Policy Development - the Wiki Way?
Policy
development is an intensive process of "research, analysis, consultation and
synthesis of information to produce recommendations" for direction or specific
action on an issue (MB Office of
Auditor General 2003). It can take months and even years to develop policy.
Bringing the right people into the process often means bringing in people with
already stretched time resources, which can limit the timeliness of policy
development. Are there ways to speed up the process and be more accommodating
to the heavy workloads of individuals?
Information
and communication technologies (ICTs) - podcasts, webinars, blogs, wikis, etc. - are becoming mainstream in the business world. Using online tools is a way to
connect people with different perspectives and experiences and these tools tend to
be a more flexible use of peoples' time. The KIS Project has been incorporating
various ICTs in its efforts to engage people in discussing the future of
agriculture and rural communities. KIS' latest initiative is the policy wiki. A popular
wiki is Wikipedia, which allows for
collaborative development of a virtual encyclopedia. The KIS Policy Wiki uses the same platform as
Wikipedia to bring together knowledgeable parties to collaboratively develop
agriculture policy.
The first policy wiki opened on June 6th. KIS has invited close to 30 individuals to develop policy alternatives and background information on the issue of carbon credit policy for agriculture (link to policy document). Given the likelihood of a growing market for carbon, now seems like a good time to take stock of our body of knowledge regarding the prospects for Saskatchewan's agricultural sector to supply carbon credits and the policy alternatives that could support this activity.
Registered wiki users have three weeks (June 6 until June 30) to add and edit content on the document, after which the KIS Executive will synthesize the content into a report for submission to parties interested in using the information for forming views and making decisions about carbon credit policy. The final report will not recommend specific policies, but it will have analysis, consultation and research yielding policy alternatives. Please feel free to view the policy wiki, if you wish to become a participant in the wiki you can send an email to the KIS Project requesting to be added as a registered user.
This is certain to be an engaging and thought provoking exercise for the collaborators. KIS is experimenting with the wiki approach to gauge its usefulness in policy development. Could wikis become common ways to develop policy recommendations? If so, what future policy issues should be looked at using the wiki platform? Please leave your suggestions as a comment to this blog entry or email kis.project@usask.ca
This blog entry was posted by the KIS Executive. To read additional Illative Blog entries or to leave comments on this entry, please visit www.illativeblog.ca. The Illative Blog is an initiative by the Knowledge Impact in Society (KIS) Project based out of the University of Saskatchewan. Email correspondence can be sent to kis.project@usask.ca
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