Online collaborative community tools information paper for

Australian Government programs

Tracey Meziane Benson

Author:
(x connect media)
Tracey Meziane Benson
Contact:
www.xconnectmedia.com

Version: V1.0

Date: 14 May 2010

Online collaborative community tools information paper for Australian Government programs.......1
PURPOSE....................................................................................................................................................... 3
BACKGROUND – FROM STATIC WEB TO WEB 2.0................................................................................................. 3
Web 2.0 technologies and capacity building............................................................................................. 4
What is a social website?...........................................................................................................................5
ONLINE COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS.......................................................................................... 6
GovDex - https://www.govdex.gov.au ....................................................................................................... 6
Living Greener Collaborative Community – http://lgcc.livinggreener.gov.au ........................................7
Wetpaint - http://www.wetpaint.com/ ........................................................................................................ 8
WordPress - http://wordpress.org/ ............................................................................................................ 8
Blogger - http://www.blogger.com/ ........................................................................................................... 9
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/ ................................................................................................... 10
Bebo - http://www.bebo.com/ .................................................................................................................. 10
MySpace – www.myspace.com ................................................................................................................ 11
Twitter - http://twitter.com/ ..................................................................................................................... 12
Identi.ca - http://identi.ca/ ...................................................................................................................... 13
YouTube - www.youtube.com .................................................................................................................. 13
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/ ................................................................................................................ 14
Scribd - http://www.scribd.com/ ............................................................................................................. 14
Delicious - http://delicious.com/ .............................................................................................................15
Google groups - http://groups.google.com/ ............................................................................................ 16
EXAMPLES OF WEB 2.0 USED BY GOVERNMENT............................................................................................... 16
RESOURCES................................................................................................................................................. 17
RISKS......................................................................................................................................................... 17
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................................ 18
GLOSSARY................................................................................................................................................... 19
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline a range of available tools for creating an online
community that encourages collaboration and participation for use by government
programs and internal and external stakeholders.

An online community is envisaged as a means for all stakeholders to engage with each
other for the purpose of information sharing, analysing program activities support and
celebrating achievements.

Background – from static web to Web 2.0

In the early days of the web, websites and email operated in a static environment, where
links between information were manually applied using hyperlinks. In the recently
published Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, it states:

Activity on the Internet was dominated by the website and email. This Internet enabling
broadcast, point to point, hub and spoke activity through websites is termed ‘Web 1.0’.1

Darcy DiNucci coined the term Web 2.0 in 1999. In her article, "Fragmented Future,"
DiNucci writes:

The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfulls,
is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to
appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be
understood not as screenfulls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether
through which interactivity happens.2

Through emerging interest by developers in creating tools that are collaboratively built and
free of charge (open source and freeware) Web 2.0 has emerged as a powerful
community and capacity-building tool. With the release of the Report of the Government
2.0 Taskforce, there has been increased pressure on government to use Web 2.0 and
Public Sector Information (PSI) to engage the community in an open and collaborative
way.

There is a wide range of Web 2.0 tools that are freely available to users, social websites
are one such example. Social websites is a term often used to describe online
communities that rely on collaboration to develop its content, which in turn becomes a key
knowledge base for the community.

The challenge for government programs, is having the ability to access these tools as
there is a culture of resistance in government agencies because of
(i) copyright issues and
(ii) the capacity of APS to engage directly with the public.

1
Engage: getting on with government 2.0
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/doc/Government20TaskforceReport.pdf p.3 (accessed
23 December 2009)
2
http://www.cdinucci.com/Darcy2/articles/Print/Printarticle7.html (accessed 13 January 2010)
 Web 2.0 technologies and capacity building
“Go to where the conversation is”

Web 2.0 tools offer the potential for collaboration as well as networking - blogs, wikis and
social networking platforms such as Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are
available without charge to the user and function as community assets. These tools enable
communities with common interests to develop rapidly to find people with local knowledge
or technical expertise to build understanding of issues and solve problems as they
emerge. They enable us to find the most useful contributors in any given subject area, be it
a world expert or someone possessing important local or ephemeral knowledge.

