UNICEF experiences with E-participation

Ian Thorpe –5 July 2011

Reasons for e-participation

• Keeping in touch with multiple locations

• Reducing travel costs for meetings/training

• Opening up to wider audiences

• Keeping a record

3 basic types of participation

• Symmetrical (participants equal)

• Asymmetrical (presenters with Q&A)

• Broadcast (limited/no remote contribution)

Most-common use cases

• Formal meetings (symmetrical)• Informal meetings (symmetrical)• Training (asymmetrical)• Presentations (asymmetrical)• Conference broadcasting • Workshop broadcasting

Tools

• Webex

• Elluminate

• U-Stream

• Yammer/Twitter

• Telephone!

Good practices 1/4

General:

•Integrate multiple tools

•“Cheat sheet”

•Think – before-during-after

Good practices 2/4

Before:

•Publicity through multiple channels

•Test everything

•Pre-discussions/assignments

•Have a plan B

Good practices 3/4

During:•Start early•Two moderators •Use comments screen•Keep checking in•Encourage live blogging/Yammer/tweeting•Use of co-creation tools (wikispaces, Google docs)•Flexibility (anything can happen)

Good practices 4/4

After:

•Promptly share recording, presentations

•Save and share chat, discussion streams

•Follow up with e-discussions

•After action-review

Challenges

• Bandwidth/dropout/latency issues

• User skills training

• Not good for high interactivity and visual collaboration

• “Tuning out”

• “Online body language”