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'Cyber Policy Forum'
Information System Planning Bureau, Seoul Metropolitan Government

The Problem

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) has made a continuous effort to reflect Seoul citizens’ opinions in its policy-making process by collecting various data. However, it’s never been an easy task to collect and integrate the data but been rather long and complicated processes even for data with the least information. Although each bureau/division of the government has striven to collect diverse opinions from its people by conducting different polls, their results weren’t always sufficient enough to meet either needs of the SMG or expectations from the citizens.

To top it off, in case of the survey was conducted in an anonymous basis, most of answers were full of either unsound critiques or politically-biased opinions. Since people tend to respond the survey questions more positively when they could leave anonymous, a significant number of the polls were conducted in that way. As a result, most of collected data contained rather prejudiced ideas which didn’t quite achieve the city’s objective for accepting public suggestions through data collected from the surveys.

Consequently, an urgent need for opening a place, where people can express their thoughts and views under the Internet real-name system, was emerged in order to gather faithful suggestions from the people. Apart from such need, as the society has diversified, there have been also everlasting demands and expectations on better policies, which suit for more advanced society, but no sufficient channel where the people can discuss about the issues freely.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Since the inception of the Cyber Policy Forum in 2003, the Forum has been a marketplace where the citizens of Seoul can freely discuss about various policy issues. In doing so, the citizens have proven the fact that ordinary people also have capacity to understand sophisticated issues of our society and further, to come up with brilliant ideas.

Every month, the SMG posts different topics for the Cyber Policy Forum along with experts’ opinions about the topics on the website of the Forum so that the citizens can have in-depth discussions with other members of the society with varied viewpoints. IN doing so, the citizens could realise the fact that they are not just mere recipients of the government services. This recognition has resulted in drawing more active participation and interests in the city affairs from the people of Seoul. Moreover, the Forum has increased the level of publicity on the city’s policies to the citizens because the people could have more opportunities to obtain information about the policy issues, and consequently, the Forum has contributed to forming a considerable number of concerted ideas between the SMG and the citizens.

In a word, the Forum has not only shifted the paradigm of the city governance by easing the SMG’s burden on planning policies but raised it public awareness and understanding about the municipal issues as well. In addition, this online arena of communication has also provided a cyber space with the youth where they can become panels of the Youth Forum, deepening their insights on the governmental policies.

From the perspective of the SMG, the biggest benefit is to gain fresh and extraordinary suggestions and ideas from the citizens. In other words, with active participation from the people, public officials have been able to have a look at policy issues from different perspectives.

In addition, the SMG has introduced another cyber space where the citizens can suggest their ideas and thoughts freely since October 2006. This innovative online meeting room is named ‘Seoul Oasis-pour your imagination!’ Since the space has opened, average 27 brand new ideas were suggested by participating citizens, and some of them have been adopted as a part of the city policies. On top of that, the government has been reflecting the people’s ideas via another new mechanism titled ○mSeoul702, which is the SMG’s online service that anyone can access on their mobile phones.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
In October 2002, in order to address the mentioned problems, the Information System Planning Bureau (ISPB), which takes a charge of operating the official website of the SMG, made a proposal to the city mayor to launch a program which enables people to discuss on various ideas online. The program was named ‘Cyber Policy Forum,’ and after its pilot program was successfully completed, the Bureau commenced a full-scale operation of the Forum in 2003.

The ISPB is in charge of overall operation of the Cyber Policy Forum, while directors of each bureau of the SMG take care of suggesting subject issues for the Forum. Moreover, each bureau has also actively made contributions to a reliable operation of the Forum by reflecting good ideas from the citizens in their works, and this kind of interaction has triggered to draw more participation from the people.

Last but not least, the other stakeholders of this initiative are Seoul citizens as they have been playing a key role for whole idea of the initiative. The citizens are such an important component of successful Cyber Policy Forum as their voices and thoughts are potential policy issues of the SMG. Therefore, the city government has selected excellent ideas came from the Forum, and awarded the one who derives a winning idea with appropriate prizes.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Main objectives of this initiative are firstly, to provide citizens opportunities for understanding the government’s policy issues and to facilitate active discussions. Another objective of the SMG is to activate the citizens’ participation in public administration, and invite them to voice their opinions on policy issues, and ultimately, to reflect such opinions in the city’s policymaking process, producing better policies for the citizens.

In terms of a strategic operation of the Cyber Policy Forum, the ISPB has focused on keeping the relevance of topics, and reflecting citizens’ opinions as much as possible so as to draw more civil participation.

Firstly, topics of the Forum have been selected among suggestions from the citizens and experts every month to ensure the Cyber Policy Forum to be on a right track with right social issues. Those topics have to be hot issues that directly affect the citizens’ lives. To this end, the ISPB posts experts’ opinions on the website of the Forum to guide the citizens about topics to a right direction and to highlight pros and cons on issues. Anyone can put their own opinions and comments on the website, and they can discuss about the given issue each other.

As for the second strategy, the SMG actively promotes and advertises the Forum to draw more citizens’ participation by using diverse means, including press releases. In addition to this, the city government also emails 90,000 registered members of its website notifying them each month’s topic.

