E-Participation and Role-based E-Participation Systems

Role-based e-participation is where participants can toggle their sociological, professional, expert and user roles per activity or contribution at e-participation venues. Such features are envisioned as pertaining to organizational processes at e-participation venues, to the indexing, search and retrieval of content on e-participation venues as well as to the Web-based searching of their contributions.

Lawyers, for example, can participate at e-participation venues in multiple roles and lawyers should be able to indicate or toggle roles. In legal roles, lawyers can advise ad hoc groups about the democratic processes and laws of their communities; in citizen roles, they can express opinions and discuss topics alongside their neighbors.