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Structured documents in Parliaments: Two cases and lessons learnt -more with less

ECPRD ICT-working group, Athens 11.-12.11.2011. Structured documents in Parliaments: Two cases and lessons learnt -more with less. Jean-Pierre Guglielmi Head of IT Unit jean-pierre.guglielmi@coe.int. Olli Mustajärvi Head of ICT Development, D.Sc. olli.mustajarvi@eduskunta.fi. Content.

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Structured documents in Parliaments: Two cases and lessons learnt -more with less

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  1. ECPRD ICT-working group, Athens 11.-12.11.2011 Structured documents in Parliaments:Two cases and lessons learnt-more with less Jean-Pierre Guglielmi Head of IT Unit jean-pierre.guglielmi@coe.int Olli Mustajärvi Head of ICT Development, D.Sc. olli.mustajarvi@eduskunta.fi

  2. Content • Case 1: Eduskunta (Olli Mustajärvi) • SGML-project • Results • Case 2: Council of Europe (Jean-Pierre Guglielmi) • XML-project • Results • Lessons learnt and next steps (Airi Salminen) ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  3. Solutions offered by IT Some 'eSteps' taken by the Finnish Parliament: • Internet www-service 1995 • ("An excellent example!“) • SGML/XML 1994 -> • (”This is without question the State administration’s most significant document management development project of all time.”) • EULEGIS-project • (Pilot: One interface to all EU-law databases) • automatic consolidation of Finnish law 2002-> • KM-project and pilots ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  4. IT: transformative power • IT is a powerful tool for restructuring and reorganizing (organizations and processes). • So remember: If you automate parliamentary workprocesses as such, you will only get the parliament cemented by IT (with high costs). ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  5. SGML • Standard Generalized Markup Language • An international ISO standard 8879 (1986) • Separates the layout of the document from its structure and content • Document types with hierarchical structure • Descriptive markup of information • "SGML is an international standard for the definition of device-independent, system-independent methods of representing texts in electronic form. “ • SGML is “the mother” of XML. ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  6. Document structure and content are separated from layout The logical structure of a document can be modelled as a hierarchical tree structure The Basic Idea for SGML and XML Information text more information more text more and more text Bold Times 12 pt ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  7. Letter Sender Salute Body Close Recipient Para 08.12.1998 Dear M.M., Come and hear the newest in the Web. It’s a thing called XML. Yours, N.N. A Structured Document The Logical Structure The Document with a Layout The Structured Document <?XML version=“1.0”?> <Letter Date=“08.12.1998”> <Recipient>M.M.</Recipient> <Sender>N.N.</Sender> <Salute>Dear</Salute> <Body> <Para>Come and hear the newest in the Web.</Para> <Para>It’s a thing called XML.</Para> </Body> <Close>Yours</Close> </Letter> ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  8. Reasons for Using Structured Documents • Different publishing medias for the same document - paper, WWW, cd-rom, etc. • Need to use documents and document parts with different text processing software within different organizations • Need to transfer documents between different systems • Information reuse for different purposes (eg. technical documents, customer documents etc.) • High frequency of information update • Different language versions • Need of uniform document structures ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  9. Why SGML or XML? • Hardware and software independent distribution and storage format • An efficient way to produce, manage and distribute information • Increases usability and manageability of information • Reusability, automation of processing and information longevity • Enables multiple versions and publishing formats • Multiple layout formats and automatic layout -> uniform documents, multichannel distribution ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  10. History of the SGML-project • Preparations started in 1994 • Profound document analyses and selections (method developed by University of Jyväskylä) • Tool evaluations and selections • Development of structure and layout of the documents • Committee reports and statements as a pilot project; in production in September 1998 • Wide introduction of structured documents during 1999 ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  11. Our objectives • Uniform parliamentary documents • Standardization of document format and instructions for creation • Better and richer WWW services in both official languages • Speeding up document production • Savings in printing costs • Guaranteeing the usability of information ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  12. Technical solution • Technical structure of documents • DTD for each documenttype • goal: as simple as possible DTD; balancing between production costs and advanced technological features • standardized, uniform structure of law in the law making process • Tools • editor: FrameMaker+SGML • extra features (API) in order to ease editing e.g. phrases and lists from databases ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  13. Managing Documents • Documents stored in TRIP-database in four ways in two languages: • SGML-format • stored for later use • used to create the HTML-page • PDF-format • exactly like the printed documents • TRIP-text-fields • used for text retrieval purposes for structured queries • ASCII-text • used for full text retrieval ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  14. The Solution for producing, managing and distributing documents P R O D U C T I O N Tagged reports D I S T R I B U T I O N Other systems (relational databases) Export to DB (Balise) Printed documents, published books M A N A G E M E N T SGML editor (FrameMaker+SGML) Conversion (Balise / Frame tables) Document Database (TRIP) Word processor (Word) WWW (HTML & PDF) Conversion (Word macros + Balise) of Existing and External Material ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  15. .sgm .sgm Distribution WWW FrameMaker+SGML Structure Based Search Form Trip Document Database Viewing HTML- documents Ready-to-print files Printed Documents and Publications Work version Printed like Document, PDF Printed version SGML files ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  16. Searching and forming HTML-documents TRIP Structured Search Forms 1 2 TRIP Highway 5 Balise 3 6 4 SGML->HTML Conversion HTML-document Document list ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  17. Experiences • Internal resources are needed • ”SGML/XML-know how” is quite expensive • Choice of SGML/XML-editor important in practise • Changes of document structure are expensive and time consuming • Pdf-format is effective and reliable way of delivering parlamentary documents • Document layout and readability have improved during the project • Delivery to printing house in ready-to-print files ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  18. Finnish Parliament and SGML/XML • All legislative documents are created originally in structured form (uniformed documents) • Changes to the current activity and services • Better Web services • documents in HTML, PDF, and SGML format • powerful retrieval capabilities • links between document parts • accessibility of information has improved • possibility for companies to create new kinds of products and services by enriching the information • Automatic consolidation of legal documents • consolidated Finnish Legal database in use from 2/2002 (www.finlex.fi) • Cost savings 60%-80% (printing) ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  19. Printing costs: SGML in production Savings over 2 000 000 €/year Now about 200 000€ ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  20. Summary of Case 1 • Advantages: +++ • Disadvantages: --- ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  21. Lessons Learned (in 15+ years) Inter-organizational collaboration and standardization: important from the early phases. The involvement of many organizations in legislative work increases the complexity of planning and implementing SGML/XML-based document management solutions. Major changes in the work of content authors: the change to more constrained, structured authoring has to be motivated and supported by customized tools. Automation support for content authors: automation is an important means to improve the consistency and correctness of documents, as well as a means to offer to content authors experiences of improvements in their work. Clear improvements to users possible: e.g. consolidated law available for legal experts and laymen alike. Savings in printing costs: the layout can be checked at the time of content authoring, tedious and error-prone proof reading iterations avoided. Airi Salminen, University of Jyväskylä, http://users.jyu.fi/~airi/ ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  22. Lessons Learned (in 15+ years) Document layout, authoring tools, and content reuse: all of these are important factors in the schema design. Content structures cannot be designed in isolation from the decisions concerning future content authoring, dissemination, and use. Inhouse XML knowledge important: the development of new solutions requires expertize from external companies but SGML/XML document management solutions are deeply related in the knowledge management of the organizations involved. Continuous collaborative development: development is typically iterative and incremental. Pioneering work: in 1994 (when the document standardization in the Finnish Parliament started) there was no XML yet and there were evident risks in the deployment of SGML (the mother language XML). Now XML is the lingua franca of the Web and the experiences of the pioneers are valuable to organizations planning the deployment of XML. Airi Salminen, University of Jyväskylä, http://users.jyu.fi/~airi/ ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  23. Next Steps? Open data: opportunities for new kinds of innovations in the use of open XML data that is available on the Web; new kinds of data reuse and thereby new kinds of businesses and services. Changes in business processes: effective document management should be utilized as improvements in business processes. Standardization extended to processes and work practices: Successful XML deployment cases in public sector organizations provide opportunities for the standardization of processes and work practices in public sector organizations more widely. Airi Salminen, University of Jyväskylä, http://users.jyu.fi/~airi/ ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  24. XML-project Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly October / November 2011 ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  25. Introduction • Origin of the Project • Context • Needs • First steps • Analysis and process modelling • Domain: which kind of documents will be structured? • Document volumes ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  26. ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  27. XML Problematics • Which XML dialect? • Which DTD/or structure? • What about the metadata ? • Which XML editor? ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

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  29. The Project • Timescales (End 2008 > 2011) • Resources (external experts + in house expertise + working groups) • Problems (sharing structured documents) • Lessons learned (sound analysis of business processes) • User attitudes & Training requirements ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

  30. Some screen shots.. ECPRD ICT-working group Athens 11.-12.11.2011

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