Elena Sánchez‐Nielsen and Carolina Martín‐Vázquez
A commission comprised of experts in educational psychology, educational therapy, and appreciative inquiry was set up with three main goals:( 1) formulating the set of appreciative inquiries using basic AI principles,( 2) facilitating a constructive debate and vitalizing the active engagement of citizens using an AI‐based moderation, and( 3) defining the set of indicators for the assessment of the findings.
2.2.1 Building appreciative inquires
The appreciative inquires for the uDebate tool were formulated by the commission of experts according to a set of projected qualities. Table 2 indentifies these features and their description.
Table 2: Definitions of the design qualities for the appreciative inquiries formulation
Design qualities Open
Hypothetical and reflexive Enablers and generative Language set
Positive dimensions
Solutions
Successful experiences Proactivity
Promoting changes and alternatives
Description The inquiries are designed to get spacious responses, targeted to meet general circumstances and opinions. These inquiries are used to initiate debates in order to find out what the expectations of the other parties are. The inquiries seek to influence the parties indirectly, basing the inquiry on hypothetical situations, creating the space for the parties to see new possibilities and changes. The inquiries are used to discover new possibilities and trigger change, so it is important how the words are chosen to ask it. Language expression aims to facilitate the interpretation of the inquiry, based on simplicity and concreteness. Inquiries are focused on those aspects that can facilitate change. Instead of focusing on lack and fall into negativity, they help to promote the widest set of alternatives and solutions. Criticism is left aside and questions focus exclusively on creative alternatives that can lead to a better future. It aims to find different examples of successful stories in the past and stories that can inspire people to repeat these achievements in the future. Finding out leads to an attitude in which the person assumes full control of himself / herself to generate improvements. The road to success starts with questions that help us build a better future. Questions stimulate our thinking and therefore our actions and results.
Two appreciative inquiry examples used in Spanish PbP uDebate, based on the features of Table 2, were the following:
• What does a person who comes to our country for training give us? What contributions do immigrants’ countries make?
• What aspects do you think help promote coexistence and social cohesion in a multicultural country?
Both inquiries are open questions used to initiate debate focusing on positive dimensions and potential in order to promote the widest set of alternatives and solutions.
Two EU inquiry examples formulated without considering an appreciative approach were the following:
• Should EU member‐states continue imposing conditions of income, housing and / or social security on the immigrants who want their families to join them from outside the EU?( Art. 7, Council Directive 2003 / 86 / EC on the right to family reunification)
• Would you reduce the resources devoted to strengthening the processes of integration and social cohesion in times of economic crisis?
In these cases, both inquiries are closed questions characterized by technical language and focusing on problems instead of alternatives and solutions.
2.2.2 Facilitating appreciative debate by mediators
Once appreciative inquires have been formulated, the next step consists of encouraging and vitalizing citizens and stakeholders to participate in PbP uDebate, in which, facilitators play an essential role. According to AI fundamentals, four different phases have been identified in PbP uDebate to guide the deliberation and engagement after the appreciative questions have been uploaded to the debate:( 1) search for resources,( 2) construction of goals,( 3) design of proposals, and( 4) performance. The use of AI also provides a structure that allows facilitators to guide the debate through the abovementioned phases in order to discover strengths and useful resources to construct shared goals, design proposals to achieve them, and accompany these goals in
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