Creating and Supporting Science and Technology Policies with Information Systems

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

There are many resources that are necessary for efficient and appropriate policy for the science and technology sector in Japan. Due to the specialist nature of development processes of such policies, the active participation of all 'stakeholders' or actors is an important feature in ensuring the success of these policies.Citizens' participation in science and technology policy development has been minimal, or cursory, until now. This is especially true in the case of sensitive issues such as national nuclear policies, where citizens' acceptance and involvement in the process is critical. A survey conducted among citizens of Kitakyushu City recently clearly highlighted an important ingredient for enabling this process-a coherent and consistent information policy that keeps the participant stakeholders fully informed of the processes. It was shown that a high value is assigned to information collected and processed by the citizens themselves-it is better accepted, understood and processed.The need for operationalizing policy development is an information environment that provides dynamic information to citizens on a timely and consistent manner. This is best done in a multimedia environment where text-based information is supplemented by other media like images, sound, video etc. Also, utilizing the interactive and communicative capabilities offered by the internet, through email and the world wide web, is an important component of any information system that attempts to enable active policy development. Thus, the next stage of the research process is to develop an integrated multimedia system that incorporates such dynamic interchange of critical information related to science and technology policies.