MEASURING THE e-PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING

PROCESSES THROUGH ONLINE SURVEYS

Cristiano Maciel

, Licinio Roque

and Ana Cristina Bicharra Garcia

Instituto de Computação, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rua Passos da Pátria, 156 sl 326 Niterói, RJ, Brazil

Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Universidade de Coimbra, Polo II - Pinhal de Marrocos, Coimbra, Portugal

Keywords: e-Participation, e-Deliberation, Surveys, Maturity of Decision-Making, Web.

Abstract: The deliberative decision-making process of the group can be a result of counseling and voting mediated by

technology. The involvement of citizens in this process is crucial and measuring participation in process

allows for assessment of the effectiveness of participation. Measuring the maturity of this decision, i.e.

assessment of individual participation and its consequent reflection on the group’s decision, can be

accomplished through the maturity level method discussed in this paper. In order to accomplish an

examination of the relative potential and difficulties in achieving and measuring e-participation, we found it

necessary to have a reasonable level of information structuring. For this purpose, online surveys were built

and tested in stages, structured according to the Government-Citizen Interactive Model in a way as to

support the Maturity of Decision-Making method (MDM). The main goal is to test the method proposed

with the use of online surveys by stages and, through this experiment, indicate both positive and negative

points.

1 INTRODUCTION

The availability and application of Information and

Communication Technology (ICT) in order to allow

citizen participation in governmental issues is called

e-participation. Within the assorted strategies

employed to make e-participation feasible, the

following can be included: community development,

public counseling and debate, voting, and

deliberation. This last strategy represents the

finalization of a decision-making process, where

individual opinions are considered and a group

consensus is reached on a certain theme.

A wide range of applications, software and tools

are available to support the implementation of e-

democratic processes (Maciel and Garcia, 2007a).

According to Tambouris, Liotas and Tarabanis

(2007), there are many tools to support these

processes, such as: Weblogs, Web Portals, Search

Engines, Webcasting / Podcasting, Mailing Lists /

Newsgroups, Chat Rooms, Wikis, Online Survey

Tools, Deliberative Survey Tools, Content Analysis

Tools, Content Management Tools and

Collaborative Management Tools.

A priori, there are a few pertinent considerations

to be made concerning some of these tools and the

implementation of an Internet-based, deliberative e-

democratic process.

Emails or discussion lists render sharing

information easier between the various users, not to

mention email being a widely used tool. On the

other hand, organizing shared information by email

is a complicated task since textual answers are

tacitly linked to others. Because we are dealing with

textual communication, there is yet a possibility of

having different contextual interpretations of the

same content, due to the “interpretive flexibility” of

the medium.

The use of chat rooms allows for communication

in real time by the participants, although it presents

problems concerning the information structuring

similar to those concerning email. The visual

resources, such as emoticons, help communication.

The use of online surveys, with structured issues

about the theme being discussed, constitutes another

option. By means of a deliberative survey, it is

possible to arrive at the result of a popular counsel.

It is believed that sharing survey information is also

rendered more difficult, but if the instrument

426

Maciel C., Roque L. and Cristina Bicharra Garcia A. (2008).

MEASURING THE e-PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES THROUGH ONLINE SURVEYS.

In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - ISAS, pages 426-434

DOI: 10.5220/0001720704260434

 SciTePress

awakens participants’ interest, there can be parallel

discussions mediated by other communication

resources. The use of polls in researches of public

opinion allows voting with predefined options.

Obtaining results is easy and simple, but the

predefinition of options limits participation with this

resource by still not allowing for debate on the

options.

The use of a specific web application designed to

implement an e-democratic process, which allows

for the integration of different communication

resources as well as for the implementation of

information structuring levels/steps. However, a web

application depends on direct user access to the web

address, thus needing access encouragement, e.g.

through regular email notifications.

There is also need for these environments to

provide content (such as laws, formal documents or

reports) regarding issues in debate, for it is necessary

that the citizens be informed in order to engage in

profitable discussions. Specific content management

tools may allow for a better structuring and

standardizing of these contents.

