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CONSTRUCTION OF THE MAIN PROJECT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTATION CENTERS
• Introduction
The activities on formation of Research and Documentation Centers ( RDCs ) officially began with a meeting in Budapest, which took place between the 14th and the 18th of January 2004, followed by that in Vukovar on the 20th and the 21st of February 2004. The first phase of these activities was concluded on the 6th of April 2004 in Sarajevo with the signing of the Protocol for Regional Cooperation.
Formation of Research and Documentation Centers in Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Sarajevo ), Croatia ( Zagreb ) and Serbia and Montenegro ( Belgrade ) already in the early phases posed the problem of construction of an information system as an urgent and strategic task whose practical realisation was crucial to achieving all the numerous goals of the above mentioned organisation. In this context, the importance of creating a compatible data base which would, along with a universal methodology for collection and analysis of documentation, satisfy every requirement that may occur in the process of realisation of all the aims that lead to the formation of the centers, was particularly emphasized.
These aims are:
• continuing research of the causes and methods of war crimes and grave violations of the norms of the international humanitarian law perpetrated against the population in the region;
• gathering of documentation and archive materials, analysis of information and data on all aspects of the war and war crimes, on the consequences of suffering and the individual and collective social responsibility for those crimes;
• creating an ambiance within which to confront the past and in this context, creating conditions for the healing of war wounds and facing responsibility for crime, as well as inducing positive social changes necessary in order to achieve justice and truth;
• offering support to the victims of crime in regaining dignity and obtaining justice and the right to reparations;
• establishing an institutional framework around which to create a documentational basis to serve as a relevant infomation source for prosecutors, judges, reserchers, students and for other specialist and scientific purposes and for the public themselves;
• supporting the institutions and individuals working to reinforce the national and international law and the universal human rights and those fighting for a change in the attitudes within the society towards the need for the rule of law and development of the civil society;
• establishing an institutional framework within which young generations can acquire knowledge and skills in peaceful conflict resolution and create early warning mechanisms for potential conflict situations.
• Reasons for development of the information system ( IS )
As a succesor of the researches lead by the War Crimes Commission in the period 1992 - 2003 and bearing in mind curent investigation realized independantly by the RDC we can conclude that future development of the Information Sistem have to fulfills next requests which originate from large amount of existing documentation s which is consist from:
• More than one million pages of different documents, reports, promulgation, letters, military orders, resolutions, etc:
• 10.000 statements from direct and indirect victims, eyewitnesses, perpetrators etc.
• 3.500 hours of video and audio records:
• 50.000 photos of war damages:
• 250 books, magazines and publication in close connection with BiH war events in period 92/95:
• More than 6000 thousand peaces of newspapers published during the war ( Oslobodjenje, Vecernje novine, Kozarski vijesnik, Avaz, etc. ) part of which had been transferred on microfilm.
In these contexts we have to mention that around 30 per cent of total documentation, predominantly video, photo documents, books and newspapers have not been yet analyzed and transferred into electronic format. On the other side Information system have to offer some other answers and fulfills some other request which come from new documentation we plane to collect and storage from witnesses, perpetrators, NGO's, UN officials and bodies, and especially from ICTY. In fact we expect that at least part of ICTY archive should be transferred into RDC. It means that millions of pages of documents will become part of existing RDC archive.
It is necessary to be mentioned that only current realization of the project titled " Population losses 92/95 " is going to produce more than 500.000 pages of documents and minimally between 15 - 20.000 photos to the end of this year.
Intention of RDC to organize special library and to gather all books, magazines, newspapers with relevant content connected with events in BiH between 92/95 will also request computer processing and including of library into IS. We estimate that between 15 and 20.000 items will be store into library.
Additionally, all other working processes in RDC ( communication system, web-site, e-mail, correspondence, financial flaws and expenses ) have to be included into IS.
Having in mind all previously mentioned results of researches and future plans and expectation, establishing of IS on the long term bases have to fulfills following requests :
- efficient analizes, storage, management and utilisation of data obtained by the RDCs;
- cost reduction during preparation and realisation of joint projects;
- effective mutual information exchange with the centers in the region and those from other countries;
- rational use of resources and experiences acquired over the years of researching
war crimes and human rights violations.
