Thank you for your participation.

.
This discussion is now closed.
show all (1)
There are no comments. Click the text to your left to make a new comment.
Moderator
9/22/2010 08:32

There is no discussion on the final summary.

Airline Passenger Rights "Final Summary of Discussion"

Final Summary of Discussion
.
Agency Documents
1 1

Background

Regulation Room is an open government pilot project aimed at increasing the breadth and quality of public participation in the rulemaking process. It is a collaboration between the Cornell eRulemaking Initiative (CeRI) – which owns, designs, and operates the site – and the Department of Transportation, which has selected Regulation Room as its flagship initiative under the Open Government Directive.

From June 2–September 20, 2010, people could use Regulation Room to learn about and discuss a new rule, “Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections,” being proposed by Office of the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOTDepartment of Transportation) . This timeframe coincided almost exactly with the official comment period for the rule, which closed September 23, 2010.

On September 1, the Regulation Room team posted a Draft Summary of the discussion on the peanut allergies issue; on September 13, Draft Summaries for the remaining issues were posted. All registered users were invited by email to review the drafts and suggest additions or changes until Friday, September 17 on the peanut allergy issue, and Monday, September 20 on the remaining  issues. The team reviewed all suggestions and then prepared the Final Summaries that appear below.

On September 22nd these Summaries were submitted, via Regulations.gov, to DOT Department of Transportation as a formal public comment in the rulemaking.  (For more on the legal significance of this, see the FAQs.) Registered users received an email notifying them that the Final Summary had been posted on the site and submitted to DOT.

You may submit an individual comment directly to DOT Department of Transportation on the proposed rule by visiting Regulations.gov by midnight on Thursday, September 23, 2010.  DOT’s general policy is to consider late-submitted comments to the extent possible, but you should file your comment as close to September 23 as possible.

Materials from the Discussion Phase, including the Draft and Final Summaries, will remain available on Regulation Room for public review. A file of all content submitted by users will be made available to DOT Department of Transportation at its option.  (This file will not include any personally identifiable information you did not choose to make publicly viewable on the site. See Privacy & Conditions.)

Who participated?

During the 110 days the rule was open on Regulation Room, a total of 19,320 unique visitors came to the site. There were 24,441 total visits, with people spending an average of 3.17 minutes on the site. Of the issue posts, the average time on the page was longest for Peanut Allergies (4.14 minutes) and shortest for Cost & Benefits (1.55 minutes). The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was viewed 891 times; the proposed rule text was viewed 212 times.

Anyone could read material on the site, but registration was required to participate in the discussion. 1189 people registered during the time the rule was open.

Based on answers to a survey at registration, only 6% of those who registered and answered the question (70 of 1094) said that they had previously submitted a comment in a federal rulemaking. A second survey question (which appeared the first time a user wanted to submit a comment) asked people to describe their interest in the rule. 621 people chose to answer this optional question. Here are the responses:

  • air traveler:  566
  • other: 36
  • work for US air carrier: 7
  • researcher or expert:  7
  • work for travel agent or Global Distribution Systems (GDSs): 4
  • advocacy group: 1

NOTE:  Regulation Room does not attempt to check whether people correctly identify their interests. For this reason, whenever the summary states a commenter’s interest, the description is based solely on information given by the commenter.

Of the 1189 registered users, 348 posted 931 comments while the discussion was open. Site moderators posted a total of 203 comments. Comments by users were distributed as follows (these totals do not include moderator posts):

  • Tarmac Delay: 85 were made by 69 users
  • Ticket Oversales/Bumping: 75 comments by 61 users
  • Flight Status Information: 50 were made by 42 users
  • Pricing & Advertising: 79 comments were made by 52 users
  • Baggage & Other Fees: 93 were made by 80 users
  • Customer Service Plans: 68 were made by 50 users
  • Peanut Allergies: 454 were made by 185 users
  • Foreign Air Carriers: 15 comments by 15 users
  • Data Reporting Requirements: 6 comments by 6 users
  • Costs & Benefits: 6 comments by an estimated 6 users

13 users posted a total of 24 comments on the Draft Summaries.

FINAL SUMMARIES OF DISCUSSION

Click on the links below to read the Final Summary on each issue.

