2009 International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems
e-Catalunya experience report (July 2009) Josep Casanovas, Marta Continente, Marta Fernández, Daniel Golobart, Jordi Graells, Rosa M. Martín, Lucas Ponce, Héctor Puente active users (most of them, college users) [2]. Nowadays, social networks are internet-wide used & a crucial tool for communication and people relationships management. They are also being implemented in company Intranets in order to support the “Enterprise 2.0” [3]. The e-Catalunya platform was designed to allow its members to: - Work together, expound, make themselves known, seek out information, establish relationships of trust with colleagues, make recommendations and comments. Basically, communicate with other professionals in their field and with those who share their interests. - Gain access to new content and knowledge generated directly by people and/or groups and, at the same time, contribute to that knowledge. - Get involved in public participation initiatives, give their opinion, and make their voice be heard. - Identify trends, reach consensus, start-up and consolidate projects. Because of its e-government nature, strong requirements of data protection, security and information privacy had to be taken into account. Also web accessibility had to be certified according to Spanish legislation requirements. The first pilot implementation was run in September 2005 and more than ten new releases have been deployed since then. The platform’s main objective is to support communities of practice promoted by different Departments of the Autonomic Government of Catalonia. Communities of practice are defined in [4] as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. A community of practice is not merely a community of interestpeople who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction. e-Catalunya is being used to create collaboration spaces for people working in the Catalan health system, supporting startups, assisting the work of collectives dedicated to prevention of gender-based violence, supporting innovation projects, social family workers and other collectives in the Catalan public administration. It is also being used by Catalans living abroad or by citizens that are interested in some of the debates opened by these collectives. The e-Catalunya platform is a key element in the strategy of the Catalan government towards providing web 2.0 based
Abstract— This article describes the experience related with the e-Catalunya platform, a social network and web 2.0 collaborative environment developed in Catalonia (Spain) in order to improve the transparency of administration and government and to increase participation of citizens. The platform is being continuously improved, offering a set of collaboration tools and a powerful administration environment that makes it easy to configure to suit the different collectives' needs. The e-Catalunya platform is a key element in the strategy of the Catalan government towards providing web 2.0 based services and to boost communities of practice. Index Terms—collaborative systems, government information systems, Infrastructure and Tools for e-Social network, web 2.0
I. INTRODUCTION
T
he e-Catalunya project is an initiative of the Presidential Department of the Autonomic Government of Catalonia (Spain) in collaboration with the UPC, Technical University of Catalonia. http://ecatalunya.gencat.cat. The project started by the end of 2004 with the aim to create an innovative e-government platform based on open source software, web 2.0 [1] tools and social networking capacities. By that time, Wikipedia was already a successful project, as well as some blogs and social networks like Linked-in. In December 2004, Facebook had also reached one million of Manuscript received September 14, 2009. This work was supported by the Presidential Department of Catalan Government. J. Casanovas, UPC - Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. He is now Vice.president of the University and Director of the Barcelona School of Informatics Computer Center (e-mail:
[email protected],edu). M. Continente, General Director for Citizen Attention, Generalitat de Catalunya (e-mail:
[email protected]). M. Fernández, Directorate General for Citizen Attention, Generalitat de Catalunya (e-mail:
[email protected]). D.Golobart, UPC - Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. (e-mail:
[email protected],edu). J. Graells, Directorate General for Citizen Attention, Generalitat de Catalunya (e-mail:
[email protected]). R.M.Martín, UPC - Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. She is now IT Technical Director of the Barcelona School of Informatics Computer Center (corresponding autho, phone: +34934017736; fax: +34934017040; e-mail:
[email protected],edu) L. Ponce, UPC -Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. (email:
[email protected]). H.Puente, UPC - Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. (email:
[email protected]).