Web 2.0 also encompasses the way in which the Internet has become a platform for the
distribution of vast quantities of data and the way in which it has empowered people and
organisations to transform data by ‘mashing it up’, combining it with other data so that it
can become useful in new ways.3

Many free Web 2.0 tools available could provide great benefit to government programs.
The pros and cons of a range of these tools will be discussed in this paper.

For government Web 2.0 can effectively deliver the following benefits:

1. To provide tools for collaboration

2. For marketing and promoting government initiatives
3. User/audience engagement resulting in positive behaviour change

Throughout the paper, the phrase stand-alone tool is used to describe the capacity of a
web product to operate completely by itself, for example, a website offering discussion
forums, image and document database, public and private access and video viewing
capacity.

In addition to the above benefits, many Web 2.0 tools allow you to share your information
across platforms – for example linking your Facebook profile to your Twitter page.

The use and reuse of PSI datasets is also crucial to moving forward with Web 2.0, and a
number of government agencies including the National Library of Australia (NLA) and
National Archives of Australia (NAA) have engaged citizens to contribute and enrich public
collections by remixing data. In addition, the Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce
states that:

Today both ABS and Geoscience Australia are again leading the world, both
releasing much of their output using Creative Commons attribution only licenses
permitting others to use and remix it with minimal cost and restriction.
Yet progress towards open government in Australia has tended to be the result of
specific policy initiatives, such as those mentioned above, and the interest and
enthusiasm of individual agencies.4
3
Engage: getting on with government 2.0
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/doc/Government20TaskforceReport.pdf p.xi
(accessed 23/12/09)
4
Engage: getting on with government 2.0
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/doc/Government20TaskforceReport.pdf p.16
(accessed 05/03/10)
This statement highlights the increasing need for a Whole of Government move forward on
the utilisation of Web 2.0 capacities and tools.

What is a social website?

A social website is a type of website with pages that anyone can edit and contribute to,
including text, links to existing resources, photos, videos, polls, and more. Unlike most
websites that only technically savvy programmers can create, social websites can be
easily created and developed within your web browser. Because many people can
contribute to a social website, the content can grow quickly as a result of collaboration.
Users can easily and quickly build on the work of others by adding new content—and even
new pages—to the social website.

As with any group project having multiple contributors, accountability and audit trails are
important. Every change made to a social website is recorded. As easily as content can be
added, content can be removed and the page reverted to a previous version. Most social
websites also provide various permission levels that can allow people to edit and view only
certain pages as determined by the community managers.

Social websites are ideal for groups of people who are connected by a common interest
and need to collaborate. Instead of sending email back and forth, a social website is used
to centralise the knowledge of a group. Because the social website can be edited by
anyone with the required permissions, you can keep everyone in your group up-to-date
and actively involved.
Online community and social networking tools

The following tools have been identified as having potential for goverment programs.

GovDex - https://www.govdex.gov.au
GovDex is an Australian Government initiative that supports collaboration across
government. It provides a secure, private, web-based space for government agencies to
manage projects and their stakeholders, share documents and information, and manage
secretariat responsibilities.

DEWHA has a number of GovDex communities, including CERForum, which facilitates

communications across the Commonwealth Environment Research Facility (CERF) hubs
between government and researchers.

As an administrator, you can provide varying levels of access to community members to

view and edit documents and contribute to discussions. Contributions by users are easily
tracked and moderated if necessary.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) hosts this tool and
technical support is accessed through an online helpdesk.

GovDex is hosted behind a secure Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) certified gateway
connection. This gateway is secure to IN-CONFIDENCE. The GovDex system itself is
currently undergoing certification to IN-CONFIDENCE.

Comments:
GovDex is an excellent option if a password protected environment is required. It is also
helpful that there is technical support that is easily accessed. On the downside, it is very
clunky and slow from an administrator’s perspective.

