EcoLegis: Cross-cultural Collaboration and Dealing with Databases

By Nikki Skuce
February 2001

About FARN

Organization: Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) http://www.farn.org.ar

Established:1985

Objectives: FARN is a non-profit, non-governmental, non-partisan organization. Its main objective is the promotion of policy, law, economics and institutional organization for sustainable development. It is addressed, mainly, to public and private decision-makers.

Mission: The foundation's mission and the method used to reach it, respond to the conviction that the challenge lies in how to organize to reach the complexity of true human needs with the management and prevention of negative effects on the environment.

Staff: Employees – 13
Associates – 6
Volunteers/Interns – 6

About REC

Organization:The Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) http://www.rec.org

Established:1990

Mission: The Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) is a non-advocacy, not-for-profit organization with the mission to assist in solving environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The Centre fulfils its mission by encouraging cooperation among non-governmental organizations, governments and businesses; supporting the free exchange of information; and promoting public participation in environmental decision-making.

Staff: Headquarters in Hungary – 70
15 Country Offices – Approximately 110 in total.

Partners for EcoLegis: FARN and REC with support from IISD.

Users: Environmental lawyers, legal practitioners, students, environmental stakeholders, third sector pubic citizen organizations, governments and businesses in Europe and Latin America.

Part 1: Collaborating

The EcoLegis environmental legal access facility is the result of a cooperative effort between FARN in Argentina and REC in Hungary. Both organizations had legal databases that they had been developing on an ongoing basis since 1993 for FARN and 1995 for REC. EcoLegis was launched online on the eve of the millennium.

EcoLegis includes two searchable bibliographic databases that offer access to environmental legislation from both organizations' respective countries and regions. FARN's database also offers full-text access to principal Argentine legislation, while REC's offers related items such as draft legislation, inventories and reviews.

While several similarities and positive differences existed to make the project viable, a certain amount of collaboration was needed to launch an integrated project online.

Collaborating:
With both organizations being members of the Sustainable Development Communications Network, a collaborative project to get their databases online was not difficult to envision despite linguistic, cultural, geographic and organizational differences. FARN and REC worked together to share their experiences and find the optimal level of content and database structure integration, while focusing on common issues and respecting differences.

From two joint-meetings (and several e-mail communications), FARN and REC agreed on the following idea:

• harmonizing the front end: common information and format for the Index page, same introduction text, and links to each other's collections;
• a common search function;
• new key-wording system: a list of 20 common "topic themes";
• a design that allows other partners to join;
• technical issues (e.g., file format - PDF, GIF, TXT, HTML, DOC); and
• copyright issues for digital libraries (Like FARN, REC also considered offering users full text copies of legal texts. However, copyright issues realated to REC's unofficial translated documents of some legal texts might have posed infringement problems).

Summary:
While FARN and REC maintain their own database collections, the collaborated project allows users to access environmental legal documents from Latin America, the Caribbean and Central and Eastern Europe while using a similar search engine and linking easily from one to the other. Each other's efforts were successfully complemented rather than compromised.

Part 2: Databases

Both databases are similar in that they were set up in response to a need to organize and disseminate environmental legislation. They share similar structures, are relied on to answer information requests and were intended for an online Internet launch. However, each organization uses different database software: FARN uses MicroIsis and REC uses FileMakerPro. Both systems provide different levels of database detail. Below is some information about the databases and the experiences that FARN and REC have had with them.

FARN: Owing to the popularity of its environmental legal resources, FARN began preparing the database for mounting on its Web page in 1998.

MicroIsis: Micro CDS/ISIS (Computerized Documentation System – Integrated Set for Information System) is an advanced, non-numerical information storage and retrieval software developed by UNESCO since 1985. It was designed to satisfy the need expressed by many institutions, especially in developing countries, to be able to streamline information processing with modern technologies. It can be used in MS-DOS and requires only basic computer programs and memory.

For the last several years, UNESCO has distributed thousands of free registered copies of CDS/ISIS (http://www.unesco.org/webworld/isis/isis.htm). In the early 1990s, FARN was working in MS-DOS so the use of MicroIsis as a database software was logical as it was compatible, free, available in Spanish and useful for creating a library database. FARN currently has over 9,000 documents in MicroIsis (including books and documents), and 3,400 of these are online as part of EcoLegis.

Challenges: Converting data from MicroIsis to the Internet is not straightforward. Databases created in MicroIsis have a unique format and can not be read directly by most other programs. In response to this, Bireme, the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information, developed, maintained and distributes WWWISIS (http://www.bireme.br/wwwisis1.htm). WWWISIS converts MicroIsis entries into legible Internet language and is installed on FARN´s server. In order for FARN to update EcoLegis, it has to upload the entire MicroIsis database onto its server and initiate some Telnet commands to interpret the information. FARN updates its database approximately once a month.

As a result of using MicroIsis, FARN was unable to combine the guided and freetext search options that were decided upon with REC. On FARN's site, the two search methods are separate, while on REC's they're one and the same.

MicroIsis is useful and can store an enormous amount of data, however it is not very compatible with other computer programs, and Internet uploading can be challenging. However, it would be a huge undertaking to transfer FARN's large database to another software program that had direct Internet uploading.

REC: REC began collecting environmental legislation in 1995 in response to the large number of requests it received from environmental stakeholders in Cenral and Eastern Europe and outside the region. Its collection quickly grew to around 300 items and during 1997 it planned to catalogue legislation in a MicroIsis database. The database was established but the entering of data could not be completed for lack of donor support. The project was renewed a couple of years later with the intention of launching its legal database online. However, REC decided to convert its MicroIsis legal database to a FileMaker Pro platform because it is more Internet-friendly than MicroIsis.

FileMaker Pro: FileMaker Pro is quite easy to develop, both in setting up the database structure as well as in linking it to the Web. FileMaker Pro is user-friendly and has built-in Web capabilities. There's flexibility offered by the permanently uploaded version of the in-house version of the database. New additions can be made in the FileMaker Pro platform that are reflected immediately online. This ensures no backlog or delay in cataloguing and ensures the user can always search the most up-to-date version of the database.

REC uses a plug-in (WebFM) that connects FileMaker Pro 4 with WebStar, their server software. It accesses the FileMaker Pro legal database remotely rather than searching an independently imported file to update its collection.

In the case that a piece of legislation is not available in the database, REC simultaneously obtains the requested law, and then it adds this to the database. Therefore, the database enables REC to identify gaps in the collection and to strengthen its content, and users are able to search the latest version of the updated resource. REC's catalogue now accommodates close to 550 references of environmental laws, drafts and reviews of CEE legislation.

Challenges: FileMaker Pro is compatible with several other programs. However, anything really big with many different functions might prove difficult to duplicate entirely if transferring to another software. For tasks the scale of EcoLegis, it is a viable database.

Conclusion

In collaborating with other organizations to create an online database, it's important to:

• respect differences;
• find commonalities in keywords/search engines and databases;
• develop similar user interfaces; and
• make it easy future partners to join.

When deciding what software to use, it's important to ask the following questions:

• Does the software have an Internet interface?
• What other software is compatible with the program?
• What information is important to put online?
• How will people search for information?
• What topic themes should be included?
• How often does the site need to be updated?
• How can the site be maintained?

Contact:

FARN
Monroe 2142, 1º B
(C1428BLH) Buenos Aires
ARGENTINA
Tel/Fax:(54-11) 4788-4266 / 4787-3820
4787-5919 / 4783-7032
E-mail: info@farn.org.ar