REPORT OF THE ONLINE COLLABORATION DYNAMIC COALITION (IGF-OCDC) TO THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM OPEN CONSULTATION 23 MAY 2007 A recurring theme that has been expressed by all stakeholder groups since the very earliest stages of planning the inaugural meeting of the IGF, and that has continued in the wake of that meeting, has been the importance of facilitating participation in the activities of the IGF by online means. Whilst opinions differ on whether these online facilities should be institutionalised and pervasive, or grassroots-organised and facultative, there has been no dissent from the proposition, as expressed by Nitin Desai in the February 2007 open consultation, that "If we are talking of Internet governance, if you do not use the capacities of the Internet to allow people to connect and interact with one another, then, in a sense, we are failing in our duty." The Online Collaboration Dynamic Coalition (IGF-OCDC) was formed to provide an open, multi-stakeholder venue in which for these issues to be addressed and - more importantly - for practical solutions to be developed and made available for the use of participants in the activities of the Internet Governance Forum and its dynamic coalitions. Amongst the principles which the members of the IGF-OCDC have sought to pursue in this endeavour are: * Integration of knowledge across multiple domains * Decentralisation of the control of information * Accessibility of online resources to all stakeholders * Engagement of stakeholders rather than one-way communication It was always the intention of the founding members of the IGF-OCDC not merely to discuss best practices in online participation and collaboration, but to actually implement them using a dedicated Internet server that it would make available for the use of the community of the IGF and its dynamic coalitions. As two of the founding members of the IGF-OCDC were responsible for the successful IGF Community Site at http://igf2006.info/ that was widely used for the Athens meeting, the Dynamic Coalition was confident that much more could be accomplished with the greater time and wider input available ahead of the Rio meeting. However like the IGF Secretariat, the Dynamic Coalition has no funding and relies upon the contributions of its members to support its activities. As a result it has not, to date, been able to secure the resources necessary to launch the planned server, though it remains hopeful of progress being made shortly. Despite the limitations of funding, in the few months since its establishment the Dynamic Coalition has developed quite a comprehensive online resource on the relevant issues and best practices in the facilitation of online engagement and participation in the activities of the IGF. These include, amongst other resources: * A catalogue of online tools, all available under open source software licences, to provide the functions of synchronous and asynchronous discussion (ie. chat and discussion boards or lists), collaborative editing (eg. wikis), content aggregation (eg. tagging and RSS feeds) and decision-making tools (eg. polling software). * Links to working demos of some of these tools, along with links to those, in each of the categories identified above, that are already being used by the IGF's Secretariat and by other dynamic coalitions. * A background paper on the theory of online deliberation, with references to scholarly material. * A comprehensive list of no fewer than 90 proposed "tags" by which the integration of disparate sources of information could be accomplished, using either of two technical methods which are described in some detail. The IGF-OCDC has also begun to discuss a number of ideas for possible consideration for the Rio meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, which are not dependent upon the launch of the server that would be required for most of the Dynamic Coalition's other activities. These include: * That the simultaneous translation that is projected to the front of the main venue should also be copied in real time to an Internet chat channel, so that all users (including those without the high speed access required to hear the webcast) may follow the meeting's progress instantaneously. * The converse of the above: real-time comments from the Internet could be displayed on a large projection screen alongside the English transcription/translation, subject to only minimal moderation to screen out obscenity. This would allow online participants a real voice, without interrupting the flow of the proceedings. There are members of the IGF-OCDC who are pleased to offer their voluntary assistance to the Secretariat and to the Brazilian organisers of the Rio meeting in order to pursue any of these suggestions that may be considered worthwhile. The IGF-OCDC welcomes new members. Its wiki Web site at http://igf2006.info/wiki/IGF-OCDC and its mailing list at http://igfwatch.org/wws/info/igf-ocdc, are open to all interested parties.