FriKomPort: Sharing code, costs, and benefits

Web address of the case:

http://www.osor.eu/case_studies/frikomport-sh...

Country of the case:

Norway

City/region:

Kongsberg

Posting Date:

1 July 2009

Last Edited Date:

13 July 2009

Author:

OSOR.EU - Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu)

eGovernment Knowledge Management | FriKomPort | Norway

Type of initiative

Network
Strategic initiative

Case Abstract

In 2006 the Norwegian region of Kongsberg launched a portal to coordinate and administrate courses and trainings for municipality staff. The solution was developed with open source tools, as a common effort of all seven municipalities of the Kongsberg region. Once the project was working successfully, other municipalities and organisations became interested and wanted to use the portal as well. The Kongsberg region eventually published FriKomPort, as the portal was called, as a free software application under the GPL. The portal today is used by more than 50 organisations, and practically all users are very confident about the solution. For the future the FriKomPort leaders hope to share the portal with even more municipalities by publishing an English version.

Description of the case

Domain

eGovernment

Topic

Infrastructure | Open Source | Regional and Local | User-centric Services

Sector

Local/Regional Community Development | Other

Start date - End date

December 2006 (Ongoing)

Target Users

Administrative

Target Users Description

Generally the users of the FriKomPort system are either those offering courses, and those who register for a course using the system. The municipalities often have courses that train the people working for the municipality in the ICT infrastructure, social or legal issues, and so forth. These courses are very easily put on the system, and registering for them is just as easy.

Scope

National

Status

Operation

Language(s)

Norwegian

Policy Context and Legal Framework

Norway is a country with vast landscapes and long distances in between its 431 municipalities. The municipality plays an important role, since it provides the framework for primary education, unemployment, health, and other social services. As most municipalities are rather small however, budget restraints are evident in most communities. An example of this can be seen in the Kongsberg region, which is one of 19 Norwegian administrative regions, and which includes seven municipalities near the town of Kongsberg. It was in 2005 that Britt Inger Kolset, the region's ICT program coordinator, came up with the idea for a project to solve a problem that all the municipalities shared. They all offer courses for their staff concerning issues such as information about the municipality's ICT system, public law, or public health, which every employee has to attend at some point. To administer and coordinate these courses, Kolset recognised that there was a need for a system that would make it easier for people to register for courses, and for the organisers to inform participants about changes. This was the starting point for the development of the Fri KompentansePortal (Free Competence Portal), FriKomPort. The portal was developed using open source tools, and its code is freely available for reuse under the GPL. After initially being used only by the seven municipalities in the Kongsberg region, the number of organizations and municipalities that use it today has risen to 58.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

IT infrastructures and products

Overall Implementation approach

Partnerships between administration and/or private sector and/or non-profit sector

Technology choice

Open source software

Funding source

Public funding regional

Project size

Implementation: €15-49,000

Yearly cost:

€1-49,000

Implementation and Management Approach

Initially the FriKomPort project was only intended to serve the seven municipalities of the Kongsberg region: Flesberg, Kongsberg, Nore and Uvdal, Notodden, Rollag, Tinn and Ã˜vre Eiker. All seven municipalities had the same troubles in the administration of their courses, and sharing this development was going to simplify their internal processes substantially. Although their courses were mostly aimed at one municipality at a time, FriKomPort has also made it much easier to organise courses for staff from several of the municipalities. This helps to save time and money, e.g. by making sure that courses are fully booked, even if a single town does not have enough staff to fill the ranks. After about half a year of successfully running the platform, other municipalities started to hear about FriKomPort and the interest for the project grew all across Norway. Step by step, the number of regions and municipalities increased from the initial seven to 58 public bodies, 50 of which were municipalities and eight other organisations from the educational and the political sector. Among them are the municipality of Arendal, and the University of Agder. Both came across FriKomPort after being in contact with Kolset, the alleged â€œmother of the systemâ€, as described by Brit Maria Marcussen from the municipality of Arendal, which makes use of FriKomPort.

Technology solution

FriKomPort was developed with Java and PHP. This kept the costs to a minimum, while at the same time ensuring functionality and sustainability of software. The content management system behind FriKomPort is eZ Publish, which is also freely available under GPL license. For the database functionalities, Know IT, the company that developed the software, relied on MySQL, which allows multi-user access to all databases on the system. This core element of FriKomPort is also available under the GPL. The development work itself only took about three month until the project was out of its beta phase. At first, Know IT presented a demo of the platform to the ICT department of the Kongsberg region. Then, after discussing the software, additional functions were added and bugs resolved, until the software was fully functional in mid-2006.

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