Provision of Historical Parliamentary Documents to the Public (GR0028)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: Greece Second Action Plan for 2014-2016
Action Plan Cycle: 2014
Status: Inactive
Institutions
Lead Institution: Hellenic Parliament
Support Institution(s): NA
Policy Areas
E-Government, Legislative, Open ParliamentsIRM Review
IRM Report: Greece End-of-Term Report 2014-2016, Greece 2014-2015 Progress Report
Starred: No
Early Results: Marginal
Design i
Verifiable: Yes
Relevant to OGP Values: Access to Information , Technology
Implementation i
Description
The commitment aims to enrich the Parliament web portal content with the publication-in accordance with open standards- of digitized material concerning:
- Plenary Session Minutes from the 1st Legislative period to the 8th Legislative period (9-12-1974 to 22-8-1996)
- Introductory reports of bills tabled from 1975 to 1993.
It also aims at the partial conversion of parliamentary archives into electronic books (e-books), making
them available to the public through the web portal.
IRM End of Term Status Summary
Commitment 4.4. Open historical parliamentary data
Commitment Text:
The commitment aims to enrich the Parliament web portal content with the publication-in accordance with open standards- of digitized material concerning:
Plenary Session Minutes from the 1st Legislative period to the 8th Legislative period (9-12-1974 to 22-8-1996), Introductory reports of bills tabled from 1975 to 1993.
It also aims at the partial conversion of parliamentary archives into electronic books (e-books), making them available to the public through the web portal.
4.4.1. Digitize public historical Parliament material
Milestones –Timescales
Implementation (gradually) by June 2016:
• Investigation and adoption of specialized optical character reading software (OCR) that will be able to accurately digitize printed historical material relating to Minutes of Plenary Sessions and to Bills introductory reports that was once written on a typewriter.
• Systematic quality control in resulting digitized text files and application of necessary corrections.
• Documentation of the digitized material and its progressive publication on the Hellenic Parliament portal.
Concerning e-books creation, the following actions will be implemented:
4.4.2. Standards and public access to Parliament e-books
Completion by October 2015:
• Exploration and adoption of open standards for the creation and reading of electronic books and open source applications.
• Pilot electronic book creation on different categories of parliamentary documents.
• Finalization of e- books structuring by category of parliamentary documents.
Implementation (gradually) by June 2016:
• Activation of e- books creation and publication process for selected categories of parliamentary material.
Editorial note: Commitments 4.3 and 4.4 have been clustered for the purpose of analysis in this report.
Responsible institution: Hellenic Parliament
Supporting institution(s): None
Start date: July 2014 End date: June 2016
Commitment Aim:
These two commitments aim to increase the amount of data available to the public and to
improve the functionality of the Parliament’s existing online platforms. The Hellenic Parliament developed these commitments as part of their individual action plan (see Commitment Overview). The commitments primarily focus on streamlining internal parliamentary functions.
Status
Commitment 4.3. Midterm: Limited
The government reviewed the study of the Hellenic Parliament website, thereby completing Milestone 4.3.1. According to interviews with parliamentary staff, the government formed a working group to improve the Hellenic Parliament website and to implement the new standards technologies. This group carried out a comparative analysis of the methods and practices used by other nations’ parliaments. The government provided analysis earlier than planned and offered this analysis for public consultation. It was unclear if, and to what extent, the results of the public consultation process were included in this report.
Milestone 4.3.2, improving Parliament’s website, saw limited completion. The Hellenic Parliament’s website contained plenary session minutes from 1996 onward and introductory reports of bills from 1993 onwards published in .pdf, .doc and .txt formats. However, staff formatted these documents mostly on an ad hoc basis as the government had not yet adopted international standards or software requirements (e.g. legislative .xml, Akoma Ntoso, etc.).
Commitment 4.4 Midterm: Limited
Staff digitized a small number of files; therefore, Milestone 4.4.1 saw limited completion. Some of the scanned materials were available on the relevant section of Parliament’s website.[Note 28: An example of scanned Hellenic Parliament historical data may be found here: http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/f3c70a23-7696-49db-9148-f24dce6a27c8/A-ETHNOS-1843-1844_1.pdf.] The Openwise IRM research team found that a low number of the existing digitized historical files were machine-readable, and search capability was limited for available content. Additionally, available information was presented in a way that required the public to have significant parliamentary knowledge to locate and use published data.
