eXpanded Media built for the Flemish Government a third version of the portal. This portal, created with a citizen and a company in mind, received a new look but beneath the pretty interface hid the engine based on new technologies, which allow searches and categorization of information.

The Flemish Government wanted to offer a new website to the counties that did not have a website or their existing site needed a facelift.

eXpanded Media used the existing portal platform of the Flemish Government, the portal that comprised IPlanet Portal platform from the Sun Microsystems, the Divine Content Management System and technology from Autonomy for searching, spidering and categorizing information.

The portal site of the Flemish Government has been in existence since 1996. It offered relevant information for the citizens. This first portal—developed by eXpanded Media (at that time still a part of NetVision which later became Ubizen)- handled press releases, publications, addresses, IWETO and FRED connections. In the first phase Siemens Business Services (SBS) developed version 2 of the portal.

Until recently the portal site of the Flemish Government offered a controlled access. It meant that the information was presented from the point of view of the government.

In contrast, the new version-following intergovernmental approval- offers information from a point of view of a citizen or a company.

This new approach made multitude of information, offered by the Flemish Government, more accessible to every citizen and every company. Flemings received an intuitive, fast and efficient way of accessing relevant information. The design created the “moments in life” for a citizen and the “contact moments” for a business. For a citizen it meant that all recognizable phases in life, from birth to death, were set up as categories and relevant subcategories and through which new information was categorized. Similar approach was created for companies, encompassing events such as launching of a company, bankruptcy or a takeover.

The Flemish Government took the initiative to the local governments and, more specifically, to the counties. It allowed to countries without their own website to have one or to have a new website if the one in existence needed updating as long as the essential and useful information for the residents could be disclosed.

For this project eXpanded Media made use of the existing portal platform, the Microsystems IPlanet platform, which was implemented on the “high availability” platform. Above all, the system utilized the Divine content management system. Because Divine was already one of the partners of eXpanded Media, eXpanded Media was able to offer vast professional expertise in providing an advanced solution.

To offer information from the citizen’s – rather than government’s – point of view, a new taxonomy was needed. Furthermore, handling a large amount of current and future data required solution for automatic categorization. This has been achieved through technology provided by Autonomy, which builds automatic categorization patters based on sample documents. This objective was achievable because of the enormous amount of information at disposal of the Flemish Government.

The Autonomy software was further used as an advanced search engine. It performed searches not only on the key word but also allowed to enter phrases and questions. It extended the search results by encompassing conceptual searches and giving the user yet another way of finding relevant and correct information.

The new (third) version of the Flemish Portal received also a new “look” and “feel”. The new face brought more user-friendly, fresher and faster way of accessing relevant information; it made good use of the “moments in life”, contact points, themes, target groups and search engine. The fresh look and relevance of provided information was brought about by close collaboration between the Flemish Government, eXpanded Media and their partners. This collaboration resulted in design of style sheets describing in details various graphic aspects of the portal. Those style sheets are accessible to all Flemish departments for any future use.

The Divine Content Management System was set up as a tool for building of websites for local governments. Divine is used to control information provided by the digital media through clusters within the Flemish Government. The main goal of using a content management as a solution is to allow the owner (the Flemish Government) an easy and efficient way of expanding the information system through use of informative and interactive modules. The taxonomy and Autonomy integration, together with the new look and feel and the set up of the content management system was placed on the IPlanet platform and formed unified technological base of the new portal of the Flemish Government.

eXpanded Media considered this project not only as technological integration of various systems but also as a detailed and efficient way of coordinating various projects. All sub-projects were precisely planned and finally integrated in a portal. eXpanded Media is able to look back on this project as a proof of its technological expertise in integrating systems and experience in managing complex projects such as this one.

The new portal of the Flemish Government with websites of local authorities will be placed in production in the early part of 2003.

eXpanded Media participated in assignments through the outsourcing contracts. In the case of the Flemish Governments portal, eXpanded Media worked in cooperation with Siemens Business Services (SBS). The SBS remained responsible for control, availability and support of the infrastructure. They were was also responsible for coordination of all ICT projects and provided eXpanded Media with support of its team of experts.

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