978-0-7695-3858-7/09 $26.00 © 2009 IEEE DOI 10.1109/INCOS.2009.60
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Figure 1: Traditional vs. 2.0 model applied to web interaction between catalan government and citizens
groups/subgroups, with an unlimited number of levels inside. Users may register to several portals and thus become members of them. Within a portal, its members can interact, contribute, increase their social network or collaborate with each other using tools like blogs, wikis, forums, email distribution lists, etc. Collaboration normally takes place inside a group but some collaboration tools can also be associated to individual members (for example blogs) or to a portal.
services and to boost practice communities. The project aims to change the current work practices within the Catalan authorities by bringing them closer to a more collaborative setting based on shared knowledge and, at the same time, trying to create a more open form of administration by acknowledging that officials and professionals and, in general, citizens, should relate to each other regardless of existing organizational divisions. e-Catalunya was considered in [5] as a good practice of community managed by a public body due to the adequate coupling with the Web 2.0 concept, the good combination between online/offline dynamics and its success generated basically by leadership and benefits for the members. The same study included other initiatives like Ciudadanos 2010, Del.icio.us, European Entrepreneurs Networking site, Govx, Linkedin, Moveon, National Health Service Advice (UK), etc. It’s been recently selected as one the finalist projects for the European eGovernment awards 2009 in the category of “eGovernment enabling administrative efficiency and effectiveness”.
B. Privacy and roles Different privacy levels can be established at portal or community level, at group level or at the collaboration tool
II. PLATFORM STRUCTURE A. Structure The platform is organized into several portals or communities embracing different collectives, including both professionals (social workers, doctors, lawyers, etc.) and citizens. Each portal may contain a hierarchy of
Figure 2: platform structuring
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level. These privacy settings determine the information that a user can view and how he/she will be able to contribute. In some cases information is available to unregistered users while in other cases it is totally private. The platform guarantees the different requirements. Registered users can play different roles at different levels in the platform. A user may be portal administrator, moderator or just a member. While portal administrators are able to manage all the components of a portal (users, groups, collaboration tool, statistics, etc.), members are granted usage of these components. Additionally, there is a global platform administrator that can create new portals and decide who will be their portal administrators. Portal creation is a very simple process from the technical point of view. It takes less than ten minutes to have an initial portal set up.
supports file management (uploading, downloading, renaming and moving between different repositories), and the possibility to add descriptions, keywords and comments to existing files. It also permits to find files by searching for specific content, and to send personalized recommendations to group members about some specific file or article. Wiki [12]: Popular collaborative web-content publishing tool. It is normally used for collaborative editing as this tool allows all group members to easily create a set of linked pages that can be modified by any other member. It uses an WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor, that permits editing HTML pages in an easy way. It supports file attachments, tags, user comments and a historic of the different document releases. Mailroom: It is a survey engine that allows administrators to set up different kind of surveys in order to gather information in brief from portal users or the general public using made-tomeasure questionnaires. It may be used for carrying out opinion surveys or reaching a broadly agreed decision through votes cast by users. Photo Album: Image sharing tool. Allows users to upload image files and organize them into albums. While uploaded images are stored untouched for download requests, lightweight thumbnails of various sizes are generated for each uploaded image. These thumbnails are then displayed while browsing albums, thus optimizing page loading speed. Additionally, the tool offers a comment engine allowing users to add comments about the images. Forum: Popular discussion web tool based on «PHPBB» [13]. It may be moderated. BugTracker: web-based bugtracking [14] system based on «Mantis». It’s purpose is to allow users to report problems they may encounter while using the platform in a structured manner, thus allowing best practices on bug tracking and solving procedures.
