SPADE 2(32)
ProjectEINRC - EIONET:- Extranet development/ SPADE / Issued Date/Version
13.3.2000/0.51 / Document type
Draft
Client
EC DG III /B-6 / Info
EIONET IT Strategy, Preparatory report / Reference/ Page
ItStrPrepIDA 20000313 V051.doc 1(28)
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
ENTERPRISE DIRECTORATE GENERAL
IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No 501 998 - 1st Specific Agreement
Einrc – Eionet
PREPARATORY REPORT
SPADE
Strategic Planning of Application Development in EIONET 2000-2003
Table of contents
1 Introduction
2 Regulatory and Functional Framework
3 Status
4 Challenges
4.1 Needs and gaps
4.2 What is the right level of integration for EIONET?
5 Functional Objectives and Target Situation
5.1 Vision
5.2 Rationale of the Development
5.3 Functional Objectives
6 Technical Objectives and Scope of Development
6.1 Scope
6.2 Architectures
7 Projects
7.1 Telecommunication and infrastructure development
7.2 Development of group collaboration services
7.3 Data management and flows
7.4 Data warehousing
7.5 Portal development
8 Resources and Management
9 Anticipated Costs and Benefits
10 Achievement of the necessary commitment and understanding among the participants
1 Introduction
The SPADE project (Strategic Planning for Application Development in EIONET) was set up to produce a medium term plan for the future development and utilisation of the telematic EIONET (European Environment Information and Observation Network).
The strategy illustrates "the way ahead" from the current situation towards a defined target situation. The major aims of the strategy are:
1) To describe the challenges the EEA and the EIONET users and set for the information technologies, and connect those requirements with future IT development while finding and keeping the right balance between business and technology.
2) To put “on the table” the possibilities that state of the art IT systems and tools now and in the future may offer. These possibilities should be understood as possible enablers for developing business processes.
3) To ensure a sufficiently long planning horizon for IT development. The strategy is based on an evolutionary approach and small steps to a carefully chosen direction.
The work has been done under the steering of the European Environment Agency (EEA). The Agency, with the NFP/EIONET group and the sectoral committee ETAC, established a group for the strategy preparation, called the SPADE Task Force. The Task Force consisted of representatives of the Member Countries’ National Focal Points, Topic Centres and the Agency. The Agency’s framework contractor TietoEnator has acted as adviser and enabler in the strategy process.
The work has been systematically carried out through the phases illustrated in Figure 1. The process contained:
· Review of existing material.
· Structured interviews of the Agency’s management and professionals.
· Interviews of representatives of several National Focal Points and European Topic Centres.
· Presentations and handling of the intermediate reports at the Sectoral Committee (ETAC) meetings.
· Handling of the intermediate reports and strategy options by the SPADE Task Force.
· Handling of intermediate reports and strategy options by EEA management.
Figure 1. A mind map showing clockwise the phases of the strategy process. Each phase has produced a document that has been shared on CIRCLE and commented by the Task Force.
The aim of the SPADE project is to define an information technology strategy for the telematic EIONET for the period 2000-2003 (corresponding to the IDA-2 programme period), later in this paper called the EIONET IT strategy.
The strategy pays attention to lessons learnt from the first implementation phase of EIONET. The main technical objective for the new period is to define concerted ways to utilise the existing EIONET and its services. With new technical opportunities, efficient tools and methods there is a possibility to serve and support the EIONET community in its data, information and knowledge management better than in the past.
The objectives of the EIONET IT strategy are integrated with those that were defined for the TERESA (Transparent Environmental data and information Reporting and Exchange System for Administrations) project. The proposals presented in the EIONET IT Strategy take into account TERESA proposals and seamlessly continue the existing development work.
A review of the strategy is foreseen in two years time and regularly thereafter. Specifically the sections on data management, data flow, and data warehousing can only be further developed after the experiences from TERESA projects are available. A continued SPADE process will take stock of the developments and draw conclusions to input a revision of the strategy in 2002.
