Building confidence in CCS through on-line deliberation

AbstractThere are a variety of stakeholders involved with CCS, including the general public who may not have relevant scientific knowledge. Although CCS is an issue for everyone, only a few people have, or have access to knowledge that is required as a basis of rationally motivated consensus. In order to resolve the situation, a mechanism that allows efficient dissemination of knowledge and expedites discussion among the stakeholders is required. The objective of this study is to develop a prototype of such a mechanism making use of information technologies and test it s practicality.The key strategy of the current study is to utilize information technology as a vehicle for disseminating knowledge of CCS and for expediting deliberation among interested individuals. More specifically, an “Internet forum” titled CO2-CoBW eb that is designated for issues concerning CCS has been formed by using JAVA -based collaborative software. CO2-CoBWeb offers a range of functionalities including, online consultation, online deliberative polling, online argumentation and online facilitati on. In February and March 2008, a community consisting of some thirty members consisting of experts and interested non-experts was formed and two series of dry runs were carried out. The results revealed that the “On -line deliberation” in an Internet forum can be useful in enhancing the interactions among the members that is an essential part of confidence building in the following perspectives; -Online consultation helps non-experts to acquire knowledge and experts to know what non-experts wish to know,-Online argumentation among the experts on topics selected by non-experts highlights key issues in a transparent manner and offers opportunity for the members to evaluate their confidence based on the evidence referred to by the experts.-Online facilitation supported collaboration between experts and non-experts to identify set of requirements for building confidence of the “community”