• Aims of the IS
The aims of the information system are directly correlated with :
• the general aims set by the centers;
• the organisation structures which will be established by the centers, and which are necessary for the process of task realisation;
• the ways of running and managing the centers; and
• the system of protection and control of working processes using the IS.
In connection with this, the aims of the IS should fulfil the following needs of the users:
• control over all flow of information in the centers and over all ( long term and short term ) processes of management and planning of developmental and programmed aims of the centers;
• efficient processing and storage of gathered data;
• efficient management of data, documents and information through all phases
• creation of reports and analyses, public relations, assistance for prosecutors, help for victims, etc;
• exchange of data of mutual interest to all centers;
• timely and effective utilisation and distribution of data to external users;
• effective preparation of data for realisation of joint regional projects;
• avoidance of multiplication of work and subsequent reduction of expenses in all phases of construction of the IS.
• Methodology of development of the information system
In order to facilitate the fulfilment of set aims, the IS must satisfy the following methodological assumptions:
• It must be composed of three compatible modules which would enable free independent function of each individual one, as well as exchange of required information between them.
• It must provide the future users with the internal and collective analyses of certain data at the level of the region, their presentation on the World Wide Web, and utilisation of available information in projects by other centers.
• It has to enable efficient communication with external users od data and access to the data to a degree internally and jointly determined by all centers.
• It must be developed to use modern tools in order to enable keeping up with future technological developments and improvement of exisiting modules, according to the requirements of the centers. Licences for four developmental sets of software should be provided and twenty working licences for every center ( recommendations MAGIC, DELPHI... )
• It must rely on a modern data base which would allow processing of large numbers of data ( recommendation MS SQL ).
• The chosen data base must ensure compatibility with the environment as well as the highest standards of security in all phases of management of processed data. The proposed solution must provide four sets of licences ( for each of the three centers and one for development and testing of the application ).
4. Contents of the solution
The proposed solution should :
1. Contain an analysis of the current status within each center;
2. Define the shortcomings of function of the current system, both internally and in communication at the regional level;
3. Contain the core project which would offer the solutions to the current problems and provide a solution integral to the following functions of the RDCs:
• administration of a code system ( to allow data exchange at the regional level ),
• RDC protocol,
• processing of written documentation,
• processing of photographic, audio and video documentation,
• processing of documentation in digital form,
• computerised running of the library,
• computerised running of the archive,
• processing of reports and information gathered from court trials,
• processing of documentation gathered through oral history projects,
• monitoring and processing of specific target projects,
• monitoring and correspondence with RDC members,
• processing and storing of RDC's internal business documents.
• An applicable solution for the future information system should enable inclusion of all incoming information into the system and enable generation of all required information and reports from the system; • The solution should offer a hardware platform upon which to implement the proposed solution ( IBM, HP );
• The proposed solution should offer an operative system ( WINDOWS, VPN- Virtual Private Network , LOCAL COMPUTER NETWORK... );
• The proposed solution should define the resources ( time, human resources, financial resources etc... ) necessary for the construction and implementation of the solution;
• The proposed solution must contain a proposal of an agreement concerning the maintenance of the implemented solution in the future;
• It must contain a deadline for the implementation of the adopted general project with possible variations of implementation through phases.
In agreement with the above mentioned aims and tasks, as defined and accepted by the RDCs, it was decided that the construction of a joint information system should commence with production of a Main Project for the IS.
5. Aims of production of the Main Project for the IS
When conducting a project for an IS, it is necessary first of all to consider what it is that we want to achieve with that information system in the future, how to achieve it and how much time and money will be required. In most cases, the limiting factors are primarily money and secondly time. For this very reason, mistakes are made by attempting realization of solutions which are 'quick and cheap' but only at first sight. The result of such approach is money wasted on equipment and software that do not satisfy the complex requirements of the RDCs, and let us not even talk about the time wasted without establishing a high-quality IS. On the other hand, an IS demands further investments into its development, while the results remain the same.
