The CorkCitiEngage project announced last week two winners of iPad Mini’s for respondents who participated in the CorkCitiEngage surveys aimed at the general public and schools throughout Cork.
Ashton School is the winner for the category comprising schools and youth reach centres, which committed to have the CorkCitiEngage survey done by their students during computer classes. The Speak up Youth survey for students from 15-18 years old received 768 respondents from 26 participating secondary schools and youth reach centres in Cork Area Strategic Planning.
Ms Andrea O’Driscoll is the lucky winner in the Cork Have Your Say, the general public survey is targeting those who are strong with internet exposure and digital skills. Ms O’Driscoll was the lucky one from 264 registered survey respondents. This online survey for this particular group received 1,300 respondents from the generous Cork community.
The CorkCitiEngage team rolled out five sets of surveys in schools, door-to-door and online, giving people a chance to express their views on their participation in public issues, digital skills, and use of public infrastructure. The project is part of the Cork Smart Gateway initiative, which is driven by Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Nimbus Research Centre and Tyndall National Institute.
The purpose of the survey is to gather information on how people currently engage with public policy and decision-making in Cork. The survey uses an innovative and original 'smart' approach which combines traditional door-to-door survey methods, provided by a third party provider, with crowd-sourced information-gathering, using student volunteers going door-to-door and an additional online survey.
The crowd-sourced methodology was an experiment that shed light on the possibility of sharing risks, resources, and expertise when carrying out this type of research. The door-to-door method used CorkCitiEngage student volunteers to conduct face to face interviews in Cork neighbourhoods to ask people what they think about involving themselves with public policy matters. The organisers collected over 3,500 responses from the public surveys, between door-to-door and online responses, after closing the surveys by the end of January 2016. In addition to the public survey, an online survey link has been sent to secondary schools and youth reach centres to get a younger perspective on engagement with public policy. A separate survey link has been distributed to local government officials in Cork City Council and Cork County Council to indicate the baseline level of public engagement in Cork.
The organisers hope that the results would help identify and prioritise 'Smart Gateway' initiatives for Cork which will apply smart solutions to improve the physical realm in areas including energy conservation and mobility.