paper presentation at egov / epart 2014

FUSING OPEN PUBLIC DATA, PROSPERITY INDEXES, FUZZY COGNITIVE MAPS AND ARGUMENTATION TECHNOLOGY FOR MORE FACTUAL, EVIDENCE-BASED AND ACCOUNTABLE POLICY ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

Ourania Markaki, Panagiotis Kokkinakos, Sotirios Koussouris, John Psarras, National Technical University of Athens

Yuri Glickman, Fraunhofer FOKUS

and Habin Lee, Brunel University London

2 September 2014 ePart 2014 - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Introduction

• Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Web 2.0 are transforming the way citizens and the civil society interact, debate and participate in public life, by:

• Making participation in policy making and political processes possible at large• Fostering communication between politicians and the civil society• Simplifying decision making processes• Demystifying legislative texts• Offering advanced visualization capabilities

• e-Participation is about connecting ordinary people with politics and policy making

2 September 2014 ePart 2014 - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland 2

e-Participation is the ICT-supported participation in governance procedures

The Problem

• Internet has evolved into a rich source for information but also to an instrument of spreading misinformation and propaganda

• Lack of consensus about a suitable metric for measuring progress

• Difficulty of objectively assessing the impacts of government policies

The Proposed Approach

Open Public Data Prosperity Indicators Fuzzy Cognitive Maps Argumentation Technology Deliberation Platforms and Social

Media

The Context


Improve the quality and transparency of the policy

analysis and evaluation phases of the policy cycle for a variety of stakeholders, ranging from

citizens to policy makers

Policy cycle

Analysis

Implementation/Monitoring

The Proposed Approach: Overview

• A research prototype of an easy-to-use, highly visual and intuitive tool for:

• Constructing prosperity and other policy metrics with an easy-to-use visual language for defining variables and functions over open data sources.

• Constructing graphs and charts visualizing metrics for selected geographical regions and time periods.

• Annotating graphs and charts with political or policy events.• Constructing causal models with an easy-to-use visual tool for Fuzzy

Cognitive Maps (FCM).• Sharing and debating prosperity graphs and FCM across popular social

media platforms.• Summarizing and visualizing the debates in argument maps and

conducting structured surveys about policy issues• Aggregating opinions on policy issues, to formulate a common position in a

party or interest group.


Pillar I: Prosperity Indexes

• Prosperity metrics capture the level of welfare and quality of life in a given region or society.

• Prosperity is a vague and subjective concept with essential psychological, social and economic aspects.

• There is no consensus about how to objectively measure prosperity• Indicators of economic growth:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)• Genuine Progress Index (GPI)• Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW)• GINI Index

• Alternatives:• Human Development Index (HDI)• Legatum Prosperity Index• “Healthy life years statistics” by Eurostat


Policy Compass Pillars (1/5)

2 September 2014 ePart 2014 - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland6

Pillar I: Prosperity

Indexes

Pillar II: Open Public Data

Pillar III: Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

Pillar IV: Argumentation

Pillar V: Deliberation Platforms & Social Media


Indexes





Define higher level metrics from lower level ones


Construct metrics by

operationalizing open data

sources

Predict the evolution of prosperity

indicators by applying causal policy models

Define prosperity

metrics collectively

Weigh prosperity

aspects according to the opinions

expressed


• Open and unrestricted access to large scale data sets is essential for political engagement and scientific research

• Available large scale data sets have nowadays their own self-contained existence rules.

• Micro-data can be used to construct new indicators of multifaceted nature.

• Sources of micro-data:• Eurobarometer surveys• European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) by Eurostat• Urban Audit (the European cities Eurostat)





Indexes






Indexes









sources

Use historical events to annotate

metric visualizations

Access open data sources,Publish data sets & their metadata




Use historical data to validate

causal policy models

Use open public data to bolster one’s opinion

Define prosperity


Weigh prosperity


expressed


• Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) provide a well-founded, general-purpose and intuitive method for modelling and simulating relationships between variables.

