Wyner on Workshop on FP7 eGovernance and Policy Modelling Projects

Dr. Adam Wyner of the University of Leeds Centre for Digital Citizenship has posted Note on Workshop on FP7 eGovernance and Policy Modelling Projects, on his blog, Language Logic Law Software.

The EU-funded Project IMPACT : Integrated Method for Policy Making Using Argument Modelling and Computer Assisted Text Analysis, was featured at the Workshop. Click here for more information about Project IMPACT.

Here is introductory information about the post:

On January 27th, 2012, I attended a workshop in Sheffield, United Kingdom on current FP7 eGovernance and Policy Modelling projects. This was an opportunity to hear from and meet participants in other projects, largely based in the United Kingdom. The information (somewhat augmented) about the workshop is below. My colleagues in the IMPACT Project, Professor Ann Macintosh and Neil Benn, presented our side of the story.

Aims

• To close the gap between the availability of cutting edge R & D in eGovernance and Policy Modelling and its take-up in local and central government. It will bring the new governance projects and those about to exploit their results into a collaborative environment.
• To link the projects currently creating the best practice of the future with initiatives seeking to share current best practice, thus assisting with “exploitation” of the new initiatives.
• To briefly assess how these initiatives may be of global benefit by examining how China may be encouraged to take a short cut to sustainable development and looking at joint approaches to China.

For more information, please see the complete post.

Project IMPACT: Two New Reports

Two new reports were issued in June 2011 by the EU-funded Project IMPACT: Integrated Method for Policy Making Using Argument Modelling and Computer Assisted Text Analysis:

• A report on the Argument Analysis, Tracking and Visualisation tool (AVT) (specifically, a report “describ[ing] the requirements analysis and specification, as well as the construction plan” for this tool); and
• A report describing the Argument Reconstruction tool (specifically, a report “formulat[ing] the requirements, review[ing] the applicability of currently available computational linguistics techniques, discuss[ing] the functionality of comparable existing tools and provid[ing] a specification of the first version of the tool with a walk-through of an example”).

In addition, the Project IMPACT Website now includes pages listing the publications and presentations produced in connection with the project.

Call for Proposals: 2010 EU e-Justice Action Grants

[NOTE: In addition to the call for proposals described on this post, readers may be interested in the call for proposals for 2010 Criminal Justice Action Grants, designated JLS/2010/JPEN/AG.]

A call for proposals — with submission deadline of 4 August 2010 — has been issued for e-Justice Action Grants, with the designation JLS/2010/JPEN/AG/EJ, by the EU Directorate General for Justice, Freedom, and Security.

According to the call, “[a]ll projects should aim to provide practical tools to enable better access to crossborder justice for EU citizens.”

Proposals are invited on the following topics:

• “Development of technical tools to support translation and interpretation
• Support to cross-border use of videoconferencing tools
• Development of paperless procedures, for example by the development of dynamic forms and functionalities
• Development of national registers with a view to (future) interconnection at European level via the European e-Justice Portal
• Development of tools implementing EU online procedures
• Development of proof-of-concept projects for online service of judicial or extrajudicial documents.”

For more information, please see the call for proposals.

HT Ronald van den Hoogen.

The IMPACT Project: Policy Argument Modeling & Text Analysis

A number of legal informatics scholars and institutions are involved in the new EU research project called IMPACT: Integrated Method for Policy Making Using Argument Modelling and Computer Assisted Text Analysis.

The goal of the project is to apply those computing methods to “facilitate deliberations about policy at a conceptual, language-independent level.” Many of the policy debates targeted by the project will inform law-making processes.

The project also seeks to develop applications and tools to assist officials and citizens in deliberating about policies, including “tools for reconstructing arguments from data resources distributed throughout the Internet.” The tools will be designed as Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) or widgets, so that they can be integrated into a variety of systems.

The tools are to be integrated into an open source content management system. The project developers plan to make publicly available an Application Programming Interface (API) for services required by the tools.

Legal informatics institutions involved in the project include:

• The University of Amsterdam’s Leibniz Center for Law;
• Fraunhofer FOKUS;
• The University of Leeds’s Centre for Digital Citizenship (whose project team includes Dr. Adam Wyner);
• The University of Liverpool’s Department of Computer Science; and
• Zebralog GmbH & Co KG.

For more information, please see the project’s Website.