The deliberative decision-making process of the

group can be a result of counseling and voting

mediated by technology. The involvement of

citizens in this process is crucial and measuring

participation in this process allows for assessment of

the effectiveness of participation. Measuring the

maturity of this decision, i.e. assessment of

individual participation and its consequent reflection

on the group’s decision, can be accomplished

through the maturity level method discussed in this

paper. To accomplish an examination of the relative

potential and difficulties in achieving and measuring

e-participation, we found it necessary to have a

reasonable level of information structuring. For this

purpose, online surveys were built and tested in

stages, structured according to the Government-

Citizen Interactive Model (Maciel and Garcia,

2007a) in a way that supports the Maturity of

Decision-Making method (MDM) (Maciel; Roque

and Garcia, 2007). In our propose, the discussion

have a distinct structure, supporting the decision-

making processes. As a hypothesis of this research

the following points will be investigated: It is

possible to satisfactorily measure the Maturity Level

using online surveys.

This article is structured as follows. After the

introduction, in Section 2, correlated research about

the assessment of ICT is briefly discussed. In

Section 3, the method for measuring decision

making is proposed. The methodology and case

studies are presented in Section 4. Section 5

discusses the tested hypotheses. Finally, the last

section includes conclusions and bibliographic

references.

2 RELATED RESEARCHES

Some researchers have sought to assess the use of

ICTs by analyzing, among other resources,

applications and technologies available to users and

the forms of communication used. The works

described in this paper were classified according to

the following approaches: structure and analysis of

language, group dynamics and behavior,

examination of participation measures and factors,

and centered in the use and assessment of different

interaction resources used in these environments.

Many of these lines of research tackle the issue of

virtual communities.

Many authors seek to improve the structure and

linguistic analysis in virtual surroundings, touching

on the use of synchronic and asynchronic resources

(Roberts, 1998), debate management (Voss and

Schäfer, 2003), utilization of hybrid forums

(Mannoyer-Smith, 2004), non-receptive

communication (Wagner et al., 2005), the content

analysis of messages versus answers (Arguello et al.,

2006) and textual classification of debates (Cheng;

Yeung and Li, 2006).

Group dynamics and behavior are investigated

based on the number of activities carried out by

“stickiness” members (Ho et al., 2000), the

influence of anonymity (Friedman and Resnick,

2001), group density (Millen and Patterson, 2002),

tensions generated by members (Boyd, 2004),

anonymity and unequal participation (Nielsen,

2006), the difference between active and inactive

members (Falkowski and Spiliopoulou, 2007), the

concept of collective efficiency of the group

(Carroll; Rosson and Zhou, 2005) and the

establishment of a dynamic system for member

motivation (Mao; Vassileva and Grassmann, 2007).

The social and technical modeling and the

resulting group and interface organization, as well as

the use and assessment of interactive resources used

by different environments and user satisfaction, have

allowed for the investigation of the data from

member profiles and the social dynamic established

within the group (Hummel and Lechner; 2002), the

study of resources used (Girgensohn and Lee,

2002)(Milen and Fontaine, 2003) and their modeling

(Kavanaugh et al., 2005), the acceptance and use of

the environment by users (Leimeister and Kremar,

2005), the principles of sociability and usability

MEASURING THE e-PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES THROUGH ONLINE SURVEYS

427

associated with those resources (Maloney-Krichmar

and Preece, 2005) and the emergence of new styles

of conversation in real time (McDonald, 2007). The

studies are fulfilled in different forms, whether by

interview assessment or the use of questionnaires

and/or analysis of registration logs, ethnographically

or empirically.

Participation measures and factors have been

investigated in order to verify the role of financial

incentives in participation (Deci; Koestner and

Ryan, 1999), to notice the aims and needs of users

(Kim, 2000), the reasons which lead members to

participate (Hemmetsberger and Pieters, 2001), the

feeling of recognition by individuals (Chan et al.,

2004), the theory of gratification and use (Sangwan,

2005), the influence of posts and visualizations of

the content (Koh et al., 2007), the effectiveness of

web services (Welch and Pandey, 2007), the

measure of interactivity among members (Adiele

and Ehikioya, 2007) and the need, identification and

confidence of participant members (Han; Zheng and

Xu, 2007).

