Managing Parliamentary documents and data: challenge to improve transparency in the parliamentary information context Marina Cueto Document Management Department Directorate of Technical Parliamentary Assistance Senate of Spain [email protected] I. About the Document Management Department II. New webpage senado.es: Digital thinking III. Official publications: from digitization to Dublin Core IV. Open data: Ballots in plenary sittings V. Research studies in Spanish Parliament VI. Conclusions I. About Document Management Department • 1994: an archivist coming from the Archives Department (Congress of Deputies) was attached directly to the Director to the Senate. First strictly related to Registry work in the Legislature in course. • 1997: First institutional webpage of Spanish Senate • 2001: Digitization of official publications (coordinated with Archives of Congress of Deputies) • 2007 Database Coordination Service has a new function related to the videos • 2009: First working groups for the new webpage of the Senate of Spain • 2012: New institutional webpage • 2014: Document Management Department is created including Database Coordination Service to cope with new functions related to the website Functions • Definition, planning and integrated management of parliamentary documentation • Providing access to all parliamentary information for citizens and other organizations through the website • Coordination of the thesaurus used in all the units (topics) • Parliamentary initiatives and records on the core • Videos, official publications, documents management II. New webpage senado.es: Digital thinking • November 2012 • Available in all the official languages of Spain (5) and English • Using modern technologies • Oriented to the citizens, bringing new channels of participation • According to the legal requirements on transparency Interconnection of both Houses though parliamentary information • The Spanish Parliament is composed of two Chambers: the Congress of Deputies and the Senate and the information is in both webpages. • The Senate’s website has intended to make more familiar to the citizen the approval of bills bringing the corresponding data referred to the passing of bills from the Congress of Deputies, to complete the specific information about the work of the Senate to deliver the legal text. e.g.: Shared data of both Houses to explain the adoption of the bill: III. Official publications: from digitization to Dublin Core • Same structure maintained from 1977 to 2016: Official Bulletin and Journal of Sittings • 2001: Digitization of official publications (coordinated with Archives of Congress of Deputies) to be published on both webs • 2009: The Senate considers that the institutional website is now an effective tool to provide transparency. • Webpage and Bulletin coexistence means that some parliamentary procedures are only published on the web (written questions) • 2010: Official publications become digital: PDF, XML • 2014: Dublin Core metadata and thesaurus information are included Official Bulletin The future: Speech as a data IV. Open data: Ballots in plenary sittings • The presentation of the results of the voting is done within the plenary through the panel voting, in which the aggregate is reflected and without data output from outside headquarters are counted on the panel itself through the system telematic. • So far, this information is transferred to the web in a table presenting a summary of what happened in the hemycicle, with a link to Journal of Sittings in pdf. • An example: Votes of 2 amendments to a bill Information arquitecture Data are organized into different categories: • Initiative that the vote : title, file number, committee , issue of voting authors. • session data : date, time, and type of vote President . • general result: number of Yes, No, abstentions and NO vote. • relationship of the Senators present and absent at the time of the vote • votes from the floor (those collecting voting panel ) and those through the telematics system Some functionalities • The user also can view the result by clicking through different media: video of the vote with possibility to download, the Journal of Sittings and share all the content of the page on the social network Twitter. • Dynamic graphics show the general results Phases • Complex project: the study of the political position of each parliamentary group on matters submitted to a vote. • a visual presentation on the web, linking the information with other page content, such as video files and the processing of the initiatives of the current Legislature with all its plenary sessions • It is expected to be adding data to the II Legislature in a digitization project similar to the Congress of Deputies information with a data dump from different media to a common and treatable data system. • Publication in html format. V. What about Research Studies in the Spanish Parliament? • Traditionally, research studies have been organized in each chamber into a unique Directorate with Archives, Library and Documentation. • 2007: Two Directorate separated, Directorate of Studies and Directorate of Documentation • Directorate of Studies includes a Studies Department, Publications Service (non official) Service and Union European Documentation Service • This is NOT included in the current list of priority projects of parliamentary administration • BUT priorities can be changed by projects based… In content and context • All parliamentary information must be in the same formats from 1977 to 2016 (13 Legislatures) • A different mind to look at the parliamentary process with products linked to the agenda of parliament • Accessibility as a whole • Use of open standards for metadata: reuse of information • Use of open format (XML) • Use of unique identifiers for subjects, key actors • Relationship with other information, Linked Open Data is the goal • More analysis can be offered with specialization areas The five levels of open data internationally established • Level 1: Post web data in any format but free use • Level 2 : Publishing structured data in machine- readable format (eg csv or excel document instead of an image) • Level 3. Using level 2 in non-proprietary formats • Level 4 : Uses standard Web Consortium (W3C ) Semantic Web (RDF and SPARQL) to identify the "things" that may well point to our information from the outside (Linked Open Data) • Level 5 : Link your data with other data (third to provide a context). VI. Conclusions • Institutional website is memory, present and future of Parliament • New challenges for information specialists in Parliament: proactivity and data management • External documentation must be directly relied in the web to specific work of MPs • It’s all about change management and communication • Change needs a different way to describe the parliamentary process according to the different users needs: customized needs (citizens, MPs, press) • Information specialists have to go further databases management and work in information arquitecture in the web • The parliamentary administration needs a change to be adequate to the new challenges through new functions assumed .