Project Overview

European citizens do not participate equally in the Information society: in fact, the digital gap is moving down from infrastructures to uses. Based on this observation, local authorities in Europe have developed Digital Public Spaces (DPS) promoting e-inclusion.

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E-coop Wiki

Digital Jyväskylä
Creating better possibilities for citizen participation through digital means has been the main target for Jyväskylä in the E-COOP project. To reach this goal, different kinds of solutions have been designed for the city website.

Follow decision-making

 

Decision-making can sometimes be hard to follow. Who decides over issues that concern my own neighbourhood? How is the decision on my suburb’s health services proceeding? Which municipal organ is responsible for the decisions on parks and green areas? What is the situation on the city finances concerning schools? The Decisions application answers to this need. It enables the browsing of issues under discussion and following their proceedings in the municipal organs. The issues can be searched by topic, function or item. The agendas of the different city organs are available through the application. Issues under discussion are, as well, placed on the map which gives the user a possibility to influence them precisely, if need be. The information is updated once a day.

The service was designed together with the open data community of Jyväskylä on the basis of the open access solution made by the City of Helsinki.

Find ways to participate and influence

 

The new platform ‘Participate and influence’ assembles all the forms of participation, digital or other, on one internet site. In the service the forms of participation can be found following different logics. For instance, users interested in influencing issues concerning the children can find all the information on the right channels of participation in one place. The same applies for other areas of municipal services. On the platform it is also possible to search for different ways of participation such as digital participation channels or the more traditional citizen juries, citizen councils or community meetings.

 

The platform has been developed in cooperation with the citizens from the beginning. The ideas collected from the citizens, gathered in an open workshop, have been used to design the platform and its contents.  The City of Jyväskylä is responsible for the technical solution.

 

Access for everyone

 

Decision-making and public administration should also be concretely accessible for everyone. This is the reason to add accessibility information on the city’s map solution. The ’Accessible Jyväskylä map’ provides information on the accessibility of the public services for special groups living in and visiting the city. It considerably improves the situation of citizens with specific accessibility challenges by giving them the possibility to lead a more independent and active life. Launching the Accessibility map makes the City of Jyväskylä one of the forerunners in Finland, as only a few other cities have developed this kind of digital solutions.

 

The service was realized in close cooperation with the Council for people with special needs which is a volunteer organization. 

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