D3.2 User engagement strategy – Abstract

This document constitutes Deliverable D3.2 ‘User engagement strategy’ in the framework of the project titled ‘Revealing fair and actionable knowledge from data to support women’s inclusion in transport systems.’ (Project Acronym: DIAMOND; Grant Agreement No 824326).

This deliverable D3.2 aims to define the strategy to engage the users needed for the different planned actions where transport users or employees are needed to collect data. This strategy has been built based on inputs from Task 3.1 ’Methodology and technical requirements for data collection from multiple sources, crossing and management’ and Task 3.2 ‘Survey development for continuous data collection based on Delphi methodology’, and will look for the obtainment of enough high-quality data in Task 3.4 ‘Data collection campaigns’ according with the Description of Action (DoA).

Within this deliverable it can be found the details of the strategy to be carried out to engage users in the focus groups needed for the thematic analysis, and how to engage users in the different actions of the data collection phase where inputs coming from users are needed (i.e. observations and DAD survey), as well as the definition of the procedure for the validation of the user engagement procedures.

For a better understanding, the deliverable initially introduces the different tools used for data collection indicated in D2.2. ‘Methodology and conceptual framework’, analyse them, indicate which ones needed of user engagement and defines the strategy to follow. User engagement is needed in three of the actions planned, which are: focus groups, observations and DAD survey.

The data collection phase is structured based on the structure of the polyhedral individual (PI) defined in D2.1. ‘Use-cases definition’ and all the data collection actions will be developed following its structure. In order to keep PI characteristics structure, the selection of participants for the user engagement of focus groups and observations will be developed so that it can be included as many characteristics as possible form the PI individual and also giving priority to profiles of special interest (e.g. disability). In the case of DAD survey, since it will be a public opened survey, the structuring of the data will be developed thanks to an initial socio-demographic survey which includes questions for each of the characteristics of the polyhedral individual.

For the focus groups participants will be recruited from University associations, University workers, University students, service providers, transport providers or other transport related associations, all of them people conscious of the importance of improving the transport system. In addition, for the engagement of participants in observations for the use case of autonomous vehicles, it will be used IBV database as well as contact with local associations for the involvement of some specific profiles that will be of interest. In the case of the DAD survey tool, people will be engaged by an initial event with people of transport associations (WAVE and Genre&Ville) which will further forward the survey using the reticular snowball approach (see section 4.2.5.1), disseminating the survey in social media (see section 4.2.5.2), and with additional actions such as e-mailing to transport experts and disseminating in partner´s newsletters (see section 4.2.5.3).

The final objective of DIAMOND is to develop data and tools that can be sustainable with time. With this aim, the DAD survey will remain open so that the needs and priorities shown in the DIAMOND Toolbox are updated with the time. Therefore, user engagement for filling the survey and then for updating the fairness measures shown in the toolbox will be needed. This engagement strategy will be analysed in T9.1, D9.5, D9.6, D9.7 related with the exploitation strategy.

The last part of the document introduces the methods used for the validation of the user engagement procedures, which include the development of a workshop for the validation of the engagement strategy by the External Advisory Board (EAB) and by RINA as a certification body for transport infrastructures. These results are addressed to researchers in the field of gender applied to the transport system, and they will be the base for further developments in the next work packages  (WPs) of the project:

• WP3 Data Collection.
• WP4 Interdisciplinary Model Creation.
• WP5 DIAMOND Toolbox Development.
• WP6 DIAMOND Testing and Validation.
• WP8 Ethical, Legal and Data Management.