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NIO - National Interoperability Framework of Slovenia 



Interoperability is a prerequisite for enabling electronic communication and exchange of information between public administrations. This makes it also a prerequisite for achieving a digital single market. EIF  Interoperability is the ability to interact towards mutual goals through sharing information and data between ICT systems. See: Solutions ISA2 
 

 

Digital Transformation of Slovenia and its Reference Vision

 

• systematically centralise the State’s key information infrastructure, which is the only way to effectively manage it;
• the technology has been updated through the implementation of cloud computing, thus making solutions accessible to a practically unlimited range of users;
• opening up public data, because we believe that data which do not impinge on the interests of an individual or a business entity should be considered as public good.
• encouraging the reform of educational processes, so that they would be more oriented into understanding modern technologies. Functional competences bare importance, because through them, new technologies would be easily implemented and used;
• focus on the use of business analytics and big data which are essential in terms of understanding and smart management of complex social systems, as they can effectively prevent irrationalities, social distress, and disease. They also increase the management effectiveness of energy systems, public finances, economy, agriculture and many others.
 

 
The NIO portal is a basic cornerstone of the national interoperability framework in Slovenia.


The portal enables publishing of different standards and guidelines for interoperability, interoperability assets - technical, semantic, legal and organizational.
The aim of NIO is to illustrate the economic and social potential of the data managed by government bodies (Digital Slovenia 2020 - Development strategy for the information society until 2020 and Public Administration Development Strategy from 2015 to 2020).
 

 

With the renewal of the NIO portal in 2013, a new site and central point of the Slovenian public administration was established for open data, application and interoperability products.  Since 9.12.2016, the "DATA" are being published on our NEW OPEN DATA PORTAL "OPSI": https://podatki.gov.si/data/search . The portal, shortly named NIO, is the Slovenian portal of national framework of interoperability.  The mission of the NIO portal is the promotion and rising of awareness of the importance of paradigm which appears from the concept of interoperability, and it is also an entirely practical cooperation and linking with other national, European and global portals. 
The right of the reuse of information and data of public sector " is closely linked "with the right of access to information of public nature and with the notion of open administration, what was pointed out inter alia at the World Day of Rights on September 28, 2013, by the then minister, competent for public administration who invited government bodies and communities to open the public sector data. According to the principle of proactive code of action of the APIA, already now the authorities are obliged to actively encourage the reuse of data in their possession.

The NIO portal enables:
-     doc Short instructions UR  395 kB
-   publishing of standards, good practices and rules,
-   simplifying their search and ways of access to published contents for reuse; 
-   the exchange of news among various communities of the Member States which are developing interoperability solutions for the development of services and mutual interconnection (e.g. the European platform Joinup). 


 Figure: Electronic procedure for decision making of the NIO editors - NIO portal workflow

 

 

NIO is the platform on which public administration can publish joint electronic solutions and good practices and links with other repositories.  For example, with the Joinup which is the European platform where Member States present and offer informatised solutions for better mutual cooperation in various fields like, for example, medicine, public tenders and development of  solutions as a best practice of others.  You can see an interesting video about why and how the European repositories interconnect here. Video about portal NIO is here and here .

 

What is interoperability?

=> " it is a way to efficient reuse of data, information, and knowledge" - knowing that consensus building is not a trivial task.

Within the framework of performance of public services, it means the ability of unequal and various organisations and systems of information and communication technology to achieve through   interoperability levels  (political, legal, organisational, semantic, technical), mutually agreed and useful aims through exchange of information, data and knowledge, while the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) is used only to define, together with organisations that wish to ensure on the basis of cooperation,  joint implementation of public e-services, joint elements like vocabulary, concepts, principles, guidelines, standards, specifications and practice.   At this, we have to encourage the multilinguistics and daily updating of these elements. The NIO portal repositories cam be used as catalogues, containing information on collections and structures of data, their use, administrators or  persons, responsible for data, et al.
NIOrepresents the national concept of public administration functioning, directed towards sustainable development and management of electronic business. The users of NIO are represented by all the institutions of public sector, indirectly also by business entities and natural persons.
The »NIO portal«  project was developed by the Ministry of Public Administration which was at that time competent for public administration, within the framework of the operation »Interoperability and e-exchange of data«, partly co-financed by the European Union through the European Social Fund. 


