Co-Creating Digital Public Services

Co-creation is understood differently across domains of application and research fields. For example, in the management and business literature co-creation is often described as a business model that allows responding effectively to changing consumer demands: Instead of companies creating or influencing a demand, customers co-create innovative solutions and value. In contrast, in research fields such as (collaborative) learning, co-creation is mostly related to the co-creation of (shared) knowledge. Overall, the role of technology in co-creation differs: Whereas in some domains technology is understood as an enabler of co-creation (e.g. knowledge or value co-creation enabled through digital platforms), in others technology is the goal of co-creation (e.g. co-creation of digital artefacts). The co-creation of digital public services differs insofar from these examples, as technology is understood as an enabler as well as an objective: It aims to co-create (public) value for public administrations and citizens through the co-creation of digital public services.

This chapter reviews the key literature and concepts relating to the co-creation of digital public services. For this task, it is firstly important to consider what kind of digital public services may be suitable for co-creation. In order to do so, the first section of this chapter defines what a digital public service is (e.g. with respect to different types of service providers, different types of services and service delivery) and considers what kind of digital public services allow for meaningful citizen participation. To better conceptualise different degrees participation, the subsequent section reviews Arnstein’s (1969) “ladder of citizen participation” and related work. This allows distinguishing between different degrees of non-participation, (consultative) participation and beyond. Thirdly, the chapter reviews traditional participatory approaches that provide the basis for the co-creation of digital public services: (1) co-production of public services, (2) co-design of technology and (3) civic open data use.

Reviewing those three approaches to co-creation allows to identify specific challenges but also ideas for the co-creation of digital public services. The chapter hence proceeds to consider the framing conditions for co-creating digital public services such as existing public information infrastructures, existing collaborations, budget constraints and corresponding policies. The subsequent section of this chapter considers different roles citizen may assume in co-creation processes. These roles include for example explorers, data creators, designers, or diffusers. The chapter closes with an examination of how the three traditional approaches respond to the three aspects that will guide the further analysis of this book’s empirical examples: (1) the sharing of control with citizens, (2) the sharing of lived expertise and (3) the enabling of individual and social change. Our own approach and framework for co-creation is described in detail in chapter four, followed by the accounts of our three co-creation projects in chapters five, six and seven.

The understanding of what digital public services are and how their maturity may be assessed has changed over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, the maturity of eGovernment services was understood with respect to the technological and organisational complexity of ICT systems against their actual integration into governmental organisations. Layne and Lee (2001) for example, argued that the maturity of eGovernment services may be assessed according to its level of integration (from the provision of information, to transactions to back-office integration; see Fig. 1).

A similar model was developed by Moon (2002) that features five stages: (1) Information/dissemination catalogue, (2) two way communication, (3) service and financial transactions, (4) vertical and horizontal integration, and (5) political participation (e.g. online voting). Both models emphasise the complexity of eGovernment projects in transforming public sector service delivery as a transformation of its organisation through the integration of more sophisticated technology.

In contrast, the model proposed in the 2009 Benchmark Report by EU Member States emphasises a different rationale: user-centricity (European Commission, 2009). It describes the evolution of eGovernment services along policy concerns with regards to citizens as customers and designers of public services.

In this model, the early approaches to eGovermnent services focussed on their availability (administration centric), including the inclusiveness and accessibility of these services. In the Manchester declaration of the biannual Ministerial eGovernment Conference (2005), “user-centricity” was first introduced:

A user-centric approach can contribute towards reductions in the administrative burden on businesses (especially SMEs) and citizens, can improve quality of life and can contribute towards trust in government and democracy.

The aim was to develop eGovernment services in a way that by 2010 “all citizens, including socially disadvantaged groups, will have become major beneficiaries of eGovernment”. eGovernment was meant to contribute to higher “user satisfaction with public services” in general. At the Ministerial Conference in Portugal (2007) it was declared:

It is imperative for governments to ensure citizens and businesses benefit from these investments. Understanding and recognising the importance of citizen-focused services and the reduction of administrative burden is therefore crucial to success.

