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., 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 -

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 5 Source: Morgan, Stanley, Dean, Witter Internet penetration ( E)

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

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

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. 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 , Floppy, Fax, Letter

2001: From Data Exchange to Information Provision EuroStatECEEAOECDUNEP NFP and other National Authorities The Public and Decision-Makers ETC DG NRC DG EIONET Server

The EIONET Value Chain

EIONET Supports the Entire Range of Information Management from Data to Decisions Decision Analysis (Indicators) Integration (Ontology) Data- bases Data & Observations Judgment DATA INFO TEXT VALUES TOOLS Document management Data Mart/ Warehouse Decision Support Systems Knowledge management The Famous Pyramid of Information Public Access 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 –EEA became operational in 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 –e-EIONET operates as an Extranet on Internet.

IDA Interoperability Pyramid

Phasing of the EIONET Build-up Basic infrastructure –15 Member State NFPs –9 European Topic Centres –10 Phare countries –2 Phare countries Applications In summary, only the basic infrastructure is now available –A new phase is at hand for application development, new strategy approved

EIONET Zones Core Extranet of 33 sites with servers Full EIONET of 600 nodes with username access Enviro- Windows and corporate portals Public www- services and news broad 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 ETC Phare NFP NRC ETC Partner Contractors Euro- Intranet NRC Extranet: Password access Interest Groups organise collaboration of projects Phare Topic Link

NRC Public server EIONET server Rou- ter Fire- wall EEA Phare NFP General public Node Architecture ETC NFP Internet Local LAN 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 (m97) 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 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, lists, news, search, SQL, replication... Personal Workplace Group Collab App Corporate Portal 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 Management Dont print, dont , but upload, share and search EIONETs 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 (about 20 lists now) –Functional mailboxes at nodes 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... – 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- –CIRCA user classes:authors.eionet-

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

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

Support

After the training the users...." Network Management Centre Four levels of Helpdesk 1st level is IG Leader or Secretary: allow users, control access, structure library and discussions 2nd level at NMC 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 Operational Databases in Member Countries NRCs Distributed Data Marts Information Warehouse Data - Information- Knowlegde

EIONET Data Flow Architecture 2000 Information DW IW Dissemination Data definitions Reporting request definitions SQL Combine, analyse data CIRCLE Import, select, transfer data IW-DEMAE-DEMAQ-DEM Collecter/ Reporter Airbase- dem National datasources (NRC etc) Manual input Conversion CIRCLE SAS EEA European Topic Centres' Information Systems National EIONET Data Systems EU Conventions OECD EUROSTAT DGs Citizens IWIW AEAQ WORKFOLW application for dataflow mgmt DTD XSL XML- SQL XML Definitions Country X SQL XML AEAQ EDR ROD Reference 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 E2RC Internet users Enviro- Windows users EIONET users EEA users E2RC Internet content Enviro- Windows content EIONET content (drafts) EEA Intranet content

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

EnviroWindows : EIONETs 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