Issues:
As GovDex is a password protected environment, the information would not be in the
public domain, whilst this may be useful to liaise with industry and community facilitators,
this secure environment may not be necessary for many of our stakeholders. If GovDex is
implemented as a discussion forum, it would not be as a stand-alone tool because it is
password protected and secure environment. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0
tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting
stakeholders involved in the process.

Living Greener Collaborative Community – http://lgcc.livinggreener.gov.au

The Living Greener Collaborative Community (LGCC) is a pilot initiative that supports
collaboration. It was built using the open source software DRUPAL (like Wordpress) It
provides a secure, private, web-based space for government agencies to discuss issues,
co-develop project outputs, engage stakeholders in two-way communication dialogue,
share documents and information, and maintain audit trails for approving State/Territory
content on the Living Greener website.

As an administrator, you can provide varying levels of access to community members to

view and edit documents and contribute to discussions. Contributions by users are easily
tracked and moderated if necessary.

LGCC has Australian government Branding as the platform was developed by consultants
with expertise in collaborative platforms and communications management. Although it is
open source, CollabForge hosts LGCC and provides technical support for $350 per month.

Comments:
LGCC is an excellent option for a password-protected or open environment as it is a tool
that has been created for DEWHA specifically for Living Greener to collaborate with state
and territory government stakeholders. The current platform can be easily expanded.

LGCC also offers the ability to be used through the majority of government and business
firewall settings enabling true open access.

Issues:
LGCC is currently being used as a password protected environment, which has both public
and secure capacities. As currently formatted some of the information would not be in the
public domain, whilst this may be useful to liaise with industry and community facilitators,
the secure environment may not be necessary for many of our stakeholders. The platform
can be extended to offer the option of open information or an open member password to
enable all stakeholders to participate and access information as selected by the
administrator.

LGCC is currently undergoing further development to upgrade its functionality and create a
permanent safe environment. It is anticipated that many of the current issues will be
resolved within this development.

The main issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is
available but the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in the process.

Wetpaint - http://www.wetpaint.com/
Wetpaint is an excellent example of a social website as this tool uses the best features of
wikis, blogs, forums and social networks. As an administrator, you can provide varying
levels of access to community members and the public. Also, each contribution by any
user can be tracked as well as updates to pages and discussion topics.

In terms of technical support, there is detailed information on the website about how to
publish material and troubleshoot.

Comments:
This is an extremely easy and functional tool that has great capacity for importing graphics
and video. Another benefit is that discussion threads can be created on any part of the
website.

Issues:
There is not a lot of scope to design a look and feel that would replicate the remainder or
the website if hosted elsewhere. It is important for users to still feel like they are on a
government website as this gives more credibility – especially if they are seeking to
collaborate and participate in aspects of EE Outreach program discussions with the
department. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the
technology is available but the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in the process.

WordPress - http://wordpress.org/
WordPress is an Open Source project (also using DRUPAL), which means there are
hundreds of people all over the world working on it - more than most commercial
platforms. It also means users are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to
a corporate website without paying anyone a license fee.

To create a blog, you download and install a software script called WordPress. WordPress
is completely customisable and can be used for almost anything.

WordPress started as blogging systems, but has evolved to be used as full content
management system and more through the thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes.

Comments:
As a blogging tool WordPress is more flexible than other free blogs, especially in regards
to customising the look and feel, also given that it is built as an Open Source Project, there
is capacity to create applications that are specific for the needs of the government
programs.

Issues:
There is some scope to design a look and feel that would replicate the remainder of the
website, if it is hosted on government website. It is important for users to still feel like they
are on a government website as this gives more credibility – especially if they are seeking
to collaborate and participate in aspects of program discussions with the department.

Although WordPress is a powerful tool, it does not have the capacity at this stage to offer
the full suite of online tool that are available on GovDex, LGCC or Wetpaint. The main
issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but
the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in the process.

Blogger - http://www.blogger.com/
Blogger is another free blogging service that provides hosting for blogs. It has a web-
based interface so no software needs to be installed but there is limited capacity for users
to customise the templates. Blogger started out as a small operation run by three
developers in 1999 but was bought out by Google in 2003.

Users with a Google account can easily streamline photo albums from the Blogger
websites and update posts.

Comments:
WordPress is a far better option as a blogging format as it is more readily customisable.
Issues:
There is limited scope to design a look and feel that would replicate the remainder of the
website, if it was hosted on DEWHA/Living Greener website. It is important for users to
feel like they are on a government website as this gives more credibility – especially if they
are seeking to collaborate and participate in aspects of program discussions with the
department.

As with WordPress, Blogger does not have the capacity at this stage to offer the full suite
of online tool that are available on GovDex, LGCC or Wetpaint. The main issue across all
of these Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is
getting stakeholders involved in the process.

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/
Facebook is a social website that helps people communicate more efficiently with their
friends, family and co-workers. This is done by Facebook developing technologies that
facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of
people's real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with
the people they know in a trusted environment.

Facebook is the largest user in the world of memcached, which is an open-source caching
system and has created a custom-built search engine serving millions of queries a day,
completely distributed and entirely in-memory, with real-time updates.

There is a huge capacity for developers to develop applications for Facebook users and a
number of other tools discussed here can be integrated into Facebook – for example,
Blogger, Delicious, Twitter and Identi.ca updates can be replicated onto the member’s
profile.

Facebook is also used to create interest groups and membership can be open to all or by
invitation.

Comments:
Many users have accounts with both MySpace and Facebook – which would be useful in
terms of promoting our programs, broadening our audience base.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate Facebook into a suite of promotional tools and as a
discussion forum, it would not be as a stand-alone tool. This is because to access
information posted on the Facebook page you must be a member. In many cases, this
would make accessing the information an onerous task, especially for users with limited
web knowledge. There is also the additional issue of bandwidth, as Facebook is constantly
updating and this sometimes slows the website down significantly.

Also, it is important for users to still feel like they are on a government website as this
gives more credibility – especially if they are seeking to collaborate and participate in
aspects of program discussions with the department. The main issue across all of these
Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting
stakeholders involved in the process.
Bebo - http://www.bebo.com/
Bebo (Blog Early, Blog Often) is another example of a social networking tool. Each profile
must include two specific modules, a comment section where other users can leave a
message, and a list of the user's friends. Users can select from many more modules to
add. By default, when an account is created the profile is private, which limits access to
friends specifically added. The user may select the "Public Profile" option so as the profile
will still be visible to any other members of a community they may have joined. Profiles can
be personalised by a design template that is the background of the user's profile, known
as a skin. In addition, there is capacity for members to promote their music and writing.

Users can also add their AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Skype and Windows Live
Messenger user names to their Bebo profile. For Skype and Windows Live Messenger
Bebo offers links to quickly chat or add that user in that program.

Comments:
Given that Bebo is not as widely used as Facebook, there would not be much point in
developing a community using this environment unless the terms and conditions of use are
better for government use.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate Bebo into a suite of promotional tools and as a
discussion forum, it would not be as a stand-alone tool. This is because to access
information posted on the Bebo page you must be a member. In many cases, this would
make accessing the information an onerous task, especially for users with limited web
knowledge. As also mentioned before, Bebo does not have as many users as Facebook,
so audience reach is another issue.

Also, it is important for users to still feel like they are on a government website as this
gives more credibility – especially if they are seeking to collaborate and participate in
aspects of program discussions with the department. The main issue across all of these
Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting
stakeholders involved in the process.

MySpace – www.myspace.com
MySpace is a social networking platform that allows members to create unique personal
profiles online in order to find and communicate with old and new friends.

Users can develop creative and original application’s using the collection of Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs) embedded into the MySpace experience.

MySpace supports the development of applications based on OpenSocial, allowing users

to have a standardised way to develop great apps across platforms. OpenSocial defines a
API for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML,
developers can create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds. In
April 2008, Facebook overtook MySpace in terms of visitor hits.
Comments:
MySpace attracts a younger more arts/music savvy audience, many users have accounts
with both MySpace, and Facebook - might be useful in terms of promoting our programs to
broaden our audience base.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate MySpace into a suite of promotional tools and as a
discussion forum, it would not be as a stand-alone tool. This is because to access
information posted on the MySpace page you must be a member. Also, this tool does not
have the capacity to deliver all of the functionality required by government programs.