The relation between participation and the use

and assessment of ICT in decision-making processes

by means of the establishment of an adequate

metrical structure to measure participation is the

proposed focus of this research. Through correlated

works, distinct methodologies and approaches, both

technical and theoretical, were identified that can

offer support to the establishment of maturity levels

of member participation in the decision-making

process. The incorporation of practices established

in successful case studies also include: a) diagnosing

the interest users display in the debate and the

consequent voting of social themes through online

surveys and later of a community projected for such,

b) a different way of managing information in

virtual environments, c) the structure and analysis of

the discourse through information available in the

environment, and d) the establishment of a

recommendation system based on the level of

maturity of individuals and discussion groups. The

organizational theories inherent to decision-making

(Simon, 1977), the social actor-network theory

(Latour, 1999) as well as social and technical issues

concerning the dynamics and behavior of the

members in a group, considering the analysis

conducted in previous works in this area, will lend

support to the investigated issues and will allow

participation analysis beyond the establishment and

measure of the maturity level proposed.

3 MATURITY OF

DECISION-MAKING METHOD

To measure the degree of Maturity of Decision-

Making (MDM) in the decision-making in

consultative and deliberative processes Y = f

(MDM) takes as arguments an indicator set of the

method for decision-making (Maciel; Roque and

Garcia, 2007), namely:

MDM = {Int_Part;Part_Discussion;

Part_Decision;Part_Gen}

Where:

Int_Part – registration (RC), candidacy as moderator

(CM). These indicator have weight 1 in the MDM

degree.

Part_Discussion – number of demands posting by

topic (QPD), number of opinions postings in the

discussion by topic (agree - QPOF, not agree -

QPOC, neutral - QPON), number of valid

justifications posted in the discussion (QJV),

performance of moderator (AM). These indicator

have weight 3 in the MDM degree.

Part_Decision – participation in voting (PV). These

indicator have weight 4 in the MDM degree.

Part_Gen – participation in the entire process, used

of other spaces, respect the use rules, trust; number

of invalid justifications posted in the discussion

(negative point) (QPJI). These indicator have weight

2 in the MDM degree.

The counting process of the data is uniform, and

to each task executed in the MDM method it

attributes one point, as specified in a formula, where

f is the added of each indicator points. For example,

to the Int_Part indicator, is attributed one point if

the user performs your registration (RC) and one

point if he is candidacy as moderator in, at least, one

thematic (CM). Then, if the user participates in these

two events, will take two points (Int_Part = RC +

CM), considering that this indicator have weight 1.

Some indicators are limits to score. For example, for

up to three posts of views (QPOn), receives a point

and above this, receives two points in this variable.

With the use of techniques of observation and

statistics of use some indicators will be investigated,

which has a name, a specific purpose in question

form, an application method, a measure and a

formula, and a data source. The variable associated

with the indicators, as well as the way to measure

them, will be an object of further studies, since it

intends to consider other important principles, such

as reputation. Through the application of the MDM

method it will also be possible to infer statistically

ICEIS 2008 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

428

and to accomplish adjustment of the measures. The

increasing scales proposed for the MDM method is

show in Table 1.

Table 1: Levels in the MDM (Maciel; Garcia; 2007b).

Levels Description

Immature

Interest in participation and/or

moderation, however without posterior

interest in the process. Indirectly, it

shows the interest of a given public in a

certain theme proposition.

Poorly

Mature

A participatory consultative process that

involves an interest in discussion or in

voting.

Sufficiently

Mature

A participatory deliberative process that

involves an interest in voting rather than

in discussion.

Mature

A participatory process, effective and

deliberative, whereby the citizen

participates in many activities, with a

minimum frequency. In general, there is

reciprocity between users, with

information flow, respect and trust

between participants.

It is believed that a “sufficiently mature”

decision is satisfactory in an e-deliberative process,

since it represents the occurrence of active

participation in the debates and voting processes.

