ESR01

Opening Smart cities: challenges to engage citizens through information systems – ECIS workshop

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To organize a scientific event in the form of a workshop as part of the 25th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). ESR 01,03,04,05,06,13 and 15 gathered in Guimaraes – Portugal to discuss the topic of “Opening Smart cities: challenges to engage citizens through information systems.”

The workshop aimed to allow space for the participants and organizers to reflect on current smart cities practices and their challenges, and possible ways to address them. It was particularly emphasized by the call that the participants considered and proposed over the importance of effective citizen engagement strategies and platforms within the smart cities’ context.

Different activities took place during the workshop: presentation session and brainstorming session. The presentations covered a broad range of topics (citizen engagement, privacy from the smart city’s point of view, participatory budget and transformation of smart and sustainable cities). After the presentations, an interactive session was built on the group discussion and brainstorming. The topics included “IoT & Privacy in smart cities,” “Openness in smart cities: challenges and impact” and “Sense of place to promote participation in smart cities.” Participants were divided into two groups, and finally, they all agreed on common issues concerning the participation of citizens in city contexts such as isolation, exclusion and lack of participation.

More information on the workshop can be found here:

http://www.ecis2017.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ECIS2017-OSC.pdf

Pictures of the workshop:

 

GEO-C @CeDEM2017- E-participation in the Urban Planning Process: Challenges to be addressed by ICT

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The proceedings of the 7th international conference for E-democracy and open government held at the Danube University Krems 17-19 May 2017 (CeDEM2017). It invites individuals from academic and applied background as well as business, public authorities, NGOs, NPOS and education insititution to submit papers and join the discussion on topics and issues related to e-democracy and open government.
GEO-C organized an interactive workshop by using lego blocks to create self-awareness about the challenges of citizens participation through ICT in urban planning. During workshop session Lego blocks were used to represent different scenarios of public participation in the urban planning process, first at the individual level and then in groups. With the guidance of the organizers, the attendees’ discussion were mainly around the questions as follows:
  1. What are the main challenges in e-participation and smart cities to engage in the urban planning process?
  2. How ICT can facilitate citizens participation in complex scenarios that demand discussion, debate, and finally decision-making?
  3. What do people expect from e-participation platforms?
Some pictures are attached from the day:

The conference paper accepted for publication in PerDis 2017

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The paper “Public displays for public participation in urban settings: a survey” (Authors: Guiying Du, Auriol Degbelo, Christian Kray) has been accepted for publication in the 6th ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays.

Abstract: Public displays can be used to support public participation in urban settings. This article provides a survey of the use of public displays for public participation in an urban con- text, covering articles on this topic published between 2012 and 2016. 36 papers were selected and analyzed along eight dimensions: type of political context, type of scientific contribution, standalone displays vs displays with a device, single vs multi-purpose displays, shape of displays, lab vs field study, deployment in public vs semi-public space, and the level of public participation addressed. Our analysis revealed a number of trends regarding public displays and public participation in urban settings. Inspecting these articles also led to the observation that current research on public displays is mainly targeting lower levels of public participation and that the evaluation of public displays for public participation in urban setting remains a challenge.

CfP Workshop @ ECIS2017: Opening Smart Cities: Challenges to engage citizens through information systems

  geoc

We, some of the ESRs from the “GEO-C – Geoinformatics: Enabling Open Cities” project, would like to invite you to our half-day pre-conference workshop part of the 25th Annual European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2017). This workshop entitled “Opening Smart Cities: Challenges to engage citizens through information systems” aims to explore and discuss the potential of information systems to engage citizens in the development of smart cities through e-participation technologies.

The session will take place on June 6, 2017, in conjunction with the ECIS 2017 in Guimarães, Portugal. The deadlines for short papers (max. 2000 words) submissions are on April 3, 2017 and we encourage you to submit your paper as a .pdf to us, along with the authors’ names and contact details to geoc3.ecis@gmail.com. The main topics we will address will be:

  • E-participation in smart cities
  • Citizen engagement platforms in smart cities
  • Open data and governance towards open and inclusive cities
  • Participatory and critical design in urban decision-making processes
  • New kinds of interaction between citizens and other stakeholders in open cities
  • Different performance of citizens on using ICT for e-participation: gender, age, education, etc
  • Reflections for e-participation: Best practices, failures & practical challenges.

We are looking forward to your submission!
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