2 Regulatory and Functional Framework
The EEA Regulation gives the Agency the task to collect, collate and analyse environmental data through its EIONET network. It also charges the Agency to facilitate the access to environmental information sources and to improve the quality of environmental data and information.
The newly amended Regulation calls for reinforced co-operation in the implementation of the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET) with the Member Countries and provides an extended mandate for EEA to act as the European Reference Centre for environmental information (E2RC). This should be done in accordance with the multiannual and annual work programmes of the Agency.
The Agency’s way forward for the coming years – ENVISION, Environmental Information Vision – is in place and gives a model for realising EEA’s objectives and implementation of the defined work programmes. It is a must for the IT strategy to be line with the challenges and objectives outlined in the ENVISION.
Key elements of the ENVISION include EIONET networking, the E2RC, concepts such as the MDIAR monitoring and reporting chain, and the DPSIR assessment framework. In ENVISION, EIONET has vital roles as an organisational and a telematic network, and in streamlining the production processes to provide European environmental information and knowledge.
ENVISION also has the potential to be used by the countries at the national level. For example, the DPSIR framework is equally valid as a framework for environmental assessments at the national level and is being used by several countries, national EIONETs are being developed in many countries, and the development of national equivalents of E2RC would go a long way to making environmental information more easily accessible and widely available and hence help improve quality.
3 Status
EIONET’s organisation and telematic platform are built and in operational use. The existing EIONET network infrastructure connects main EIONET organisations (EEA, ETCs, NFPs, NRCs, MCEs) to a European-wide Extranet.
A common collaboration tool for document management, information exchange and sharing (CIRCLE which is based on IDA’s common tool CIRCA) is in place and in operational use at all 33 sites. The use of CIRCLE is gradually increasing (each month about 300 000 web hits are received on EEA’s EIONET site and the Network Management Centre answers 1000 calls), but it is still not used to its full capacity. Best practices to utilise efficiently the network and the existing applications have been pioneered by several sites.
European State of the Environment reports, Europe’s Environment, the Second Assessment and the Environment in the European Union at the Turn of the Century have been prepared under the guidance of the DPSIR framework. The existing network and collaboration services have been heavily utilised in the preparation processes. Electronic sharing of the collected report information as well as gathered monitoring data has begun to flow to the end users through the network’s services.
Member Countries have shown increasing interest in utilising and developing the existing infrastructure and applications. However the interest varies from country to country. At the national level there is varying progress on connecting NFPs, NRCs, and MCEs to the telematic platform of the EIONET and in using the network for efficient workflow and data flows.
Good progress was made in 1999 on using the EIONET organisational and telematics networks to enhance data flows from the country level to the European level. Activity has focused on five areas - air emissions reporting to UNFCCC and UNECE/CLRTAP, air quality reporting under the Exchange of Information Decision, implementation of EuroWaternet, Marine Conventions data, and data for the Common Database on Designated Areas.
In all cases, the priority has been on data, which have many purposes (E.g., legal reporting, indicator-based reporting, Eurostat needs). Most progress has been seen on air emissions with air quality and CDDA coming next. The long-term objective is to develop EIONET into the reporting system for environmental information in Europe by asking the countries to report data only once and making those data available to those who want to use them.
Work has begun to develop an indicator system for Europe (e.g., TERM) using tools such as the DPSIR framework and the indicators typology to assure consistency and harmonisation. Much of the data gathered under the data flow priorities have been used to produce indicators used in the EEA’s reports.
Topic Centres are at varying levels in their technical implementation of the MDIAR chain. This includes development of their topic specific databases, data exchange methods and applications, analytical capabilities, and Web-services.
Some database development at EEA (EEA’s Data Warehouse, Directory of Information Resources - EDR), and at ETCs (Airbase, Corinair, Waterbase, Land Cover, EUNIS) is under way. Varying methods and IT platforms are used for collecting topic specific data. Air Quality and Air Emissions have the most advanced operational data collection systems.