However, it is necessary to consider the “subjective”

factors inherent to decision making, such as trust

between members and the need for them to be

informed, especially when many users acting in the

same group are considered. In this sense, group 4

becomes relevant. Finally, through a questionnaire,

the satisfaction of the participants will be measured

and analysis.

4 METHODOLOGY

The methodology suggested to measure a structured

deliberative e-democratic process, containing

consulting and voting, explores the application of

online surveys by stages. Figure 1 below represents

this process.

Users were invited to participate, voluntarily, by

email. The first survey available was designed to fill

in general information from the interested

participants as well as a public consultation on

matters to be discussed. In the second survey,

individual opinions were shared and discussed. In

the third survey, all themes and referred opinions

were structured and made available so that this way

the participants could take a stance on a form of

voting. This stage also included questioning the

level of user satisfaction for the survey. Finally, the

deliberation report is generated.

Figure 1: Methodology using surveys.

4.1 Online Survey

Sample: doctoral students of computer science of

two different universities, the Fluminense Federal

University in Niteroi, Brazil, and the University of

Coimbra in Coimbra, Portugal. Users were invited

and 27 of them volunteered to take the survey. This

sample was chosen due to the fact that education is

an important government field. It is also worth

emphasizing that, regardless of the target public, the

aim was to test the method proposed with the use of

surveys and, through this experiment, indicate both

positive and negative points.

Instrument: three online surveys were developed

with the support of an automatic tool. See a page of

one of the surveys in the diagram below (in

Portuguese Language).

MEASURING THE e-PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES THROUGH ONLINE SURVEYS

429

Figure 2: Survey Online.

An example of survey 1 questions:

In survey 2, participants registered their opinions

about the subjects proposed, as shown by the

example. The opinion shows in this example is

coming by survey 1.

In survey 3 the demands were placed in voting and

user satisfaction. An example of the questions:

Application: the application of the three surveys

was accomplished in 30 days. In each step, two

notifications were sent by email, one inviting

participants to answer the survey and the other

reminding them of the deadline of the stage.

4.2 General Data Results

From the very beginning of the survey application, it

was noted that the group was interested in

discussions related to public matters. Table 2 below

presents some data regarding the three surveys of the

participation process in general.

Table 2: General Data.

Survey 1 2 3

Questions Number 11 14 22

Nr. de Skipped questions

(average)

11 10,8 0.04

Participants Number 27 12 13

The largest evasion occurring from step 1 to 2, of

66.66% of users attests that the survey use induces

the participant to participate even if he/she displays

no interest. Be it curiosity or momentary motivation,

filling out information was only done in the first

stage of this research, because from that moment on

the users were better acquainted the survey better.

When asked about subject of interest for a collective

debate, 7 participants filled in the theme registration

and registered their personal opinion about the

subjects. All in all, there were 11 subjects presented

for discussion, all of which were considered and

structured for step 2, the discussion phase. In the

second step, 44.44% out of 27 participants

confirmed their interest in participating in the

discussion, with the personal opinions of each of the

subjects from step 1 being registered. Regarding the

initial participants, there was a small increase in

voting participation, related to the debate, 48.15% of

participants having voted for the registered subjects.

These participants also answer some questions about

the satisfaction use with survey.

a) Considering demand X and the opinions registered

for it, your vote is:

( ) contrary to the demand

( ) favorable to the demand

( ) neutral regarding the demand

b) Do you consider this proposal a viable means to

accomplish deliberations through the Internet?

(

)

Yes

(

)

Regarding the subjects below, state you opinion:

a) Demands in education: improvement of the basic

educational system.

Opinion 1: The poor quality of basic and elementary

education reflects on the schooling of skilled

professionals. Primary concern should be with this

stage of education and not with seeking solutions to

camouflage the problem. It is outrageous that an

elementary school teacher makes less than the

school bus driver. A primary school teacher must

have good schooling and must make as much as an

engineer or doctor.

