On the occasion of "Numérique en Commun[s] 2020", 3 short accompaniments or "contributions" to digital commons have been realized by inno3. These commons are used or co-supported by actors of the NEC community: OpenFisca, Et Si J'Accompagnais and Movilab.
The goal? To contribute concretely to the digital commons, to document the reflections and to share the lessons learned so that other projects can seize them in turn.A common methodology was adopted for all the projects, composed of: This post concludes these three accompaniments with the intention of giving, through the concrete examples that constitute the accompanied projects, elements allowing other digital commons holders to project themselves with regard to their needs. This translates into the identification of generic problems and the proposal of some solutions that can be put into practice.an initial interview leading to the proposal of one or more issues related to the commons;a proposed methodology to address the collectively agreed upon problem;of the follow-up and the realization of this axis;the drafting of a summary with useful recommendations for the project;Finally, these three communities were given a dedicated presentation at NEC20 to describe their projects, their objectives, and the support provided.Beyond that, the support approaches presented illustrate the specificities of projects that are part of a digital commons approach and the need to adapt solutions to the particular issues of inclusion, collaboration and sustainability of this type of project.
Return on the accompaniments - contributions
Presentation & ContextOpenFisca is a digital commons project which, starting from the observation that our social relationships are organized by rules (laws, regulations, customs, etc.), aims to describe some of these rules in a computerized form in order to facilitate their understanding, simulation and implementation for the benefit of all. Usable in any field of legislation describing logical situations, OpenFisca is used today to evaluate the impact of new laws on citizens and on the State budget, as well as to allow users and beneficiaries to better understand their rights and obligations, thanks to simulators such as TaxIPP, LexImpact and MesAides. The project was initiated in 2011 within France Stratégie in partnership with the Institute of Public Economics (IDEP), and then adopted by other teams in France - including Etalab, which has been running the project since 2013 - and abroad.Etalab and Dinum were important supporters of the project in its early days, allowing it to develop rapidly, and leading to Etalab's disengagement. As a result, there is scattered usage and a weak community of external users and/or contributors, as the project has not needed to take steps in this direction until now. But today, while the project wants to ensure its sustainability in total autonomy, the development, structuring and animation of its community become major issues.IssueAmong the needs identified during the first meeting, it was decided to focus the support on the establishment of a better integration of the national and international community in the development and sustainability of the project.The objective of the support was to propose to OpenFisca recommendations likely to strengthen the French community. Specific work for the international community is in progress in collaboration with the Foundation for Public Code.MethodologyA questionnaire was widely distributed within the OpenFisca and Numérique en Commun[s] networks, completed by multiple direct contacts, aimed at the project's French-speaking community (an English version was also suggested in parallel, in order to be able to target the international community in a second phase) with a triple objective: The answers to the questionnaire, which can be found on the ANCT's data.gouv space, also made it possible to identify the community's strengths and some points of attention relating to its future structuring. An analysis of the responses to the questionnaire was produced, completed by a series of recommendations covering, in particular, the challenges of structuring the community.have an overview of the users and/or contributors to the project (and identify potential contributors),determine the motivations for their use and/or contribution,Identify barriers to use or contribution.TeachingsProcessing the responses to the questionnaire has enabled us to orient our support around several key areas in the development of the community. The primary target of the project, in terms of users as well as contributors, has been the developer community since the beginning. In fact, the project attracts few non-technicians, and in particular few economists. There is therefore a challenge to develop collaboration with the latter. This can be done by providing documentation and specific usage aids to non-developer communities.Furthermore, dissociating (intellectually) the issues and perspectives of mutualization according to the type of resources needed for the OpenFisca project (code, models, data, documentation, etc.) would allow to adapt the framework to the specificities of these resources and to increase the contributor base to the project. Finally, sharing cross-cutting tools (tests, models, etc.) with alternative projects could promote the adoption of OpenFisca and simplify the overall use of simulation technologies by end users.
Beyond facilitating the membership of non-developers in the community, it seems important to introduce the project to other sectors. Thus, OpenFisca would need resources (such as sample pitches) to present the project to other types of actors or potential users than tax specialists. Finally, it seems essential to make the OpenFisca community more visible to third parties, in order to encourage new contributions; but also to make its internal animation more collaborative, by involving the members in particular in the roadmap and the structuring of the community. Thus, defining and publishing a clear and precise collaboration framework would facilitate contribution and would be a factor of trust (and therefore of adoption) for the project.In any case, this community development is also based on an image strategy that has yet to be defined.
