The system utilizes the wide range of public geodata and with this facilitates an informed discussion between experts and non-experts. In addition, the application can be used not only with your own computer at home, but also on the go with a smartphone or, for example, on site in workshops together with project managers using a digital data table (touch table). Another special feature is that the digital contributions from citizens are recorded both online and on site in a shared database and can therefore be analysed by the planning departments without media discontinuity and thus particularly efficiently.

Yes. DIPAS is a topic-independent tool for online feedback and dialogue. Although the map application is a core element and a unique feature thanks to the underlying geodata infrastructure, a spatial reference to the participation topic is not required for the use of DIPAS. All contributions and comments are also displayed in the form of a list that can be filtered. It is therefore also possible to develop, for example, guiding principles (such as climate protection, social issues, urban development) in dialogue with citizens.

Past experience showed that the decisive factor for participation in a participation process is less the format than the topic or the degree of interest or personal involvement. If the topic is relevant to a certain target group and this relevance is recognised, the target group will participate within the scope of their possibilities. Citizen participation via the internet generally has a lower threshold than participation programmes on site, as potential obstacles such as time availability, mobility, language barriers, etc. are largely eliminated. Only alternative digital offerings provide the opportunity to fundamentally expand the group of participants. This is particularly true given that the proportion of German citizens who are not active online is steadily moving towards a single-digit figure or has already reached this level in larger cities such as Hamburg.

DIPAS itself does not offer a built-in feature for automatically translating posts, informational texts, or geoinformation. However, many web browsers, such as Microsoft Edge, have automatic translation features that can translate content into various languages. We therefore recommend using a modern browser with a translation feature to enable multilingual participation.

No personal user data is collected when DIPAS is used. IP addresses are also not stored on the server. In the terms of use on the DIPAS project page, users must be informed that no personal data (of the author or third parties) may be used in the contributions and comments. Cities and municipalities that use DIPAS are responsible for regularly monitoring this and, if necessary, removing names etc. from the posts/comments with a reference to data protection.

The technical set-up of a productive DIPAS environment is generally not a complex undertaking, as DIPAS is based on widely used technical components (see documentation with repository). It is therefore particularly important to create the appropriate conditions in advance. In addition to purchasing the technical components (servers, touch tables, tablets, etc.), this also includes coordination within the administration and political authorities.

You should have one person in IT who monitors the technical operation. This will not be a full-time task, but it may be more time-consuming in the initial stages. Monitoring technical operations is a permanent task, independent of the individual DIPAS procedures.

You should also have a person who provides technical support for the procedures, ideally someone with experience in public participation and/or planning expertise and possibly expertise in digital participation. This task is bound to the project period. It can be organised as a permanent task for one person in alternating projects or alternating people can take on this role in the respective projects.

The main roles, their responsibilities and how they are embedded in the administrative structure are described in more detail in the DIPAS wiki.

Training courses are currently only available for the Hamburg administration. In the future, training courses will also be made available for other users of DIPAS. Current information on this can be found here at www.dipas.org.

Autodidactic material (texts, images and videos/tutorials) can be found in the DIPAS wiki.

Yes. Digital participation offerings are intended to complement local formats and thus enable more people to access planning projects and participate. DIPAS has an online and an on-site component and can therefore combine analogue and digital formats.

Promoting the online participation procedure is essential for it to be successful. You can find a few tips and tricks in the DIPAS wiki.

The use of DIPAS in a participation process is generally not limited in time. Several participation phases can be initiated with DIPAS in the course of a longer planning process. Its use in long-term planning projects can be particularly useful due to the transparent documentation and data interfaces, e.g. during the transition from the informal to the official planning process. This means that citizens, planners and political representatives still have an insight into previous discussion processes and can continue to use the results even years later.

Yes. Participation procedures carried out with DIPAS can remain online for documentation purposes even after the active participation/planning phase has ended.

For each new DIPAS version, the respective changes in the source code are documented at the appropriate place in the changelog so that the further development after the respective release can be tracked. In future, new releases with bug fixes, improved functions and tools will be published on BitBucket.

The DIPAS user community has been jointly developing the DIPAS software since mid-2023.

We are currently working on a concept for a DIPAS user community. This is due to start work from mid-2023. Information can be found in the menu under the corresponding item.

Interested users can contact dipas@bsw.hamburg.de.

The master portal is a web-based, device-independent software that can be used to visualise geoinformation such as basic geodata, technical data or real-time data and analyse it using the integrated tools. In Hamburg, various specialised applications (such as Geo-online and DIPAS) can access data from the Urban Data Platform via the master portal. The master portal is open source (MIT licence).

The master portal is integrated into DIPAS, so that a separate installation of the master portal is not necessary. Nevertheless, a prerequisite for the use of geodata in DIPAS is that the data is provided in compliance with the OGC and that it can be accessed by DIPAS via a corresponding interface on the Internet.

DIPAS contains an interface with several endpoints that can be used to provide both metadata on the respective participation processes and the corresponding content in standardised form. The interface is based on the so-called Participatory Data Specification (PDS).

Represented by the State Office for Geoinformation and Surveying (LGV), Hamburg has developed the "Participatory Data Specification" (PDS) in the "Urban Agenda" project together with project partners from other EU countries. In the pilot implementation, an interface (PDS-API) was developed that makes it possible to retrieve digital citizen contributions from DIPAS in a standardised format. The resulting exchange of informal participation data forms an important basis for an end-to-end digital business process in the field of planning and construction. A uniform data structure also facilitates the development of AI-based evaluation methods, e.g. to analyse citizen contributions and better identify focal points in urban development. 

The results of Hamburg's commitment to developing standardised data specifications for participation data, including informal participation processes, have now been published centrally at EU level under the following link:

Data standards supporting citizen participation in urban planning