Also, it is important for users to still feel like they are on a government website as this
gives more credibility – especially if they are seeking to collaborate and participate in
aspects of program discussions with the department. The main issue across all of these
Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting
stakeholders involved in the process.

Twitter - http://twitter.com/
Twitter is a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and
devices.

In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and
access information via Twitter as it happens—from breaking world news to updates from
friends. Users can post small (140 chars or less) text notices about anything they want and
can also subscribe to the notices of friends, or other people they’re interested in, and
follow them on the Web or in an RSS feed.

Comments:
As with Identi.ca, Twitter would be a useful tool to promote links to updated information on
the website, or to alert people to new topics in the discussion space.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate Twitter into a suite of promotional tools, it would not be
as a stand-alone tool. This is because this tools main purpose it to broadcast updates to
information, rather than provide a space for discussion or as a site for obtaining
information, training and educational materials. It can link to this information but Twitter
does not have the capacity to host this material. In addition, there is a risk that users will
navigate to this website and be confused that they are no longer on the program website,
potentially lessening the credibility of the information. The main issue across all of these
Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting
stakeholders involved in the process.

Identi.ca - http://identi.ca/
Identi.ca operates in a very similar way to Twitter with the exception that all Identi.ca
content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 and that it built
on a freeware tool - StatusNet.

Users can post small (140 chars or less) text notices about yourself, where you are, what
you are doing, or practically anything you want. You can also subscribe to the notices of
your friends, or other people you are interested in, and follow them on the Web or in an
RSS feed.

Comments:
As with Twitter, Identi.ca would be a useful tool to promote links to updated information on
the website, or to alert people to new topics in the discussion space.

Issues:
Same as Twitter

YouTube - www.youtube.com
YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and
across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.
Everyone can watch videos on YouTube (unless they are limited by firewalls). People can
see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests,
and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video,
YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow. Politicians have
used Youtube extensively by to lobby for an issue and as part of election campaigns.

Users subscribe to favorite channels and receive email updates when new videos are
posted, which means that information would have a more effective reach than just
publishing videos online.

Comments:
This is potentially an inexpensive way to hosting instructional training materials in video
format, as we only need to post the videos on Youtube and link to them from the
community website.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate YouTube into a suite of promotional tools, it would not
be as a stand-alone tool. This is because this tools main purpose is to host video content,
rather than provide a space for discussion or as a site for obtaining text-based information,
training and educational materials. There is a risk that users will navigate to this website
and be confused that they are no longer on the program website, potentially lessening the
credibility of the information. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of
uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in
the process.

Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/
Flickr is considered one of the best online photo management and sharing applications in
the world. In Flickr, you can give friends, family, and other contacts permission to organize
your stuff - not just to add comments, but also notes and tags (see glossary).

Comments:
Flickr might be a good way to save and share images with stakeholders.
Issues:
If government were to incorporate Flickr into a suite of promotional tools, it would not be as
a stand-alone tool. This is because this tools main purpose is to host images, rather than
provide a space for discussion or as a site for obtaining text-based information, training
and educational materials. In addition, there is a risk that users will navigate to this website
and be confused that they are no longer on the EE Outreach website, potentially lessening
the credibility of the information. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of
uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in
the process.

Scribd - http://www.scribd.com/
Scribd is the largest social publishing company in the world, a website where tens of
millions of people each month publish and discover original writings and documents. On
Scribd, you can quickly and easily turn nearly any file—including PDF, Word, PowerPoint
and Excel—into a Web document and share it with the world.

