International Journal of Electronic Governance  (IJEG)

Call For papers

Special Issue on: "eParticipation Systems and Services in Converging Regions"

Guest Editors:
Dr. Yannis Charalabidis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Prof. Maria Wimmer, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
Gianluca Misuraca, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

E-participation and e-Democracy systems are being developed and are operational in various countries, at national or local levels, with various levels of adoption. The recent generations of such systems seem to have solved initial and core philosophy problems, so current research is focused in advanced operational characteristics. However, thinking of the future unified international environment, one can easily understand that the field of widespread e-participating platforms, especially in converging and outmost regions, still poses crucial problems regarding the fundamental philosophy and principles of these systems. The most prevalent of these issues are multilinguality, cultural diversity, minority rights, digital division and conflict resolution needs. Inspired by such problems, current research and practice investigates new ways to reach the public and push more and more processes through the electronic democratisation channels.

This special issue focuses on recent approaches in e-participation systems and aims to report relevant research and experiences from operational case studies. More specifically, original unpublished research articles and case studies are sought, covering various disciplines pertinent to electronic democracy, e-participation and relevant cross-domain research at an international level. The focus of the special issue will be on research papers, case studies, experience reports and impact/efficiency assessments, based on operational findings from implementations with considerable impact and learning potential.

   Subject Coverage

Contributions are sought on a set of themes that include, but are not exclusively limited to, the following topics:

• Electronic participation systems at local, national, regional or international level
• Approaches enhancing participation of minorities in the decision process
• Legislation-oriented e-participation systems, especially involving NGO's and representative bodies
• Argument visualisation and semantic annotation in content and context-rich e-participation systems
• E-participation systems in multilingual and culturally diverse environments
• New channels of interaction for e-participation systems, including mobile devices or interactive television
• Applications of e-participation systems in areas of digital divide or e-inclusion threats
• Applications of electronic democracy in countries or regions with diverse e-capacities
• Legal and ethical issues affecting the adoption of e-participation systems
• Novel standardisation approaches in e-participation
• Impact assessment models and reusable case reports on e-participation

   Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

   Important Dates

Deadline for paper submission: 15 December, 2007

Notification of acceptance/rejection: 15 February, 2008

Final (camera-ready) papers submission: 15 March, 2008

   Editors and Notes

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please go to Online Submissions of Papers. If you experience any problems submitting your paper online, please contact submissions@inderscience.com, describing the exact problem you experience.

Please include in your email the title of the Journal.