e-EIONET Group Collaboration and e-Communities in the Environment

e-EIONET Group Collaboration and e-Communities in the Environment Sector in Europe Hannu Saarenmaa European Environment Agency with European Commission DG Enterprise and DG Enlargement and Finsiel S. p. A. , European Dynamics S. A. , Tieto. Enator

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 USA Discrepancies in Europe Internet penetration (1998 -2000 E) Source: Morgan, Stanley, Dean, Witter 5

Mobiles: EU ahead of the USA Mobile subscribers (million) EU mobile liberalisation EU USA Source: FT Mobile Communications USA: Cellular Telecoms Industry Association 6

The EU has played a major role 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

Objectives • bring every citizen, school, business and administration on-line - quickly • create a digitally literate and entrepreneurial Europe • ensure an inclusive information society 11

How? • 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 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. e. Participation 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 The Public and Decision-Makers Euro. Stat EC DG EEA OECD UNEP ETC DG NRC NFP and other National Authorities

2001: From Data Exchange to Information Provision The Public and Decision-Makers Euro. Stat EC DG DG EEA OECD UNEP ETC EIONET Server NRC NFP and other National Authorities

The EIONET Value Chain

EIONET Supports the Entire Range of Information Management from Data to Decisions Newscast Public Access Document management Decision Support Systems Knowledge management Data Mart/ Warehouse Databases The Famous Pyramid of Information Decision Judgment VALUES Analysis (Indicators) TOOLS Integration (Ontology) Data & Observations 1 4 6 TEXT 3 8 9 7 DATA 1 1 INFO

Background: How Did e-EIONET Come About?

General Business Requirements for EIONET • A 2 A 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

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 Public wwwservices and news broad casting Public International institutions NRC Core Extranet of 33 sites with servers Full EIONET of 600 nodes with username access NGO R&D projects Media ETC Partners ETC NFP EU Institutions EEA Phare Topic Links Contractors Special Interest Networks Enviro. Scientists Windows and corporate portals

EIONET Architecture

EIONET the Mother of Extranets “Interest Groups” organise collaboration of projects ETC Partner NRC Phare Topic Link ETC NFP EEA NRC Phare NFP NRC Extranet: Password access Euro. Intranet Contractors

Phare NRC NFP Node Architecture ETC EEA Firewall TEN-155 TESTA-II Router Local LAN Internet Public server General public EIONET server

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 (ES 450) servers good 3 more years – Linux for new projects • Routers of Cisco, firewall of IBM, local setups • Software server engines – Netscape Suite. Spot 3. 5 servers (to be phased out) – Open source servers to replace them (Apace, Zope, My. SQL, . . . ) • CIRCA 2. 1. 5 from European Dynamics • Open to all desktop applications

e-EIONET Functionality Layers Personal Workplace Library Tool Group Collab App Data. Mgmt Tools Corporate Portal App Workflow Tool Other Tools Generic services www, directory, email lists, news, search, SQL, replication. . . Internet and its Communication Protocols TCP/IP, http, ldap, nntp, smtp 33 Server Computers across Europe

Generic Services, Common Tools, and Applications

e-EIONET Group Collaboration Services

About 100 “Interest Groups” on 33 Servers

CIRCA Services

Sophisticated Multilingual Document Management Don’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 nrc-iw@nfp -dk. eionet. eu. int – CIRCA user classes: authors. eionettelematics@eea. eionet. eu. int

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) • Web. DAV – 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 Services The 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 NFP ETC EEA NMC NFP

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 ”My. CIRCA”

Workflow The activities of the prototype consultation process include: l request for consultation, l answer request, l make decision and l summarize.

The Outcome of e-EIONET Collaboration Services: Corporate Knowledge Management Use Apply Modify Explicit knowledge TOOLS i. e. CIRCA Analyse Organise Share Applied (tacit) knowledge Create Identify CONTENT System and technology support to manage knowledge Collect Store Internalising by doing

Support

Helpdesk and Training After the training the users. . " • Network Management Centre http: //nmc. eionet. eu. int/ • Four levels of Helpdesk • 1 st level is IG Leader or Secretary: • allow users, control access, structure library and discussions • 2 nd level at NMC helpdesk@eionet. eu. int • 3 rd level at CIRCA vendor • 4 th level by hw/sw vendors • Training programme • Nine different courses, offered twice a year, online registration, . . . • EIONET Newsletter

Data Management Issues

The EIONET Value Chain Operational Databases in Member Countries’ NRCs Distributed Data Marts Information Warehouse ETC EEA NFP “Data - Information- Knowlegde”

EU Conventions OECD EUROSTAT DGs EEA EDR Reference Centre Information DW Citizens ROD Reporting request definitions Data definitions Dissemination SAS SQL XML AE CIRCLE XML ntry National EIONET Data Systems Cou X XML CIRCLE Manual input XML Import, select, transfer data IW-DEM AE-DEM AQ-DEM XML National datasources (NRC etc) I W Conversion DTD Definitions XSL Definitions Combine, analyse data XML XML Collecter/ Airbase. Reporter dem AE AQ AQ SQL WORKFOLW application for dataflow mgmt SQL XML- European Topic Centres' Information Systems EIONET Data Flow Architecture 2000 IW

Distributed objects. . . Info. Sleuth 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 EEA Intranet content EIONET content (drafts) Enviro. Windows content E 2 RC Internet content • Share much of the user base: integrated views needed EEA users EIONET users Enviro. Windows users E 2 RC Internet users

EIONET Links with Other Networks European Community Clearing. House Mechanism under the Convention on Biological Diversity is hosted on EIONET

Enviro. Windows: 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