Programme team creates stricter quality control for platform for sharing digital administrative solutions among European governments
The EU’s Directorate General for Informatics has remodelled its Joinup platform for sharing and discussing digital administrative solutions.
It said the platform has been given a major restructuring to group the solutions on show under 88 thematic collections, which provide for domain specific discussions.
A multi-criteria search function has also been added, and there are plans for it to push the solutions of highest relevance to the top of the results list. Relevance will be determined by the newness of the information, how often the content has been viewed, and how much has it been used.
In addition, new solutions proposed for upload will undergo a stricter quality control process by the Joinup moderation team, and the owner of the thematic collection for which it is proposed will have to give their approval. A declaration of the related licence will also be required.
Past solutions that have raised little interest have been deleted, and the platform has now been made available in responsive mode, allowing for the display of content on all kinds of devices in the proper format.
Heavy use
Joinup was launched in 2011 under the European Commission’s ISA2 programme for the interoperability of public administration in the EU. It has since attracted more than 25,000 subscribers with 30,000 artefacts – software solutions, specifications and frameworks – having been uploaded.
Programme manager Hans Vanderbeke said: “The platform has grown organically and dynamically. Over the years it became clear that we would need to offer our users some more guidance on how to find the information that was most pertinent to them. We therefore started user surveys, polls and interviews to find out more about the needs and preferences of our users”.