E-EIONET Group Collaboration and e-Communities in the Environment Sector in Europe Hannu Saarenmaa European Environment Agency with European Commission.

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