Zeno for Urban Planning and Public Participation
Barbara Schmidt-Belz
GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology, Schloss Birlinghoven, D-53754 Sankt Augustin. Email: Barbara.Schmidt-Belz@gmd.de
The System Zeno has been developed within the European project GeoMed - Geographical Mediation. Basically, Zeno is an Internet-based support for co-operation and deliberation of groups. Zeno combines a shared virtual workspace concept with a discussion forum and some more tools. The Zeno forum allows a structured argumentation (according to the IBIS model) and supports human moderators. By these concepts, a wide range of tasks of various user groups can be supported. A special application domain of Zeno is urban planning and public participation. The system can be used at all stages of a planning project. Depending on size and importance of an urban planning project, there are different procedures, about who is to be involved in which way at which stage of the project. According to the varying procedures, the system can be used flexibly to satisfy the needs of a special planning phase. Models of use are being prepared and validated together with user partners, especially the City of Bonn. For public participation we are experimenting with a combination of ordinary WWW-pages and a Zeno workspace and discussion forum. This paper outlines the Zeno services and tools, reports on first applications and experiences, and gives an outlook on ongoing development and research at our team.
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