Improving University Decision Making Through E-Participation

Abstract

The necessity to constantly improve various processes of college life also includes increased participation in decision-making in the academic environment. The quality of decision-making at the university is premised on the participation of all sectors that make up the university. It is not possible to continuously make inquiries sometimes due to certain problems such as time and logistics. To solve this problem, ICT put tools at our disposal that are each time more developed and can help improve the quality of decisions through participation; thereby increasing transparency and the legitimacy of decisions made. This helps to empower members of the university since it offers a virtual space for participation and deliberation. To test the starting hypothesis, an experimental prototype of a university platform is used in this work: MyUniversity; which was created for a project of the European Union with participation from thirteen universities. This platform provides IT support for a series of participatory tasks that were used in three experiments. The experiments were carried out at the Human Sciences and Education Faculty at the Technical University of Ambato and they consisted of conducting: a debate and a vote on a student’s’ topic, processing a document for the Faculty Board of Directors, and finally with the election of a President and Vice President. At the end, a satisfaction survey was conducted to all participants.