Draft Guidance 6 - Facilitation of Online Participation Sites

‘Moderation’ commonly refers to the mechanical aspects of publishing participant posts and also to the practice of facilitating an online discussion. For the purposes of this section, ‘facilitation’ functions have been decoupled from those that are ‘administrative’.

In 1999, the Hansard Society outlined its first classification of roles; these have been refined over time. In this resource, five facilitation functions have been classified as follows:

• Host;
• Manager;
• Referee;
• Librarian;
• Reporter.

Facilitation roles are best understood as strategies which should be adopted to achieve different objectives in moderating an online deliberative exercise. Not every role is adopted in the course of a consultation; some consultations require different degrees of moderator intervention and role application. Indeed, in some consultations there may be no moderator activity in the actual consultation space; instead moderators are only carrying out ‘off-stage’ administrative duties.

Host

Often the first duty of a facilitator will be that of ‘host’. During the lifetime of a consultation a community of participants is created. However, the platforms hosting these consultations can be alien, barren spaces. Certainly this is the case in the initial stages as the deliberation picks up momentum. The people who constitute the community will all start as strangers to one another. Indeed, they may remain that way throughout.

The acclimatisation that comes with every new consultation may not faze all participants, but could concern and dissuade others. Facilitators in the ‘host’ role can ensure that everyone knows why they are there and ensure that the platform retains an atmosphere conducive to deliberation. The host-facilitator can make everyone feel welcome, ensure everyone has what they need, that everyone feels positive towards participation and that they are aware of the context within which the deliberation is taking place.

As the consultation progresses, facilitators can make sure that the momentum and interest are sustained. This could include bringing up fresh, interesting points, ensuring that alternative perspectives are aired or introducing new pieces of evidence for consideration.

Manager

Online consultations are held for specific purposes. There are cost considerations, time constraints, targets and objectives in mind. These become increasingly important considerations for those involved in policy formation. Discussion facilitators have an important ‘manager’ role to play in this respect.

In the planning stages of a consultation, timetables should be constructed and critical points identified (such as the airing of a relevant television programme or the close of deliberation within a certain topic). Over the course of the consultation, then, facilitators should pay close attention to the participation exercise schedule (even if a separate project manager exists) and be sure to introduce reminders into the flow of the debate for the benefit of participants.

To make sure that consultations do what they are set up to do, manager-facilitators should also be available to be consulted on operational aspects of the consultation – by participants drawn from the public or fellow members of the commissioning body.

Referee

In addition to clear timetables, good consultations require clear definition of rules and etiquette. This is an acknowledgement of the proliferation of peer-to-peer interactive platforms (some of which are formal and others informal) without the parallel development of a universal code of conduct.

Participants should be required to formally acknowledge the consultation’s discussion rules before gaining entry to the consultation space. Even so, disagreements can occur and provide tense encounters some of which, given enough fuel, could potentially overrun the deliberation exercise.

Here ‘deliberation’ is defined as structured group discussion where one expresses one’s experience, ideas or views whilst acknowledging that they may be challenged for the benefit of reaching a judgement or making a decision. Therefore, ‘conflict’, ‘dissent’ and ‘disagreement’ are all to some extent legitimate factors in good deliberative consultations.

Yet, despite the fact that argument and constructive criticism are integral to productive debate, participants who are inexperienced in debating, or the specific subject matter, may find this aspect of deliberation difficult to deal with. At the other extreme (it is wise to acknowledge all motivations), there may be those who spoil for an argument or are so convinced by the faultlessness of their views that they react negatively to disagreement.

Dealing with disagreement is one of the trickier and consequential roles of the moderator. In the vast majority of consultations, participants avoid direct contention, choose their words carefully, use evidence or are happy to simultaneously accommodate different perspectives. In this respect, participants can be ‘self-moderating’ and even on occasion self-policing, in that where disagreement occurs between individuals, other participants step in to remind them of the consultation rules, request supporting evidence, and ask for clarification or restraint.

Participant-to-participant moderation should be informally encouraged but it should also remain the policy for the referee-facilitators to have the overall authority and responsibility to resolve conflict. This is because at the root of qualms around group deliberation is a fear of being challenged, berated or singled-out in the public domain. These fears put some off of group participation. Of course, this was one of the motivating factors behind online consultations – that people could participate anonymously, that they could do so from ‘comfortable’ surroundings, at any time and with the ability to leave the debate without ‘loss of face’. However, it is clear that although the parameters of online deliberation are different to those of face-to-face or voice-to-voice meetings, there is still a human apprehensiveness that reduces participants’ willingness to contribute.

