e-Consultation: Automatic system for online consultations

Abstract

Global ICT services give the opportunity to construct communication platform for online consultations where ordinary citizens, different civic and business associations and executive bodies could contribute by exchanging information using communication network. Initiated by governing institutions or government bodies and non-state actors online consultations differ in goals, approaches, range of target groups, scope of topics and in the use of technical tools. The benefits are clearly recognized, for example online consultations promote the central regulatory objectives by providing the regulator with valuable input from industry members and other stakeholders and help to maintain a transparent regulatory environment. Public consultations therefore help regulators to make knowledgeable decisions. However, current online consultation practice in global area falls short of the potential. Coordination of the online consultation service by common, general purpose tools causes excessive wait times for answers, inefficient communication between experts, limited visibility of document sections and related information, which cause decreased access to public consultations, insufficient number of responses and in general weak participation level. We propose the model of automatic platform for online consultations. Proposed model cover all stages and relevant elements of public consultation procedures. The model is realized as network service and covers complete public consultation life cycle, i.e. starting the discussion, entering associated documents, amendments and comments, section analysis, decision-making and archiving. Novelty of the model presents core implementation in the form three-dimensional state matrix that covers consultation life cycle, time constraints, groupings, section segmentation, amendments association, etc. Commercial version of this model is deployed in Croatian regulatory authority for network industries.