Interactive Visualizations in the Process of Policy Modelling

Abstract

The policy making process in public authorities is nowadays usually an offline process. ICT is just very conservatively used, which also limits the inclusion of citizens' opinions. In difference the ICT sector consists of a rapid development in the area of eParticitpation and also in data-storing approaches and visualizations. But today it is hard to assign such new technical approaches to the policy modeling process, because of their non-ICT orientation. In this paper we introduce a new detailed ICT-based policy modeling process and an assignment of some modern ICT technology features. To support decision-makers, the main contribution of this paper is an assignment of useful visualization-types to the technological features and furthermore to the ICT-based policy-making process. Therewith we describe an approach how interactive visualizations can lead to a more effective policy making.