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Oultwood web technology |
topCouncil document search and display system
Oultwood has produced a specialist web-based system specifically designed for searching and displaying council minutes, agendas and reports. The system's key features are:
- Specialist search engine
- Individual minutes, each with extensive navigation
- Intelligent links
- Committee lists
- Meetings lists
- Multiple channels
- Many years of documents
- Faster access of documents
Specialist search engine
This demonstration system holds two sets of minutes that can be searched individually:
The search engine used by this system has been especially designed by Oultwood to enable any user to easily find a specific minute or report. Unlike other web search engines, Oultwood's search facility will locate an actual minute rather than a large document containing all minutes of a whole meeting.
To use this search facility, just type in any number of search words, each separated by a space character, into one of the boxes above and then press the 'SEARCH' button next to it.
For single word searches, this search engine is probably the fastest on the internet. In particular, the system has been specifically designed to give speedy results even when used with a slow modem.
If very common words such as 'council' are included in a search, the system will not degrade. No other search engine can duplicate this type of performance - most perform badly and some even give up on the search!
The search results will display the most recent documents that meet the search criteria. The facilities offered by the Oultwood system means that council document searches are not only faster but more productive.
By default, the search engine will search its entire database. An extremely useful feature linked to this is that the system displays the total number of times a particular word is referenced withing the database. This is an extremely useful feature when a search needs to be re-defined.
You can see how well the Oultwood document search facility performs by comparing it with other similar systems implemented by these councils.
topIndividual minutes, each with extensive navigation
The system automatically displays each minute as a separate web page. Each minute has a top and bottom menu which allows extensive navigation to adjacent minutes, the meeting index, the committee index as well as an index of all minutes for that particular year.
By creating and publishing separate web pages for each minute, the system also ensures that council information is accessible to the maximum number of individuals. This is because each web page has its own individual key word list. These word lists are used by many of the generalised internet search engines.
The system uses its own XML generator to convert standard word processing documents into XML schemas. These are then used to produce a variety of versions taylored to the specific requirements of different output channels such as the internet, WAP and WebTV.
All documents generated by the system for display on the internet conform to the XHTML standard.
topIntelligent links
Another useful feature of the Oultwood system is its use of intelligent links. Often council minutes and reports will refer to other minutes or reports. The Oultwood system can recognise these references and convert them into 'hyperlinks' so that it is easy to look directly at the referenced minute or report. To see an example of intelligent links, have a look at this minute.
topCommittee lists
A complete list of all committee meetings is automatically produced by the system for each year (volume).
topMeetings lists
A complete list of all minutes for all meetings is automatically produced by the system for each year (volume).
topMultiple channels
Because local government has to communicate with its public through a variety of channels, the Oultwood system can be accessed by normal internet, WAP and WebTV.
A demonstration internet version of the Oultwood council minutes search and display system is available here. This uses Pembroke County Council minutes for the years 1999 to 2001.
A WAP version is also available at: http://www.councilminutes.net/wap/index.wml. The WAP version is a complete WAP enabled copy of the demonstration internet version of this system. WAP will become a far more important format once web-enabled palmtops become more common place.
If you do not have a WAP device, you may view these WAP pages using an emulator. WAP emulators are available from:
Please note that no other council minutes system has WAP capability.
Because the Oultwood system generates XLM versions of council documents, the system can easily be adapted to accommodate new channels as they become available. XML is a major part of the UK central government's e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) strategy.
Oultwood supports e-GIF and will convert its existing XML schemas when a standard becomes available.
topCouncil documents held with this demonstration system:
The Oultwood system has been designed to be scaleable. This means that it will perform equally whatever number of documents are stored within it. This demonstration version holds over 6000 documents.
Pembrokeshire County Council documents
Year Agendas Minutes Reports 2001/2002 Volume 6 Volume 6 Volume 6 2000/2001 Volume 5 Volume 5 - (905 minutes) Volume 5 1999/2000 Volume 4 Volume 4 - (400 minutes) Volume 4 1998/1999 Volume 3 Volume 3 Volume 3 1997/1998 Volume 2 Volume 2 Volume 2 1996/1997 Volume 1 Volume 1 Volume 1
Waveney District Council documents
Year Agendas & Reports Minutes 2001/2002 Volume 29 Volume 29 2000/2001 Volume 28 Volume 28 - (675 minutes) 1999/2000 Volume 27 Volume 27 - (1537 minutes) 1998/1999 Volume 26 Volume 26 - (1451 minutes) 1997/1998 Volume 25 Volume 25 - (1588 minutes)
topFaster access of documents compared with other Council Minutes Systems
If you would like to compare the Oultwood council document search system with what has been already implemented by some councils, have a look at the following:
Systems with dedicated document search facilities
- Amber Valley District Council
- Bath & North East Somerset Council
- Buckinghamshire County Council
- Canterbury City Council
- Corporation of London
- Hart Council
- Leicester City Council
- Leicestershire County Council
- London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
- Mid-Bedfordshire District Council
- Reading Council
- Royal Borough of Kingston
- St Albans District Council
- Test Valley District Council
- Tewkesbury Borough Council
- Warrington Metropolitan District Council
None of the above systems are anywhere near as fast at performing searches as the Oultwood system. This is particularly noticable when performing single word searches such as 'planning' or 'council'. Some systems will eventually give up on such searches because there are too many hits.
Most of the above search systems return complete documents rather than actual minutes. This means that time then has to be spent finding the actual item within a much larger document. It also means that you will get a larger number of inappropriate hits because the search words occur within the entire meeting document rather than a specific minute.
Document-only systems
- Bolsover District Council
- Brentwood Borough Council
- Cambridge City Council
- Chelmsford Borough Council
- Cheltenham Borough Council
- Cornwall County Council
- Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council
- Gosport Borough Council
- Hampshire County Council
- Havant Borough Council
- Isle of Wight Council
- North Ayrshire Council
- Portmouth City Council
- Rother District Council
- South Buckinghamshire District Council
- South Gloucestershire Council
- Wear Valley District Council
- West Berkshire District Council
- Workingham Council
- Wycombe Council
Most of the above document-only systems hold the documents as either word or pdf files that must be downloaded before they can be viewed.
This council minutes system is produced byWhat to do next
If you would like further information about the Oultwood council document search and display system, please email the Oultwood team at minutes@oultwood.com.
Oultwood Web Technology