Facilitators in their ‘referee’ role are there as a reassurance to participants. They exist so that participants know that as long as they stay within the general rules and context of the topic, they are able to say what they want without stoking a personally-motivated attack. They know too that they are able to challenge those contributions that they believe are wrong, in need of further qualification or could be superseded. Online consultations can be kept secure, structured but non-sanitised, and the only way that this can be sustained is if the participants have trust in the facilitators to be fair and decisive.

Where facilitators have to step in to resolve conflict then they must do so in a determined manner. Arguments are rarely between camps and more often involve two individuals. There are slight differences in the approach of a moderator depending on whether a consultation is pre- or post-moderated (that is whether participant posts go live immediately or are checked for suitability prior to publication). Pre-moderation allows the moderators to identify potentially antagonistic posts and ask the participant to reassess or justify their post.

If and when participants get into a disagreement some time should be given to allow self-resolution. But if a settlement is not reached by those who disagree or through the pressure from other participants, facilitators should begin resolution in the public consultation space. Carrying out this initial action, in front of the community, is a means of demonstrating that this sort of disagreement is not accepted but also of showing the participants how to deal with the conflict themselves.

Disagreements can continue or resurface later, at which point the facilitators will post a public rebuttal but also consequently strive to settle the issue in private – via email, letter or phone. On rare occasions, facilitators will take the decision to suspend participant accounts until the participant has either expressed their lack of interest in continuing or has pledged to change tact.

Expulsion of participants is rare – if such a move is necessitated all participant details and a record of contributions will be stored. This is in large part a result of having moderation planned in early on, a clear statement of moderator-facilitator responsibilities and a set of terms and conditions for participants.

Librarian

It is desirable for facilitators to have expertise in the subject matter which the participants are discussing. This is largely a requirement of good chairing. The ‘librarian’ role is about encouraging use of evidence, facts and figures by participants and to signpost useful information as part of the ongoing responsibility to facilitate informed deliberation. The ‘intervention’ of the facilitators in this respect, should be reinforced by a set of rudimentary background notes and suggested reading for participants to refer to.

Some consultation spaces can become complex due to their popularity, frequency of posts or consultation objectives. To prevent the integrity of the deliberation structure unravelling or becoming too complex to navigate, facilitators must observe ‘janitorial’ responsibilities.

Again, the scope of these duties is largely defined by the sophistication of the technology supporting the consultation platform. Systems should allow the facilitators to manage the consultation spaces by the likes of re-sorting out of place posts, clearing incomplete or garbled posts and closing overpopulated threads.

The librarian-facilitator is ultimately responsible for securely archiving and retrieving data – be it participant contributions or survey data – and this is all about ensuring good database construction and maintenance thereafter. The facilitators should also carefully ensure that posts are stored in their entirety (no matter what their form or content). This is the case even if a post contravenes the consultation rules and is unsuitable for publication (facilitators must never edit participant posts without permission from the individual participant).

Reporter

The final trade that will be set out here is that of the facilitator as a ‘reporter’. This is another significant responsibility and likely to be the one role that is present in every consultation that has moderation wired into its structure, whether moderation is being applied in back- or foreground.

During the existence of a consultation facilitators must methodically summarise the deliberation. This involves identifying key posts that stimulated a debate, perhaps contained vital information, aired an alternative view or completely re-orientated a discussion. This practice is as much for the benefit of latecomers as it is veterans. It is also useful from the perspective of ministers whose resource limitations and procedural regulations may prevent regular, consistent participation.

However, a more important aspect of the reporter role comes with the close of a consultation. At this point it is the responsibility of the facilitators to provide an overall summary report of the deliberation that is both independent and accessible. Summary reports do involve constructing a narrative to illustrate the deliberation behind the results, but in doing so the moderators must conduct themselves with the same detached objectivity with which they approached the other roles.

The final role of the reporter-facilitator is to manage expectations of participants by outlining a timetable for feedback and then ensuring that the feedback is either posted directly on the site or passed on to participants via email or post.

Evolution

Facilitation is a discipline in evolutionary flux. As online consultations move from their developmental phase and become a feature of legislative institutions, there will be increased pressure for regulation of moderators’ qualifications and skills. This will be difficult to achieve in a way that will be suitable for all applications of moderation. Nevertheless, a set of core skills may include:

• tolerance;
• integrity;
• empathy;
• objectivity;
• capability to carry out conceptual thought;
• good listener;
• attentive;
• observant;
• attention to detail;
• composed nature;
• confidence in mediation abilities;
• strong problem-solving ability;
• high level of ICT literacy;
• cross-cultural awareness;
• excellent researcher;
• strong communicator;
• fluency in written language;
• confidence in group and interpersonal communications.

Even in the absence of a set job description for moderator-facilitators, on each participation exercise a breakdown of facilitator responsibilities and an explanation of moderation responsibilities should be provided for reference by the participants. Alongside this should be included contact details for the moderator team.