Scribd is making written works available to people on the Web and mobile devices, and
most importantly, fueling the conversations happening around them.
Documents published on Scribd are accessible to Scribd's community of readers, indexed
by search engines, and easily embedded and shared on thousands of other Websites,
including Twitter and Facebook. Many leading media companies and businesses distribute
content through Scribd, including The New York Times, Ford Motor Company, Simon &
Schuster, O'Reilly, World Bank, Chicago Tribune, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace and more.

Comments:
Scribd is a great tool for sharing documents, it works on a similar model to Facebook, et al
in that you have contacts or friends who are also members and they are notified when you
publish something.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate Scribd into a suite of tools, it would not be as a stand-
alone tool. This is because this tools main purpose is to host documents, rather than
provide a space for discussion. Again, we have the problem that users will navigate to this
website and be confused that they are no longer on the program website, potentially
lessening the credibility of the information. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0
tools is that of uptake – the technology is available but the challenge is getting
stakeholders involved in the process.

Delicious - http://delicious.com/
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and
share web pages from a centralised source. With emphasis on the power of the
community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share
information on the Internet.

The advantage of Delicious is that you can bookmark any site on the Internet, and then get
again at any time from any web browser. This could be a good way of building information
sharing and communicating with audiences as they could email their own links for
inclusion. The tagging capacity would also allow information to be available to a much
larger audience by the use of keyword search.

Comments:
Delicious is a good option for creating a list of relevant links but does not have much more
to offer in terms of online collaboration.

Issues:
If government were to incorporate Delicious into a suite of tools, it would not be as a stand-
alone tool. This is because this tools main purpose is to bookmark websites, rather than
provide a space for discussion or as a site for obtaining text-based information, training
and educational materials. Users will navigate to this website and potentially be confused
that they are no longer on the program website, potentially lessening the credibility of the
information. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the
technology is available but the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in the process.

Google groups - http://groups.google.com/

Google Groups assists users to connect with people, access information, and
communicate effectively over email and on the web. It is simple to set up a group and
users can either be invited by the administrator or sign up themselves to join the
community. Also, the administrator can provide varying levels of access to each user to
allow them to post to the group, develop web pages and edit content.

Some of the features include:

• Create and collaborate on shared web pages, hosted within the group itself.
• Customization: Select pictures, colours and styles to give your group its own distinct
look.
• File sharing: Upload and share your work with others in your group.
• Member profiles: Learn more about the other members in your group.

Comments:
Google groups is a good option for creating an online community as it incorporates an
email distribution list function which is linked in to the discussions and file sharing
capabilities. It is simple to use and has clear information about how to participate with the
group.

Issues:

If government were to incorporate Google Groups into a suite of tools, it would not be as a
stand-alone tool. Despite that the tools main purpose is to provide a space for discussion,
broadcast updates, promote activities and to obtain text-based information, training and
educational materials, users may navigate to this website and potentially be confused that
they are no longer on the program website, potentially lessening the credibility of the
information. The main issue across all of these Web 2.0 tools is that of uptake – the
technology is available but the challenge is getting stakeholders involved in the process.

Examples of Web 2.0 used by Government

There are many examples of where politicians have used Web 2.0 tools to broadcast to
the public. Barack Obama, John Howard and Kevin Rudd have all used a range of tools to
promote their election promises. For example, Obama was prolific in his use of Twitter,
leading up to the US election in 2008.5

In Australia, government departments have also used Web 2.0 tools for a range of
purposes. For example, the Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce discusses the
Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia are leading the world by making
PSI available under a Creative Commons licence, which allows users to remix data with
minimal cost and restriction.

In regard to the use of existing Web 2.0 platforms to promote government initiative, it was
reported in the media that Australian Security Intelligence Office (ASIO) is using Facebook
to recruit new officers.6

There are also dedicated web forums like Bang the Table (http://bangthetable.com/) which
is ‘an independently moderated space for discussing public policy… that recognises the
value of community input to their decisions’. Bang the Table has been utilised by
governments at all levels, including local councils, the ACT government and the federal
government, to invite feedback from the public in regards to public policy issues.

GovDex and the Living Greener Collaborative Community are also examples of how a
Whole of Government approach is being taken to working collaboratively in a Web 2.0
environment.

