Attracting new members to online communities and encouraging substantive participation is an open research problem at the intersection of behavioral and social sciences, computer science, and human computer interaction. eGovernment communities, which are intended to promote civic engagement and deliberative discussion, particularly struggle with challenges of motivation and under-contribution since barriers to entry can be significant and the personal benefits and impacts of participation may be non-obvious when compared with the costs in terms of time and effort. This presentation describes projects undertaken as part of the Cornell eRulemaking Initiative (CeRI) to address such issues. In particular, it details development of our civic engagement platform and the socio-computational supports we have designed for intelligently routing work, recommending content during deliberative writing, providing personalized moderation, and facilitating consensus-building and collaboration.
17. Participation Patterns
Since 2010:
• 40,500 visitors made 60,000 site visits
• 1,566 registered users
• 5 separate hosted rulemakings
• 1,544 individuals participated in various forms
• 609 actively engaged in deliberation
• 1,537 total comments generated
• 80% of participants never took part in a rulemaking
prior
18. Hurdles to civic engagement
1. Motivated awareness barrier
2. Information barrier
3. Participation literacy barrier
19. Hurdles to civic engagement
1. Motivated awareness barrier
2. Information barrier
3. Participation literacy barrier
20. Hurdles to civic engagement
1. Motivated awareness barrier
2. Information barrier
3. Participation literacy barrier
21. Hurdles to civic engagement
1. Motivated awareness barrier
2. Information barrier
3. Participation literacy barrier
22. Hurdles to civic engagement
1. Motivated awareness barrier
2. Information barrier
3. Participation literacy barrier