The AGIMO Government 2.0 Primer: Government 2.0 Planning and Governance

Primer blog post >> Introduction >> Government 2.0 Planning and Governance

Note: the latest version of this document is available on the Web Guide.

Engaging online, whether internally or publicly, will consume time, expend resources and potentially raise issues which are best answered by having clear internal social media guidelines and/or governance arrangements for online engagement initiatives.

Developing internal social media policies

It may be necessary to review and update existing internal policies, including computer-use policies, to include social media. Social media/online engagement policies play an important role in allowing and encouraging staff to engage online. They can empower staff to realise the benefits of online engagement, whether in existing online forums or as part of agency initiatives. They also set boundaries about basic expectations and what conduct is and is not acceptable for staff online: basic expectations such as participating in online discussions without discussing classified or otherwise sensitive information online, and not committing the agency or the Government to any action without prior permission.

The Australian Public Service Commission’s Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation contains useful advice that agencies can use to formulate a social media policy. It is also important to note that the APS Code of Conduct sets out the responsibilities and behaviours expected of public servants. It is unlikely that any abuse of social media by a public servant would result in situations not covered by existing guidelines.

Developing an internal social media policy may raise a range of issues involving many different parts of an organisation, including human resources, legal, and/or ICT security areas. Common concerns in opening up access to social media sites within agencies include potential employee misconduct such as inappropriately disclosing classified or otherwise sensitive information, misrepresenting an agency, misusing agency resources or otherwise bringing an agency or the Government into disrepute. It is important to note that none of those issues are exclusive to social media or online engagement, and they are (along with many other potential cases of misconduct via social media) covered by existing APS guidelines.

Case Study – Social Media 101: A Beginner’s Guide for Finance Employees

Until March 2010, like many agencies, Finance blocked staff access to social networking sites. But in light of the work of the Taskforce, the decision was made to open up access to a range of social networking sites to all employees.

As well as providing access, Finance also put in place a set of guidelines for staff called Social Media 101: A Beginner’s Guide for Finance Employees about appropriate use of social media, including a “how-to” guide about using Twitter and Facebook.

Social Media 101 was designed to take a positive point of view towards staff use of social media, outlining important issues and expected standards of behaviour. It refers to existing guidelines such as the APS Code of Conduct and Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation.

Finance’s guidelines treat employees’ personal use of social media at work in a manner consistent with other internet access, which is covered by existing departmental ICT usage policies and broader APS guidelines such as those mentioned above. The guidelines also recognise the difference between personal and work-related use of social media by distinguishing between three different kinds of social media accounts Finance employees may have:

  • Official accounts, used when employees are commenting in their capacity as a Finance official.
  • Professional accounts, for when employees comment in a personal capacity but also in light of their expertise in a given field – the guidelines give the example of an accountant working at Finance who comments on an accounting blog.
  • Personal accounts, for non-work-related use which does not fall under either of the above two categories.

Social Media 101: A Beginner’s Guide for Finance Employees is available on the AGIMO Blog, and will be reviewed and updated over time.

Strategies and planning for Government 2.0 initiatives

In addition to forming internal social media policies, it is important for agencies to plan their Government 2.0 initiatives by forming a clear, well-articulated strategy and project plan (if applicable). Such planning documents should be the underpinning for all agency efforts with Web 2.0 tools, whether those efforts are internal or external. The following basic questions can be used to formulate a strategy:

  • Who – Who will be involved? Which staff will be committed to the project? Who is the target audience? Who will benefit? Who needs to be convinced? Who needs to be kept informed? Who do we need to report to?
  • What – What is the intent of the work? On what platform? With what time and what budget? What business, program, policy or strategic benefits will be realised? What are the metrics to be used? What does success look like?
  • When – Is this a once-off initiative, or part of an ongoing program of work? When will staff have time to be involved? Is the project to be limited to normal working hours or is there an out of hours component? When will success be measured? When is the report on this project due?
  • Where – Will this project be delivered from an existing agency web site? From a new agency website? On a third-party site? Will the project have presences across several online spaces? Will there be an offline component?
  • Why – Why is this happening? Why is it important?
  • How – How will success be measured?

Responses to these questions will impact on the resources required to run an online engagement initiative, and determine its overall direction and priorities.