Although the Parliament had started scanning these documents and had made the material available on its website for download, it had not adopted optical character reading software (OCR strategies).
The Openwise IRM research team found no evidence that government had begun work on Milestone 4.4.2 by the midterm review. In general, the Hellenic Parliament had not been able to increase visibility of all material because they discovered personal data embedded within the cache of historical documents. This was due to possible issues arising from a Greek Data Protection Agency decision that requires all legal text be made anonymous before publication. This then led implementing agencies to err on the side of caution and not publish material until it had been made anonymous.
Commitment 4.3 End of term: Limited
Based on the September 2016 inter-parliamentary group meeting attended by the Openwise IRM research team, the government made no further progress on implementing unfinished milestones. Parliamentary staff stated that completion was limited due to lack of required funding. This led to a loss of ownership for the commitment as the staff responsible were moved to new tasks and other proposals.
Commitment 4.4 End of term: Limited
Based on the September 2016 inter-parliamentary group meeting attended by the Openwise IRM research team, the government made no further progress on the implementing this commitment. Parliamentary staff stated that limited completion was due to lack of required funding, which led to a loss of ownership for the commitment.
Did it open government?
Commitment 4.3.
Access to information: Marginal
The Hellenic Parliament made the plenary session minutes from 1996 onward and introductory reports of bills from 1993 onward available through its website. These are published in .pdf, .doc and .txt formats. These documents are formatted mostly on an ad hoc basis and do not follow an international recognized scheme (e.g. legislative .xml, Akoma Ntoso, etc.). This limits the scope of interaction that the public may have with the data.
The partially completed commitments did improve public access to parliamentary texts, but fell significantly short of achieving the levels of information access envisioned by the commitments. These commitments were of modest ambition, aiming to provide additional levels of service on existing, operational web platforms. They intended to bridge the gap between parliament and the general citizenship by boosting participation in the political process and by providing citizens with the power to influence legislation. If completed these website improvements would enhance access to Hellenic Parliament information for all stakeholders and would foster increased transparency.
Commitment 4.4
Access to information: Marginal
This commitment dealt with the digitization of historic material and only marginally added to the overall amount of information offered to the public. Parliament has started scanning some documents and has made them available on their website for download. The fact that these files are in many cases not machine readable, and have not been processed through an optical character recognition software, limits public ability to search and extract information.
Carried forward?
The third Greek Action Plan does not carry forward Commitments 4.3 and 4.4. They failed to secure the needed funding and lost ownership as a result.
Commitments
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Open Education Data
GR0065, 2019, Access to Information
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Open Rural Development Data
GR0066, 2019, Access to Information
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Open Immigration Data
GR0067, 2019, Access to Information
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Open National Defense Data
GR0068, 2019, Access to Information
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Open Ministry of Interior Data
GR0069, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Administrative Reconstruction Data
GR0070, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Economic Data
GR0071, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Local Government Data
GR0072, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Justice Data
GR0073, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Environmental Data
GR0074, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Culture and Sports Data
GR0075, 2019, Access to Information
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Framework Law on Open & Participative Governance
GR0031, 2016, Capacity Building
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Participation in the Assessment of the Public Sector
GR0032, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Publicity of Organisational Charts & Entities of the Public Sector
GR0033, 2016, E-Government
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Accountability and Settlement of Disputes Between the Citizens and the Public Sector
GR0034, 2016, Legislation & Regulation
-
Guide and Standardization for the Provision of Services & for Procedures Per Service/Entity
GR0035, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Improvement of the Open Deliberation Procedure
GR0036, 2016, Capacity Building
-
National Register of Line Managers of the Public Administration (Register)
GR0037, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Implementation of the Assessment of Employees and Services and Control Methods
GR0038, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Implementation of a System for the Selection of Managers
GR0039, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Digital Repository for Pubic Administration Studies
GR0040, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Provision of Open Cultural Data
GR0041, 2016, Access to Information
-
Geospatial Maritime Data
GR0042, 2016, Access to Information
-
Ship/Company and Seafarer Registers
GR0043, 2016, Access to Information
-
Marine and Maritime Activity
GR0044, 2016, Access to Information
-
Public Property Open Data
GR0045, 2016, Access to Information
-
