Affiliations: [a] Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany | City University of New York, College of Staten Island | University of Massachusetts, Amherst | Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México | University of Southern California – Information
Science Institute
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT),
Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization (IPD), Am Fasanengarten
5, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany. Tel.: +49 721 608 4316; Fax: +49 721 608 7343;
E-mail: heidinger@kit.edu
Abstract: Impact assessment (IA) is a key method for the legislator to
evaluate policies, norms or regulations currently under development. Experts
use IA to gather and analyze input from many individuals to obtain clear
problem statements, estimations regarding policies etc., and use this
information to compare policy alternatives. Currently, the opinions, expertise
etc. gathered for IA need to be structured by hand. Thus, the analysis steps
of IA are time-consuming, and IA does not scale with the number of persons
involved. In this paper, we introduce a collaborative approach for IA. Based on
a Web 2.0 architecture, we let a community of individuals derive the potential,
downsides and design alternatives of policies collaboratively. Our approach
guides individuals through the process of creating structured input. Our
approach is fully implemented, and we have evaluated it together with legal
experts by means of a small pilot study. Our evaluation indicates that the
acceptance of a Web 2.0-based IA application strongly depends on the user
interface. More profoundly, it shows that our approach can be an important tool
for future IA.
