HUWY: engaging students in distributed discussions on Internet policy

From E-Consultation Guide

by Dr. D. R. Newman, Queen's University Management School, and UK co-ordinator of the HUWY project. a talk given at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2009, University of Essex, on 29 July 2009.

Contents 1 What is the HUWY project? 2 Why HUWY? 3 How HUWY? 3.1 An educational project 3.2 Process 4 What can you do?

What is the HUWY project?

• In 4 countries,
• 80 groups of young people,
• will discuss the Internet,
• on their favourite on-line sites (Bebo, YouTube, Young Scot, …),
• then put their ideas to national and European policy-makers

Why HUWY?

Politicians and officials are worried a low levels of citizen participation, so they are trying:

eParticipation

is about reconnecting ordinary people with politics and policy-making and making the decision-making processes easier to understand and follow through the use of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

This includes:

e-Consultation

is the use of electronic computing and communication technologies in consultation processes and is complimentary to existing practices.

In particular, worried about lack of engagement of young people (e.g. low voting rates). But:

Remixing Citizenship by Stephen Coleman

starts from the position that it is not young people that are disconnected from formal politics, but political institutions that are disconnected from young people.

These are the people who grew up with the Internet, but are not taking part in debates on:

Internet governance

is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet

This includes controversies in:

• Privacy, security and freedom
• Consumers vs. businesses
• Digital divides
• Internet infrastructure management

How HUWY?

• We want to get from Internet experiences to policy suggestions

An educational project

Young people, aged 16-21	Policy wonks
grew up with the Internet, have good and bad experiences, have values, can use that experience to come up with innovative solutions.	struggling to understand the Internet, they react to the latest scare story. learning from the young people, they can develop more practical policies.
the teachers	the learners

• NOT learning the existing laws
  • (as in citizenship education)
• but critical thinking generating new codes
  • (students teaching permanent secretaries and vice-chancellors)

Process

1. Recruit people to take part
   • young people (16-21)
     • Youth groups (e.g. Young Scot, NI Youth Forum)
     • Student classes in schools and universities
     • Informal groups of friends (e.g. Facebook groups)
     • At least 20 in each country
   • policy-makers
     • politicians
     • officials with interests in Internet-related issues
     • members of QUANGOs (e.g. UKIGF, Nominet, UKOLN)
     • managers in all sectors trying to cope with Internet policy problems
2. Youth group representatives attend launch workshops in January 2010
   • Hub websites include problem scenarios to start discussion, advice on how to facilitate one, and tools to upload final presentations to policy-makers.
3. Distributed discussions
   • Each group goes to their favourite corner of cyberspace to run their own discussion in their own way.
     • Some will use Bebo, Facebook etc.
     • Others can use a discussion forum (e.g. Young Scot)
     • Some may want to create photos, videos or cartoons to explain their message
     • Many will use Web 2.0 tools for Citizen writing
4. A few people from each group write up what they want to tell the policy-makers on the UK hub website.
   • they create summaries, longer presentations, optionally link to their own discussions, and tag the material to show which issues they have discussed.
5. National policy-makers read these materials
   • Searching for work relating to their own policy interests
   • Tag, annotate and comment on interesting ideas
   • Rate presentations (for prizes)
   • Explain how what they have read might be used in their policy-making
6. European policy-makers read aggregated content on EU hub

What can you do?

Early days, let us know how we can improve HUWY, in:

1. Getting young people interested enough in the project to:
   1. Check it out
   2. Actively discuss the issues
   3. Stick with it right through to the end, uploading ideas and suggestions for policy-makers.
   • Given that Internet governance is not something that naturally interests many young people.
2. Getting policy-makers to:
   1. Commit to reading the materials
   2. Actually read them
   3. Give feedback
   4. Use them when formulating policies
   • Even though they are often busy, and more used to listening to powerful lobby groups.

Right now:

• if you have a piece of paper letting you log in to WebIQ, follow the instructions and add your ideas.
• if not, text me your ideas on 077707 35474

Later, contact Feargal O'Kane - details on http://huwy.eu/