VoiceS - Integrating Semantics, Social Software and Serious Games into eParticipation

VOICES is a complementary project, integrating a serious game and a semantic search function into the existing German and Spanish VoicE platforms.
The consortium comprises experts from the field of eParticipation, game development, communication and policy analysis from five European countries. VoiceS will update and complement the VoicE internet platforms in order to further promote the dialogue between citizens from European regions and "their" regional policy makers from the European Parliament, thus creating a direct link between citizens and the representatives from their region. The project will continue to focus on the policy area of consumer protection in the EU, a field of high relevance to each citizen. It will build on the community and contacts that have been firmly established in the framework of the VoicE project.

With VoiceS, by incorporating results of other eParticipation projects, a whole array of new features will be added to the existing VoicE platform, this way enhancing its functionalities for both citizens and EU decision-makers dramatically: 

• by incorporating semantic applications and ontologies from the projects DALOS and Demos@work, platform users (citizens, MEPs, platform management) will gain access to a multitude of advanced tools: Automatic translation, automatic text summaries, improved search engines, improved tagging (cloud tagging).
• by including a Serious Game as a learning component, VoiceS platform will make the complex EU codecision procedure accessible to a large audience (especially among younger citizens), thus providing necessary understanding and enabling them to contribute actively to the platform.
• including Social networking tools into the strategy for platform marketing and promotion will increase platform outreach drastically, providing access to new user groups and stakeholders.

Apart from new functions, via its Toolkit for Regional eParticipation initiatives, VoiceS will also deliver services to help other regions setting up similar initiatives of their own, beyond the limited framework of this initiative.