Staff Assessment to Recommendations 7.1 & 7.2

Public Comment Process

7.1. The Board should explore mechanisms to improve Public Comment through adjusted time allotments, forward planning regarding the number of consultations given anticipated growth in participation, and new tools that facilitate participation.

The recommendation is aligned with ongoing ICANN commitments and plans.  Additional preparation and assessment work will be needed to implement the recommendations as presented.

• Staff is considering eliminating the Reply Cycle and will make appropriate recommendations for such changes to the ICANN community.
• Regarding the length of the public comment forum periods themselves, staff is currently evaluating alternatives for adjusting the minimum comment forum timeframes to take into consideration the type and number of active solicitations at any one time. 
• Regarding forward planning, staff does not have any data to support whether the system of categorization of public comment forum topics that was implemented in January 2012 has benefited the process and/or, in particular, Community members. Staff is considering how best to accomplish an assessment to answer this and other important questions pertaining to the Public Comments process.
• Staff agrees with ATRT2 that a survey or other mechanism is advisable to ensure that the recommendations are having the desired effect in improving Community planning and scheduling efforts.
• In measuring participation, the nature of ICANN Public Comments requires that the calculation of responses needs to be tailored to the unique conditions of its key contributors.  Based on the May 2013 Public Comments Data Analysis conducted by staff, one important characteristic of many responses is that they are representative of large stakeholder groups. For example, when the GNSO’s Registries Stakeholder Group submits one response to a Forum topic, it does so on behalf of its entire community, which accounts for approximately 30 major organizations and many, many more individuals.
• Staff is evaluating several possible new tools in this area including (a) ways that we might segment respondents by usage type (i.e., SG, Constituency, Individual), (b) determining if there should be separate technology platforms for different use cases (e.g., static for organized structures; dynamic for individual contributors), and (c) broadening the envelope of participation mechanisms so that each type of Community user finds an appropriate communication channel to ICANN. Through the use of the ICANN Labs initiative an upcoming re-theming of the ICANN.org web site has enabled staff to experiment with some new tools and infrastructure capabilities including new comment submission methodologies and the capability to employ threaded “conversations” within public comment forums.  Staff will be experimenting with these tools to improve community comment capabilities.

7.2.  The Board should establish a process under the Public Comment Process where those who commented or replied during the Public Comment and/or Reply Comment period(s) can request changes to the synthesis reports in cases where they believe the staff incorrectly summarized their comment(s)

7.2 Staff is currently investigating this recommendation to determine how best to implement it.

• As an outcome of ATRT1, one idea that was implemented, but made optional for staff at that time, was the creation of an “Issues Tracking Checklist.” The purpose of this new template was to document and publish every submitted idea, suggestion, concern, complaint, etc., in a tabular/columnar format that includes a specific status (e.g., Under Review, Pending, Resolved, and Deferred) as well as a formal written disposition. The concept behind this checklist was not only to increase transparency, but to improve accountability by showing how the Community’s comments are reviewed, managed, and tracked to some form of resolution. Several Working Groups and staff departments have utilized the checklist for their Public Comments topics and staff is now considering making this earlier recommendation/best practice mandatory for all solicitations as part of the formal reporting process.
• Staff will look for ways to accommodate ATRT2 Recommendation 7.2 into this change so that, if someone believes that a summary Report misconstrues or misrepresents any aspect of a submitted comment document, that this can be documented within the checklist process, analyzed, and resolved in a transparent and accountable manner.

Staff will approach these public comment improvement recommendations in a phased manner:

Phase I: Short-Term Actions/Improvements

Phase II: Longer-Term Actions/Improvements

Phase I - Staff intends to complete an outline of Phase I improvement tasks/activities before the London Public Meeting –including the possibility of conducting a Community survey (or Focus Group) to gather additional feedback on earlier improvements that could not be quantified/qualified by studying the Forums themselves.  As part of separately orchestrated re-engineering effort inspired by the ICANN Labs initiative, some immediate design changes are already being made to the ICANN Public Comments pages on ICANN.org. Any potential survey work will likely be coordinated with an assessment of the success of the impending web site changes.