Semantic analysis

Automated tools to understand the meaning of web content including user generated content.

A semantic analysis service should be provided to not only extract meaning from content in order to improve the search facility, but to improve content categorisation and tagging to suggest related reading for content creators.

This service should accept the content in the request or as a URL and return a list of topics in a machine readable format (e.g. XML, JSON, etc)  The topic list should include matches to the Local Authority taxonomy as well as other topics that have been derived through natural language analysis.

Social media integration

Integrating interaction with the council into citizens’ online lives.

The ability for users’ activity streams, their actions and participation, to be visible on their own social networks is critical in increasing citizen engagement.  At service should be provided that links with the single-sign-on and profile service and allows all Local Authority websites to publish (with user’s permission of course) activity to their Facebook, Twitter and other social media statuses.

This service must provide the users with the ability to approve each status update or set persistent permissions and so it will require user interfaces as well as APIs.

Conversation

Allowing users to converse with council staff and other users about the content on the site.

It is important to provide a consistent mechanism for online conversations to happen across all Local Authority web properties.  A conversation service should be provided that ensures that any conversations (including comment streams) are:

• have consistent interfaces and facilities
• can be monitored, moderated and managed
• meet the requirements of the AUP

This service should be adopted by any Local Authority  and available to other community websites, but there should be an expectation that conversations will also happen elsewhere online.

Social design

All important components of a Local Authority’s web presence should be designed to be used and engaged with socially.

Social design means designing things inherently to be shared, commented on, republished, reorganised, co-created and re-purposed. Furthermore, social design should force a ‘bottom up’ navigation structure, as well as a move away from the page as the primary unit of the web. In other words, instead of determining in advance where content is located, pieces of content should be designed to be appropriately social in themselves, according to predefined standards and metadata associations, and then made available in flexible, personalised ways. This allows people to discover the content via navigation, searching, relevance, serendipity and sharing.

Conversation management

Local Authorities will have to learn how to effectively and efficiently participate in and host online conversations.

The need to engage with citizens in digital spaces, either provided by the Local Authority or by another party, has two major implications:

Firstly, staff at all levels of the Authority must be familiar with the skills necessary to engage effectively, understand how to speak differently in different circumstances, and have the confidence to engage without fear of doing something wrong. Secondly, without excellent tools for monitoring and managing conversations, the administrative overhead could be so great as to be unsustainable in the long term.