C. Groups Inside a portal, multiple groups can be created with different users, privacy levels and collaboration tools. These groups can be established on temporary or permanent basis. Access can be restricted to members of the group or be public for the rest of portal members. Moreover, users may also play the role of group administrator, moderator or member. D. Collaboration tools Currently, the platform features web 2.0 collaboration tools as blogs, wikis, forums, surveys, photo albums, group calendars, file repositories and email distribution lists. However, the modular structure of the platform allows further new tools to be integrated. [6] Blog [7]: It is commonly used by users to share their experiences or opinions in a “diary” alike tool, as articles are published in a chronological order. When associated to a group it is commonly configured to allow all group members to post new articles and comments. When associated to a portal, it can be used as an information channel to inform the users, where everyone can comment on posts but only moderators or administrators can post new content. It features an online editor to create rich static content (using images and links) in an easy way. It supports tagging [8] and permits content moderation prior to publishing posts written by members or anonymous users. Mailing list [9]: Messaging tool based on popular list manager called « sympa » [10][11]. It permits users to maintain a public conversation, additionally allowing browsing the mails history. It also permits to send bulletins to the group members in an easy way, using the platform’s web interface or any email client. List usage is restricted to group members. Calendar: Supports activity scheduling and announcing. Can be set up in order to allow all group members to publish new activities (without moderation), to introduce comments to activities, and to send personalized notifications of certain events. File repository: It permits users to share documents. It
E. Social networking e-Catalunya is also a place to keep in contact and meet new people. Users can search in the directory of members, view other users' profiles, send them an email or launch an external instant messaging application to communicate with them. They can also see who is online or use the social network
Social network Based on user’s contacts Figure 3: contact based social network
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Figure 4: usage based knowledge network
Figure 5: usage statistics
functionalities, which are probably the most innovative aspects of the platform. The social networking mechanisms are based on information explicitly introduced by users (who explicitly disclose their social network) or on information obtained by the system. In the first case, the social network of a portal member is based in his/her contacts, the contacts of their contacts, etc. up to a maximum of five levels of connections. Users can establish direct contacts with other members of their community and they can later on explore their social network to meet people who are connected to their contacts. The second case of social networking is called knowledge network. It is based in the implicit relations with other portal members that are built after performing an analysis of the activity carried out by each user of the portal, like documents read, contributions added, etc.
that portal, determine format for the mails and notifications that will be sent to users, create templates for groups, obtain usage indicators, etc.
A user’s knowledge network consists of his/her related users. The platform employs it for collaborative filtering recommendations on both content and people and for explicit visualization of the knowledge network. Members can in this way obtain recommendations for contents (a post in a blog, a picture, a wiki document, etc.) that have been read by users similar to them.
III. ARCHITECTURE AND SOFTWARE EVOLUTION
H. Indexation & search All collaboration tools and its contents are indexed using « Lucene » [15] in order to support simple or advanced searching. Search results are filtered depending on users' permissions. The list of new contents or posts is also obtained from the index. It is displayed in a special section of the initial portal page and it’s also used for news alerts. I. News alerts and RSS New contents are sent to users subscribed to news alerts via email or via RSS.
A. Open Source Software The platform integrates specifically developed software with open source software tools [16]. It was decided to use open software to allow a future large scale use of the platform and to make it easy to integrate other software. Some of the most popular software packages integrated are PHBB (for forums), Lucene (for the indexation and searching), sympa (for distribution lists), josso (to provide single sign-on) and Exo Platform. It works on linux with mysql (as data base manager), apache (web server), tomcat (application server) and openldap (directory service).
F. Personal zone Users can edit their profile (which is portal specific) and decide the level of visibility of their personal data (public, restricted to portal members, restricted to the user’s contacts or private). User contacts are managed from the personal zone. They will be included in the social network of the user and will have a special trust relation.