• FCMs have been introduced by B. Kosko (1986) as a fuzzified version of Cognitive Maps, originally introduced by political scientist R. Axelrod (1976).

• An FCM is a fuzzy directed graph of nodes and edges, where nodes represent fuzzy concepts, describing behavioral characteristics of a system that occur to some degree, and directed edges represent the causal relationships among these concepts.


• The graph edges are weighted by a real value from the interval [-1, 1], which expresses the strength of the relation between two concepts.

• FCMs have been widely used to model and simulate policies and their effects.




Indexes






Indexes









sources





Develop ideas on the correlations among policies and prosperity

fluctuations

Simulate causal policy models based on open

data sets






Develop and apply own




Define the strength of correlations according to the opinions

expressed

Define prosperity


Define policy impact models

collectively

Weigh prosperity


expressed

Pillar IV: Argumentation Technology

• Argumentation support systems are computer software for helping people participate in various kinds of goal-directed dialogues in which arguments are exchanged.

• The idea of using argumentation support systems for e-Participation can be traced back at least to Horst Rittel’s pioneering work in the early 1970s who used visual maps of arguments, to help people collaborate and find solutions to what he called “wicked problems”.

• “Wicked problems” have no algorithmic, scientific or objectively optimal solutions for a variety of reasons, including the lack of consensus among stakeholders about utilities and values.

• Typically, e-Participation projects make use of generic groupware systems (e.g. discussion fora, online surveys, etc.) not providing though specific technical support for argumentation.





Indexes






Indexes









sources






fluctuations


data sets

Debate on prosperity

metrics

Reuse argumentation

outcomes as structured open data











expressed

Debate on causal models

underlying policies

Summarize and visualize

debates in argument maps



Define prosperity



collectively

Aggregate poll outcomes to formulate a

common position

Weigh prosperity


expressed

Pillar V: Deliberation Platforms and Social Media

• Deliberation platforms incarnate the efforts taken by government agencies, to increase citizens’ engagement in their decision and policy making processes.

• The first wave of deliberation platforms has witnessed extensive information on government activities, decisions, plans and policies, the proliferation of e-voting and e-consultation spaces, along with various types of e-fora.

• Still, the first generation of deliberation platforms did not meet the original expectations.

• The advent of Web 2.0 tools has created a more vivid environment and the popularity of the social media has set a new battlefield for the concept of e-Participation.





Indexes






Indexes









sources






fluctuations


data sets

Debate on prosperity

metrics

Reuse argumentation

outcomes as structured open data

Share own developed prosperity

metrics











expressed

Debate on causal models

underlying policies





Share own developed


Poll public opinion on

policy issues

Define prosperity



collectively

Aggregate poll outcomes to formulate a

common position

Ensure citizens’ wide

participation

Ensure citizens’ wide

participation

Weigh prosperity


expressed

Use Case Scenarios (1/2)


Use Case Scenarios (2/2)


Discussion and Conclusions

• A framework for empowering citizens and policy makers to better assess government policies.

• Benefits of the approach:

• Assessment and validation of the proposed approach is foreseen through the development of real case pilot scenarios for policy analysis and evaluation on the basis of two trials, organized in UK (Cambridgeshire) and Russia (St. Petersburg).


Decision makers:• Visualize the effects of their politics• Stimulate public debate• Communicate policy outcomes to

citizens clearer• Build confidence in progress towards

societal goals

Citizens:• Engage in the development of prosperity

indices• Monitor and critically discuss the quality of

public policies• Learn about the multiple dimensions and

social and economic consequences of policies

• Improve the objectivity and evidential basis of their arguments

www.PolicyCompass.eu

www.twitter.com/PolicyCompassEU

www.facebook.com/PolicyCompass

PolicyCompass

Thank you!

Ourania Markaki, [email protected]

paper presentation at egov / epart 2014

Technology

trinity college dublin

openpublic datapillar iii

policy compass pillars

publish datasets

deliberationplatforms

deliberation platforms

fuzzycognitivemapspillar iv

prosperityindexespillar ii