Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation An Introduction i Foreword In just three decades, the internet has evolved from an experimental tool for researchers
All of the most innovative ideas, from Skype to Wikipedia, from online cartography to app stores, had a very quick, viral spreading.
Web platforms are the locus on which the CAPS projects focus on enabling the dynamics of collective awareness construction.
it is a socio-technical solution that is composed of multiple ICT tools, such as websites forums, social networks, collaborative platforms, deliberating tools, data visualisation, etc
web. Among others it is possible to mention Avaaz, which defines itself as'A global
web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere 'Laborvoices, which allows companies to get information about their suppliers in developing
explicitly addresses, according to the model of Wikipedia, the existence of different levels of contribution. For the general public the existence of CAPS initiatives can be a way
Moving from citizen engagement to the data that these citizens produce on the web intentionally or unintentionally, a main research question is how to make that data
to looking at what is used already on the web and how it is successful, it is also necessary
like the one of Wikipedia, that show reward mechanisms based on credibility, recognition and respect, that are not too different from the reward mechanisms of
†WEB-COSI: increases trust in collectively-generated statistics Moreover, the study on Digital Social Innovation in Europe (DSI) is dedicated to
Project Acronym Project Full Title Project Website DECARBONET A Decarbonisation Platform for Citizen Empowerment and Translating
WEB-COSI Web Communities for Statistics for Social Innovation www. webcosi. eu CAPS2020 CAPS2020 http://caps2020. eu
Wikipedia †Users of online communities interested in knowing more about their data and in
and meta-analysis. These projects are WEB-COSI CAPS2020, IA4SI and SCICAFE2. 0. These projects, by their very nature, are developing
WEB-COSI makes a Wiki of progress statistics available and fosters the use and improvement of quality of nonofficial statistics beyond GDP statistics
participation, and with WEB-COSI in terms of analytics and visualisations CHEST shows potential synergies could emerge with IA4SI, and from their
Web 2. 0 social computing principles motivate the importance of placing useful, usable analytic tools in the hands of users themselves, balancing the traditional focus on †executive
CATALYST, DECARBONET, IA4SI, WEB-COSI projects Collective Assessment When many people coordinate each other through the use of digital technologies, one of
Such evaluation can be delegated to algorithms, like in the case of Google Pagerank, where search results are ordered according to different criteria such as relative
statistical data collections (WEB-COSI), and reputation and rating systems (WIKIRATE e-Democracy, e-Participation, Direct Democracy
and WEB-COSI are focused on open data integration by providing different standards, tools and methods for data federation.
CBPP projects and initiatives, other projects, like SCICAFE2. 0, WEB-COSI, and WIKIRATE actually leverage some of the characteristics of this mode of production in delivering their
WIKIRATE and WEB-COSI 38 Privacy-Aware Tools and Applications Privacy-aware systems have evolved over the last decade from privacy-enhancing
The confluence of network-centric systems, mobile telecommunications, semantic web and web 2. 0, as well as the emergence of the growth of networked media, in particular the
creative media industry and prosumers sharing media for entertainment, has contributed to a thriving ecosystem of online social networks (OSN) serving various business models and
2. Assembl http://assembl. org Assembl is a web application that enables hundreds to thousands of people to work together with the goal of creating a single, tangible
and back them up with websites. By using Cohere people can support or challenge each other's ideas
Crabgrass https://we. riseup. net Crabgrass is a software libre web application designed for group
knowledge-building (specifically evidence-building) web platform. It was designed in KMI by the team developing the concept of'Contested Collective Intelligence',where
-and-services/products A set of In-Home Displays, smart plugs and web visualisation of energy consumption
Esperanto, is a network of interconnected sites, where you can communicate, share collaborate with others
and create your web spaces easily 25. Libbitcoin http://libbitcoin. dyne. org Libbitcoin is a community of developers
Mailpile https://www. mailpile. is Free and open-source web mail client with user -friendly encryption and privacy features
Metamaps http://metamaps. c/Metamaps. cc is a free and open-source web platform for changemakers, innovators, educators and students.