In 2009 (Malmö) the ministers agreed on the following policy objectives to be met by 2015: (1) eGovernment services should be designed around the needs of users (citizens or businesses) and in collaboration with third parties; (2) eGovernment services should be user-centric, catering for the different needs of users (flexible, personalised, multi-channel, inclusive) and delivered in the most effective ways; (3) public administrations should actively seek collaboration with third parties on the development of eGovernment services in order to stimulate innovation and maximize public value.

The Benchmark Report of 2009 introduced the term “user experience” for the first time which goes beyond usability and accessibility. eGovernment initiatives were meant to include a “user satisfaction monitoring”; service development needed to be driven by “user-empowering technologies”.

Our future challenge will be to change the mindset of Administrations, and change the model of public services delivery to one that is clearly engaging and involving the customer in all aspects of the process. This opens the door to opportunities to reduce the cost-to-serve the customer, and improve service quality. We must go over a ‘tipping point’ to reap such rewards, and in so doing move from an Administration-centric to a Customer-centric service delivery model.

However, the 2017 declaration (European Commission 2017) is rather reserved. It is stated that the most recent EU eGovernment Action Plan (2016) has been a “significant step in this transformation journey”. However, “more needs to be done and faster to ensure its implementation”. The accompanying Benchmark Report shows no progress in user experience. In addition to more user-centricity, it also asks for citizen engagement: That digital means are used to empower citizens and businesses to voice the views, allowing policy makers to collect new ideas, involve citizens more in the creation of public services and provide better digital public service.

In addition to the demand to more citizen engagement, there is the legitimate question whether there is a restriction on the types of public services that are suitable for co-creation. In the maturity model depicted in Fig. 2 we find no differentiation between different types of services. Rather, there is a general assumption that all eGovernment services need to be citizen-centric and citizen-driven. It does make sense, however, to differentiate between different types of public services as certain services are more suitable for co-creation. In general, public services can be distinguished by three criteria:

Different types of eGovernment services may be distinguished according to the kinds of interaction they enable between service providers and users. Layne and Lee (2001) introduced the categories of information, communication, transaction and integration. The bi-annual benchmarking of eGovernment services in EU-Member States uses a similar five stages maturity model. Each stage is connected with different technical, organisational and legal requirements and not equally suited for co-creation with civil society organisations or citizens as end user: Horizontal integration is achieved, when different services are integrated, that are regularly used together in a certain life situation, e.g. when people are moving from one place to another, they have to provide changes of their address with many offices and businesses. With horizontal integration, they have to enter these data only once. Vertically integrated services automatically catch data from central registers and relieve users from entering these data at all. Both ways require interoperability between the different services. If they are run by different government agencies, there is a need for inter-organisational coordination. It is difficult to imagine that individual citizens can be of any help for advancing such service integration, as these are intra- and inter-organisational processes. In contrast, information services seem more suitable for co-creation between service provider and prospective service users.

A second distinction of public services refers to the kind of service provider. In the eGovernment context, the main focus is on government agencies at national, regional or local level. Many of the services provided by these agencies are regulated by law; their development and design is governed by public procurement regulation, co-determination of employees representatives and accessibility guidelines. However, the term public service also applies to services of public interest, which may be provided by government agencies, social welfare organisations or other civil society organisations. Examples for such services are pre-schools, civic meeting centres, consultation services, which may be partly under government licence and with government funding. In most cases, such service providers have more autonomy over the information services they provide and therefore may allow for more openness in a co-creation project.

Finally, a third criterion refers to the area or domain of a service such as social welfare, health, environment etc. These areas are regulated to different degrees with respect to which information have to be provided and which information may not be published. For example in Germany the publication of information on “hygiene control in restaurants” has been forbidden by court.

In sum, citizen-driven service development of public services has been promoted greatly at European and national level for the past decade. The examples above provide a glimpse into the ways in which Members States and the European Commission reiterate the importance of customer-centricity:

[…] the importance of user presence is repeated over and over again in different shapes: involvement, empowerment, collaboration, flexible and personalized user satisfaction” (Gidlund, 2012, p. 12).

In order to allow for meaningful engagement in the co-creation of digital public services, the term public service needs to be extended to services in the public interest and offered by social welfare organisations and other non-profit civic society organisations, which complement governmental services. Within the narrower frame of eGovernment services, it is information services, which offer most scope for action for citizen engagement. This engagement or participation can have different levels of intensity. These levels are reviewed in the next section.