B. Software development To integrate all these elements, middleware software has been developed allowing them to work as a single platform, with a single sign-on system, and with an authorization scheme which is applied everywhere and with a set of functionalities allowing a very easy administration of either a group or a portal. Overall software design fits a layered pattern, most common
G. Administration Group administrators can add or invite new users and set up the collaboration tools that will be used by the group. Portal administrator can define the specific user profile for 70
on web applications. The upper layer or visualization layer is mostly implemented via portlets [17], but also including servlets, web services, etc. These interact with the key components of the platform: the middle layer or “services layer” which implements business logic and tool integration. The middle layer fits the facade pattern as software engineering design pattern: being thus organized into services each providing a facade for each platform feature [18]. On one hand services interact with the “lower layer”, which provides data storage based on hibernate [19] over a relational database. On the other hand, tool integration is achieved via an integration layer where further services implement adapter pattern to meet each tools’ specific integration needs. Communication with this “integration layer” is performed via observer pattern (listeners and events) thus decoupling business logic from integration logic. All these components are put together via eXo [20], which provides a portlet container supporting the visualization layer, a service layer which implements inversion of control pattern thus allowing the platform specific services described above to be added to it, and the data storage layer as well. Knowledge network algorithms were developed by the research group headed by Dr. Ramon Sangüesa, from UPC Software Department. Platform has been continuously been improved in order to suit users requirements. More than 10 releases (approximately one every four months) have been deployed by UPC development team since e-Catalunya first pilot start in 2005 with the support of UPC LIAM Research Group [21]. Some of the collaboration tools have also been replaced during e-Catalunya life. For instance, the blog, the calendar, the file repository and the wiki, where initially using xwiki software. xwiki didn't completely suit our user need and it’s been gradually replaced by tools developed ad hoc for the platform with more granular permissions systems and richer functionalities (like rich edition, tagging, recommendations, etc.). The overall software platform has been packetized in order to be distributed using a GPL license [22] allowing other kind of usages. E.g. it has been integrated in the intranet of BONE excellence network [23] to support discussions and interchange of ideas amongst researchers working at 49 institutes around Europe.
Figure 6: Justice portal map
IV. EXPERIENCES WITH COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE e-Catalunya is mainly been used to support communities of practice and groups promoted by different departments of Catalan government. 56 portals, more than 1.200 groups and 16.000 users are currently registered in the platform. Members of portals collaborate on hot topics to obtain results or knowledge products that improve their work and contribute to make it more satisfactory. A. Justice Portal (2800 members) http://ecatalunya.gencat.net/portal/faces/public/justicia/inici Some of the portals have experienced a large growth and are currently very active. For instance, the Justice portal that started in December 2006 with a pilot group, agglutinated in Jul 2007 1.669 users working in 32 different groups and 2.813 users and 59 groups by the end of June 2009. The main objective of this portal is to encourage and give support to Knowledge management according to Communities of Practice (CoP). Some of the communities that use eCatalunya platform are: family mediators, social educators, psychologists, criminal judges, etc. [24] B. Development cooperation Network (100 members) http://ecatalunya.gencat.net/portal/faces/public/cooperacio/i nici Virtual work and participation space used by NGO and Catalan Government staff to prepare the cooperation strategy for different countries, for example Nicaragua.
C. Technical architecture Hardware platform has also been evolving to accommodate platform growth (global number of groups and users has increased approximately a 50% during the last year). Application servers have been virtualized to be able to improve platform scalability by quickly increasing its resources or adding new application servers. Dedicated servers are now used for indexing, for generating news alerts and to calculate social network. Further work is been done to explore new models based on cloud computing that could improve platform elasticity.
C. Barris amb projectes (800 members) http://ecatalunya.gencat.net/portal/faces/public/barris
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basic personal information. In consequence users are not allowed to enter data that is specially protected requiring medium or high levels of security. For instance, sharing a file with patients' information is not allowed. C. Industrial and intellectual property Users also have to comply with laws governing industrial and intellectual property. The main issue is that whenever a new content is uploaded to the platform they have to explicitly indicate they hold the rights to do that. VI. TRAINING AND USERS SUPPORT Contextual on-line help is provided for users, moderators and administrators of the platform. However, when new collectives start using the platform creating a new portal, the leaders and moderators of the new communities receive specific training and consultancy in order to understand their collaboration needs and make an initial setup of their portal matching them. A specific portal has been created (quèCat) with information, documents, multimedia tutorials and examples to explain the possible uses of the platform. http://ecatalunya.gencat.net/portal/faces/public/quecat/inici Portal administrators also receive support from a help desk.