Anybody living in Rio de janeiro can log on to the website and denounce a problem and launch a campaign to fix it.
Reddit http://www. reddit. com Social networking service and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct
posts and determine their position on the site's pages. Content entries are organised by areas of interest called'subreddits
Slashdot http://slashdot. org Slashdot is a website based on, and runs, the Slashdot-Like Automated Storytelling Homepage software
Utopia Docs http://getutopia. com Collaborative web annotation tool for PDF files 50. Wagn http://wagn. org Wagn is a Wiki Platform
and managing your website, in a collaborative way Yeswiki is written Free Software in PHP language under the GPL licence,
creating and managing an internet or intranet website 54. Your Priorities https://www. yrpri. org/home/world Your Priorities is an
e-democracy web application designed by the nonprofit Citizens Foundation to help groups of people speak with one voice.
By converging cloud services, mobile telecommunication and Web 2. 0 technologies the collective awareness platforms will support wide spread participative engagement
a political one) using the web as a principal channel. Providing an adequate tool is definitely
engaging European citizens in a sign-in campaign centralised on the initiative web 69 †Outlook for the Future
Badii A. 2000)' Online Point-of-Click Web Usability Mining with Popeval-MB, Webeval -AB and the C-Assure Methodology'.
Forte, A. & Bruckman, A. 2005) Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open†Content Publishing.
from Google and Amazon to Airbnb and Kickstarter. Huge sums of public money have supported digital innovation in business,
where commercial Internet providers weren†t providing a connection. The idea was to build a †mesh network†where each
good, even though the web itself was founded at CERN to further a vision of scientific knowledge sharing.
impressive success stories in obtaining a global reach, in particular campaigning sites such as Avaaz and parts of the collaborative economy and the maker movement.
web a scientific project at their inceptions the Internet and web were based on open standards and a radically decentralised
architecture that could be harnessed by any actor. So the Web was able to reach a
critical mass of connectivity so that both commercial entities (like Google) and noncommercial entities (like Wikipedia
were able to exploit the â€oenetwork effect. †Beyond the Internet, many new technol -ogies such as open hardware may have
positive network externalities. Â This network effect applies in a straight -forward manner for some services such
as social networking sites like Facebook and sites that require large user-bases like Wikipedia or Airbnb,
but it may not apply easily to some other services such as e -democracy platforms, caring networks and
local currencies. For each kind of social -ly innovative service, we want to de -termine how they can maximise their
web browsers to be implemented over dif -ferent underlying platforms, avoiding pro -prietary systems and vendor lock in on the
web. This was a hard and contested battle which turned out to be the best way to do
-cess to social data held on third-party sites and permissions to get into proprietary †app stores. †The lack of standards forces
of which are based in Europe (Google controlling nearly 82%of the global search market and 98%of the mobile search
Google has developed the open source Android operating system and spawned innovation in applica -tions worldwide; Facebook has enabled
by US companies such as IBM, Google and Ciscos, partly because of the lack of alternatives Take for example the commercial success
of Google: Google has built already one of the world†s largest networks of computers and data centres for online-search results
and can repurpose their technology in or -der to expand into other data-driven ser
Delivering a web service, Network, Research project, Research project, Advocating and campaign -ing, Maker and hacker spaces, Investing and Funding, Event, Incubators and Accelerators, Advisory or expert body, Education And Training. 3 Technology
create and share on the web. It achieves this through two primary activities, Ouishare. net and collaborative economy events.
Openspending encourages transparency and accountability, whilst participatory web platforms such as Wikigender and Wikiprogress developed by the OECD facilitate
Openspending is a data sharing community and web application that aims to track every government and corporate financial
and implement open social web standard standards, contributing to the W3c Federated Social Web Working group
32 Growing a Digital Social Innovation Ecosystem for Europe Safecast is both the name of a Geiger counter built by the open source community as well as a global sensor network where
-vited programmers and developers to make apps and web services based on the data which to date have resulted in more than 60 applications for citizens.
combine or turn into web -based or mobile applications that citizens may find useful. The movement for more and better open data has grown significantly
set up open data websites at the regional level that can be considered good practices and in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, the city of Barcelona is leading Multicouncil
Commons4eu, partners got together to explore the development of collaborative web projectsâ and bottom-up broadband technologies15.