Tarmac Delay Final Summary

Ticket Oversales/Bumping Final Summary

Flight Status Information Final Summary

Pricing & Advertising Final Summary

Baggage & Other Fees Final Summary

Customer Service Plans Final Summary

Peanut Allergies Final Summary

Foreign Air Carriers Final Summary

Data Reporting Requirements Final Summary

Costs & Benefits Final Summary

Thank you for being part of the Regulation Room experiment in making important federal rulemakings more accessible to the public!

To help us make Regulation Room better, please take this SHORT survey on your experience. (If you’ve already taken the survey, please don’t take it again.
Register





      Click to read the Terms and Conditions & Statement of Consent

A password will be e-mailed to you.

Register

Agreement

Terms and Conditions, Privacy Notice, Site Use/Community Guidelines and Statement of Consent

Please read this document carefully. Because The Regulation Room is part of a research program at Cornell University, you will be asked to agree to the following terms and conditions of site use and consent to participate in the research of which this site is a part.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

The Regulation Room: Technology to Support Citizen Understanding and Participation in Regulatory Policymaking

This site is part of a research study in how citizens can become more effective in helping government craft better regulations. It is being conducted by researchers in the Cornell University Law School, Computing and Information Science program, and Scheinman Institute for Conflict Resolution, in cooperation with the federal agencies whose proposed rules are featured on this site.

What the study is about

This study uses existing and new technologies and methods to help people develop and communicate their preferences about federal regulatory policy. A moderated discussion environment allows users to learn the details of a federal rulemaking, discuss specific parts of the agency’s proposal, and react to what others’ say about it Our goal is to contribute to the existing research on electronic rulemaking by (1) constructing a large scale public participation web environment; (2) observing group and individual behavioral tendencies in that environment; and (3) developing natural language processing methods to assist in analysis of the information submitted.

Content submitted to the site may be extracted, summarized, and analyzed. At the close of the official comment period for the regulation, summaries and analyses, as well as all content submitted to this site, will be offered to the federal agency developing the rule, to assist them in their decision making.

You may read the site without participating in the study. To do this, we require no information from you.

To participate in discussion of proposed rules, endorse, or otherwise add content to the site, we require you to register. This involves picking a username and password, providing an email address, and agreeing to these terms and conditions. We will use your email only for the following purposes, and will in no event provide it to any other person or entity: (1) password recovery; (2) notices relating to comments you submit or to site events that are significant to continued participation in the discussion; (3) request to participate in a survey about your experience using the site. You may opt out of receiving such notices and/or may decline to participate in the survey. If you chose to register, you’ll have the option of including your real name and a brief bio. You’ll also have the option of making your real name and bio publically viewable. Providing your real name, including a bio, and making either of these public are entirely voluntary.

What we will ask you to do

We encourage users to participate in the rulemaking process by discussing issues in rule, raising questions, and responding to other users’ reactions. Our researchers will summarize this discussion and you will be able to suggest changes to that summary. You may also be able to respond to polls about the rule. The final summary of discussion will be submitted by our researchers to the federal agency for inclusion in its decision-making process. You may have the opportunity to join with other users in drafting joint comments in addition to this summary. You will have the opportunity to “sign on” to such comments drafted by other users. These joint comments will also be submitted to the agency by our researchers. We will not report to the agency any individually identifying information that is not publicly available on the site.

Short web-based questionnaires will appear when you submit content to our site. When you initially register, you be asked about your experience in participating in federal rulemakings and about the nature of your interest in that rule. This information will help us determine the effectiveness of the site and may be used in summarizing and analyzing the discussion for the agency. We may contact you using the email address you provide to ask you about your experiences using Regulation Room and how these experiences relate to your usage of the internet for other purposes and your other experiences with government participation. Response to any questions for this purpose is completely voluntary.

Risks and benefits

The goal of the project is to improve communication between government regulators and the public for the purposes of creating regulation that better meets the needs of the public at reduced cost. Individuals would generally participate because they are interested in more effective regulation, reduced cost, or both.

The principle risk of participation is that an individual might choose to provide sensitive personal information even though we do not require such information and warn users against including such information. The Profile page allows users to provide their real name and a brief bio, and to make both publically viewable. Users might include other personal data, such as address, telephone number, employer, and social security number. This information could then be viewed and used by others.

We will attempt to keep web site server log data and optional web survey data protected against public disclosure.

Compensation

There is no compensation for participating.

Taking part is voluntary

Taking part in this study is completely voluntary. You do not have to reply to any emails, and your participation or withdrawal will not affect your current or future relationship with Cornell University. If you decide to take part, you are free to withdraw at any time.

Modification of Terms and Conditions of Use

Cornell University reserves the right to revise these Terms and Conditions of Use at any time by updating this page. Your continued use of the site constitutes your agreement to comply with such revisions, so you should visit this page from time to time.

PRIVACY NOTICE

In any sort of report we make public and/or provide to the Federal agency we will not include any information that will make it possible to identify you unless you have elected to make such information publicly visible on the site.

Please note that material you post on Regulation Room is provided voluntarily; it will be publicly visible on the web site and might be publicly disclosed in a rulemaking docket.

SITEUSE/COMMUNITY GUIDELINES

We welcome your use of our site and participation in our research. To keep the experience a positive one for all our users, we ask that you follow the rules outlined below. By submitting content to this site, you are agreeing to the following rules:

You are fully responsible for the content you post. You may not post content that is libelous, defamatory, obscene, abusive, that violates someone else’s right to privacy, that otherwise violates any applicable local, state, national or international law, or that is otherwise inappropriate. Furthermore, you may not post content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual preference, disability or other classification. Language intended to intimidate or to incite violence will not be tolerated.

We may monitor user-generated content and we reserve the right to remove, edit or otherwise alter content that, in our sole judgment, violates these rules. Repeated violation of these rules may result in your being banned from the site.

By posting material to this site, you represent that you have the legal right to reproduce, adapt, display, and distribute this material to others. Neither Cornell University nor any other person or entity responsible for this site will be responsible for posted information that may infringe on a third party’s copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights.

We may summarize and/or republish the content of your comments. By posting you agree that your comments may be summarized, analyzed, and republished online and in print.

You may use this site only for non-commercial purposes. This site prohibits any actions to solicit funds, promote commercial entities or otherwise engage in commercial activity.

You may not interrupt, or attempt to interrupt, the operation of the site in any way. Unauthorized use or modification of any information stored on the site may result in criminal and/or civil prosecution under federal, state and local law. You may not to use the site to carry out any unauthorized alteration of any data or information on the site or to conduct any activity that infringes on the copyright, patent, trademark, service mark or other rights of any person or entity. You may not restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying any service conducted on the site.

Cornell University reserves the right to limit or deny your access to the site or take other appropriate action if you violate any provision of these Guidelines, or if you conduct any activity that violates the rights of any person or entity or that we in our sole discretion deem unlawful, offensive, threatening, abusive, or potentially harmful or malicious.

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS

If you have questions about these provisions, this site or the research program it is part of, you can contact Mary Newhart, Executive Director, Cornell e-Regulatory Research Initiative, mjn3@cornell.edu, 607-255-3660.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights as a subject in this study, you may contact the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at 607-255-5138 or access their website at http://www.irb.cornell.edu/. You may also report your concerns or complaints anonymously through the Ethicspoint website or by calling toll free at 1-866-293-3077. Ethicspoint is an independent organization that serves as a liaison between the University and the person bringing the complaint so that anonymity can be ensured.

If you agree to these terms and conditions, we will e-mail you a link to a copy of this consent form for your records.

This form will be kept by the researchers for at least three years beyond the end of the study and was approved by the IRB September 30, 2009; revisions on February 19, 2010, April 12 2010, February 16, 2011, and August 18, 2011.

STATEMENT OF CONSENT

I have read the above information, I am at least 18 years of age, I agree to these Terms and Conditions and Site Use/Community Guidelines, and I consent to participate in the research program of which Regulation Room is a part.

Add Feedback

Thank You

Image
Sharing
 Share on Facebook
 Share on Twitter
Home
Rule Home
Profile Tutorial
Issue Post

Login

Forget password?
Submit
Search

Search