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2008.07.26.
The Council of Europe website is producing various types of materials for a big diversity of interest
groups. 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 internet
technology 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 COE
websites, but for some part, a deeper change is needed to better complete the tasks, that the COE
various 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 the
INGO representatives of the CAHDE workgroup (just as well a professional in e-democracy/governance
area), I summarize my opinion in a form of a draft paper, in which I was trying to incorporate Nigel
Warner's comments.
The basics
Service and news service integration is an essential concept for improving the usage of COE
websites.
From the current view, COE sites have been created independently, when there is a bunch of service
which 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 to
other 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 be
demanded, 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 from
communication and the COE.
By following the recent political happening inside the PA and the CLARE in relation with the INGOs, it is
clear, that INGOs are getting more rights, tasks and their work's importance is raising. This
requires 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
If we take a look at press policy section: the central page is only showing the news by timing, and there
is not even a search facility to look at the same site for different COE entiteis latest news! They are just
feeded to their central page, with other articles, unseparatedly! This creates a chaotic mess feeling and
reflects and unbalanced communicational policy!
The CM website is a good example, how to integrate sub-navigational feature at the site (for example at
the 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 the
COE, and their different roles in these works, that they are playing in various tasks. It is also a general
challenge, to reduce unnecessary browsing time, originated from bad structure and the lack of service
integration.
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 news
station in a form of an RSS feed channels is essential now to provide all the value and information
that 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
This will not only give better results, but also reduce the time and highlight the COE various entities
work.
Calendar of events
The online calendar services now days widely used and offering the possibility by it's standard based
communication to be synchronized with mobile phones, mail programs. It is more than obvious, that
being up to date with the happenings of each department, topic or group is the best way to use online
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Link checking
Annoying and embarrassing the number of links, that are not working ,sometimes from the frontpage
as well.
Contacts
Making contacts easier - finding the right person at the right time
An 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 will
reduce 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 above
created 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 COE
websites attacked by a Turkish hacker group on a Monday morning, and the only person whom I could
write 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 section
of the websites could be available.
Language issues-
the return and handling of the different translations is certainly a factor, that can improve the
website. By browsing the web, we can see documents (sometimes translations of COE texts) on
national websites, but they are not feeded back to the COE sites. This is reducing information
accessibility.
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Comments on the COE web/communication services
Sitemap:
http://www.coe.int/t/e/general/sitemap.asp
no INGOS - no organ, very chaotic
LOREG
needs to be poplulated more http://www.loreg.coe.int/
regarding Loreg, it is also not clean, who can put and what to the library. This needs to be clarified.
Campaings
Campaigns are really important tools of the Council, although, they seem to following an old fashioned
way. Without going much to details, the whole campaining support should live up to the demands of
thet web2.0 world, where embeddable videos, widgets, banners are essential.
However, there are big differencies in relation to campaings – the All different all equal campaing is a
fairly good example for using the web well.
At the end, here are some screenshots with small comments, highlighting issues.
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