Last strategy for encouraging the people’s participation, the SMG offers small gifts to eight best discussants every month. Among them, three best discussants are selected through online voting cast by the citizens, whilst the rest of five discussants are selected by public officials of the SMG.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
: Preparatory processes for the Cyber Policy Forum commenced in 2003.
: An official launch of the Forum in 7 Feb., 2003
: The SMG commissioned a survey on participation level of the Forum from 24 Sep.
through 6 Oct. 2003.
: The SMG’s new online service ‘Seoul Oasis-pour your imagination!’ with the purpose
of encouraging the people to express their thoughts and ideas freely on the website of
the city so that the government can reflect diverse views from the citizens into its
policy-making process since October 2006
: The introduction of an online service ‘○mSeoul702’ which has enabled the people to
access the internet via their mobile phones, suggesting varied ideas and opinions about
the city policies since May 2007

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The idea of the Cyber Policy Forum has been initiated with the purpose of inducing proactive citizens’ participation in discussing about current policy issues. At the same time, the Forum aims at promoting such issues and various governmental measures to the citizens. In other words, positive participation from the people of Seoul was quintessential so as to maximise the effect of operating the Forum.

However, despite of the SMG’s endeavour in promoting the Forum, it didn’t appear to be an easy task when it comes to make its people active users of this program. Therefore, the most urgent matter that the SMG had to deal with was to find ways to encourage the people to login the website as often as possible. Indeed, the low rate of the citizens’ participation was rather problematic at the beginning stage of the Forum.

In this respect, the SMG has come up with different solutions to tackle the problem by:
- having different discussion topics for every single month in order to draw attentions from varied people from all walks of life
- offering experts/specialists opinions on the given topics so that participants can have smoother and in-depth debate
- conducting a live poll along with the Forum so that anyone can express their views on the topic
- renewing the programs of the Forum, and creating more detailed menu of the web site to let the participants know as to whether or not their suggestions/proposals have been taken into consideration in a policy-making process
- having a partnership with a private portal provider to let the citizens participate the Forum via more diversified channel
- having online banners advertising the Youth Forum on websites which deal with juvenile issues, including websites of the Seoul Office of Education, Government Youth Commission, and Seoul Youth Digital Media Centre

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
In order to produce the website menu, the SMG has worked with technical advisors from an existing service provider of the Information System Planning Bureau (ISPB).

Mainly, the staff from the ISPB has completed a plan for creating relevant menu of the Cyber Policy Forum, while the technicians from the service provider took a charge of producing necessary programs and designs. Next step included tests into each menu, fixing problems which had occurred during the testing period. Once the problems were sorted out, a final check-up on the operation of whole contents of the website was conducted in collaboration with the technicians and the Bureau, which was followed by a test-operation. It had took approximately two months to open the website officially to the public as the website had to be operated during the period on a pilot basis so as to prepare for potential shortcomings that it might have.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
As the internet has penetrated deeply into everyone’s life, the cyber environment in Seoul citizens’ lives has been dramatically expanded. The citizens get public service, pay taxes and retrieve administrative information on the internet. More and more online activities are going to replace those we have done offline. As the cyber space has brought a number of advantages, growing number of people have become regular users of the internet. Accordingly, the membership of the SMG web-site also has grown larger from 35,000 in Jan. 2004 to 93,000 as of Jan. 2005. Therefore, people’s participation in the Forum is expected to grow more along with the growing membership.

Cyber Policy Forum and its sustainability are absolutely positive since it is opened to everyone working as an efficient tool that encourages the citizens’ participation in the municipality. Plus, the operation of the website doesn’t cost much, and policymakers will be able to know public opinions prior to executing policies, which in turn reducing possible errors and improving efficiency. That is why other cities and district offices in Korea are now benchmarking the Cyber Policy Forum of the SMG.

In a word, as the citizens’ desire to participate in the policy-making process is universal phenomenon, the cyber space like the Cyber Policy Forum will be definitely transferable to any public agencies throughout the world.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Considering the fact that policymaking is always rather difficult assignment for policymakers, especially when it comes to deal with some critical and controversial issues, having public opinions presented during heated discussions of the Cyber Policy Forum should be an innovative idea both for those officials and those citizens who expressed their views.

In this respect, the Cyber Policy Forum has given public officials of the SMG indispensable lesson- by reflecting citizens’ voices they have been able to reduce avoidable errors in executing policies and improving the quality of public service after all. Moreover, the Forum has increased the level of publicity on policy issues to citizen, and offered the citizens an opportunity to understand about the objectives of their government’s policy.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Information System Planning Bureau, Seoul Metropolitan Government
Institution Type:   Government Department  
Contact Person:   Jeeyoung Kim
Title:   Liaison Officer  
Telephone/ Fax:   82 2 6361 3116
Institution's / Project's Website:   82 2 3707 9189
E-mail:   jeeyoung@seoul.go.ku  
Address:   Seoul Metropolitan Government, 31, Taepyung-Ro 1 Ga, Chung-Gu
Postal Code:   100-744
City:   Seoul
State/Province:  
Country:  

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