Figure 7: “Barris amb projectes” portal
It includes professionals that share best practices in the Catalan Integral improvement program for neighborhoods (urbanism, housing, mobility, immigration, suppression of architectural barriers, etc.). D. Health Participation (private, 800 members) This is a participation space for health professionals (medicine, nursery, pharmacy, research, etc.) It’s mainly used to debate on health protocols, prescriptions, prevention, etc.
VII. CONCLUSIONS e-Catalunya platform is an innovative e-governance service that has been successfully used to encourage Practice Communities of the Catalan government. Its final objective is to change current work practices within the Catalan authorities towards a more open form of administration, where officials, professionals and citizens can share common knowledge and collaborate in the definition and implementation of public services. The objective is to achieve an Open Government with more effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, collaboration/participation and co-responsibility [27]. As a general requirement for official government websites, it has to guaranty compliance with existing regulations on personal data protection, industrial and intellectual property and web accessibility. It combines different web 2.0 tools to satisfy the different needs of every single community. But e-Catalunya is not only about technology. Technology itself does not create the dynamism necessary in a community. It is not the barrier for professionals either. To build successful communities of practice it is very important to encourage leadership (identifying the natural leaders) and applying specific methodologies [28]. The role of the administrators and moderators is essential: - People want to participate but it is necessary to know how to motivate them, making participants feel involved and providing incentives (recognition, awards). - Common aims have to be defined and explained to the participants. - Combine online and offline face-to-face activities that help to create interpersonal connections.
V. LAW COMPLIANCE A. Accessibility The platform has been prepared to accomplish level A of the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) and most of the guidelines necessary to be level AA compliant, which is a requirement for official government websites. These guidelines [25] are designed to enable physically handicapped or people subject to technological barriers to access information. B. Personal data protection Special care has been taken to guaranty compliance with existing regulations on personal data protection. This is particularly important for a site supported by a government in order to make users feel confident. Concerning the protection of personal information, the platform has to comply with the related Spanish law [26]. This law establishes different levels of confidentiality of personal information: basic (like name, address, etc.), medium (like the bank account) and high (information about health, ideology, religion and race). Each level requires stronger security measures (periodical security audits, data base ciphering, etc.). The Autonomic Government (Generalitat de Catalunya) guarantees the confidentiality of information relating to users of the platform and implements the appropriate security measures (firewalls, intrusion detection systems, system update policies, etc.). Nowadays the e-Catalunya platform is prepared to protect 72
[14] "Bug tracking systems". Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracking_system (accessed 8 September 2009). [15] E.Hatcher, O.Gospodnetic, “Lucene in Action (In Action Series)”, Manning Publications Co, 2004. [16] "About e-Catalunya project". Available at : http://ecatalunya.gencat.net/portal/static-content/about_en.html (accessed 8 September 2009). [17] “Portlet specification - JSR 168”. Available at : http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=168 (accessed 8 September 2009). [18] L.Ponce, J,Casanovas, “Disseny i implementació del sistema de grups, invitacions i subscripcions a la plataforma eCatalunya”. UPC Informatics Engineering Final Project of L.Ponce, , Technical University of Catalonia, 2007. [19] “Hibernate”, Relational persistence for Java. Available at : http://www.hibernate.org (accessed 8 September 2009). [20] "eXo Platform". Available at : www.exoplatform.com (accessed 8 September 2009). [21] “Laboratory of Information Analysis and Modelling”. Available at: https://recerca.upc.edu/liam (accessed 9 July 2009). [22] “GNU General Public License”. Available at: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php (accessed 9 July 2009). [23] D.Coll, R.Mª.Martín, H.Puente, D.Costal, “Adaptation of eCatalunya platform to a collaborative European environment”, UPC Master thesis of