Reykjavik, Iceland teaches SJ how to crowdsource policy ideas and feedback
The Org for Economic Co-operation and Development explains how the online platform “Better Reykjavik” allows citizens to vocalize, debate, and amend hundreds of ideas. Another plus: city leaders end up with prioritized lists with varied, nuanced perspectives. Could Bay Area cities try a similar strategy?
Better Reykjavik is an online platform for the crowdsourcing of solutions to urban challenges launched by the Icelandic Citizens Foundation in May 2010. …
The website gives residents of Reykjavik the opportunity to submit original ideas and solutions to municipal-level issues within the city. Citizens of Reykjavik are given the opportunity to submit, debate, and prioritize policy proposals and ideas. Moreover, it allows residents to vocalize, debate, and amend a variety of ideas which they believe are crucial, and gives the voters a direct influence on decision making. 450 ideas have been processed through [the] agenda setting part of Better Reykjavik. https://betrireykjavik.is …
Better Reykjavik has seen many more projects with the most notable being used to crowd-source policy on education in Reykjavik schools. In 2017 the City of Reykjavík decided to crowdsource ideas to co-create the City’s education policy on Better Reykjavík. This was the first time that a specific policy of any government within Iceland was crowdsourced. … The education policy project generated almost 200 ideas and thousands of debate points. https://betrireykjavik.is/community/663 & https://betrireykjavik.is/community/725
The main idea behind Better Reykjavik and its various projects is to connect citizens to the city administration to increase participation and awareness amongst citizens on municipal issues …
There are many innovative elements within the Better Reykjavik platform and one of the reasons for its success and general acceptance is its unique debate system which is based on users adding talking points and arguments for and against ideas instead of the traditional comment section …
Better Reykjavik incorporates an Up/Down ‘voting’ system where users vote up and down not only ideas but also debate points from other users which … [ends up presenting] the city with a list of ideas that are prioritized by its users. But not only that but also with the best points (according to its users) for and against each idea. …
Other notable innovative elements are the possibility to use video and audio to record your ideas and debate points. This method attracts users that otherwise might hesitate to participate.
Read the whole thing here.
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