Interconnected Parliaments

Africa i-ParliamentsAction Plan

Flavio Zeni

UN-DESA - Nairobi

Collaborative softwareand content development

Collaboration is ....

... SMART and GOOD

our presentation assumes that!

...after all we are here because in 1889 people saw the benefits of an inter-parliamentary collaboration and founded IPU ...

... UN are about collaboration

... ICTs are about collaboration

Collaboration... SMART and GOOD!

Please note ...

I have said that

collaboration is

SMART and GOOD

I have NOT said or implied that

collaboration is

EASY, CHEAP or

without PROBLEMS

Collaboration about ...

This presentation try to identify

the types of collaborations that

actually do exploit at best

present technological environment

Collaboration/sharing might also lead to cost-saving and synergies

but the core rationale to adopt a collaborative software and content development is

quality and sustainability

for ALL Parliaments

Context: Parliaments have similar...

similar inputs

speeches make by people (MPs, experts, etc.)

written documents (bill, questions, motions, etc.

similar macro-processes (with different procedures)

plenary proceedings

committees proceedings

management of the flow of the above documents

similar output

verbatim/minute/reports/agenda/etc.

Context: Similar needs but ...

Parliaments use

“different” systems that have very similar features and functionality, in the best case.

There are

“affluent” parliaments that are likely (not guaranteed)

to have better system then less affluent parliaments

There is

growing digital divide among do and do-not parliaments

Context: ICTs uniqueness ...

ICTs are

very reusable, very adaptable, very accessible and reproducible at very low marginal costs

even more

ICTs made “possible the impossible”

the more “information services/systems” are used, the more diversified are the users

-

the better they become

but also ...

very dynamic and in constant evolution

Why ICTs collaboration is not ...

We agree that

collaboration is “smart” and “good”

Parliaments share more then what they differentiate them

ICTs tools and services to get better the more they are used/shared

Still not many parliaments seem to appreciate/exploit the opportunity that collaboration and sharing of tools and content could brings in terms of

quality - sustainability - bridging the Digital Divide

Why? ... you tell me!

Collaboration at what level?

ICTs have brought about technical opportunities that are unprecedented in at least two areas:

Access to information

Collaboration

removing

time or geographical location limitations

PREVALENT approach

Access access documents (HTML/PDF) access to ONLY document as the users

were “local” and speaking the very same language

Collaboration Exchange e-mails and documents

no exploitation of creation of quality and sustainability through collaboration and sharing of applications

ICTs opportunities potential

Access: structure/semantics across countries and languages across media

Collaboration: Development and maintenance of

information services Information system

Strategic GAP (needs)

.... between

global/continental needsof economic integration and

harmonisation of legislation

but

locally focused solutionsnational/institution focussed

Strategic GAP (technologies)

.... between

technological opportunitiessemantic web – open/shareable solutions

and

practical approach

e-paper paradigm

no efforts to think “global-continental” in terms of standards, languages, search facilities, etc.

no exploitation of sustainability through collaboration

Technological opportunities

Semantic web: processing information according to its

content (or meaning), and not only as a pure text by embedding computer readable specifications (XML/RDF/OWL) to make computer “understand” documents

Open Source Development Model develop once, together, for better and more

sustainable tools for all parliaments

How did we in Africa fill the GAP ...

AKOMA NTOSOParliamentary Document Open Access Infrastructure (XML/RDF/OWL)

BUNGENIParliamentary and legislative Information System (based on Open Source application and tools)

Strategic choices: WHY?

OPEN and COMMMON standards

because they are the best way to

address the political African agenda

of economic integration of Africa and

harmonisation of African legislation

OPEN SOURCE and COMMON application

because they are the best way to deliver

high and sustainable quality information system and the critical mass to make this happen

for ALL African Parliaments

AKOMA NTOSO

AKOMA NTOSO (Architecture for Knowledge-Oriented Management of African Normative Texts using Open Standards and Ontologies)

is a set of common standards to produce, classify and share digital Parliamentary and Legislative documents

Akoma Ntoso “Linked Hearts” – a symbol used by the Akan people of West Africa to represent understanding and agreement;

Document components

Content What exactly was written in the document (semantics)

Structure How the content is organized

Presentation The typographical choices to present a document on

screen or on paper.

