Designing Useful Information for Community Decision Making: A Civic Website Research Project Michele Simmons Miami University M. Simmons | CCCC 06

A Civic Website Research Project: Over the past three years, students in six visual rhetoric courses and I worked with two counties and multiple community members to: examine online literacy and research practices develop effective, usable civic websites on: Stormwater Pollution Prevention Watershed Protection and Management Recycling Opportunities Water and Sewer Management Cooperative Management Weed Areas

Community Partners’ Goals for Each Website: Stormwater Pollution Prevention (2 different county sites) Fulfill EPA requirements that all municipalities in Ohio provide educational information on how storm water creates erosion and sediment control problems. East Fork Watershed Collaborative Provide citizens awareness of the multiple creeks within a local watershed, the current environmental concerns of each area, and what local county officials were doing to address each concern. Recycling Opportunities Qualify for additional county funding from the state by providing citizens with a list of local recycling centers. Water and Sewer Management Provide clearinghouse for construction regulations and water quality reports.

for what purposes might you use a website on x, what would you expected to find on such a site, what, in your opinion would make the website useful what, in your past experience makes websites useful what, in your past experience makes websites difficult to use what, in your opinion is missing from this website what, if anything helped you use the information you were most interested in what, if anything made using the website more difficult how would you improve the website what would you like to do with the site that you could not

Enable Civic Literacies and Participation with Website Designs that: Encourage agency and technical literacy Enable citizens to engage in productive inquiry activities Create a space for community and place Allow for multiple identities in multiple contexts

Encourage Technical Literacy Frequently Asked Questions give users language for investigating issues further and performing in public deliberation Complete information and resources for further information—not summaries or sound bites. Links to real time data with ability to ask what that data means (via email contact or phone)

Site provides space for info such as user fees, construction regs, & full versions of water quality reports including the methods used to assess the water

Site allows citizens to investigate based on their own interests, from an overview of each creek in the watershed, to current assessments and problems, to real time data on water quality (& contact info for questions about that data)

Enable Citizens to Engage in Productive Inquiry Activities with “Psychological” Interaction in Order to Invent New Knowledge Provide interactive maps that allow users to couple their own knowledge with online information to address a problem Provide local contact info for reporting spills and illegal dumping

Site allows citizens to find recycling locations by materials or area Site allows citizens to find recycling locations by materials or area. (Map indicates recycling location and what can be recycled)

Create a Space for Community Provide a dedicated, updated page for public meetings, council meetings, and volunteer opportunities Include local photos that help citizens connect the information to their community

Site provides virtual space for information about community involvement on a variety of issues