ePanel
Brief Description:
ePanels are a way for councils or other organisations to carry out regular online consultations with a known group of citizens.
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Description:
The most well established ePanel is YouGov, established by a market research company in 2000 to provide research for public policy, market research and stakeholder consultation.
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Market research companies tend to focus their e-panel activities on online surveys but other interactive technologies such as discussion forums or VIP messaging help to create a sense of online community and enable ePanel members to participate in the consultation process, suggesting topics for discussion that the council might not have considered.
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Used For:
Councils have adapted this idea to have a way of consulting a group of people on a regular basis using a range of technology.
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It provides a quick and potentially cheap way of staying in touch with a group of citizens and of hearing their views.
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Suitable participants:
ePanels can be tailored to distinct audiences, depending upon the purpose of the consultation. Therefore anyone with access to the internet is a potential participant.
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Cost:
Varies
- If there is the technology and web space already in place, then costs can be very small � in some cases the only cost incurred would be for the time it takes to set the questions and analyse the results of the ePanel consultation.
- At the other end of the spectrum, if it was decided that a dedicated website needed to be built (which is not a necessity), then the costs could greatly increase.
Time Requirements:
After the initial setup, there can be an ongoing commitment for successful ePanels.
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Despite this, ePanels can also be run as one-off or infrequent events as well.
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The main time requirements involve the setting of the questions, sending them out and seeking responses, as well as the analysis of the responses.
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When To Use / What It Can Deliver:
- when gathering participants together physically may be impractical or too expensive
- increased discussion and debate on issues.
- increased awareness of issues
When Not To Use / What It Cannot Deliver:
- when issues being discussed are of a particularly sensitive nature, or the topics require the participants to gain specialist information
- decision-making
- empowered participants
Strengths:
- can be run alongside traditional offline activities and their strength is seen to be as a way of increasing participation in local democracy, particularly amongst young people or those who are time poor.
- enables local authorities to reduce their administrative costs - no paper questionnaires or postage is required, there are limited additional costs to run a focus group or live chat (just the cost of online facilitators), data input is not necessary and analysis is generally quicker and can be immediate depending on the type of e-consultation being used.
- open and transparent, although often anonymous.
- allows anyone to contribute and in their own time.
- allows different views to be aired and discussed.
- engages people that may not normally be involved in face-to-face consultations.
Weaknesses:
- As with all online methods, there is the potential that ePanels don't encourage the participation of those people without ready access to the internet.
- If too much is asked of participants � such as too many follow-up emails from ePanels � then this can lead to alienation from the process, and calls for responses may be ignored.
Origin:
Market research companies.
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Case Studies:
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Restrictions In Use
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