D.Coll, , Technical University of Catalonia, Master in Information Technology – MTI, 2008 Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/2099.1/5623 (accessed 8 September 2009) [24] M.Pérez-Montoro, J.Martínez, “Enabling Knowledge Creation in Judicial Environments: The Case of Catalonia‘s Public Administration”, proceedings of the ECKM 2007 8th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Barcelona, 2007, pp 766. [25] “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0”. Available at: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ (accessed 9 July 2009) [26] “ORGANIC LAW 15/1999 of 13 December on the Protection of Personal Data”. Available at: https://www.agpd.es/portalweb/canaldocumentacion/legislacion/ estatal/common/pdfs_ingles/Ley_Orgnica_15-99_ingles.pdf (accessed 9 July 2009) [27] J.Graells, “Tools 2.0 for organizations”, Training session for Directors and Staff of Press Offices, Generalitat de Catalunya, June 2009. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/jordigraells/tools-20-for-organizations (accessed 14 September 2009). [28] M.Pérez-Montoro, J.Martínez, “Success Factors of Communities of Practice in Public Administration: The Case of Catalonia’s Government”, proceeding of the 5th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning, New York, 2008, pp 407. [29] A. Coll, R.Mª.Martín, H.Puente, J.Mª.Barceló, “Analysis and development of new features of the e-Catalunya platform”, UPC Master thesis of A. Coll, Technical University of Catalonia, Master in Information Technology – MTI, 2008. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/2099.1/5624 (accessed 8 September 2009). [30] J.Díaz, J.Casanovas, R.Mª.Martín, D.Carrera , “Development of a new tool in e-Catalunya”, UPC Master thesis of J.Díaz, , Technical University of Catalonia, Master in Information Technology – MTI, 2009.
- Moderators have to manage the emotions like the initial fear, to use 2.0 tools. Also moderators have to deal with users’ insecurity with written communication to blogs, forums. Choosing collectives with real participation necessities and with a sufficient critical mass is the first step towards a successful community of practice on a 2.0 platform. Providing administrators and moderators with information and skills to involve and motivate participants is also essential. Besides, it’s also important preparing suitable strategies and methodologies before creating the community, so participants know what they are expected to do. And finally, explaining common aims and making the individual and collective benefits visible, so they understand what they will get from their participation efforts. VIII. FUTURE WORK Further work is being done in order to measure user satisfaction, improve its functionality and to explore usage and integration with other platforms using SaaS (Software as a Service), cloud computing and federated authentication [29]. Efforts are also directed towards making the platform not only an information consumer but also a producer, where widget [30] technology comes to bear. REFERENCES [1] T. Oreilly, ”What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software” Communications & Strategies, No. 1, p. 17, First Quarter 2007. [2] “Facebook Company Timeline”. Available at: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?tizmeline (accessed 9 July 2009) [3] J.Nielsen, “Social Networking on Intranets”, Jacob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Available at : http://www.useit.com/alertbox/socialintranet-features.html (accessed 7 September 2009) [4] E. Wenger, “Communities of practice. A brief introduction”. June 2006. Available at : http://www.ewenger.com/theory/ (accessed 7 September 2009) [5] R.Fages, R. Sangüesa, “State-of-the art in Good Practice Exchange and Web 2.0”, September 2007. [6] Ll. Sunyol, R.Mª.Martín,J.Mª.Barceló, “Development of a new tool in e-Catalunya”, UPC Master thesis of Ll. Sunyol, Technical University of Catalonia, Master in Information Technology – MTI, 2008. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/2099.1/5627 (accessed 8 September 2009) [7] "Blog", Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog (accessed 8 September 2009). [8] "Tag", Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(metadata) (accessed 8 September 2009). [9] "Mailing list". Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list (accessed 8 September 2009). [10] "Sympa", Available at : http://www.sympa.org/ (accessed 8 September 2009). [11] S. Aumont y O. Salaün, "Sympa, a mailing list software for universities" . JT2006 conference, November 2006. [12] "Wiki". Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki (accessed 8 September 2009). [13] "PHPBB". Available at : http://www.phpbb.com/about/ (accessed 8 September 2009).
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