There exist different typologies for modelling the degree/level of citizen participation in participatory projects. The initial “ladder of citizen participation” was proposed by Arnstein (1969) and subsequently amended for contexts such as research (von Unger, 2014) or open government (Prieto-Martín, 2014). What these models have in common is that they all distinguish between four overall degrees of participation (including non-participation).

The first level, non-participation, can be depicted through different modes of civic engagement. While Arnstein proposed (1) manipulation and (2) therapy; von Unger listed instrumentalisation and instruction. None of these modes of engagement substitute for genuine participation although we do find self-proclaimed citizen engagement projects employing such methods. For example, manipulation occurs when citizens are placed on “rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards for the express purpose of ‘educating’ them or engineering their support” (Arnstein, 1969, p. 218). This is similar to von Unger’s framing of non-participation in which citizens are instrumentalised to carry out specific tasks and follow instructions of those in power. Therapy is a mode of engagement in which citizens are engaged in activities that distract from the real cause of issues concerning citizens.

Arnstein (1969) defined the second level as degrees of tokenism towards participation. Prieto-Martín argues this stage on the participation ladder may also be understood as consultative participation rather than Arnstein’s somewhat “pejorative” token participation. He argues that public authorities cannot abandon “their role as guarantor of the ‘general interest’ and the rights of minorities” (p. 5) and hence rightly points out to connote this stage more positively as it may be the most appropriate approach for certain participation contexts. Overall, the stage includes information, consultation and advice: Informing citizens about their rights and responsibilities can be seen as a first step toward legitimate citizen participation. However, as Arnstein points out, very often, this is a one-way process in which those in power inform citizens without seeking to be informed themselves and hence not providing any feedback channels. The consultation of citizens may be a legitimate step towards participation, if it is combined with other modes of engagement. However, if consultation solely relies on surveys, neighbourhood meetings or public hearings without a transparent decision-making process, then this mode of participation remains symbolic at best. Arnstein states “when powerholders restrict the input of citizens’ ideas solely to this level, participation remains just a window-dressing ritual. People are primarily perceived as statistical abstractions, and participation is measured by how many come to meetings, take brochures home, or answer a questionnaire” (p. 219). Advice is the last of the three levels of consultative participation. Here a few, selected members of a community are allowed to participate, they are, however, not accountable to a constituency. Alternatively, they may be involved in the planning of a service and advise decision-makers; it is however the decision-makers that ultimately judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the citizens’ advice/suggestions (Arnstein, 1969; Prieto-Martín, 2014). With all of these degrees of consultative participation, the decision-making power lies ultimately with public authorities.

(Collaborative) participation begins when power is (re-)distributed between citizens and public administrations (Prieto-Martín, 2014). The initial degree of participation is “collaboration” (Prieto-Martín, 2014) or “partnership” (Arnstein, 1969).

Partnership [or collaboration] can work most effectively when there is an organized power-based in the community to which the citizens leaders are accountable (Arnstein, 1969, p. 221, emphasis added).

The outcomes of collaboration (or partnership) should influence final decisions in a meaningful way. Prieto-Martín speaks of “honest cooperation” to signal all participants collaborate to “find and develop the best solutions” (p. 6). Partial decision-making power and delegated power allow citizens to reach (dominant) decision-making authority of a particular plan or program. Participatory budgeting, in which citizens determine by majority vote which of a set of proposed actions should receive funding, are one example. Finally, if citizens take control, e.g. community controlled schools or neighbourhood programs, their power goes beyond a participatory framework (Fig. 3).

Of course, the stages proposed in this ladder are not as clear-cut as they have been described. Rather, within participation projects, there is often no sharp distinction between the stages and we find many forms of citizen (non-)participation that are partly overlapping. Hence, these stages should be rather understood as an analytical framework for analysing and evaluating participation projects. In addition, this typology depicts those in power and the powerless as homogeneous groups that juxtapose each other. In reality, we find many divergent views, competing interests and different capabilities in each of the groups. However, as Arnstein argues, “in most cases the have-nots really do perceive the powerful as a monolithic ‘system’, and powerholders actually do view the have-nots as a sea of ‘those people’” (p. 217). Examples of such discourses may be found in most policy frameworks promoting the engagement of “the civil society” or “the ageing population” as described in the previous chapter.

