Comments on: Building DFID's new consultation platform

By: New kids on the blog

New kids on the blog — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:40:32 +0000

[...] this personal blog from another gov webby. Julia has been doing some ground-breaking work at DFID (example here) and promises to be as interesting a voice online as she has been over many a coffee offline. In her [...]

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:32:33 +0000

Could have sworn I tried to buy something like this from you back in March

By: Other Consultation Platforms in the Wild: The Department for International Development | Actually...

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:46:00 +0000

[...] evolution of DIUS’ original Commentariat theme. You can read more about the DFID platform on Puffbox. It’s really good to see WPMU embedded in government as a platform for consultations. Did [...]

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:56:04 +0000

To add a few points to answer @Steph's question, the consultation you mention, which was the first time we in DFID had used this framework to invite people to comment online, was publicised widely among the community of people interested in international development. It was part of an approach which included a series of formal events around the UK and in some countries where we work and regular mentions in all our other communication channels - especially via a feature on the home page of the main website.

We had good anecdotal evidence from participants at live events that they valued this channel in particular becasue it meant they had thinking time and could revisit the questions we were asking, and answer them in their own time. Others said they liked the idea of an alternative forum to the slightly intimidating environment of a meeting room with lots of "experts".

One follow up that I am very pleased the team who were working on this initiative put together, was a summary of all the responses they received - from all channels, that they then published openly. This will I hope demonstrate to people that they were listened to (I think always potentially a challenge when governments consult). This document can be found at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/whitepaper/White-Paper-Public-Consultation-Summary.pdf

Finally - a huge vote of thanks to Simon for the additional work he has put in to develop this framework so that we now have something flexible and re-usable. I hope it will encourage colleagues across the organisation to see that this form of open interactive consultation is something that adds value to their work when they want to canvas opinion from a wide audience, and will request it as a matter of course. And of course, echo the thought that in the long run this is a cost effective way for the department to run them (while sympathising with the sentiment that he has in fact done himself out of any more work in this particular area!).

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:25:43 +0000

@Steph I'm more than happy to keep the Commentariat hat-tip in place. I've always felt Commentariat's major contribution to The Cause wasn't so much its functionality, but the fact that it happened, and how it happened. So I think it's a good thing for people to see the trail of innovation, from your work into mine, and onwards. And all because it was open-sourced in the first place.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:22:30 +0000

By popular demand, the 'subscribe to comments' plugin is hereby restored. I had a few problems with it previously, but I think that was prior to some server reconfiguration.

By: Joss Winn

Joss Winn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:20:16 +0000

Steph,

I've been testing (and will continue to do so) XML-RPC clients for desktop publishing to WordPress. Quite successful. Copy an entire document from Word2007 in one go, paste into MS Live Writer (free to download/use) and publish to WordPress:
http://remotepub.jiscpress.org/2009/08/07/jisc-strategy-ms-live-writer-with-tables-copy-and-paste-from-word-2007/

Ignore the headings and the table mess on the site. It's a bug in the DigressIt plugin/theme. Otherwise, it very clean and accurate. Getting there. Now you just need to dump IE 6 and install MS Live Writer

I'm documenting my tests for the JISCPress project here:
http://code.google.com/p/jiscpress/wiki/RemotePublishing

It'll be all wrapped up by end of November.

By: Steph Gray

Steph Gray — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:59:38 +0000

Lovely work, and very nice of you to still credit us for an original concept you've taken so much further since. I'm impressed by the 500 comments on the poverty consultation - that's a phenomenal response, and I'd be interested to know how that was promoted. The other big challenge for consultations is the 'workflow' aspect from designed-for-print document to living web version. Your great platform takes away some of the interface development work for future exercises, but the cut and paste work remains. Can there ever be a way to avoid that?

By: Joss Winn

Joss Winn — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:23:45 +0000

Nah, it's just a plugin. You activate it and fill out some options If you know your LDAP / Active Directory details, it's pretty straightforward. I've found that LDAP plugins for different software can use different terminology, which is the most confusing thing, but once you get over that, there's not much to it. Mail me if you run into any problems. I might be able to help. (Any chance of you using the Subscribe to Comments plugin on here? A useful way of staying in the conversation).

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Hang on... it's that easy? I've never tried it myself, and I'd heard different.