Portal NIO - National Interoperability Framework

 

The portal nio.gov.si was launched on 23 October 2010 and is the basic cornerstone of the national interoperability framework in Slovenia. The project allows different stakeholders to publish standards and guidelines on interoperability that are important at the national level and encourages the publishing of open data and applications.

Slovenia has adopted the strategy and an action plan for e-government development with a time horizon until 2015, which aims at introducing projects that enhance interoperability.

The interoperability governance initiative started in April 2011 by nominating government representatives and technical experts from the NIO portal for the editorial board


The NIO portal enables stakeholders to discuss at all interoperability levels (legal, organizational, semantic, technical) to stimulate the common use of policies and semantic methodologies  (e.g. XML-schemas, naming and identification principles for data elements and e-documents).
 

Basic characteristics of the NIO Portal

 

•          It is a basic cornerstone of the national interoperability framework in Slovenia.
•          The portal enables publishing of different standards and guidelines for interoperability, interoperability assets - technical, semantic, legal and organizational.
•          Application and tools developed are based in the reuse of the public sector information. Their aim is to illustrate the economic and social potential of the data managed by government bodies.
•          For the sustainable development of NIO, a dedicated network of sectoral editors is established.
•          NIO portal enables full electronic support for the workflow of confirming the assets, from the proposal, commenting to the final decision.
•          Besides the slovenian version there is also a special version in english language, for publishing the assets of the international relevance.
•          NIO portal offers the possibility for searching among the published assets also for the non-registered users.
•          Registered users are normally entering with their digital certificate.
•          The relevant news are being published on the portal, together with the links and other documents relevant in the context of interoperability.
 


European Interoperability Framework in Slovenia 


The Slovenian interoperability Portal (NIO - Nacionalni Interoperabilnostni Okvir), launched on 23 October 2010, is the basic cornerstone of the national interoperability framework in Slovenia. The portal NIO allows different stakeholders to publish standards and guidelines on interoperability, interoperability information, and interoperability assets important at the national level and encourage to publish open data and application, developed in the reuse of the public sector information.

As referred to in EIF v2.0: “It is important that interoperability frameworks used by public administrations, both national (NIFs) and European (EIF), are aligned as regards how to achieve interoperability so that Member States can agree on the concrete implementation of the EIF recommendations when establishing European public services.” We strive to align our framework with the EIF.

NIO portal has been launched and number of measurements has been taken to promote and implement the interoperability. Slovenia adopted the Strategy on IT and electronic services development and connection of official records - SREP and the Action plan for e-government development until 2015 introducing number of horizontal projects to enhance interoperability. The interoperability governance was started in April 2011, by nominating 27 authorized representatives of government institutions and technical experts for the editorial board of the NIO portal. The NIO portal allows stakeholders to discuss all interoperability levels (legal, organisational, semantic, technical) to stimulate the common use of policies and semantic methodologies  (e.g. XML-schemas, naming and identification principles for data elements and e-documents).

To improve the alignment Slovenian NIF with EIF the policy and strategy following the ISA² programme is under preparation, with the main objective to supports the development of digital solutions that enable public administrations, businesses and citizens in Europe to benefit from interoperable cross-border and cross-sector public services. In the mean time, NIO editorial board within the Ministry of Public Administration promote/encourage EU interoperability documents and ISA² actions and the use of JOINUP portal. In the all recent projects, the analysis of the similar projects published in the JOINUP portal becomes a standard procedure.

The EU dimension has been encouraged through all strategic documents for e-government development in Slovenia and is one of the main objectives. Consequently, it is reflected also in NIO activities.

Best Practice Cases


Best practice justification: Slovenia is involved in different EU activities and large scale pilots and also a member in e-SENS consortium. The achievements of some projects are published on NIO portal, available and promoted to the other public institutions.

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