Solutions stay, but software development tools are out
The next version of Joinup - the collaboration platform for eGovernment professionals - will focus on sharing and reuse of ICT solutions. The overhaul will emphasise the user experience, communities and interoperability solutions. One important change is that Joinup will no longer be supporting integrated development environment. We noticed that Joinup members commonly use external development tools, which are more oriented to their needs, so we decided to remove it. The repositories and communities will be merged and we will improve the way we federate ICT solutions.
If all goes well, the new release of the collaboration platform should be online for the first half of 2017. As announced in December, the European Commission has started working on the next version of Joinup. Users are the main focus of the upgrade, which will make the platform easier to use.
Access to and sharing of interoperability solutions will be streamlined, and the developers are making it more straightforward to contribute to the platform’s projects and communities.
We want to make Joinup easier to use. Registration will be easier and we are improving the way tools, solutions and other content can be found.
Collections
One of our main objectives is to boost user-participation and collaboration. We hope this will increase the sharing and reuse of all the interoperability solutions made available on the platform. Additionally, we are working on a more responsive and more intuitive graphical user interface (GUI).
The main focus will be on the collections - common interest groups, or groups of public administration’ users working on a certain solution or group of solutions. We want to provide you with room and tools to promote your content. This should let you engage a community without having to set up your own platform.
To encourage users to comment and discuss, and to create a rich collaborative environment around a specific domain or cross domain, we will include items such as news, events or discussions together with the interoperability solutions as part of the collections.
User feedback
Over the next few months, we are going to ask our users for feedback, to help us define some of the aspects such as the use of cookies or the look&feel of the new platform. You can expect to see some polls and surveys. If you are interested in receiving future news about the development, you can become a member of the Joinup project. In case you have specific questions, contact the Joinup team here.