WEB SERVICE RESEARCH PROJECT EDUCATION AND TRAINING NETWORK ADVOCATING AND CAMPAIGNING EVENT INCUBATORS AND ACCELERATORS
Digital Social Innovation website could introduce innovators to both other local innovators and innovators sharing similar
Social web entrepreneurs Startup Europe Smart Cities Internet of things Innovation and innovation policy are not
Social web entrepreneurs Startup Europe Smart Cities Internet of things Bottom up and grassroots approaches
Innovation (CAPS), Web entrepreneurs young entrepreneurs in the field of active and healthy ageing, digital champions, in
Web) Encourage people to think about Who could implement it (European Commission, national governments, mu -nicipal etc
is supported the Google programme Google for Entrepreneurs36 that in 2011 created a campus where innovation and start-ups can meet
The Impact Hub of Vienna37 is a network of several cities across the world which, according to their websites,
people around the world access to information, the possibility to add (web) content and services themselves, access to devices and modular applications that talk to one another
Federated Social Web â€oedo-not-track†technologies should be implemented in order to give users control over their social data and sensitive information, to make it easier for businesses to
An important effort towards a federated identity system Is federated the W3c Social Web Working Group58 to develop
The federated web standards will also be implemented within the EC-funded D-CENT Project59 that is piloting federated social applications for participatory
Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the Web is advocating for a sort of Magna carta for the Internet to estabilish basic rights
A Magna carta for all Web users could be directly crowd-sourced from the Web itself
Wide Web Foundation81 illustrate examples of how this could be captured and measured. Another metric to focus on could
As an example, the Fukushima prefecture in Japan hosts a map of the Safecast data on its website, and in
11 http://www. nesta. org. uk/sites/default /files/good incubation wv. pdf 1 Combinatorial innovation means
â€oedoes the Web Extend the Mind†available online at: http://www. ibiblio org/hhalpin/homepage/publications
/websci2013-halpin-web-extend-the-mind pdf and published as Harry Halpin â€oedoes the web extend the mind?
†Proceedings of the ACM Web Science Conference (2013): 139-147 3 Over-the-topâ is a general term for
service providers that develop services that are utilized over a network that is owned by traditional network operators
Big OTT are Google, Skype, Youtube Netflix, Facebook, Amazon and EBAY 4 Sestini, Fabrizio.``Collective awareness
platforms: Engines for sustainability and ethicsâ€.  Technology and Society Magazine, IEEE 31.4 (2012): 54-62
/sites/digital-agenda/files/IA4SI%20 %E2%80%93%20fact-sheet%20 v02. pdf Nesta and Young Foundation Discussion
/sites/default/files/event/attachments /Copy%20of%20generating social Innovation%20v4. pdf Innovation platform. Measurement for policy
/45 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki /Knowledge commons 46 http://bit. ly/1kivc4h 47 http://www. w3. org
standpoint, see the Communia website http://bit. ly/V2knnk 50 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki
/Reinventing innovation policy Policy Tools and Action 20 http://ec. europa. eu /information society/digital-agenda
51 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki /Interfaz de programaci%C3%B3n de aplicaciones 52 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki
/Extensible markup language 53 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki /Resource description framework 54 http://linkeddata. org /55 http://www. w3. org/TR
/rdf-sparql-query /56 http://www. theopeninter. net /57 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki /Dataportability
58 http://www. w3. org/Social/WG 59 http://dcentproject. eu 60 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki
/Hypertext transfer protocol secure 61 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki /Red privada virtual 62 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki /End-to-end encryption
63 https://abc4trust. eu /64 http://www. ftc. gov/system/files /documents/reports/data-brokers
-call-transparency-accountability -report-federal-trade-commission-may -2014/140527databrokerreport. pdf 65 http://www. citizenme. com 66 http://openpds. media. mit. edu
/72 http://www. nesta. org. uk/sites/default /files/good incubation wv. pdf 29 http://www. citizens. is
/76 http://www. nominettrust. org. uk/sites /default/files/Nominet%20trust%20-%20 Triple%20helix%20overview%20paper
http://www. e-living. net/sites/default /files/field/image/internet-of-things-2. jpg
http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki /Arduino#mediaviewer/File: Arduino316 jpg Accessed 29th january 2015 Page 47
//budgetparticipatif. paris. fr/bp/jsp/site /Portal. jsp? document id=133&portlet id=100 Accessed 29th january 2015
