The SoCaTel project

The project comprises of three main stages, fully incorporating the QH approach:

 

1. The design and creation of a digital co-creation platform via a set of co-creation workshop and relying on off-the-shelf open source components, as well as newly created ones;

2. Co-creation of public services within the realm of long-term care services, involving hackathons with innovators, and using face-to-face co-creation methodologies as well as the digital SoCaTel co-creation platform, with the aim of developing a new technology more adapted to citizens’ needs;

3. Service publishing and impact assessment on the open source platform, supported by extensive change management activities.

 

Key deliverables
Each of our pilot sites will involve a co-creation phase and a later service deployment phase in which the co-created service will be deployed in a real-life environment. SoCaTel will deliver:
1. An Open Source co-creation platform adapted to the needs and preferences of key stakeholders involved in long-term care,

2. A set of improved long-term care services co- created following the QH approach and using SoCaTel platform, and

3. A set of best practices and methodologies to promote and support the transferability, scalability and replicability of SoCaTel’s outcomes, while maintaining its core values.

4. To ensure its long lasting impact, SoCaTel will also create and release a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) to be used by higher education institutes training the next generation of social care professionals and policy makers.

 

SoCaTel’s service deployment platform will be an open source and fully configurable platform, allowing different actors – including public administration – to design and deliver new services.

 

SOCATEL PLATFORM STEPS- May 2020

The SoCaTel platform is an innovative technological tool aiming to facilitate the online co-creation of services. It connects service users (demand) and service providers (supply) to participate together in the design and development of new services, assuring the end-users’ voices are heard and considered.

The digital co-creation process is broken down in the following steps, all of them taking place on the platform:

  1. Step 0: Exploring – Overview of existing services.
    Users can explore the state-of-the-art of service provision via the Knowledge Base and obtain a list of existing (or being developed) services in the municipality/ region/ country/ EU, collected from: a) Open Data sources, b) manually entered data, as well as c) bank of services that have been co-created on the SoCaTel platform.
  1. Step 1: Co-ideation – Creation of topics for online discussion and contribution of ideas on how the mentioned problems can be solved.
    Different types of stakeholders contribute here commenting from their point of view the unmet needs (insufficient access to information, lack of communication with other professionals / family carers, difficulties in the organisation of service provision and in the everyday life of older adults).
  1. Step 2: Co-definition – Joint review of selected service idea(s) to assess their utility and potential risks for their successful development and use.
    Open dialogue contrasting opinions of different stakeholders. The usefulness of the service idea is being checked before continuing with the design of service(s).
  1. Step 3: Co-design – Business model generation, inspired in Value Proposition CANVAS.
    Specific and generic questions are asked to define the type of service needed, its potential customers, delivery channels, costs, and fees. A complete commercial vision is generated here, and the service idea is developed further. On this basis, a document brief or a beta software can be developed.
  1. Step 4: Co-development – User experience and usability testing.  
    In this phase (co-development) the facilitator looks for an appropriate service provider and invites him to join the co-creation. The service provider uploads different mock-ups of the service and a new discussion is started collecting users’ (older persons and practitioners) feedback on the offered solutions / mock-ups / demos (commenting which version of digital service / mock-up seems more useful or appealing, and why).
  1. Step 5. Co-validation – Joint validation of the developed service. 
    The service (App, web app or similar) is available to be downloaded and tested. The final feedback about the eventual dysfunctionalities and required improvements are collected from end-users.