After HTML ... XML

HTML helped make the Web a big success .. but

it is just a publishing medium,

it is constrained by its own simplicity and few rules not even strongly imposed

A different format is required that provides

Clear differentiation between visual aspect and actual meaning and presentation

Strong syntactic rules heavily imposed to guarantee uniformity, homogeneity, sophisticated applications

XML describes structures ..

Support for documents’ generation Drafting activities, record keeping, translation into national

languages, etc.

Support for workflow Management of documents across lifecycle, storage,

security, timely involvement of relevant individuals and offices

Support for citizens’ access Multi-channel publication (on paper and on the web),

search, classification, identification

Further activities Consolidation, version comparison, language

synchronization, etc.

XML-AKOMA NTOSO “understands” ..

HMTL … “presents“ …

XML-Akoma Ntoso … “understands“

“Understand” ... means to make accessible the structures and semantic components of parliamentary and

legislative documents in a “machine readable” format

to deliver

high qualities information service

AKOMA NTOSO: purpose

Define a common FORMAT for recording parliamentary activities

Define a MODEL for data interchange and open access to parliamentary documents

Define a common African parliamentary DATA schema

Define a common African parliamentary METADATA schema and ontology

Define a mechanism for citation and CROSS REFERENCING of documents between parliaments

AKOMA NTOSO: document types

AKOMA NTOSO: naming convention

http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng@

http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng@2005-07-13

http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng@2007-05-03

http://www.parliament.za/za/act/2003-03-12/3/eng

RSA Act n. 3 of the 12 April 2003

Original version

Amended version (expression) of 13 July 2005

Amended version (expression) of 3 May 2007

Current consolidated version (expression)

URI NOT URL ... IDENTIFICATION vs LOCATION

BUNGENI

Parliamentary and legislative Information System

Bungeniis an integrated suite

of multi-platform architecture software applications,based on

Open Source Softwareand Open Standards

that automates the lifecycle of parliamentary documents

BUNGENI: features

Bill Process

Motions and Questions

Debate Records

Parliamentary Business

Votes and Proceedings

Virtual Workspace

Citizens' interactivity and participation

The rationale for ...

The rationale for developing and distributing Bungeni under a Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) licence is

to optimise its functionalities

as far as possible as well as the

geographical spread

Please note that

Regional, Provincial and also municipal assemblies are ... “parliament-like” organisations

that have very similar information needs/requirements

Development option: optimisation

The optimization strategy consists of

using a commoditised software

(e.g. the Plone/Zope, OpenOffice.org)

as a basis for the developments and make the public sector solution on top of that commoditised software and limit the development to what is absolutely necessary

This approach:

contains investments,

leverages the existing community

creates fruitful synergies between public sector initiatives and “communities” increasing sustainability

EC Study: benefits

Impact and return on investment of a FLOSS development project:

scaling effect (dividing the investment and maintenance between a number of partners)

independence (avoiding long term vendor lock-in and proprietary formats)

better response to specific public sector needs

developing local innovation spirit, employment and knowledge

Study on the effect on the development of the information society of European public bodies making their own software available as Open Source (2007)

Synergies

PloneGov aims to create a common platform ofPlone-based e-Government initiatives

in order to promote information and best practices benchmarking and software sharing”

www.plonegov.org

6 projects merged into PloneGov :

In summary ...

XML technologies and collaboration are

SMART and GOOD

if you are not using or thinking to use XML family of technologies collaborative modalities (many forms and

ways)

... you SHOULD!

Please note ...

I have NEVER said or implied that

XML-technologies/collaboration are

EASY, CHEAP

or without PROBLEMES

... we are NOT in the business

of the “easy” things but the RIGHT things

advanced information systems and services

for ALL

affluent and so so affluent parliaments

A quote from ...

The Mythical Man-Month of Fred Brooks,

a classic in the software engineering field:

"How does a project get to be a year late?

...one day at a time"

Thank you

i-nterconnect Parliaments to make them

to strengthen the role of African Parliaments in fostering Democracy and Good Governance in Africa

Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan