e-EIONET Group Collaboration and e-Communities in the Environment Sector in Europe
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Transcript of e-EIONET Group Collaboration and e-Communities in the Environment Sector in Europe
e-EIONET
Group Collaboration and e-Communities
in the Environment Sector in Europe
Hannu SaarenmaaEuropean Environment Agency
with European Commission DG Enterprise and DG Enlargementand Finsiel S.p.A., European Dynamics S.A., TietoEnator
European Environment Agency
• Through provision of information to legislators, decision makers and the public improve environment
• The environmental information centre of the European Union
• Decentralised, independent• Small nucleus (100 people, 20 MEUR
budget) of a large network, the EIONET European Environment Information and Observation Network - www.eionet.eu.int
Outline
• e-Europe and e-Government• e-EIONET background• e-EIONET architecture• Group collaboration features• Data management issues• Integration and development
issues• Lessons learnt
e-Europe
European Union
• Network State– 2% of GNP used at European
level, vs. 6% at federal US level• Harmonisation of legislation
– 90% of new laws on environment affected by EU directives
• Environment biggest issue in the enlargement
Internet will drive the economy
• all sectors, all businesses
• increase productivity
• create new businesses
• open global markets
The Internet is a key factor for growth, competitiveness and employment
2
Internet penetration:EU behind the USADiscrepancies in Europe
5Source: Morgan, Stanley, Dean, Witter
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
P I E F IRL A B D NL UK DK S FIN EU USA
Internet penetration(1998-2000E)
Source: FT Mobile Communications USA: Cellular Telecoms Industry Association
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
EU
USA
Mobile subscribers (million)
EU mobileliberalisation
6
Mobiles: EU ahead of the USA
The EU has played a majorrole in these
achievements• mobile communications - GSM
• digital TV
• 1998 telecoms liberalisation
But there are still major obstacles in Europe: communication prices, venture capital, entrepreneurship
10
• bring every citizen, school, business and administration on-line - quickly
• create a digitally literate and entrepreneurial Europe
• ensure an inclusive information society
Objectives
11
• address key areas of action at European level can make a difference
• collaborative efforts by Member States, Commission and private sector
• 10 key areas selected for action
How?
12
Action
1. European youth into the digital age
2. Cheaper Internet access
3. Accelerating e-commerce
4. Fast Internet for researchers and students
5. Smart cards for secure electronic access
13
Action
6. Risk capital for high-tech SMEs
7. eParticipation for the disabled
8. Healthcare online
9. Intelligent transport
10. Government online
14
e-Government
Government Online Priorities
• Ensure easy access to at least four essential types of public data in Europe.
• Ensure consultation and feedback via the Internet on major political initiatives.
• Ensure that citizens have electronic access to basic interactions.
Reporting Burden
• Each year, each member state has to provide 37,000 figures to various international environmental reporting systems, essentially answering that many questions.
• Only 17% of these figures are related to evaluating the effectiveness of any particular EU policy.
• There are 57 sectoral committees in the environment sector alone.
• Most of them have developed their own data collection and applications.
Currently: Ad-hoc Overlapping Data Exchange on Email, Floppy,
Fax, Letter
EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP
NFP and other National Authorities
The Public and Decision-Makers
ETC
DG
DG
NRC
EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP
NFP and other National Authorities
The Public and Decision-Makers
ETC
DG
DG
NRC
2001: From Data Exchange to Information Provision
EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP
NFP and other National Authorities
The Public and Decision-Makers
ETCDG
NRC
DG
EIONETServer
TheEIONET Value Chain
EIONET Supports the Entire Range of Information Management from Data to
Decisions
Decision
Analysis (Indicators)
Integration (Ontology)
Data-bases Data &
Observations
Judgment
DATAINFOTEXT1 6 84 1 9 7 3 1
VALUESVALUES
TOOLSTOOLS
Documentmanagement
Data Mart/Warehouse
Decision SupportSystems
Knowledgemanagement
The Famous Pyramid of Information
PublicAccess
Newscast
Background:How Did e-EIONET
Come About?
General Business Requirements for EIONET• A2A e-government network, with public gateways• An integrative generic infrastructure for
applications• Support the collaboration process of integrated
analysis on state of environment, consultations, and reporting on it– Project coordination, management of
information overload, making life easier, achieving savings, other practical benefits...
• Streamline environmental data- and workflows– Removing duplication and reporting burden
• Vehicle for coordinating international and national initiatives, interoperability with other economic sectors, creating new opportunities
EIONET Origin and Facets
• EIONET was set up at the same time and on basis of same legislation as the EEA in 1990. – EEA became operational in 1994.
• EIONET is a huge, political e-community• EIONET is both an organisational network and
an electronic network. • This presentation only discusses the latter
aspect: e-EIONET.– e-EIONET became operational in 1997.– e-EIONET operates as an Extranet on
Internet.
IDA Interoperability Pyramid
Support
Harmonise content
Develop applications (projects)
Select and adopt generic services
Use Network Infrastructure
Phasing of the EIONET Build-up
• Basic infrastructure– 15 Member State NFPs 1996-1998 – 9 European Topic Centres 1997-1998– 10 Phare countries 1997-1999– 2 Phare countries 1999-2000
• Applications 1999-
• In summary, only the basic infrastructure is now available– A new phase is at hand for application
development, new strategy approved
EIONET Zones
Core Extranetof 33 siteswithservers
Full EIONET of 600 nodeswith username access Enviro-
Windows and corporate portals
Public www-services
and newsbroad casting
EEA
NFP
Phare
ETC
NRC
ETC Part-ners
Con-tractors
EU Insti- tutions
International institutions
R&D projects
Special Interest Networks
Public
Scientists
Media
Phare Topic Links
NGO
EIONET Architecture
EIONET the Mother of Extranets
EEA
ETCPhareNFPNFP
NRC
ETC Partner
Contractors Euro-Intranet
NRC
NRC
Extranet: Password access
“Interest Groups”organise collaboration
of projects
Phare Topic Link
NRC
Public server
EIONET server
Rou-ter
Fire-wall
EEA
PhareNFP
General public
Node Architecture
ETCNFP
Internet
LocalLAN
TESTA-II
TEN-155
e-EIONET Technology• Internet backbone
– Speed is still a problem; from public Internet to TEN-155; TESTA II
• UNIX Server Computers– Old (m’97) DEC, HP, IBM, Sun (ES450) servers
good 3 more years– Linux for new projects
• Routers of Cisco, firewall of IBM, local setups• Software server engines
– Netscape SuiteSpot 3.5 servers (to be phased out)
– Open source servers to replace them (Apace, Zope, MySQL, ...)
• CIRCA 2.1.5 from European Dynamics• Open to all desktop applications
e-EIONET Functionality Layers
33 Server Computers across Europe
Internet and its Communication Protocols TCP/IP, http, ldap, nntp, smtp
Generic services www, directory, email lists, news, search, SQL, replication ...
Personal Workplace
Group Collab App
CorporatePortal App
Library Tool
DataMgmt Tools
Workflow Tool
Other Tools
Generic Services, Common Tools, and Applications
e-EIONET Group Collaboration
Services
About 100
“Interest Groups”
on 33 Servers
CIRCA Services
Sophisticated Multilingual Document ManagementDon’t print, don’t email, but upload, share and search
• EIONET’s most important service
• Users control content
• 4600 documents in EEA alone
• Versions• Languages
Messaging“If the only tool you know is a hammer, the world soon looks like nail.”
• Mailing lists @eionet.eu.int (about 20 lists now)– Functional mailboxes at nodes
• Email contributes to information overload...– Encourages unstructured communication– Organisation of material left to recipient– No history for new participants– Attachments clog mail servers and spread
viruses• ....but EIONET users still want it, so...
– Email attachment to be connected to CIRCA document management
– Roles to be defined in site directories and to be used as basis of dynamic maling lists, such as [email protected]
– CIRCA user classes:[email protected]
Discussions, Newsgroups, Joint Reviews
• Newsgroups and services available in CIRCA– HTTP interface to discussions
• Connecting discussions with documents– Announce postings in newsgroups – Threaded discussions on documents– Need to integrate discussions with
documents (like Amazon.com)• WebDAV
– To be specified
Meeting and Dissemination Services
African village metaphor: “The world is one big meeting.”• New ways of working together needed– Meetings very resource-consuming,
communication needs escalate• Meeting service available in each IG
– Virtual (chatroom) meetings available– Meeting service more useful across IGs
• Announcements service available on EIONET’s public gateways– Provided by Zope modules– Freqently Asked Questions service at
Network Management Centre• Internet-based videoconference easy and
cheap, but not used
Directory ServicesThe n-directory problem
• LDAP is the key component in EIONET infrastructure– Usernames, user information and preferences
• New features– Self-registration of users to site directories– Organisation object– Roles– Expertise– Integration with email lists
• Re-using user information in EIONET Directory?– We could maintain the information at the
original source at NFPs, ETCs– Address database, CDS, and sitedir integration
the goal
Replication
• Copy entire IGs between servers • Copy directory and newsgroup entries between
servers– All sitedirs will be copied to NMC
• Replication of individual documents later
NMC
ETC
NFP
NFP
EEA
Search
• Search within one IG is surprisingly powerful• When we have 33 nodes and several projects on
each of them, how do we find information?– On each IG there is a search facility– All nodes’ public pages searched– Push technology pilot scans the Catalog
Servers of all sites• ”What is new” across all Interest Groups
– Customisable welcome page: Towards ”MyCIRCA”
Workflow
S
Request forConsultation
Be Informed
1
Request forConsultation
Answer Answer
Approval Be Informed
2
Approval
3
Summarize
E
4
EEA-IW
NFP-*
NRC-*-IW NRC-*-IW-PCP
NFP-*
EEA-IW
+
-
+
-
+
+-
-
1+
-
- fork
- join
- conditional branch
The activities of the
prototype consultation
process include: request for
consultation, answer request, make decision and summarize.
Explicitknowledge
Applied (tacit)knowledge
TOOLSi.e. CIRCA
System and technology
supportto manage knowledge
CONTENT
Internalising by doing
CreateIdentify
CollectStore
AnalyseOrganise
Share
UseApply
Modify
The Outcome of e-EIONET Collaboration Services:
Corporate Knowledge Management
Support
After the training the users...."
•Network Management Centre http://nmc.eionet.eu.int/•Four levels of Helpdesk
•1st level is IG Leader or Secretary: •allow users, control access, structure library and discussions
•2nd level at NMC [email protected]•3rd level at CIRCA vendor•4th level by hw/sw vendors
•Training programme•Nine different courses, offered twice a year, online registration, ...
•EIONET Newsletter
Helpdesk and Training
Data Management Issues
The EIONET Value Chain
ETC
NFP
EEA
OperationalDatabases in Member Countries’NRCs
DistributedData Marts
InformationWarehouse
“Data - Information- Knowlegde”
EIONET Data Flow Architectur
e 2000
InformationDW
IW
Dissemination Data definitions Reporting request definitions
SQL SQL
Combine, analyse data
CIRCLE
Import, select, transfer data
IW-DEMAE-DEMAQ-DEM
Collecter/Reporter
Airbase-dem
Natio
nal
dataso
urces
(NR
C etc)
Manualinput
Conversion
CIRCLE
SAS
EE
A
Eu
rop
e an
To
pi c C
entr es '
Inf o
r ma ti o
n S
y st ems
Natio
nal E
ION
ET
Data S
ystems
EU Conventions OECD EUROSTAT DGs Citizens
IW
AE AQ
WO
RK
FO
LW ap p lic a ti on f o r d a ta fl ow
mgm
t
DT
DX
SL
XM
L-
SQL
XML
Defin
ition
sD
efinitio
ns
Country
X
SQL
XML
XML
XML
XML
XMLXML
XML
AE AQ
EDRRODReference Centre
Distributed objects...
...InfoSleuth and EDEN style
Integration and Development Issues
Generic Portal
Services and
Toolkit
Integrate with the Public Web Site
• Share technologies and platforms• Share document metainformation and theme
classification• Differ in content
• Share much of the user base: integrated views needed
E2RCInternetusers
Enviro- Windows usersEIONET users
EEAusers
E2RCInternetcontent
Enviro- Windows content
EIONETcontent (drafts)
EEAIntranet content
EIONET Links with
Other Network
s European Community Clearing-House Mechanism under the Convention on Biological Diversity is hosted on EIONET
EnviroWindows:EIONET’s Arm for Outreach to Private Sector,
NGOs and International Organisations
EIONET News - on Push Technology
Lessons Learnt in e-Community Building
General Success Factors in Network Building
• It is easy to start a network, but difficult to keep alive
• Build the organisation and technology hand in hand: Managers must understand technology and technologists must listen to users
• Understand users' contraints• Respect rights of data custodians• Provide opportunity -- the IS lives by
opportunity• Then, persistence
Building Institutions• Network organisations can not be managed --
but they can be led• Network organisations are normally based on
voluntary cooperation -- motivated by opportunity
• By nature, network organisations are slow -- a top down drive difficult to create
• The traditional approach for defining user needs first and then finding technological solutions does not normally work
• Demonstration, interaction, and iteration works• Spread of best practice -- make the best the
norm -- works• Providing a political forum works
Building Network Infrastructure
• Model the organisational network in technological infrastructure -- ownership
• Build services that provide opportunity• Learn how to build on each others' work• Build infrastucture -- open interfaces• Build gateways -- navigate by
metainformation• Allow contributions -- build dialogue and
platform for opportunity• Personalise and integrate• Don't build applications
Building Content Value Chains for Communities
• Information society consists of communities (i.e., networks of people and organisations)
• Content can not be the same for all• We have tried mass personalisation: How to
define Special Interest Groups without excessive fragmentation? What is the critical mass?
• Personalisation via community portals• Involve content publishing expertise in all teams • Avoid information overload• Key in value chain: From information exchange
to information provision• When is information sustainable?
SUMMARY• e-EIONET is a major player in European e-
Government and a large e-Community• Basic infrastructure erected
– Migrate specific applications to e-EIONET infra• Core service Internet-based document
management– Success, but spread of best practice still needed
• Harmonisation of data and value chains being tackled– Tools and content hand in hand, all topic areas
• e-EIONET is positioned as– corporate memory– integrative corporate portal for users– integrative generic platform for applications and
streamlining European data exchange– platform for opportunity