Policy Context and Legal Framework

With the adoption of the Riga declaration in June 2006, the key role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become central. They are recognized as being synonymous with information accessibility and social relations improvement. Particular attention has been paid to people at risk of marginalization and it is thinking of them and trying to reduce the lack of internet usage that we have created a system that gathers all the social information in one online daily journal that is fully accessible respecting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

We created West in August 2006 with the aim of enabling every person (or private and public organizations that work for groups of disadvantaged categories) who so wishes to get information on welfare policy and legislation all in one. Giving everybody the equal opportunities to get the same level of information seems to us necessary for social justice.

Welfare policies, along with health policies, today are structural components of production and of competitiveness differentials in the areas of global economy. Only few decades ago nobody would have ever thought, that demography, family, older people and immigrants could be so important as to cause, even partially, many European countries “pain”.

Social policy production, unlike that of other goods and manufactured products, cannot make use of outsourcing to improve its competitiveness and quality standards. Indeed it can only use information.

Today competition is curbed by a kind of information protectionism in the very rich, even if not accessible to many people, market of services and financing of social programmes. Information is needed to be competitive entrepreneurs.Information competition is possible only when all have access to detailed and timely news on procedures, deadlines and specifications to participate in projects, programmes, competitions and invitations to tenders for the achievement of investments in the welfare market.

Implementation and Management Approach

West collects information through a network of correspondents selected from among persons who already work in the fields of interest but who are not journalists, this allows West to have the most up to date information and not to duplicate things already published. It concentrates all its efforts in the construction of abstracts which are comprehensible to everybody with no sensational effect, and respects chronological order.

West’s network in addiction to the European Institution level covers Italy, Slovakia, France, Slovenia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom. We have had daily number zero editions from March 2007 to January 2008 and the journal was officially launched on February 2008.

The top management of West is made by person who have been working in the sector of social policies for 30 years at the maximum level in Italy and decided to develop this journal as a tool that everybody should use to orientate any decision in the social area. All the staff is professional and qualified.

Technology solution

West is powered by an innovative platform document and a multimedia digital library. The documentary platform, user-friendly and entirely based on Internet technologies, is able to describe, manage and communicate in an integrated manner different types of documents and information:
- It is an open and flexible solution, which uses the XML standard for storing data;
- It is based on “open source” software components;
- It is entirely built multilingual mode, both for editorial components and access and fruition.

The digital library enables safe, long-term storage and access to different types of multimedia attachments:
- ensure the immediate availability in standard formats for documents from different sources;
- allows an intensive multimedia content (photos, audio-video, etc.).

The platform document allows registered users high levels of interactivity:
- direct access to selected content providers (Public Authorities such as Ministries, Regions, Town Councils, NGOs and all the sources of information);
- personalized selection of thematic channels;
- access via RSS-Feed in multi-mode channels;
- management personnel and team agenda.

Impact

The macro welfare policy is normally set at central government level, but detailed decisions are taken at a peripheral level and these are normally unknown even within the same area of interest. Having the opportunity to know what happens in every European country is a winner at government and rural level. NGOs, non-profit making organizations and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will benefit from a series of calls that are normally run only at local level and in which all the EU countries' enterprises can participate.

Since the official launch of West, we have been considering our success in term of people who visit the journal and the result are overtaking expectations.

It is precisely the variety of language used in this field that makes universal knowledge difficult. For this reason West has created an information network based on common rules and codes that could be recognizable and understandable in the whole of Europe.

Thanks to the multilingual platform, it will be possible to duplicate this Italian-English edition creating as many bilingual editions as there are countries who join the project. This represents one of main objectives of West’s. Until such time as this will not be possible, the primary purpose of West is to disseminate its existence to the widest possible audience through organization of meetings with personalities, officials and business operators who can act as multipliers. Those are national and European Parliamentary, officials of the European Commission and national Ministries, officials from Regions and Town Councils, representatives from NGOs and other organizations who work in this environment.
An already established good relationship with the press has allowed disclosing information of the online availability of West in Italy and in the involved countries.

A number of private meetings with people in key roles have already been held. These meetings were aimed not only at the disclosure of the existence of West and the detection of interest by the end users, but also to conclude bilateral agreements with public and private sources of information. These agreements have resulted in the signing of protocols of mutual agreements.

Track record of sharing

West has signed memorandum of understandings with several regions in Italy and some international associations and NGOs.

West is not a data base, but news and documents are published respecting criteria of rationality in such a way that it would be thought of, in the long term, as the first organized archive exclusively on welfare news.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - The information language is completely different on the Internet than in print media;

Lesson 2 - Timing in information and its usability are decisive;

Lesson 3 - Quality of interactivity with the player is the key for the success of an online editorial.