Moderation policies

Moving on to the more practical aspects of planning an online engagement initiative, a moderation policy is a necessary component of any online agency activity which includes user-submitted content (for example, comments on a blog or Facebook page). Moderation policies set ground rules for public participation in online engagement initiatives. They should be framed in such a way that they discourage anti-social, irrelevant, offensive, spam and/or inappropriate commercial submissions, among other things.

Moderation policies assist in setting user expectations about the ground rules for what should or should not be submitted to agency Government 2.0 initiatives, and also specify when agencies will remove or modify user-submitted content. Moderation policies should be designed to operate in conjunction with the other legal statements which are part of almost any agency online initiative, such as privacy, copyright and other terms of use statements (for more information on legal statements for websites, please refer to Finance’s Web Guide).

The moderation policies and processes which agencies adopt play an important role in the operation of and public participation in engagement initiatives. An overly restrictive moderation policy may create perceptions of government censorship, while too lenient a policy could result in initiatives receiving potentially large volumes of inappropriate or otherwise non-constructive user-submitted content. In some cases this may have the effect of discouraging participation by creating an online community that is inhospitable or unwelcoming to the broader community.

It may be best to craft a simple yet flexible moderation policy, as a long list of requirements for users to follow may discourage users from participating. A well-crafted moderation policy will give an agency the justification it needs to remove or prevent inappropriate material from being published online, while also being simple enough that it does not inhibit participation in its initiative.

In some cases it will be possible to review and approve all user-submitted content before it appears online – this approach is called pre-moderation. However, agencies may find that while pre-moderation minimises the risk of publishing inappropriate material, it can be intensive in terms of staff time and it may also have a negative effect on user participation. Pre-moderation can prevent conversations from forming between agencies and/or between users as comments are held waiting to be cleared, and thus lower the effectiveness of the engagement. It can also heighten perceptions of censorship as users will know that all their submissions are being vetted by the agency before publication.

On the other hand, post-moderation allows all user-submitted content to appear online automatically, where it will then be reviewed and removed or edited if necessary. Depending on the tool being used, post-moderation may also involve automated filters using a blacklist of offensive words or words highly likely to constitute spam. This is the moderation style employed on the AGIMO Blog, the moderation policy of which specifically says that conversations are encouraged and comments will be published automatically wherever possible.

Finance includes a template moderation policy along these lines with all blogs established on its govspace blog-hosting service for agencies to adopt or modify as they wish. Other examples of agency moderation policies include that of the Australian War Memorial blog and the Department of Health and Ageing’s yourHealth website.

Experience from running the AGIMO Blog suggests that allowing users to see their comments appear online automatically helps to assure users that their comments are valued and also encourages more fluid conversation than would be possible if all comments were reviewed in advance. It is also important to note that the most common moderation activity involved in the AGIMO Blog is removing spam comments – editing or removing comments for other reasons happens very rarely. AGIMO experience suggests that the risks involved in adopting a less restrictive form of moderation can generally be accepted as one of the costs of maximising user participation. However, pre-moderation may still be a more appropriate option for agencies expecting their online engagement initiatives to receive a large volume of inappropriate, offensive or other content which is not suitable for publication on agency-branded websites.

Agencies will find that some of the available moderation options depend on the online engagement tool being used. Agencies will generally have a wider range of administrative options over a blog they host themselves than they would over, for example, a Facebook page. But regardless of what moderation policy an agency uses, they should communicate it clearly to users and follow it fairly and consistently.

It may also be beneficial to ensure that the staff moderating online engagement initiatives have a clear understanding of the policy and receive any necessary training to assist them in their role. If an agency plans to provide contributors whose submissions are edited or removed with an explanation of moderation decisions, it could be beneficial to staff to create templates containing pre-prepared responses addressing these situations. For example, a standard email to someone whose comment has been edited or removed could contain wording such as:

Your contribution to [initiative name] has been [edited/removed] because it breached our moderation policy (link) by [insert reason – eg. containing offensive/abusive language, inappropriately promoting commercial products, etc]. We invite you to edit your comment to comply with the moderation policy and then resubmit it.

Creating standard responses of this kind helps to familiarise staff with an initiative’s moderation policy and to give them confidence in applying the policy. It also benefits contributors by helping staff to make moderation decisions and responses more quickly.

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