In order to understand how these different types of participation play out, Manzini (2015) developed a map of citizen involvement that locates different modalities of participation with respect to (1) the degree of collaboration between service providers and service users (low to high degree of collaboration) and (2) the degree of active participation of service users in the planning, design and delivery of public services. The degree of active involvement ranges from passive to active participation. In the case of passive participation, citizens are seen as passive users of a service; other stakeholders play the role of active providers of services. In this scenario users are served by providers. The degree of collaborative involvement ranges from no collaboration to intensive collaboration between service providers and service users. The outcome is a map which depicts four different modalities of citizen involvement (Fig. 4):

The concept of co-production is related to public services in the sense that since public services are characterised through a merger of production and consumption, they always depend to a minimum on the involvement of citizens. Osborne, Radnor, and Strokosch (2016) define

co-production as the voluntary or involuntary involvement of public service users in any of the design, management, delivery and/or evaluation of public services (p. 640).

In their understanding, any service delivery process is always co-produced, be it voluntary (and willingly) or not, and argue that “a service does not have any intrinsic value to its users” but that its value is co-produced. They understand co-creation only as the co-creation of value through the co-production of services. Others have argued that co-creation can be understood as a process of active citizen participation and hence similar to Manzini’s understanding of co-production as an active and collaborative undertaking (de Jong, Neulen, & Jansma, 2019; Voorberg, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015). Here, co-production is

the provision of services through regular, long-term relationships between professionalized service providers (in any sector) and service users or other members of the community, where all parties make substantial resource contributions (Bovaird, 2007, p. 847).

Hence, co-production refers to the collaboration of at least two parties (public administration and citizens) and has to be distinguished from other forms of civic self-empowerment such as volunteer work or self-organisation (“do-it-yourself”), since in those activities the administration is not taking part. It refers to the long-term involvement of citizens in problem definition and solving (see Fig. 5). Crucially, the planning stage concludes with a definition of a problem that needs to be solved. Subsequently a solution is being developed.

Bovaird and Loeffler (2012) identified two types of co-production: substitutive co-production as the outsourcing of work (and costs) and additive co-production as activities of the administration to enhance the impact of civic engagement. In this view co-production is understood as an impact-oriented form of collaboration between public administrations and citizens, that aims to unfold the capacities, potentials and strengths of all parties concerned with the objective of enhancing the quality of life in neighbourhoods, cities or regions, and to achieve efficiency gains jointly (Löffler, 2015, p. 319). It also aims to trigger “behaviour change” and preventing “future problems” (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2012). Thereby the rapid development of ICTs can support attempts to co-produce public services as it facilitates access to public data, enhances transparency and enables closer relationships and new forms of interaction between government and citizens.

In a comprehensive literature review on the co-production of public sector services, Voorberg et al. (2015) undertook a detailed analysis of 122 reports¹ covering different public sector domains, with a dominance in health care (30 cases) and education (15 cases). In 52% of the contributions, no objective is mentioned at all. Twenty-nine percent of the cases wanted to gain more effectiveness or efficiency, 8% aimed for more customer satisfaction and only 7% aimed to increase citizen involvement (Table 1). The authors assume that in those cases where no objectives were mentioned explicitly co-production itself was the goal and the justification, independent from any outcome (ibid, p. 1341). Voorberg et al. identify the following critical factors for achieving the goals of a co-production project on the governmental side:

In addition, on the citizens’ side:

Arnstein (1969) argues that “roadblocks” to “genuine” participation lie on both sides: On the side of government and public authorities these include racism, paternalism and a resistance to power redistribution; on the side of citizens they include the political socio-economic infrastructure, in particular in poor communities and difficulties in organising accountable representation. Actions to overcome barriers on the citizen side found in the reviewed literature include lowering the thresholds for participation, e.g. by offering a plebiscitary choice instead of asking citizens about complicated policy issues or following an inviting policy to generate a feeling of ownership. Often times, providing financial incentives are coupled with futility, alienation, and distrust in government. The review of Voorberg et al. (2015) mentions influencing factors such as social capital and the need that government explicitly invites, encourages and supports citizens in a co-creation process. They conclude that government not only has to overcome internal barriers but also has to enable, encourage and support citizens to get involved.