KPI’s for the Implementation of Public and EU Financed Projects
GR0046, 2016, E-Government
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Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams
GR0047, 2016, E-Government
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Protocol Digitization
GR0048, 2016, E-Government
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Informative Actions on Open Data for Young People in Secondary and Higher Education
GR0049, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open Education
GR0050, 2016, Access to Information
-
Provision of Open Data for Justice
GR0051, 2016, Access to Information
-
Enhanced Statistical Data of Justice Open to the Public
GR0052, 2016, E-Government
-
Open Provision of Geo-Data
GR0053, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open-Participatory Budget
GR0054, 2016, Access to Information
-
Regional Council Platform (Open Regional Council)
GR0055, 2016, E-Government
-
Open - Participatory Budget
GR0056, 2016, E-Government
-
Capture and Evaluation Platform for Regional Technical Projects
GR0057, 2016, E-Government
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City Dashboard
GR0058, 2016, Access to Information
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Online Consultation Platform
GR0059, 2016, E-Government
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Open Data Index for Cities and Local Administrations
GR0060, 2016, Access to Information
-
Linked, Open and Participatory Budgets
GR0061, 2016, E-Government
-
School of Data for Public Servants
GR0062, 2016, Access to Information
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The Collaborative Wikification of Public Services Procedures
GR0063, 2016, Capacity Building
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Strengthening Openness and Accessibility of the Parliament
GR0064, 2016, Access to Information
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Institutional and Technological Upgrading of Transparency Program
GR0012, 2014, Access to Information
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Public Participation in Decision Making
GR0013, 2014, Capacity Building
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Integration of PSI Directive on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information
GR0014, 2014, Access to Information
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Regulatory Amendments for the Management and Provision of Open Data
GR0015, 2014, Access to Information
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Implementation of Platform for Central Distribution of Public Open Data
GR0016, 2014, Access to Information
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Provision of Open Geospatial Data
GR0017, 2014, Access to Information
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Provision of Open Cultural Data
GR0018, 2014, Access to Information
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Provision of Open Data for Offshore Companies
GR0019, 2014, Access to Information
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Open Provision of Public Sector Critical Data Sets
GR0020, 2014, Access to Information
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Open Invitations for Filling Posts in the Public Sector
GR0021, 2014, E-Government
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Public Administration Organizational Chart Publication
GR0022, 2014, Capacity Building
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Coordination and Monitoring of Open Government Policy
GR0023, 2014, Anti-Corruption
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Reorganization of Inspectorate Bodies and Strategic Alliance Development Against Corruption
GR0024, 2014, Anti-Corruption
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Tracking Changes on Bills (From Submission to Voting by Plenum)
GR0025, 2014, E-Government
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Usability and Functionality Improvements of the ‘Parliamentary Transparency’ Section of the Hellenic Parliament Website
GR0026, 2014, E-Government
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Improvement of the Hellenic Parliament Website and Implementation of New Standards-Technologies
GR0027, 2014, Access to Information
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Provision of Historical Parliamentary Documents to the Public
GR0028, 2014, E-Government
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Enhancement of Social Media Policy in the Hellenic Parliament
GR0029, 2014, E-Government
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On Line Provision of Exhibitions
GR0030, 2014, Capacity Building
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Increase Number of Legislative Acts Going Through Online Deliberation
GR0001, 2012, Legislation & Regulation
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Capitalize on Citizen Comments and Suggestions
GR0002, 2012, Public Participation
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Operate Central e-Procurement Information System
GR0003, 2012, Anti-Corruption
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Operate Central ERP Information System
GR0004, 2012, E-Government
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Operate Central HRMS Information System
GR0005, 2012, E-Government
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Open Data Regarding Prices, as Collected by Prices Observatory
GR0006, 2012, Access to Information
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Resolve Legal Issues Regarding State Geo-Data
GR0007, 2012, Land Rights and Spatial Planning
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Offer Additional Taxation Data
GR0008, 2012, Fiscal Openness
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Augment Functionality of the Transparency Program
GR0009, 2012, E-Government
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Publicise Public Sector Procurement Information
GR0010, 2012, Anti-Corruption
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Enable Open, Transparent and Safeguarded Document Circulation
GR0011, 2012, E-Government