com/2013/04/10/web-2-0-vs-web-3-0 -what-really-Is accessed-the-difference
the west, a gasworks site. There are 20 condominium buildings with 1700 people living there. Only a
Google, which allows employees to spend 20%of their time on their own projects, and IKEA which
including regeneration of brownfield sites and reduction of air pollution In thematic objective (8) promoting employment and supporting labour mobility, the possible
https://www. youtube. com/watch? v=b9c3pppxk1w 12 The Solution Revolution: How business, government and social enterprises are teaming up to solve society†s
examples include Google, which allows employees to spend 20%of their time on their own projects,
http://www. britishcouncil. org/sites/britishcouncil. uk2/files/what will social enterprise look like in europe by 2020 0. pdf 55p A r T I †S O C i a L I N N O V A t I O N, A n E w P A t H
-tive†s dedicated website. 120 They will be completed by the end of 2014 In the Single Market Act II, the Commission also committed to developing a methodology
The development and use of a web-based application, the Toolkit, designed to facilitate partner search
In January 2014, a new website on the European Company (Societas Europeae †SE) was created.
The website is available in English, French and German170. The Your Europe portal will also provide a link to the SE website.
As a result, there are also plans to create a similar website for the SCE 3. 1. 5. 2. Proposal for a European Foundation
The February 2012 proposal for a European Foundation Statute aims to make it easier for public benefit purpose entities to carry out their activities across the EU. These en
Moreover, the website features case studies of the most successful social innova -tions, profiles of leading social innovators, analyses by thought leaders, and information
Over the course of two years, the website has emerged as a valuable tool on the dis
-izen web platforms to target sustainability challenges. Experiments in social innovation are expected to provide collective solutions to pressing needs (including policy needs
y Increasing trust in collectively-generated statistics (WEB-COSI: this is about en -gaging communities in the discussion and definition of official (e g. from the OECD
Web-COSI Web Communities for Statistics for Social Innovation aims to improve the way people engage with statistics, wheth
-er they are produced officially or generated via community-based organisations. Under the mantra †Statistics for
Everyoneâ€, Web-COSI will be exploring innovative ways to bring the production, promotion, access and engagement
Web-COSI is designed to improve people†s engagement with statistics and aims to *increase trust in collectively generated statistics
the event can be viewed on the website 125p A r T I I †M A i N d E V E L O P m E N t S i N e U P O
The conference brought together memorial sites/muse -ums and teachers, Holocaust education and Human rights Education
the â€oenetwork effect†caused by the spread of the Internet and the Web throughout society
particular grassroots communities of civic innovators, web entrepreneurs, hackers, geeks, SMES open source and DIY makers,
project website: www. socialinnovator. info Dr Michael Harris, NESTA Published March 2010 CONTENTS 1 CONTENTS
launched an accompanying website, www. socialinnovator. info, to gather comments, case studies and new methods We†re also very conscious of what†s not in here.
These sites show how to run competitions for †mash up†ideas from citizens using government data, such as Sunlight Labs and Show Us a
UK, the website Report Empty Homes, sponsored by the Empty Homes Agency, allows citizens to report empty properties around the UK
User feedback on service quality, including web-based models such as Patient Opinion and I Want Great care that hold service
through many routes, from surveys and websites to user representation on management boards and committees
40) Web-based tools for co-design, such as the Australian site for people with disabilities and their carers, web2care
PROPOSALS AND IDEAS 31 2 32 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION 41) Creative thinking methods such as Edward De Bono†s †Six Thinking
spawn a number of similar websites, including the Norwegian Ideas Bank (which focuses mainly on issues of environmental sustainability
Innovation, a website which enables people to make suggestions for improving their healthcare systems. These websites include a vast range
of ideas †everything from the brilliant to the downright absurd. But even when ideas are evidently excellent,
Youtube can be used as a virtual video booth 58) Suggestion boxes within organizations are the most basic method for
website, based on the principles as laid out in President Obama†s Memorandum on collaborative, participatory and transparent
The website enables citizens to take part in a discussion about the best way to effect the President†s Memorandum in three
One example in the UK is the Prime Minister†s e-Petitions website which has had nearly 10 million petitioners.