What is your opinion?

a) Would you like to present the group with demands

(subjects) which you think are important to discuss in

the institution to which you belong, according to the

themes predefined above?

b) What is your opinion on the demand registered

above?

c) Do you consider your opinion:

( ) contrary to the demand

( ) favorable to the demand

( ) neutral with regards to the demand

d) Do you suggest any document to back your

opinion? Cite sources, web address or attach them to

the email.

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5 MDM METHOD ANALYSIS

The calculation of the maturity level points was

conducted manually, with the aid of the data

available in an electronic chart, considering the

indicators suggested in MDM. The data was

calculated by participants, who were later classified

in Groups according to the MDM index. The table

below presents the groups, point intervals and

number of participants classified in each group.

Table 3: MDM Survey Groups Classification.

Groups Range Nr.Part.

Group 1:

Immature

1 until 28 points 11

Group 2:

Poorly Mature

29 until 57 points 3

Group 3:

Sufficiently Mature

58 unitl 86 points 8

Group 4:

Mature

87 until 115 points 3

Out of the 27 participants of the consultative and

deliberative process, 11 displayed so-called

“immature” participation, since they only

participated in the first step or in very small degree.

The “sufficiently mature” level of participation was

achieved by 8 of the participants, who participated

from the very beginning of the process, registering

demands, debating, voting, and evaluating the

process as a whole.

In the category considered “mature” were

classified 3 users. Such a feat was acquired from the

fact that these persons registered more demands than

the others, even though his/her participation in the

debate and voting process was equal to the others.

Group 4 was suggested in the method considering

that, in a deliberative process, there is interaction

between members and it is necessary to measure the

confidence generated between members, the forms

with which one socializes with the others, his/her

access to documents with information contained in

libraries and other sources. It was not possible, by

using the survey, to measure such indicators, seen as

important in collaborative virtual environments.

Another issue that deserves our attention relates

to the fact that the process is evaluated only in

general terms and not by demand. If it were

accomplished by demands, i.e., if we tried to bestow

MDM for each participant by demand, the effective

participants of step 2 would have similar points,

since they participate in most of the discussions.

Because the process was always conducted “jointly”,

in other words, the survey presented a set of

questions by stages, most participants responded to

almost all of them; their choice was not based on

certain demands to state their opinion, following

their greater interest.

If we do not consider the participants who only

registered, concentrated in Group 1, the decisions

deliberated by the group, generally speaking, can be

considered “Sufficiently mature”. However, if the

demands are analyzed separately, one notices that

some of them have not reached a sufficient maturity

level. Therefore, it is suggested that the method

should be applied by demand.

The calculation process must be achieved

manually, which would be completely unfeasible

were there a larger group. It is believed that the

MDM is ideally calculated automatically in an

application. In light of these verifications, the

hypothesis is not supported, which assumed that it

was possible to measure the maturity level

satisfactorily with the use of online surveys. The

maturity level can still be measured, but has not

presented satisfactory results, aside from the

limitations it displays.

Self-assessment of the participant was also

requested regarding his/her participation in the

consultative and deliberative process, seeing that

23.1% considered their participation “very good”,

46.2% considered it “good” and 30.8% considered it

“regular”. It must be added that this self-assessment

was requested to participants who participated of the

final stage of the process and can be analyzed with

regard to the index generated by MDM. The users

who participated in this step 3 were mostly classified

in groups 3 and 4, which only confirms the positive

self-assessment, since they participated actively in

the process.

5.1 Satisfaction Use

Because we are dealing with a different way of

undertaking debate and voting, the users were sked

to comment on their level of satisfaction in using the

automated application. Crossing this information

allows us to analyze other issues of this research.

The first factor is the lack of interaction with

other participants, since they use a web application

to answer the survey but not to communicate

amongst themselves; therefore, they are not able to

share their opinions as soon as they are registered.

This was considered a negative factor for 77% of

participants. Another factor is the need for more

information about the process, in which 61.3% of

participants felt the lack of more information about

MEASURING THE e-PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES THROUGH ONLINE SURVEYS

431

certain subjects, originating from websites,

documents, or other means of communication.

