Comments on the COE web/communication services

draft paper

by Csaba Madarászmadarasz.cs@ceecn.netCentral and Eastern European Citizen's Network2008.07.26.The Council of Europe website is producing various types of materials for a big diversity of interestgroups. From this point of view, it has to serve different needs with information.Today, when the Council of Europe is targeting with several activities the better use of internettechnology it is undoubtly high time, to put a deeper revision to it's website, and web services.My opinion is, that although a several changes can make a big difference to the end users of the COEwebsites, but for some part, a deeper change is needed to better complete the tasks, that the COEvarious entities has to dealt with.As a quite newbie user to the COE website ( I have gained my experiances in 6 months) and one of theINGO representatives of the CAHDE workgroup (just as well a professional in e-democracy/governancearea), I summarize my opinion in a form of a draft paper, in which I was trying to incorporate NigelWarner's comments.

The basics

Service and news service integration

is an essential concept for improving the usage of COEwebsites.From the current view, COE sites have been created independently, when there is a bunch of servicewhich is appearing at some of the core entites (for example the left section at the Commitee of Ministers website) others are lacking it, although, they work is nearly done by the same procedure!By deeper observation, it has become clear, that the INGOs website has been created as an activity of the COE. Although it might be one, but by it's working method and the quality of work it does add toother COE entities,

it has to have the equal web services to the PACE and CLARE.

If we look at the conference of INGOs website, there is no real sidebar functions that could bedemanded, and it is also lacking the color and separation features.This kind of inequality on the service level of different COE entities are mostly affecting the INGOs site.Maybe it has been a communicational policy or not, it is obvious for those, who know a bit fromcommunication and the COE.By following the recent political happening inside the PA and the CLARE in relation with the INGOs, it isclear, that

INGOs are getting more rights, tasks and their work's importance is raising.

Thisrequires a general revision of the communicational policy and strategy for the web, just as

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Comments on the COE web/communication services

the revision of some of the services and procedures.

It is highly recommended, that the Web Focus Group contact and ask advice from the DG of GoodGovernance in the Information Society.If we take a look at press policy section: the central page is only showing the news by timing, and thereis not even a search facility to look at the same site for different COE entiteis latest news! They are justfeeded to their central page, with other articles, unseparatedly! This creates a chaotic mess feeling andreflects and unbalanced communicational policy!The CM website is a good example, how to integrate sub-navigational feature at the site (for example atthe Meeting schedule with links http://www.coe.int/t/cm/WCD/meetingSchedule_en.asp#) this is

essential for all of the entities, where similar working procedure is happening.The challenge of navigation

is how to reflect the diverse parallel works of different entities inside theCOE, and their different roles in these works, that they are playing in various tasks. It is also a generalchallenge, to reduce unnecessary browsing time, originated from bad structure and the lack of serviceintegration.For example: there is no integrated news service (where I can select and see all the news/activities,that are related to an issue, or country, or even an entity). The need for having a

central newsstation in a form of an RSS feed channels

is essential now to provide all the value and informationthat is created under the various activities of different departments, united with the the flag of the COE.The embeddable videos and audio files are also a must in this kind of services - targeting press,individual newscasters/journalists and of course most of the users!

Acesssibitlity

Coloring of links and websites

It is obvious at the first page, that the site creators did an effort to separate the different entities bycolors, but it has been eroded, when we reach to the sites of the core entitites. It would be a help, if aspecial color theme would be created for the core websites or themes, that are kept across all the sites.The coloring of links and separation of different content types (meetings, documents, links, calendaretc) are lacking this quality of accessibility and would also give a lot to the generalnavigational/accessibility improvements.

- integration of different websitesHowever, most of the people knows where to find what, it is widely accepted practice amonginstitutional websites to provide integrated search facilities.In the COE case, it is a needed norm to have an option from each search facility to reach all the sitesthat are connected to the COE.The other solution could be to have a totally separate search function, and to have it embedded in allthe sites, where it is needed (the issue is, that I want to find out, what kinds of documents areappearing, if I am interested in the case of democracy in Belarus, I do need all the available documentsfrom the INGOs, and as well from the different group meetings, and of course, the Commitee of Minister and the CLARA as well.)This will not only give better results, but also reduce the time and highlight the COE various entitieswork.

Calendar of events

The online calendar services now days widely used and offering the possibility by it's standard basedcommunication to be synchronized with mobile phones, mail programs. It is more than obvious, thatbeing up to date with the happenings of each department, topic or group is the best way to use

online

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Comments on the COE web/communication services

calendar based event handling

Link checking

Annoying and embarrassing the number of links, that are not working ,sometimes from the frontpageas well.

Improvements in standardized accessibility

To improve

site accessibility

is necessary - right now it shows a false image. There are couple of guidelines, that can help ensure, that browsing the COE websites is based on equality - offering theneeded information for visually impaired as well.

Specific cases - the INGO's website

As I have outlined above, it is really

under supported

with functions and design compared to otherinstitution's or departments websites.Some of the strong weaknesses:

●

no central place, to look and find all the documents, that are related to INGOS (drafts, adoptedtexts, resolutions, summaries etc)

●

no central place for events

●

really bad highlighting and coloring of different sections/topics

●

no central place for news

●

there is great need among the organizations representing themselves on the internet, to addextra widgets to their webpages. This is might seem unnecesarry for many of the people, butthis is just because they just don't understand the importance of sharing and some part of internet culture.

Contacts

Making contacts easier - finding the right person at the right time

organigram

is essential for each department. It is also true for specific tasks (let's say a campaign,or a call), where displaying the responsible people will fasten the connection time for others, and willreduce unneceserry e-mails and phonecalls arriving to different departments.The basic contents should be the name, department, place, telephone number, email.(It could be easy done, to have a personal contact information with the details mentioned abovecreated to all the COE workers - so these coud be embedded to the places automatically.)It is also essential to provide a facility to

reach the webmaster

. (Once I have found one of the COEwebsites attacked by a Turkish hacker group on a Monday morning, and the only person whom I couldwrite was the Head of Good Governance in the Information Society.It would also be a help to point to problems, if the information of who is updating that specific sectionof the websites could be available.

General communicational policy issues

It is showing a wrong image, that the INGO's

don't have a fixed section on the frontpage

of theCOE site.This should be changed.At the central files section at http://www.coe.int/t/dc/files/default_en.asp there is also no INGO topic orfiles in the central database.

Language issues-

the return and handling of the different

translations

is certainly a factor, that can improve thewebsite. By browsing the web, we can see documents (sometimes translations of COE texts) onnational websites, but they are not feeded back to the COE sites. This is reducing informationaccessibility.3/8 pages