Although 50% of the reports mentioned some kind of objective only 24 (20%) report an outcome or impact. Among the different dimensions most frequently effectiveness is reported, i.e. the number of people reached, the amount of garbage separated or knowledge improved (Table 1).

Voorberg et al. (2015) embarked their review in order to identify whether the big hopes for co-creation (as co-production)—they speak of a „magic term” can be based on evidence in order to help public sector decision makers decide whether and how to initiate such processes. In sight of this review, Voorberg et al. (2015) conclude that it is not clear whether co-production does indeed contribute to the outcomes it claims to accomplish. They further question, “if there is a relationship between several degrees of citizen involvement (co-implementing, co-design and initiator) and the outcomes of social innovations” (p. 1348). The result is that in the majority of cases, co-creation is considered as a virtue in itself (see also de Jong et al., 2019).

Overall, co-production is about increasing efficiency, effectiveness and user/costumer satisfaction of a service (no matter if public or private). Co-creation in contrast can include some of these aspects but goes beyond them; the participation of citizens is an end in itself, because it aims to intensify one of the fundamental principles of democracy and civic participation. Hence, while co-production of public services is a promising and innovative idea and an option to respond to “bureaucratic burden”, incomprehensible administrative forms and procedures, we learn from the literature review conducted by Voorberg et al. (2015) that in general there is no evidence that the idea really works (for digital services) and that the desired results are achieved. The cases of co-production reported dealt mostly with physical objects and direct human interaction (for example garbage separation for recycling reasons). In order to understand, how user participation may be performed for the design of digital services, two approaches to co-design are now reviewed: participatory design and user-centered design.

So far, there has been little attention to user participation for the design of digital public services (Karlsson, Holgersson, Söderström, & Hedström, 2012). However, there is a long tradition of user involvement in Information System Development (ISD).² Ever since the users of Information Systems (IS) became a different group of professionals from those that design and implement such systems, there was a gap between the expertise of professional software systems developers and prospective users.

In general, we can distinguish between three, partly overlapping user participation approaches: User-Centred Design (UCD), Participatory Design (PD) and User Innovation (UI). The level of control (as described in Arnstein’s participation ladder) over design decision increases for participating users from user-centred design to participatory design to user innovation. In the following, I will only review participatory design and user-centred design as these two approaches assume some sort of collaboration between those developing systems and those using the systems. Both approaches are reviewed with respect to the modes of participation and levels of control they allow as well as citizens’ willingness and ability to participate.

A new mode of government-citizen collaboration has emerged as part of the open government movement and the provision of open government data for civic use (e.g. Baack, Djeffal, Jarke, & Send, 2020; Emaldi, Aguilera, López-de-Ipiña, & Pérez-Velasco, 2017; Toots et al., 2017). Many public administrations and governments provide part of their data under open licenses, so that technology-savvy citizens may use and re-use it. While the role of public administration is somewhat reduced in this scenario, so-called civic hackers are “deploying information technology tools to enrich civic life, or to solve particular problems of a civic nature” as Hogge (2010, p. 10) noted in a study commissioned by the Open Society Foundation. These civic hackers are political activists that aim to support their communities through digital means; they are—in a way—an “elite” that is capable of apprehending the meaning and possible uses of open data, and subsequently act on it (Schrock, 2016).

Civic technology is strongly associated with the digitalisation of the public sector in general and the idea of “open government” in particular. Interactions between public authorities and citizens are increasingly mediated by digital technologies as more and more public services are provided via digital channels. However, in many cases these services are not used widely and in particular, older citizens are excluded above average, as digital services do not meet their needs and expectations. In the past decade the idea of “open government” (European Commission, 2014; House - Oversight and Government Reform, 2007; Office of the President, 2009; Presidential Directives EO 13392, 2005) has attracted attention, encouraging the development of so-called civic apps (digital applications that are based on open government data and developed by civil society actors such as Code4America). These civic apps are meant to provide for better and user-centred services and to foster public participation and engagement in the development and provision of public services using open government data.

