System for Supporting Web-based Public Debate Using Transcripts of Face-to-Face Meeting Shun Shiramatsu 1 , Jun Takasaki 1 , Tatiana Zidrasco 1 , Tadachika Ozono 1 , Toramatsu Shintani 1 , and Hiroshi G. Okuno 2 1 Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokisho-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Japan 2 Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan siramatu@nitech.ac.jp Abstract. We propose a public debate support system through iterative alternation of face-to-face meetings and Web-based debates. Web-based facilitation of public debates is suitable for complementary question and answering when the debate in face-to-face meetings is insufficient due to time restriction. Since transcripts of public meetings tend to be lengthy and specialized, sharing public concerns among citizens and stakehold- ers requires much time and effort. To solve this problem, we propose two approaches. First, supporting the sharing of public concerns with struc- turation of public debate based on rhetorical structure theory (RST). It enables a user to manually specify his/her intention of a question, e.g., the question requires more evidence. An intention tag is effective for facilitating public debate. Second, supporting reading with visualiza- tion of topic transition, using our developed SalienceGraph. Moreover SalienceGraph retrieves passages related to a transient topic from past meeting records or documents. These approaches support citizens and stakeholders in finding, tracking, and sharing public concerns. 1 Introduction We are developing a framework for supporting public debate to facilitate public involvement. Public involvement in building consensus for community develop- ment requires much effort and time for sharing public concerns among citizens and stakeholders. This is because understanding long transcripts of face-to-face public debates requires much time and effort for non-expert citizens. Moreover, Web-based asynchronous debate is suitable for complementary question and an- swering when the debate in face-to-face meetings is insufficient due to time re- striction. Hence, our framework consists of iterative alternation of face-to-face meetings and Web-based debates. Over the past few decades, there has been a growing debate about the role of the public in determining policy regarding health and environmental risk management [1]. To build consensus through public involvement, aggregating and sharing opinions aired in public debates is important [2,3]. In this process, N. Garc´ ıa-Pedrajas et al. (Eds.): IEA/AIE 2010, Part III, LNAI 6098, pp. 311–320, 2010. c  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010