4 Challenges
4.1 Needs and gaps
Although EIONET’s network infrastructure has been erected, it is used in different ways by each thematic application and by the different countries. Spreading the best practices and “learning by example” from the advanced sites is a priority and challenge for the EIONET.
The currently used generic CIRCA meets EIONET’s needs only partially. Especially, expansion of directory services that would fully support organisational roles and responsibilities and integrate this organisational knowledge with electronic communication is required.
Current database solutions at Topic Centres are built with the legacy tools of the host organisation. Harmonisation of methodologies, data models, or tools across topic areas has not been fostered up to now. The need to produce integrated assessments, respond in a timely manner, and take into account the developing organisational context of EEA and EIONET means that harmonisation of certain basic data and processes has to be considered for future.
IT methodologies and tools can greatly facilitate the required harmonisation. Standardisation in this area will avoid reinventing of wheel, increase sharing and reuse of information, reduce the number of interfaces that people will have to work with, and deepen integrated analysis. Efforts in this area will pay back as reduction of the reporting burden at Member Countries. Not all data nor tools should be harmonised and no “grand master plan” that would cover all data needs at EIONET is seen desirable. However, the stable core data should be described, harmonised, and shared to create a common recognised framework. An enabling infrastructure for this work should be erected.
Powerful technical means exist to visualise spatial data. These could be integrated into a toolbox offered to EEA partners participating in spatial data management and access processes. Advantage can be taken from ongoing projects and work at some ETCs. Visualisation of already collected data is a high priority for ETCs in 2000.
Slowness of response times on Internet, especially in document and Web-page flows has turned out to be a problem for some sites.
4.2 What is the right level of integration for EIONET?
Integration is a major theme in this strategy. By integration we mean building a seamless information system and value chain where automation becomes possible and new developments can build on work done earlier. The key in integration is to understand what services belong to a generic infrastructure, and what can be specific applications.
Finding a right level of integration is major challenge. Users with specific needs that have to get their job done only appreciate generic services and common tools if these provide useful and practical building blocks and tools. Many sites have their own tools, which they are comfortable using. On the other hand, some sites don’t have much beyond off-the-shelf office applications and could greatly benefit from an “EIONET turn-key” solution, toolbox, shared harmonised data elements, and a methodological capacity building programme.
It is clear that a part of data flow and information management in EEA and EIONET will be driven by stable indicators and data flows while there always will be a part that is ad hoc and collected and managed in a view of s specific project and product. The IT strategy must therefore support in a balanced way both prospective activities and well-defined corporate data flows. EIONET should provide generic services where feasible and achievable, but also provide a platform for specific tools and methods if a generic service is not feasible or available.
Figure 2. The EIONET reporting system should form an unbroken value chain.
5 Functional Objectives and Target Situation
5.1 Vision
The long-term vision to meet both the functional and information technology objectives for the EIONET and its utilisation could be set as the following (cf. Figure 2):
· EEA aims to achieve a situation where an environmental indicator system is available for Europe, supported by decentralised - but stratified - data flows from country level to European level by means of EIONET.
· Information and nationally recognised data for environmental reporting at European level should flow through an unbroken electronic value chain so that manual work can be minimised and incompatibilities avoided, duplicate work eliminated, and data and information stored in appropriate places in usable form. Routines are in place to ensure official recognition of data flows.
· The electronic EIONET contains, in its directory services, sufficient knowledge of the organisational EIONET so that the collaboration services seamlessly support users in their regular business.
· All the above is achieved in a sustainable information system so that users see the value of working through EIONET and contributing to its shared knowledge base.
5.2 Rationale of the Development
The generic rationale is to increase the efficiency and productivity of the ways the professionals work within the EIONET community: at the EEA, in topic areas, in the intra- and inter-organisational teams, and at the personal level.