There are different models on how government and citizens may interact with respect to open data. Sieber and Johnson (2015) distinguish four modes:

Sieber and Johnson (2015) see governments “at a crossroad” taking a choice between these modes, as they are driven by different motivations: The first two modes are motivated by the call for transparency based on freedom of information requirements and/or providing resources for economic development. The third mode is motivated by a concern for a more responsive relation of government to its citizens while the fourth mode demonstrates a fundamental change of the role of government and calls for a degree of flexibility, which is hardly found. However, the authors promote the “Participatory Open Data Model”, because the first two modes pose the risk that governments „outsource themselves“. If, for example, Google collects all transport data and offers public transport information, people may start asking why they pay taxes if others provide public services for free. In the authors´ view, the fourth model is a necessary reaction to ongoing changes in the digital word and in line with the principles of the Open Government Partnership.

Nevertheless, this model is in conflict with the established structures of representative democracy and the rule of law: If citizens are invited in this way as co-producers, they expect that government will follow their suggestions and contributions. However, it is open how to deal with conflicting demands and how to give the silent majorities a voice. For example, issue trackers (such as FixMyStreet) are much more widely used in those parts of a city where people with higher socio-economic status live. Studies have demonstrated that after the introduction of issue trackers, those parts of the city are more likely to receive attention by public authorities, because their issues become visible, whereas issues in other parts of the city remain invisible (Marres, 2017).

Those who volunteer as co-producers have no mandate from their co-citizens but may pursue their individual interests. They are not accountable to their communities in Arnstein’s sense. According to the existing law, the decision which services are provided by local government has to be taken by the elected council within the approved annual budget according to procurement law. Any proposal for new services has to be considered and finally decided within these limits. This may be one of the reasons why the fourth model has almost not been realised so far.

In sum, public authorities and governments on all levels (local, regional, and national) are placing an increasing emphasis on opening their data repositories to encourage new and collaborative forms of service design and delivery (Shakespeare, 2013). However, such open data is normally read-only (that is, citizens are usually not able to suggest changes, correct errors, etc.) and there is little return for local governments (M. Lee, Almirall, & Wareham, 2015; Hunnius & Krieger, 2014; Kubicek & Jarke, 2020). Often developers anticipate the needs and wants of citizens based on their own experiences with lack or insufficient knowledge about prospective user groups. In order to create value that benefits administrations as well as citizens, it is crucial to engage citizens in the process of open data service app development, especially those who are often forgotten when it comes to technological innovations. So far, the field of civic open data use (civic tech/civic hacking) is mainly dominated by younger and tech-savy “civic hackers” that develop services for their communities and cities (Gooch et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2015). Older citizens—if at all—are often only marginally involved in such kind of civic technology engagement. In those cases where citizens are involved they mainly act as data collectors (e.g. Gooch et al., 2018).

Thus, there is a need to bring together city administrations as data owners, technology developers and older citizens as knowledgeable individuals and prospective users in order to co-create valuable public services based on open data in participatory design processes. The articulation of this need may be found in the publication of several funding lines (of e.g. the European Commission) in which research and innovation projects are proposed that co-create public digital services. Mobile Age, the research and innovation project upon which this book is based, was one of such projects.

The first part of this chapter provided an overview about the objectives of some of the roots of co-creation: co-design, co-production and civic open data use. Those approaches cover different phases in the life cycle of service planning (plan), design and provision (run). Figure 9 situates the three approaches along those phases, the first white triangle depicts the scope of activity in the planning phase (from general idea to a problem focus), the last the provision of a service (from the roll-out to the provision of a service). The design phase has been given more room in this figure because it is the heart of co-creation activities and user engagement. It starts with a general problem focus and spans over four steps: exploring a problem area, defining an area to focus upon which leads to the developing of potential solutions and prototyping. Participatory design (and other co-design approaches) provide a phased model of the design process that does not start with a well-defined problem to only develop a solution, but rather demands that users come to be involved in the identification and definition of a problem. In contrast, co-production projects often start from a pre-defined problem and are interested in co-producing solutions which are also provided in partnership. This long-term view on the sustainable provision of a solution is not something that is well covered in the participatory design literature, which tends to focus on research-led design projects. Co-production initiatives on the other hand are often driven by public-sector stakeholders. Civic open data projects include, by definition, civic stakeholders already in the planning phase and cover the design and running of a service. However, it has to be noted, that they rarely include non-tech savvy citizens. The sustainable maintenance and running of a civic app poses a major challenge as they rarely get integrated into eGovernment portals (Lee et al., 2015).