73) Webinars are a fairly simple device for organising seminars over the web. Examples include the webinars organised by the Cities of Migration
network which have linked NGOS, foundations and academics involved in social action related to diversity around the world
74) Dialogue Cafã uses state of the art video conferencing (Telepresence to link up citizens from all around the world.
hybrid cars through Google, and C40 city governments. An example of open-testing, Google†s initiative hopes to educate consumers body
Image courtesy of Google, Inc 3 54 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION Finance for emerging ideas
those around the web that share knowledge and intellectual property 106) Business strategies. The context for a business model is a business
of a key input such as a critical site or personnel (as in sport. Mapping a
business models adopted by web companies which, like social ventures have an interest in maintaining free access, while at the same time
structures are the site of contending pressures of goals and interests. The organisation may have a social goal of benefitting others,
considerable web-based innovation in this field, with websites providing guidance on organisational forms, and governance.
example is One Click Organisations, an ultra simple web-based tool for creating new organisations, changing constitutions, and engaging
or download systems (such as web designs and technologies) that are becoming freely available. One model is
137) Web presence. All social ventures now have to have a website. But their full potential has begun only to be explored.
Many ventures are by their nature information intensive †in respect to the quality and tangibility
as well as establishing a presence on other social networking sites like Youtube and Facebook which can act as feeders to the venture†s website
Above all, a venture needs to devote resources to the constant updating and active hosting of their sites.
A good example is the site of the co -operative football team Ebbsfleet United (My Football Club),
which has a team of six working on their website to involve the members, a model
that could be adopted by many consumer co-ops among others 138) Marketing and branding. Social ventures, particularly those that
placed its most valuable technical information on the web for open access in order to enable its ideas to be adopted more rapidly.
intermediary institutions, the web opens up the possibility of making new types of connections and raising finance from potential consumers
spreading new ideas, for example via a website such as netsquared. org People can take part as collaborators, co-producers, consumers, activists
through a network of online communities, web related resources and peer review. Another example is Australian Social Innovation Exchange
197) Diffusion through the web. Viral marketing techniques can be used to tap into existing social networks and spread social ideas.
multidimensional needs are a key site for potential collaboration Communities of Practice are one important type of collaboration (see
Members of the Network are supported also with branding, web and technical support, policy work, media and PR, and internal/external
time and travel cost expenses that people incur to visit a site as a proxy
for their valuation of that site. Because travel and time costs increase with distance it†s possible to construct a †marginal willingness to payâ€
curve for a particular site 5 SCALING AND DIFFUSION 103 212) Social accounting matrices and satellite accounts are used to
The web has brought also systemic innovation to retailing and news, and has the potential (albeit not yet
This involves a wide range of issues from the use of the web to the nature of technology and the design of distributed systems which
used on networks like ebay, and more formal legal devices (like public databases). ) With the increasing mixing of voluntary and professional
245) Platform infrastructures, such as feedback sites on public services or M-PESA€ s platform for phone-based banking
It was created in 2000 on the site of the old Toronto General Hospital. Image courtesy of Mars Discovery District
meeting social needs to design web-based solutions to particular social challenges. Over one weekend, groups have to design
functioning website 136 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION Innovation networks Networks can serve as alternatives to formal organisational structures within
developed a website called Mypolice †a tool for members of the public to give feedback,
social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, and Bebo, or collaborative projects such as Wikipedia. It is easy to see the generative potential of
platforms: as more people get involved, the wider the scope and reach, and by extension, the greater the social impact.
