Response publishing - what is it?

This article is about response publishing and how it works. Please speak to your customer success manager if you don't have this feature enabled on your Citizen Space site and are interested in learning more about it.

In this article, we’ll discuss the following:

What is response publishing?

Response publishing is a feature in Citizen Space which allows your organisation to publish submissions from respondents. It is a great way to be transparent about your consultations and other activities - citizens can see what other people have said, and responses can be anonymous or published with identifying information if consent is given.

You have full control over which answers are published via the response publishing settings and a consent question ensures you have the correct permissions in place from your respondents. You can even use publishable replies to allow analysts to add comments to individual published responses.

You have two options for publishing responses:

1. Set to publish submissions while the activity is open.

2. Set to publish responses after the activity has closed.

Either option will require you to go through and moderate the qualitative answers, redacting any sections as necessary.

Why would response publishing work for my organisation?

  • Response publishing is a way to show the proof behind the pudding - you are sharing the information you have been provided with and are able to demonstrate transparency, which can help to build citizens' trust. 
  • When a citizen takes the time to provide you with their response, it is important to show what has been done with their input and how this feeds into the consultation process.
  • Some activities, such as planning consultations, have a statutory requirement to publish the submitted responses.