Co-creating digital public services goes beyond the design of a stand-alone application/a digital prototype as is often the case in co-design projects. What makes the co-creation of digital public services so challenging is that these services need to be integrated in eGovernment service platforms in order to be sustainably maintained, they have to align and be compatible with the existing public sector information infrastructure.

However, rather than understanding such an infrastructure as something that is “‘just there’, ready-at-hand, completely transparent, something upon which something else ‘runs’ or ‘operates’” (Bowker, Baker, Millerand, & Ribes, 2009, p. 99), infrastructures need to be considered as an array of activities consisting of often invisible (maintenance) work and continuous negotiations between various stakeholders. In the case of public sector information infrastructures, existing collaborations between various stakeholders, existing policies and strategies, the existing IT and (open) data infrastructures, procurement laws, interoperability requirements, budget constraints and other legal and organisational restrictions need to be considered. Co-creation activities will lead to new or amended collaborations, new knowledge and amended (open) data sets, which need to be maintained. Finally co-creation activities produce one or more technical outputs such as apps. These need to be embedded into the existing information infrastructures such as eGovernment or Open Government portals.

Conceptually, Star and Ruhleder (1996) have listed a number of aspects that define an infrastructure: It is embedded in other structures, social arrangements and technologies, it is transparent to use in that it does not have to be re-invented or assembled for each task and it has a certain reach or scope. Using an infrastructure and being acquainted with its structure and inner logic, means that its use is learned as part of membership in a specific community of practice. In the case of an eGovernment infrastructure this relates to the community of civil servants that have learned to use the infrastructure in a specific way or the communities of citizens and businesses using it in different ways (usually with the public servants being the service providers and citizens and business being the service users). The use of such an infrastructure hence links to particular conventions of practice, for example of what is required for a tax return. Infrastructures also embody standards. These standards allow, for example, for different infrastructures to be interoperable. Furthermore, it is build on an installed base. Optical fibres for example, often run along old rail lines; the Internet coverage in rural areas is many times sketchy. Often infrastructures only become visible upon breakdown. As long as an infrastructure runs smoothly, many people will not notice their existence (or will pay no attention to its existence). Finally, changes occur in modular increments. An infrastructure is never changed all at once or globally, because it means different things locally and is hence complex and layered. Any changes require negotiations between various stakeholders and hence take time.

The following Fig. 10 provides some of the aspects of public information infrastructures that influence the openness and scoping of co-creation projects. Areas in white depict the scope for activities allowing for divergent and convergent thinking; areas in grey depict framing conditions.

Overall, information infrastructures are systems of classifications and as such enact certain representations of the world.

The design and use of information systems involves linking experience gained in one time and place with that gained in another, via representation of some sort. Even seemingly simple replication and transmission of information from one place to another involves encoding and decoding as time and place shift. Thus the context of information shifts in spite of its continuities; and this shift in context imparts heterogeneity to the information itself. Classifications are a very common sort of representation used for this purpose. Formal classification systems are, in part, an attempt to regularize the movement of information from one context to another; to provide means of access to information across time and space (Bowker & Star, 2000, p. 290).

These classifications are important objects for cooperation across social worlds (e.g. between civil servants and citizens). Bowker and Star (2000) have demonstrated this comprehensively in their seminal book “Sorting things out”: Classification systems organise and are organised by work practices. Public information infrastructures that provide, for example, digital public services such as eGovernment services, are most commonly organised around the silo structure of public administrations. This means that citizens who want to use a government service have to understand-to some extent-how public administrations work and how service portfolios are organised. They need to understand and know the “conventions of practice”. Since many citizens do not use the same public services on a regular basis, they may lack an understanding of the conventions under which a public information infrastructure was designed. Kubicek et al. have described this as a mismatch between the view of information recipients and information providers. Bowker and Star (2000) argue that “one of the interesting features of communication is that, broadly speaking, to be perceived, information must reside in more than one context” (p. 290, emphasis in original). This means that public information infrastructures, and digital public services more specifically need to be meaningful to both parties—service users and service providers. Citizens’ misunderstanding of digital public infrastructures, their inability to make sense of the “conventions of practice” is perceived as “administrative burden”. Bowker and Star (2000) observed that

People often cannot see what they take for granted until they encounter someone who does not take it for granted (p. 291).

