There will be a specialised track focusing on Politics 2.0 and political publics online to which I will contribute some of the findings of my recent work on WriteToThem.com. Among the variety of activists presenting for example insights from the Obama campaign it will be my role to provide some empirical data from a large and successful eDemocracy project, serving as a reminder of the fact that the problems of political participation are not easily solved by technology.

Last year doctoral students of the OII went to the conference as part of our student trip to Berlin. This year again a delegation of the Oxford Internet Institute will be in Berlin as co-located with re:publica there will be the PrivacyOS conference of the European Privacy Open Space project that is promoted by the Oxford Internet Institute.

However, on second glance there is more going on (the hard bloggin’ scientists are only one example) so I decided to start a list of my own that collects people and institutions in Germany that do (or have done) relevant research. There is quite an impressive array of actors assembled but as of yet there is no a dedicated research center as our very own here in the UK and only very few departments whose focus is on online research and that would produce measurable output.

Internet research in Germany – People and Institutions

While I hope the list might be of use to some my main reason in drawing attention to it is to ask for your collective wisdom in adding more names to the list. If you know of anyone or any place that should be there, please comment on this post or drop me an email. Thank you!

The conference was a success for me although it is probably fair to say that the contributions were of a mixed quality. It has also a fair share of presentations on online market research which can give really valuable methodological insights buts is not quite my cup of tea. Nevertheless, there were a number of really interesting presentations (you might want to check the programme), I met a bunch of interesting people and definitely gained some useful insights. Being hosted in Germany the conference drew an interesting mix of people including some from Eastern Europe which was a nice change.

There is definitely more going on in the German-speaking academic realm than I was aware of which is good. However, compared to the US and its Berkman Center or the UK with our Oxford Internet Institute, what is sorely missed in Germany is an institution that would focus the research into online phenomena that is going on in disparate places around the country. Much of what I’ve seen and heard is sound research but suffers from being conducted within individual disciplines with little connection to other people’s work. This must change!

Apparently next year GOR will be hosted in Vienna and hence I can only suggest you try it next time.

While it surely is questionable whether teachers should be rated on categories such as sexiness or exam difficulty, these are not the root cause of these arguments. This became apparent in a recent article: The German news magazine “Der Spiegel” had invited the head of the German teacher’s society Peter Silbernagel to debate with the founders of spickmich.de Manuel Weisbrod und Bernd Dicks.

The basic message of the teaching official is to blame pupils for being cowards to rate their teachers anonymously on the Internet instead of talking to them in person or approaching the headmaster. It is testimony to his escapist views on schools in Germany if he argues teachers and pupils should be able to discuss at eye level. While this is surely desirable, it totally denies the hierarchical relationship of teachers and pupils that makes criticism (even constructive) difficult.

What Silbernagel does not realise is that they are lucky to have a site as spickmich.de to grapple with. The operators are rather tame compared to other much more aggressive portals of that kind. They check every comment before putting it online and even remove quotes if teachers ask for a good reason. They rightly suggest that a cooperation between the site and Germany’s teachers could be a way to give pupils a voice and improve the quality of teaching because it would enable an evaluation.

However, the message does not get through. The German teacher’s society still hopes it will eventually achieve to abolish those sites instead of finding ways to cope with them. Their complete lack of understanding is exemplified by a recent campaign that is targeted at violence against teachers. While this is surely a problem that needs addressing, it speaks volumes that the campaigning website makes available a prototype form with which teachers can request removal of their ratings from spickmich.de.

Evaluation of teachers = violence. German teachers have yet to learn their lesson.

The participants did discuss a stunning array of eDemocracy projects that have already made a mark in their countries although maybe not all being as widely successful as they would deserve. It definitely helped to open my eyes to a world beyond some of the more commonly known projects such as theyworkforyou.com in the UK or abgeordnetenwatch.de in Germany and to learn about a variety of other efforts. For example, who would have thought that Romania has taken such a lead in holding government and parliament accountable to the extent that they sue their politicians every time information is not made available? Or the kind of interesting results you get if you can cross-reference the voting behaviour of an MP with data on its travels (seems like some politicians can be at multiple places at once). There is a good (and still growing) list of interesting sites available on our Wiki.

You can meet some of the participants in brief video interviews (the web site is in German but they interviews are in English) that hopefully convey some of the buzz of these two days. As this was an (un)conference it was difficult to say what the outcomes would be. This actually did work quite well: We came up with a long list of good practice for transparency sites that should be the first point of call for people thinking about setting up similar sites. Furthermore the collected wisdom of the experts did identify a number of projects that a crying out to be done by someone! Most importantly, however, it was an opportunity for all to network and to learn what is going on in Europe and also beyond as Andrea Thompson and Gilberto Buffara from democracia in Brazil joined us for a session via video call.

You will find some information at berlininaugust.politik-digital.de. Note however that this is (un)organised as an ‘unconference’, meaning that this is an informal event whose outcomes are very open. So it is what the participants make of it … we will see!

So if your work touches on eVoting, ePetitioning, eDeliberation, eConsultation, eParticipation, eMOREWORDSHERE.. and you haven’t been invited but you feel like you should be there – get in touch with us asap. We might even be able to help you out with some of your travel expenses.

“Last but not least, the subject under public scrutiny does matter as professors might well be made to face personal criticism in their role as public figures while teachers and nurses might have to be treated differently.”

