ITC are working with Highland Youth Voice (a democratically elected assembly for young people in the Highland Region) in the development of a suite of e-democracy tools for their website. The current phase of this projects runs from 2005 to 2007 and seeks to expand use and efficacy of the website: increasing the number of young people using it and the quality of their interactions. Plans to achieve this include further development of the online policy debating forum, with new features to increase participation and fun.
ITC worked with Highland Youth Voice (a youth parliament in the Highland Region) from 2000 to 2008. An e-voting website, with a discussion form, supported the parliament's first elections in 2000. From 2001 to 2007, we worked with HYV staff and members to create eParticipation tools that would support their work, including new e-voting systems, discussion forums for policy debates and external consultations, content management systems for news and photo diaries for events. These tools evolved with the parliament, while young people's use of and access to Internet technologies also changed dramatically.
During this period, we learned a lot about methods for working with users- including good ways to involve them in specifying and evaluating technologies. We also encountered issues which are now seen as priorities for eParticipation, for example:
- people with power to effect change need to be prepared to act on the outcomes of eParticipation and provide feedback online;
- updating the organisation's website needs to be integrated into its activities;
- participation needs to be meaningful AND fun.
In the later stages of the project, we worked with local youth forums in Highland to create blogs to support their work.
Charles Kennedy launched the Youth Voice website in March 2002.
In 2002, the HYV website team won a
Highland Council Quality Award and was shortlisted for an
IPPR-Guardian Public Involvement Award.
More detailed information about the HYV project on the ITC website.ITC's work with young people
Associated Publications
Smith, E.,
Macintosh, A.,
Whyte, A. (2006). Organised use of e-democracy tools for young people. In: Wimmer, M.,
Scholl, H.,
Gronlund, A.,
Anderson, K. (Eds.) Electronic Government: Communications of the Fifth International EGOV Conference 2006, , () ( ed.). (pp. 260-267). Berlin, Germany: . Springer-Verlag.
Masters, Z.,
Macintosh, A.,
Smith, E. (2004). Young People and E-Democracy: Creating a Culture of Participation. In: (Ed.) Proceedings of Third International Conference in E-Government, EGOV 2004, , () ( ed.). (pp. ). Berlin, Germany: . Springer-Verlag.
Macintosh, A.,
Robson, E.,
Smith, E.,
Whyte, A. (2003). Electronic Democracy and Young People. Social Science Computer Review, 21, (1), 43-54.
Smith, E.,
Macintosh, A.,
Whyte, A. (2003). Culture and context in an online voting system for young people. In: Duquenoy, P.,
Fischer-Hubner, S.,
Hovast, J.,
Zuccato, A. (Eds.) IFIP Summer School: 'Risks and Challenges of the Network Society', , () ( ed.). (pp. ). Karlstad, Sweden: . .
Smith, E.,
Macintosh, A. (2003). E-voting: the powerful symbol of e-democracy. In: (Ed.) DEXA 2003, the 2nd International Conference on Electronic Government - EGOV 2003, , () ( ed.). (pp. ). Prague, Czech Republic: . DEXA.
Smith, E.,
Macintosh, A.,
Whyte, A. (2002). Invisibility Vs Transparency. In: (Ed.) 16th British HCI Conference London, 2, () (2 ed.). (pp. 166-70). London, UK: . .
See all publications