Part of the reason for this mismatch is the way in which information systems are designed and structured. Widely known in information management is the knowledge pyramid which was first sketched by Russel Ackoff in 1988 (Weinberger, 2011). It depicts the relation between the world, data, information knowledge and wisdom. Each of the layers signifies a process of classification (reducing, abstracting, processing, organising, analysing, interpreting, and applying) that configures our perception of the world. While most scholars agree with the order of world, data, information, knowledge and wisdom; the interrelation between them is contested (e.g. Frické, 2009; Kitchin, 2014) (Fig. 11).

It is hence important to consider how information systems and information infrastructures as systems of classification are produced. Data about the world reduce complexity within specific contexts and “data assemblages” (Kitchin, 2014). The ways in which data are being organised, produces particular information classifications. If future users of a system are not involved in the design and decision-making about what classifications an information system should include, they may find it difficult to impossible to make sense of it. The following Fig. 12 illustrates this challenge.

Co-creation provides the opportunity to service providers to allow for encounters that demonstrate what should not be taken for granted when it comes to designing digital public information services.

Figure 2 depicted an eGovernment Maturity Model, which mapped out a “pathway to customer-driven centricity”. In contrast to previous maturity understandings, the most mature eGovernment services are those, which are “customer-centric” and “customer-driven”. This move toward customer-driven customer-centricity requires different ways of planning, building and providing services. Above different roots for the ideal to co-create digital public services with citizens were described: civic participation in the co-production of public services, user participation in the co-design of digital information systems and civic engagement in civic open data use. There are a number of challenges associated with those approaches: So far, experiences in co-producing public services are mainly limited to physical objects and direct human interaction (for example garbage separation for recycling reasons). Voorberg et al. (2015) question in the conclusion of their comprehensive review, if the positive outcome and impact of co-production can indeed be demonstrated. The challenges to co-producing public services are different, when it comes to co-designing digital services. Above, some of these challenges have been discussed in relation to co-design (be it participatory or user-centred design approaches). One of the biggest challenge using co-design approaches as starting point for the co-creation of digital public services is that design studies are usually based on small-scale projects or conducted within a particular organisation that has a clearly identified user base (e.g. Oostveen & van den Besselaar, 2004). With respect to the civic use of open government data, sustainability is a major challenge (Lee et al., 2015).

So far, there are only few examples of successful user involvement, usually working with communities and leaving a dominant role to the researchers/designers (Bason, 2010; Britton, 2017; Damodaran & Olphert, 2006; DiSalvo, Nourbakhsh, Holstius, Akin, & Louw, 2008; Merkel et al., 2004). The success of such participatory projects depends on the involvement of appropriate and representative users (Gidlund, 2012). However, the ways in which users are constructed in each of the co-creation approaches are very different. The roles citizens as future users of a digital public service may assume differ from other forms of citizen participation but also from other forms of participatory software development as their involvement spans over the service planning, design, and provision (Gomillion, 2013):

While participation in some co-creation initiatives is limited to then co-design of the interface of an application, others also involve citizens in generating content. Hence, participants can take different roles in the co-creation process. In general, the roles citizens may assume have been either defined along the service design and provision process—plan, build, run (e.g. Voorberg et al., 2015):or with respect to specific tasks—exploring, forming ideas, designing, diffusing (e.g. Nambisan & Nambisan, 2013):

These roles may be assumed at different times of a co-creation process. During the planning for a co-creation process, citizens may be involved as initiators or explorers, while in the subsequent phase they may be involved as idea formers and co-designers. Lastly, citizens may be involved as implementers or diffusers of services. In addition, the role of a data curator (as defined in the approach to civic open data use) was also relevant to our project.

The three approaches presented above (co-production, co-design, civic use of open data) do not only differ with respect to the types of contributions they expect and enable, they also pursue different goals or objectives. These include moral as well as pragmatic considerations. There are three overall goals, which will guide the further analysis of this book’s empirical examples: (1) the sharing of control with citizens, (2) the sharing of lived expertise and (3) the enabling of individual and social change. In the following, I review the differences between the traditional participatory approaches and co-creation with respect to these three aspects. This will allow to better analyse the specific challenges and opportunities of co-creating digital public services.