Well, I might have been wrong. A couple of weeks ago the Regional Court of Cologne has decided that teachers too have to tolerate to be rated online by their pupils. In the case a German teacher had sued spickmich.de, a site similar to the British RateMyTeachers, that allows pupils to mark their teachers in nine different categories such as fairness of grades, quality of the lessons and difficulty of exams. So far more than 150.000 kids have used this service (according to the publishers).

The court made two important rulings: First, the ratings of the pupils are clear value judgements and are acceptable under the principles of freedom of expression as long as these are not defamatory. The court has given a lot of freedom and even allows polemic statements as the criticism of the pupils has the necessary relevance (after all, they are talking about people they meet and work with every day) and the evaluation of the school and its teachers is of general interest. Second, the judges did not follow the argument of the claimant that displaying her name next to the rating would constitute a violation of her privacy. They argue that this is information that could be easily obtained from the school’s website.

While this is an important ruling in favour of collaborative group judgements (something my colleague Malte Ziewitz is working on) there are a number of particularities about spickmich.de that merit highlighting to assess the ruling properly. First, there is a need to register on the site. The ratings are not publicly available and pupils have to register on the site in order to rate their teachers. Another difference to other rating sites is that the service does not allow for personal comments about teachers but only for grades between one and six (like the German grading system) in different categories. Finally, looking at the screenshots of the site it seems that what spickmich.de is really after is to establish a new social networking site for pupils that piggybacks on teacher ratings to reach a critical mass. It is telling that spickmich.de refers to itself as a pupil’s network.

Bottom line: I think this has been a good ruling in general as collaborative efforts with general interest goals should be encouraged and not stifled by the law as long as they do not harm anyone. Still I am slightly worried. The creators of the site do not get tired to emphasize that overall marks received by the teachers are rather good (average of 2.9) and that the site is intended to collect fair and objective judgements in order to improve education. But despite their arguably good intentions it remains the secret of the creators of the site how to reach a “fair and objective” judgement in categories such as sexy (or ugly), cool and funny (or embarrassing and boring) or easy (or difficult) exams.

While the association of German teachers made the predictable outcry about this effort one should make no mistakes: the role of teachers is difficult, public demand on them is high while appreciation of their work is low and although for years German teachers have been paid much better wages than their British counterparts, burn out syndroms are common, contributing to the German situation in which only 5% of teachers do actually work until there legal pension age. I yet have to see a fancy Web 2.0 application that would give teachers something in their hands to cope with their everyday work. Are there any social networking sites for teachers?

The opinion of the general public is in high demand as exemplified by a recent announcement of the British National Health Service (NHS) to introduce NHS Choices which among other things will allow patients to comment on their hospital treatment. The move has clearly been inspired by the success of PatientOpinion, a not-for-profit site which has allowed people for more than a year now to voice their experience with treatment received in hospital (and for which this new state-run competition raises some problems of its own).

Commendably recently even the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit within the Cabinet Office has launched a review that is intended to highlight ways on how to leverage the Power of Information generated by state as well as the public.

However, not all is perfect for this new form of user empowerment. Especially one form of rating site has come under attack: sites which allow to comment on the performance of teachers, in particular a site called RateMyTeachers. These sites have come under fire as teachers complain about cyber bullying:

“Another teacher at the same school is criticised by a pupil because they “cannot speak English” and another as “the worst person ever” and “everyone hates her”.” (BBC, 3rd April 2007)

“Mr Brown said: “Comments are one thing but what about teachers who’ve had images of their heads super-imposed on to gratuitous images or who have had pictures taken and posted of their cleavages or underwear as they bend over, or who have had comments questioning their fidelity to their partner?”" (The Independent, 4th April 2007)

As every reader of newsgroups or forums has learned long ago many people have yet to master the art of making constructive criticisms and it is understandable that teachers take offence at anonymous comments like the ones quoted above. The concerns are serious enough for some to even call for a closure of such sites.

A new court decision in Germany could lead the way in assessing these issues in the future: The German website MeinProf.de which allows students to rate their professors and comment on their performance had been sued. After some nasty comments (including naming the professor a “psychopath”) that were quickly removed by the web site owners the professor in question went to court demanding the operators to pay 3,000 Euros (about £2,000) for any similar comment about him that might appear on the site in the future.

The court has decided that a general “cease and desist” for unacceptable comments is against the law. As a professor one has to face public criticism that cannot be prohibited ex ante. (see full coverage as well as press announcement – all in German I’m afraid).
(btw I wonder what Wendy’s take on the situation is…)

Several things have to be noted: In general this is a positive outcome for web sites that leverage the wisdom of the crowds as it offers some protection for the often not-for-profit operators of these sites. However, this does not justify defamatory comments on those sites and the court has emphasized the operators’ duty to remove those entries as soon as they are recognized. Last but not least, the subject under public scrutiny does matters as professors might well be made to face personal criticism in their role as public figures while teachers and nurses might have to be treated differently.

It’s available at: http://www.e-participation.net (No worries, the whole site is in English)

Unsettling features of such a so-called “federal trojan” would include that it would have to go undetected by anti-virus software and could potentially enable law enforcement agencies to copy files to the monitored computer – so they might copy child pornography on your hard disk and then prosecute you for possessing it. I also wonder how the StopBadware project would deal with that. Jonathan, any comments?

However, today the German government has conceded that online monitoring of computers is already taking place and that has been the case for about the last two years. The justification of this in face of the high court ruling is almost cynical: The agencies would not violate the secrecy of telecommunications as they would only access files on the hard disk but not ongoing communication. Also, the online surveillance does not constitute a house raid (which would need a court permission) because laptops could also be used outside a flat and by spying on the computer one would not monitor events that happen inside a flat.