ParticipateDB

PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) is a software application to support well-structured conversations. From the article in Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice (chapter 4, page 71): Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) evolved as a parallel development project designed specifically to model the protocols of Fishkin’s Deliberative Poll® (Fishkin 1995). A front-end interface tied together software for both synchronous and asynchronous discussions as well as tools for registration and survey taking. Because PICOLA , like the Virtual Agora, was based on a complex programming environment that combined both commercial and open software tools, we were not able to sustain it past its initial five-year cycle. However, the successful use of the prototype has led us to conclude that the design of PICOLA constitutes a paradigm for these kinds of online tools. It stands as a ‘regulatory ideal’ for high telepresence, integrated deliberative e-democracy.