When questioned if the form in which the

demands were phrased was prejudicial to the

process, 84.6% believed that this impaired

understanding, 61.5% believed it impaired

discussion and 53.3% believed it made voting

harder.

In step 3, a report with participants’ opinions was

presented. It showed that 61.5% of participants

confessed that they did not consult the document

sent by email before voting. One of the possible

causes is the lack of integration of this information

within the same location. This is confirmed by the

fact that 53.9% of participants disagree that the

opinions of the other participants are important for

decision-making regarding the final vote, thus

demonstrating that the vast majority already has a

fixed opinion on the matter. 61.6% think that the

opinions of others do not influence the final vote.

The need for a moderator for the discussions was

felt by 46.2% of participants. The role of this

moderator is one of considerable responsibility,

since this person exerts certain influence over the

decision-making process.

When questioned on the use of questionnaires as

a viable form of accomplishing technology-mediated

consultation and voting, 53.8% agreed on “yes”, and

38.5% believed that they are “in part”. For 84.7% of

participants, the use of shared resources, such as

mailing lists, chats and surveys, would make this

process easier. See the survey usability evaluation

below.

Figure 3: Survey usability.

As for the layout of the project and the use of the

structured survey for debate and voting, most users

(38.5%) considered it “good”, 15.4% considered it

“very good” and 30.8% considered it “excellent”.

Two participants, i.e., 15.4%, believed it to be

“regular”. This data indicated that users of online

surveys feel user satisfaction in the automated

application available on the web and unanimously

agree that the structure of the questionnaire in stages

rendered the decision-making easier. In general,

users thought the time spent on the consulting and

voting was sufficient for deliberation.

A total of 93.3% of participants believe that a

virtual community would facilitate such consultative

and deliberative process. This discovery motivates

us for the next stage of this investigation, in which a

virtual community modeled for debate and voting of

public issues will be implemented (Maciel and

Garcia, 2007a) and tested with MDM method.

6 CONCLUSIONS

With the use of ICT, particularly by means of an

online survey, an e-democratic deliberative process

was suggested. Some considerations are worth

making concerning this process.

The way in which certain demands are written

interferes in the process. An interpretative flexibility

is noted as a result of this phrasing, which, in turn,

also interferes in the record of opinions and can lead

the user to vote favorably, contrary, or neutrally with

regards to a certain demand. A particular degree of

understanding of the subject is necessary so that the

participant can exert influence over the discussion

and consequently have some bearing on the opinions

of others. The presence of contrary opinions favors

discussion, but what with the use of surveys this

possibility becomes somewhat limited since the

discussions are not posted openly. Therefore, the

right to offer a rebuttal becomes restricted and many

steps of surveys are necessary in order to sustain a

more accentuated discussion. The moderator’s

performance also becomes more difficult with the

use of surveys. Another important issue is that the

counseling, so that participants may suggest new

subjects for discussions at any moment. The

employment of surveys presents in itself a temporal

limitation and makes such registrations difficult.

Besides, the MDM can be previously tested. For

measuring the use of surveys it has presented

considerable limitations, such as the need to

disregard a few indicators, the unfeasibility of

demand-based application and the need for manual

calculation.

However, survey use has generally proven to be

satisfactory because it manages to structure the

discussions providing user satisfaction to

participants. Nevertheless, since the use of

technology is not neutral, issues concerning the role

of the administrator in configuring the survey, the

requirement of a moderator for the discussions, and

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432

increased sharing of posted information deserve

further consideration.

As a future project, will be tested another e-

democratic tool that permits automatic measuring of

the effectiveness of e-participation, the Democratic

Citizenship Community (Maciel and Garcia, 2007a).

The results of the application of this survey allow for

some modifications in the modeling suggested for

the virtual community.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is partially supported by the Fundation

CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento Pessoal

de Nível Superior), from Brazil. We would like to

express thanks to the researchers Flavia Cristina

Bernardini (ADDLabs), Patricia Cristiane de Souza

(UFMT) and Alexandre Veloso de Matos

(Universidade de Coimbra) for the contributions and

discussions about this paper.

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