The Global Centre for ICT in Parliament is finalizing, in collaboration with the IFLA Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments, a Handbook on the use of ICT in parliamentary libraries and research services, which will cover various topics ranging from cataloguing to digital information services, from digitization to connecting MPs and citizens to services through social media.

Parliamentary documents such as committee reports and texts of debates and hearings are fundamental records of the legislature. These documents must be prepared quickly, efficiently and accurately. They must be distributed easily and then amended, revised and redistributed just as easily. And they must be archived effectively to ensure availability and long-term preservation. The findings of the 2010 edition of the World e-Parliament Report indicate that timely public availability of such legislative records is a key ingredient for a more open, transparent and accountable legislature, and therefore a cornerstone of healthy parliamentary democracies.

The World e-Parliament Report 2008 underlines the fact that there is an emerging effort among legislatures to use open standards such as XML for documents. There is also an increasing recognition that the use of open standards is valuable because it extends the accessibility of legislative documents, not only within the parliament, but between the legislature and the government, between parliaments and civil society, and among parliaments internationally. The World e-Parliament Report 2008 also recognizes, however, that there are significant challenges that must be addressed when implementing XML.

Objectives and role

The Working Group on XML in Parliament intends to:

- Discuss issues related to the implementation of XML;
- Share information about XML (initiatives and schemas) ;
- Share information on methods, tools and applications that support the adoption of XML;
- Build capacity in the lesser developed and under-resourced parliaments;
- Propose and coordinate seminars, workshops and presentations on XML.

• Resources on XML

In the year 2000, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (the IPU) published a very important document - Guidelines for the Content and Structure of Parliamentary Websites - to foster good practices in the creation of a communication tool that was becoming increasingly important to legislatures. The IPU Guidelines have served parliaments well for a number of years, but the authors themselves recognized that they would eventually need to be updated. As the introduction to the Guidelines states: “Internet technology is constantly evolving. It will be necessary to review and update the Guidelines in the light of future developments.” That time has now come. With the advances in technology during the past 10 years, it is important to update the guidelines to reflect the best current and emerging practices in today’s websites.

• Download: Guidelines for Parliamentary Websites

Objectives and role

The goal of the Working Group on Guidelines for Parliamentary Websites is to support the updating of the guidelines by providing a forum for sharing different expertise and experiences and for exchanging views throughout the elaboration process. The members of the Working Group will work collaboratively towards the formulation of a new set of guidelines for parliamentary websites, taking the initial IPU guidelines as a basis for discussion and providing input based on the Group members’ knowledge and experience of how parliaments are currently using, and envisaging to use, modern web technologies to disseminate parliamentary information internally and externally, and communicating with citizens.

• Working Group online wiki

Introduction