on-line forums:

a strategy for community engagement

Nancy Averill, Director of ResearchAnn Dale, Trudeau Fellow CRC in Sustainable Community DevelopmentProfessor, Royal Roads University

Why is dialogue so important?

• messy, wicked problems• no-one is an expert • beyond any one sector, jurisdiction to solve• interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary• lost capacity for ‘shared meaning’in

communities

6-year RRU Research Program

1. Can the Internet be used for substantive dialogue?

2. Can the Internet be used to enhance literacy?

3. Can the Internet be used to inform public policy?

Public ForumsResearch SalonsE-Dialogues

• E-dialogue Research

• Social Capital & Sustainable Development

Electronic Library and Publishing

• Non-timber Forest Products

What is an e-Dialogue?

• synchronous (real-time) conversations• bringing the best minds together on-line• interdisciplinary space• deliberative dialogue with e-audiences• actively moderated• living archive

www.e-Dialogues.ca

• research e-Dialogues • student-led e-Dialogues• professional e-Dialogues• Scientists for the Future• Post-Kyoto Public Forum variant, Post-

Kyoto Forum

Level of EngagementTotal visits to e-Dialogues website

14000

10000

8000

6000

4000

2000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Level of Engagementgeographical outreach

Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, UK, USA Military, Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa

Level of Interactivity

Level of e-Dialogue Interactivity (NWMO)

e-Dialogue Risk, Uncertainty and the Management of Nuclear Waste

Decision-Making under Conditions of Risk and Uncertainty

# of experts 6 (including moderator) 5 (including moderator)

# of posts 125 74

Average post per expert 20.8 14.8

Average pace post every 58 sec post every 1 min, 37 sec

What worked?• engaged, meaningful dialogue• critical reflection• capacity for more lateral thinking• data collection method for students• living archive• continuing visits to the site• evidence of ongoing dialogue and new connections

What didn’t work?

• age barrier (typing, reading on-line)• public conversation• engagement of public policy community • new dominance patterns

Questions?

• level of diversity captured• e-format and frankness• privacy legislation impacts• real-time versus any-time• dominance and conflict• tyranny of expertise

Benefits of On-Line Engagement

• independent of place• cost-effective interdisciplinary dialogue• scale-free networks• inclusivity and diversity• enlargement of the public sphere• potential to re-engage youth

The Future

• e-research collaboratives• potential e-peer review• new e-communities of practice• deliberative polling and deliberative democracy

Three e-spaces exist, e-dialogues. research salons and public forums. All three are designed to work in different ways but all contribute to the research agenda of knowledge diffusion; literacy around critical public policy issues, in particular sustainable development; and e-life-long learning. All three spaces work synergistically together towards public engagement (or mobilization) and are designed to work iteratively back and forth, in possible combination with multi-media events, such as round tables, multistakeholder processes, television and radio. All are complimentary and in concert contribute to creating a new kind of civic research and literacy using leading-edge internet communications technologies (ICTs).