In order to avoid the above mentioned errors, and because of the intention of the centers to avoid all short-term or improvised solutions, it was determined that the Main Project should have the following aims:
• Detailed definition of the problem and its solutions
• No initiation of project realisation without centers' authorisation
• The user is not necessarily bound to one executor
• Proposal of several variants of the solution depending on time and money
• Flexibility and the possibility of conception of a future development system
• Saving on future improvements and maintenance of the system function
• The analysis of work of the RDCs
In order to achieve the RDCs' set aims and eliminate any shortcomings in their work, it is necessary to carry out an analysis of the current methods of work in all three centers. The analysis should define all problems with the existing methods of work and particulary regarding:
• Organisation
• Identification of the organisational elements of the RDCs ( functional and geographic )
• Identification of the jobs and responsibilities of individual sections of an RDC
• Identification of problems in the function of certain organisational elements of the RDCs
• Environment
• Identification of all limiting factors in the RDCs' environment
• Identification of all institutions and persons from the environment who may be part of information exchange with the RDCs
• Identification of all information ( form, frequency, direction, contents ) that is being exchanged.
• Processes
• Identification of all processes and flows of information within the RDCs that are taking place as part of certain functions of the centers.
• Determining all shortcomings and bottlenecks in the process of information exchange.
• Determining the authority of individual members of the RDCs in realisation of certain processes.
• Subjects of the system
• Identification of all types of input and output data and documents of the RDCs.
• Determining the contents of those documents.
• Determining the levels of analytical processing and classification for individual document types.
• Determining the quantities, the methods of storage and handling of the documents.
• Information demands and requirements
On the basis of a previous analysis and the determined shortcomings in the function of the RDCs it is necessary to define the requirements that the future IS should fulfil. It is possible to see from previous experience that individual centers had some similar and some different functions. This can lead to different demands for information that is being gathered and generated by the centers. It is necessary that every center determines which projects will be conducted in the future and what information will be used in those projects.
• Determining the demands of the environment towards the RDCs system • Determining the demands of RDCs for information
• Determining the frequency of information and their form
• Determining the ways of filing and handling of the information
• The proposal for the future information system
Having recognised the existing methods of work and the desired methods of work, in this phase we approach construction of a project for the future system. The following activities are included in project creation :
• The IS architecture
Defining the organisation and the functions of the future IS which would satisfy the set information requirements. The new architecture should remove all bottlenecks in the system as well as all redundant processes and information. It is also necessary to define all information that is to be exchanged between the RDCs, and the authority and responsibilities of the individuals withing the system, etc.
• Global data model
Planning and detailed analysis of all entities, together with their attributes in the IS. It is necessary to define all communicating entities as well as all primary and secondary keys to be used in the system, which would allow the programmers to access the project.
• Process model
Defining and describing all the processes that may be occuring, both during the work of an individual RDC and during its communication with other RDCs and the environment. For each process, its function, starting time, completion time, participants in its realisation and the input and output data used and generated, are determined.
• The dynamics and the deadline for construction of the Main Project
A minimum period of three months is necessary for completion of the above mentioned tasks, within which to prepare and carry out all the phases of construction of the Main Project. Its realisation would commence from the moment when the RDCs have ensured initial resources.
• Necessary resources
During project realisation, five associate experts will be employed. The RDCs are obliged to delegate their associates to take part in all the phases of consultations which are necessary for construction of the Main Project.
• Project evaluation Project evaluation will be conducted by the centers with participation of the representatives of organisations financing the project.
• Budget
For the purpose of project construction it is necessary to provide 26.030 Euros ( 31.724 USD ). Considering that only the centers in Belgrade and Sarajevo are organisationally prepared to approach the start of the project, the financing would be divided half way between the centers in Sarajevo and Belgrade, namely 17.455 Euros from the center in Belgrade and the rest from the center in Sarajevo.
The RDCs in Sarajevo and Belgrade would receive the budget report.
A detailed budget is submitted as a supplement to the project.
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