Presentation & ContextMovilab is an incubation and resource center that aims to set up laboratories for sustainable living in vivo in partnership with territories. This device is based on the combination of free software cultures and ecological thinking, and relies on the (social) practice of Third Places. Movilab's approach is based on three complementary approaches: the documentation of practices, the incubation of experiments and the pollination of knowledge. In this respect, Movilab is an experimental project that translates the will of several communities to co-produce and maintain a common resource, which has been the subject of an initial financing by the France Tiers Lieu network and of an animation of contributors by the Compagnie des Tiers Lieux. These efforts now allow Movilab to propose a whole series of resources and reflections on how to share within the community both the means (notably via the redistribution of the funds received) and the objectives (roadmap).IssueInno³ has proposed to Movilab a contribution to the drafting of a response to thecall for commons currently being designed byADEME. More generally, Inno³ participated in the reflection on the positioning that Movilab could take with regard to public funding for the production and maintenance of digital commons. The aim was both to help Movilab prefigure the way in which it could benefit from this type of scheme and to gain an insight into this new funding method, of which the ADEME initiative is a prototype. The aim is to bring together all the players involved - public financiers, project applicants and supporting structures - towards a collectively accepted, co-constructed model.MethodologyWork sessions have been organized within Movilab - including the organization of a workshop by inno³ during one of Movilab's monthly residencies - but also between Movilab, France Tiers Lieux, Nouveaux Lieux Nouveaux Liens and ADEME in order to share everyone's positions and thoughts.TeachingsThe result of this support is a matrix listing, for the three categories of actors mentioned above, the needs to be taken into account in the drafting of a call for proposals or a response to such a call, and the means and tools that can be mobilized in the context of this call or the response to it. The main idea is to raise collective awareness of the merits of this type of initiative and to initiate a few courses of action that could be taken by everyone. The matrix produced at the end of this support is only a first draft that can evolve according to the experiments and feedback that will be made.
Presentation & Context"Et si j'accompagnais" is the training platform on digital inclusion initiated by the Hub Territorial pour un numérique inclusif en Auvergne Rhône-Alpes (HINAURA). Composed of 4 modules combining face-to-face and distance learning, the training is provided throughout the region by digital mediators trained in the training system. Given the desire to extend the benefits of this platform to other hubs and to benefit in return from their uses and contributions, HINAURA has entered into a process of openness aimed at associating all other actors interested in the project.IssueAmong those shared during the first interview, it is the issue of the development of the project externally and the internal structuring of the "Et si j'accompagnais? project in the form of a digital community that was chosen to be the object of inno³'s support. The objective was twofold: to identify the strengths and points of vigilance linked to the current functioning of the community, and to propose a few paths linked to the structuring and the adapted economic development.MethodologyA workshop co-designed and co-facilitated by inno³ and HINAURA was organized with the objective of defining together the appropriate structuring of the project and the means to achieve it. Several working sessions took place beforehand, in order to prepare the workshop but also to determine who should be the participants. In the end, it was decided to invite the members of the wider "What if I were to accompany? community. However, not all topics could be covered during the workshop, and it was decided to organize a second one around the issues of economic models with only the members of the project team, so that they could then re-mobilize the community as a whole around these topics in 2021.TeachingsThis accompaniment allowed us to produce advice and recommendations for "Et si j'accompagnais" and similar projects concerning their legal structuring and economic development; but also a method allowing us to ask ourselves the right questions in order to set up the best possible structuring and development model. Thus, the priority for HINAURA was to expand the community of users and contributors of the platform "Et si j'accompagnais? To do so, a reflection was first conducted on the different profiles of users and contributors to be solicited. Then, concrete actions were listed in order to encourage the participation of these new audiences, whether they are users of the resources, content creators, sponsors or guarantors. Tools that could be used to implement these actions were then identified. All of this was formalized in the form of a mindmap.
This work is part of a pathway 100% dedicated to the digital commons within the framework of NEC 2020, within which many resources have been created collectively. Find them here.
