{"id":1544,"date":"2020-03-13T15:32:36","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T15:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2020-03-17T10:27:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T10:27:24","slug":"digital-civics-2020-blog-entry-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/2020\/03\/13\/digital-civics-2020-blog-entry-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Civics 2020 Blog Entry 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The\nmost important topic this week was to further define the goals that we want to\nachieve with our project with the help of a series of \u2018How might we\u2019 questions\nthat were devised in this session. With those in mind, we were presented a few\nexamples of existing applications to facilitate an understanding of their\ncontexts of use, with which we will be designing our project aim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With\nour main aim being to help the residents in Bensham express their needs and\naspirations for their community, these are the questions and points that came\nto mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>How might we develop a process of co-production between the\nresidents and the \u2018Best of Bensham\u2019 group or between the \u2018Best of Bensham\u2019\ngroup and the city council?<\/em><\/li><li><em>Help creating a community-led group that works to solve issues\nof their neighbourhood and holds close contact with members of the community<\/em><\/li><li><em>How can we help create a self-organised group among Bensham\nresidents that is able to voice their views and establish a better connection\nwith the council?<\/em><\/li><li><em>How might a community group be able to relieve some pressure\nthat the council is overburdened with?<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For\nour search for relevant existing applications, we first established a list of\ncore criteria based on the questions above and a few examples that were\npresented during the seminar, which included both analogue devices and fully\ndigital website-based means, to make our search for further examples more\naccurate and goal-oriented:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>Enable residents to voice their concerns to the community<\/em><\/li><li><em>Provide a way where the residents and the council can\ncommunicate more directly with each other<\/em><\/li><li><em>Provide a means where residents would be able to connect with\neach other and co-produce solutions with the council<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Following\nthese criteria for our search, we have identified multiple applications and\nplatforms which employ means that are uncomplicated to handle and make use of state-of-the-art\ntechnology, thus having the potential to gain a wide reach among members of a\ncommunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Commonplace: <\/strong>An online platform which seeks to bring citizens and\nplanning authorities as well as councils together to shape the living\nenvironment. It comes with the functionality of submitting online feedback,\nwhich can be seen and reviewed by the respective council and authorities and\nreduces the effort that needs to be put into organising in-person interviews.<\/li><li><strong>FixMyStreet: <\/strong>This mobile application allows residents to document\nissues they come across and report them to the local council. The main page\nprovides easy-to-follow instructions for its users, as well as an overview of\nnew and updated reports. Residents are also saved from the trouble of searching\nfor contact persons in the council to report an issue to, as the application\ndoes it automatically with its submissions, and provides the space for the\nrespective council to write responses and updates.<\/li><li><strong>Block by Block: <\/strong>This collaboration makes use of a popular 3-D sandbox video\ngame called \u2018Minecraft\u2019 to involve people from all over the world to partake in\npublic projects where they are otherwise excluded. The virtual world in the\ngame provides an easy way of three-dimensional modelling to tackle a respective\nissue, and it is not limited by materials. It allows people of a community to\ncome together and express their ideas and suggestions in form of easy-to-make\nvisualisations that are visible to everyone.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>While\neach of these applications focus on a different aspect of engaging people\nthrough the employment of state-of-the-art technology, the common point here is\nto bring people together to reach a common goal and cut down the efforts of\nestablishing communication with local governments. This is an important step to\nencourage more active participation from citizens in local matters, which will\nbe the main aim of our project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Commonplace.\n(n.d.) <em>Conversations to create better places<\/em>. Available from: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonplace.is\">https:\/\/www.commonplace.is<\/a> [Accessed 9<sup>th<\/sup>\nMarch 2020]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FixMyStreet.\n(n.d.) <em>Report, view or discuss local problems<\/em>. Available from: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fixmystreet.com\/\">https:\/\/www.fixmystreet.com\/<\/a> [Accessed\n9<sup>th<\/sup> March 2020]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mojang, Microsoft, UN-Habitat. (n.d.) <em>Block by\nBlock<\/em>. Available\nfrom: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.org\/about\">https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.org\/about<\/a>\n[Accessed 7<sup>th<\/sup> March 2020]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Falco, E., &amp; Kleinhans, R. (2018). Digital Participatory Platforms for\nCo-Production in Urban Development.&nbsp;<em>International Journal of\nE-Planning Research<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>7<\/em>(3), 1-27. doi:\n10.4018\/ijepr.2018070105<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most important topic this week was to further define the goals that we want to achieve with our project with the help of a series of \u2018How might we\u2019 questions that were devised in this session. With those in mind, we were presented a few examples of existing applications to facilitate an understanding of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/2020\/03\/13\/digital-civics-2020-blog-entry-4\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Digital Civics 2020 Blog Entry 4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8721,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1],"tags":[49,48],"class_list":["post-1544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remix-improve-sketch","category-uncategorised","tag-example-search","tag-project-goals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8721"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1545,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/digicivics-at-apl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}