The objective of the Interactive Policy Making (IPM)
initiative is to use modern technologies, particularly the
Internet, to allow both Member State administrations and EU
institutions to understand the needs of citizens and
enterprises better. It is intended to assist policy
development by allowing more rapid and targeted responses to
emerging issues and problems, improving the assessment of
the impact of policies (or the absence of them) and
providing greater accountability to citizens.
This system has been put in place to facilitate the
stakeholders' consultation process by the use of easy-to-use
and straightforward online questionnaires, making it easier
both for respondents to participate and for policy makers to
analyse the results.
IPM is financed by the
ISA (Interoperability
Solutions for European Public Administrations) programme,
which has been implemented to improve electronic cooperation
among public administrations in EU Member States.
Launched in 2001, IPM has allowed the successful launch of
more than 370 public consultations available on the web
portal Your
voice in Europe,
which is the single access point for European Commission
consultations.
IPM also serves internal communication and staff management,
as internal surveys are regularly conducted within the
European Commission, and is used by Commission services to
prepare events and conferences (registration, etc), to
conduct website user surveys, etc.
IPM (Interactive Policy Making) is an online
survey
management system developed by the Commission's Informatics
Directorate (DIGIT). The software is web-based and does not
require any specific installation on the client side. A
standard Internet browser and an Internet connexion are the
only requirements to make use of IPM.
The IPM software is made of different modules aimed at the
management of the life-cycle of online questionnaires:
creation, test, translation, launch and analysis of results.
It handles
different types of single or multiple response questions, as
well as free text fields. Results can be displayed as
histograms, percentages or in full details and can be
exported to Excel. Its user
interface is available in 22 languages. Moreover, each
questionnaire can be translated into any of the official
languages of the EU.
-
Creation:
the "form manager" defines the properties of his online
questionnaire and designs the structure in terms of sections
and questions, establishes the types of questions (radio
buttons, check boxes, drop-down lists, free text boxes,
etc.) and dependencies between questions.
-
Test:
the questionnaire can be tested over a sample of users
before publication.
-
Translation:
a master Excel or XML file is extracted from IPM. The
translation process is done off-line. As soon as they are
ready, the translation files are uploaded in IPM.
-
Production:
the questionnaire is launched and the URL address of the
questionnaire is forwarded to potential respondents. Access
to the questionnaire is either direct, or restricted by
username/password.
-
Analysis of results:
the "form manager" can view the results in real time. Raw
results, percentages and histograms are available; a
built-in filter mechanism allows the creation of subsets of
results, and data can be exported to Excel for further
analysis.
The public administrations, businesses and citizens of the
EU Member States can download an Open Source Software
version of IPM, which is developed by the Commission’s
Directorate General for Informatics under the
ISA (Interoperability
Solutions for European Public Administrations) programme. It
is offered free of charge through the
EUPL (European Union
Public Licence).
For download and more information about IPM and
its Open Source Software, please consult the
IPM pages on
Joinup.
If you have a question about IPM, or encountered a problem
while using IPM or replying to an IPM online questionnaire,
please don't hesitate to email us at:
DIGIT-IPM-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu
For more information about the IPM Open Source Software
version, please contact us at:
DIGIT-IPM-OSS@ec.europa.eu
