by the USDA in 1972 to study the phenomenon of the run-off. The web application, built as a webGIS service, based on the online interoperability of multiple users, defines a tool for the control of man-made impact and for a BMP-Best Management Practice driven policy for boosting eco-systemic values in Regional Planning. The challenge is to bring together GIS tools and evaluation models in a networked environment by implementing them towards online interoperability. Public officials, in charge of evaluating new projects, can be guided by the tool in the ex ante and ex post simulation of the land transformation. The effects that the land transformation causes are reflected in the CN as shown trough the web application therefore BMP to improve the hydrological solicitation response can be promoted. The tool is able to help the decision-making actors to cope with the complexity of reality and can help the planner towards strategic decisions based on spatial dat

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version