Abstract
For nearly a decade, civic tech stakeholders have been creating technology-supported solutions to civic challenges. Globally, the civic tech movement is rapidly professionalizing but has a limited history of documenting evidence of successes and challenges. Robust monitoring and evaluation in the civic tech ecosystem are necessary to create a foundation of knowledge for future initiatives. Monitoring plays a key role in improving services, pivoting approaches and guiding more efficient resource allocation. Evaluation highlights what is working, what is not working, and critically, why? In a sector that merges data, design and technology with user-centred principles, monitoring and evaluation in the civic tech ecosystem have several inherent challenges. This paper suggests that a theory-based evaluation approach called Contribution Analysis has the necessary sophistication and agility to support comprehensive monitoring and evaluation to support the growth and sustainability of the movement. This paper applies the early steps of contribution analysis to two Canadian civic tech projects to demonstrate its feasibility for civic tech.
Highlights
The rapid growth of global interest in civic-focused technology throughout the previous decade can be partially attributed to the convergence of increasing public interest in democratic processes, emerging digital technologies, and ongoing government reforms
This paper proposes a theory-based evaluation framework called Contribution Analysis as an adequately sophisticated approach to address the complexity of monitoring and evaluation in the civic tech ecosystem
With limited precedence for comprehensive monitoring and evaluation, it is unsurprising that the civic tech ecosystem, is still seeking appropriate methods
Summary
The rapid growth of global interest in civic-focused technology (civic tech) throughout the previous decade can be partially attributed to the convergence of increasing public interest in democratic processes, emerging digital technologies, and ongoing government reforms. Government and civil society efforts to increase transparency, accountability and participation through e-government, government 2.0, open data and open government movements provide a conducive environment for civic tech to flourish. Beginning as a series of volunteer, ad hoc efforts and hackathons in the United States and the United Kingdom, civic tech has evolved over the past decade into a global movement. Community civic tech groups modelled after the Code for America brigades across the United States are part of a larger ecosystem that includes government, community organizations, non-profit organizations, private and social enterprise, academia, and residents (McNutt, 2016). Advocates suggest that the civic tech movement could lead to a ‘revolution’ in government accountability and transparency by changing the way that governments and residents co-produce solutions to civic challenges (McNutt, et al, 2016)
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