Resources
All of the above tools are freely available online so there would be virtually no cost in
hosting.

The main financial resources required would be taken up by:

• Instructional videos
• information toolkits
• training materials

In terms of staffing, it is difficult to determine what would be required until a decision is

made about the type of tools required and the amount of interest by users in participating.

Risks
Whilst acknowledging that there will be risks associated with using these tools as part of a
government program, this paper does not attempt to identify, assess, nor address any of
the potential risks.

In general terms, the risk assessment will need to include consideration of the objective of
the specific program, the associated stakeholders (including the numbers of stakeholders),
the particular tool or combination of tools which are proposed for use with a particular
program, the level of access proposed for different stakeholders, and the resources and
expertise required to manage the use of the nominated tools.

A full risk assessment will need to be conducted and management options developed prior
5
Barack Obama on Twitter http://twitter.com/BARACKOBAMA (accessed 05/03/10)
6
ASIO launches Facebook recruitment drive, News Limited http://www.news.com.au/technology/asio-launches-
facebook-recruitment-drive/story-e6frfro0-1225835776624 March 1 2010 (accessed 05/03/10)
to employing any of these tools for any government programs.

Conclusion
Many of these tools already plug into each other very easily and a suite of tools could be
used to maximise audience reach and participation.

LGCC and Wetpaint all provide a comprehensive approach to the information sharing and
participation requirements of an online community. However, to promote and publicise the
programs more is needed in terms of broadcasting capacity. Twitter and Facebook groups
would be also beneficial as tools to promote and engage stakeholders and the public.

GovDex in its current form is not user friendly and is often very slow, despite this tool being
developed for inter-agency online communications; it is not a good option unless it is
redeveloped.

A number of other issues need to be considered:

• Can an external tool accommodate Australian Government Branding?

• Is there capacity to use a .gov.au URL? (in the case of many of these options the
name of the community comes after the address of the tool – e.g.
www.wetpaint.com/bytetime, rather than www.bytetime.com.

• Does the tool have both public and private access? This is important as some
information needs to be in the public arena and other information should only be
accessed by nominated stakeholders.

A full risk assessment would need to be conducted and management options developed
prior to employing any of these tools for any government programs.
Glossary
A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an
individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material
such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
"Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Memcached (pronunciation: mem-cash-dee) is a general-purpose distributed memory

caching system that was originally developed by Danga Interactive for LiveJournal, but is
now used by many other sites. It is often used to speed up dynamic database-driven
websites by caching data and objects in memory to reduce the number of times an
external data source (such as a database or API) must be read. Memcached is distributed
under a permissive free software license.

Metadata (meta data, meta-data, or sometimes metainformation) is “data about data.”

Metadata is an emerging practice with close ties to librarianship, information science,
information technology and GIS. It can be applied to a vast array of objects including both
physical and electronic items such as raw data, books, CDs, DVDs, images, maps,
database tables, and web pages.

A plug-in (also called plugin, addin, add-in, addon, add-on, snap-in or snapin, but see
also extension) consists of a computer program that interacts with a host application (a
web browser or an email client, for example) to provide a certain, usually very specific,
function "on demand".

Stand-alone tool is the capacity of a web product to operate completely by itself, for
example, offering discussion forums, image and document database, public and private
access and video viewing capacity.

RSS (most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed
formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines,
audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed",
"web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as
publishing dates and authorship.

Tagging In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or

term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or
computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found
again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by
the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system.
Tagging was popularised by websites associated with Web 2.0 and is an important feature
of many Web 2.0 services. It is now also part of some desktop software.

A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently
updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to
subscribe to it.

A web widget is a portable chunk of code installed and executed within any separate
HTML based web page by a user without requiring additional installation. They are derived
from the idea of code reuse. Other terms used to describe web widgets include: gadget,
badge, module, webjit, capsule, snippet, mini and flake. Widgets often take the form of on-
screen tools (clocks, event countdowns, auction-tickers, stock market tickers, flight arrival
information, daily weather etc).