This includes websites which provide user -generated information such as ehow and Netmums. Netmums provides information on a variety of local resources †including child-friendly
half a million members who use the site on a regular basis †uploading and contributing information 308) Platforms for connecting.
This includes social networking websites Facebook, Orkut, and Bebo, as well as websites which aim to connect people together in real life for particular causes.
One example of this is Landshare †which connects people who want to grow fruit and
Lego have created a web platform †Designbyme 3. 0 †which enables users (mainly children) to design their own Lego sets.
system, the Mozilla Firefox browser, and the Apache web server. These rely on a large and highly distributed community of programmers to
develop, maintain, and improve the software. Peer-to-peer platforms can be characterised by decentralisation, self-selected participation
at every level has been the site of almost constant change †particularly in the last 30 years.
website, Budget Allocator, which offers citizens the chance to shape municipal budgets 330) Sequencing in funding.
rental value of sites after the public investment has been undertaken The Greater london Enterprise Board financed its operational
extension of the Google model where engineers are encouraged to spend 20 per cent of their time developing their own projects.
Civil society and the grant economy are the most common sites of social innovation †in campaigns, social movements, non-governmental organisations
field, the web offers new ways to cut costs and widen connections. Websites like Kiva,
which connect donors with social entrepreneurs, have already been 2 172 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION
Internet donor sites dramatically reduce the cost of fundraising (estimated at between 15 per cent and 33
We can expect similar websites to develop features like donor forums, star ratings, Good Giving Guides and
Worldchanging, a series of books and a website which includes tens of thousands of stories about new tools, models and ideas for building a
translation software on its Meedan website of Arabic blogs, or Dialogue Cafã and the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) using Telepresence
The website Your Ethical Money provides advice on how to direct personal investment into green, sustainable and ethical products
-lending website which enables individuals to lend small sums of money to entrepreneurs on low incomes
charities and social enterprises in sites in central London (see also method 487 467) R&d mentored funding prior to start-up lending, such as
Guaranteed Electronic Market (GEM), a web-based market for people to exchange time and loans of products.
or web-based social networking around specific issues (there are reportedly 18 million cancer related websites, the great
majority generated by those affected by the disease. In these instances the innovations are generated outside the market and outside the state, many of
keep discarded items out of landfill sites by gifting them. It now has over five million members in 85 countries
marks to organisations that produce information and moderate websites and forums Propertising not privatising In the social economy, rather than restricting access to knowledge and
-based social innovation that uses web technology to give voice to citizen journalists. Image courtesy of Erik MÃ ller
516) Neighbourhood websites and other media can become hubs for exchanges and local news. Local residents can find out about initiatives
Examples include hyper-local website Boscalicious Year 1 pupils from Collaton St mary Primary school dig up organic
Constructed households as sites of innovation The longstanding practice of institutionalising those with special needs or
Web based platforms for organising grass roots campaigns In the last year alone, Facebook has been used to mobilise protesters
ebay 114 Echoing Green 176 ehow 138 Elderpower 205 Eliasson, Olafur 23 Emerson, Jed 104
Google 53; 165 Gore, Al 26; 95; 96 Governance 67-68; 173-175 Grameen 34;
Mozilla Firefox 139 M-Pesa 115; 183; 184; 202 Mutualism 65 New Mutualism 65 Informal Mutualism 206-207
Philanthropic ebays 172 Plane Stupid 27; 28 Planning for Real 43 Platforms 40; 95; 117;
Web, The 21,38, 45,79, 97,108, 171 Web2care 31 Wellink 205 Welsh Water 65,183 West Philly Hybrid X-Team 170
Wikipedia 138 Wikiprogress 120 Wiser Earth 178 Wordpress 138-139 Workplace as Museum 75 Work Ventures 183
Youtube 39,75 Yumshare 198 Yunus, Muhammad 34,210 Zero Carbon 22,77, 112 Zero Waste 111 Zopa 189
Plane Stupid, Americaspeaks, Dialogue Cafã, Helsinki Design Lab, Google Inc Un Techo para Chile, Riversimple, Working Rite, Danone Communities, Sekem
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
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