EuroCrest Contest

Best of the web site European competition of towns and communities

Organizers of the Conference Internet in Public Administration (ISSS), the biggest event of this kind in Central and Eastern Europe, launch annual competition EuroCrest. This competition is based on experience gained from the Czech contest Golden Crest during last four years and on consultation with European Union experts.

The aims is to reward excellence and promote the exchange of best practice, to highlight the efforts made by European local administrations in using Information Society Technologies to improve the quality and accessibility of their public services and to speed up the development of on-line administrative services in Europe.

Official declaration of results of the EuroCrest 2002 Competition for the best web presentation of European towns and communities was a part of the Conference Internet in Public Administration ISSS 2002 held in Hradec Kralove 25^th--26^th March 2002.

European Commission representatives Gerald Santucci and Giangaleazzo Cairoli gave the prizes at a ceremony to 6 winners: towns Stara Zagora (Bulgaria), Most (Czechia), Tapa (Estonia), Vilnius (Lithuania), Szczecin (Poland) and Nove Zamky (Slovakia). A special prize was given to the city of Vienna (Austria), whose web pages can be used as a reference as far as quality is concerned.

1. Subject of the contest

The focus of the contest EuroCrest is on

Exploitation of information and communication technologies as a tool of intensification of democratic mechanism especially in these areas:
1. Transparency in decision making by elected authorities
2. Degree of opening to the public
3. Extent of public participation in preparation of decision making influencing everyday life of the municipality
Level of the delivery of information and services to citizens and businesses (the four-stage model adopted for eEurope's benchmarking of eGovernment services to citizens and enterprises: Information–Interaction–Transaction–Integration).

2. Participants of the contest

The contest is open to all European towns and communities; it is under consideration to create two categories according to population there.

3. Organizers of the contest

Announcer of the contest is the Golden Crest Association in the cooperation with the European Commission and with European IT networks, e. g. TeleCities. The same team preparing the ISSS Conference arranges the contest. Results and winners will be published during the Conference ISSS (March, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic).

4. Nomination

Based on the call for proposals associations of towns and communities of the candidates countries will nominate competitors--winners of national contest, if this national contest is held, or if not, than on the bases of their own evaluation.

It is in the competence of jury to nominate web sites of the towns and communities from non-candidates countries.

5. Jury

The members of the special jury are:

Representatives of the associations of towns and communities of the candidates countries (approx. 1/3)
Prominent publicists in the field of the public administration and internet (approx. 1/3)
Experts in related fields in the public administration (approx. 1/3)

6. Evaluation

The evaluation takes into consideration three criteria:

a) Contents

What is to be evaluated are the contribution of the web site in terms of the scope of the information and services provided, the level of the detail and practical usefulness with regard to the needs of the users. Information of the execution of the public administration will be the key factor. The evaluators may take into consideration the care after the attractiveness of the pages by including other subjects such as information on the life of the municipality and good ideas.

b) Topical relevance

The key emphasis will be placed on the contribution of the point of view the scope and topical relevance of the information published. Another criterion of the evaluation will be the planning and consistent and timely publication. What can be a success are in particular those pages showing a commitment and adequate, day-to-day work with the page and its incorporation to the communication infrastructure of the authority.

c) Availability of the information and its graphic design

Emphasis will be placed on a synoptic and logical layout of the information and the outfit of the pages with searching tools. At the same time, another evaluation criterion is the adequacy of the graphic design and the contents and the possibility to optimise graphic elements from the point of view of the rate of the loading of the information providing for the professional presentation function of the pages. Another criterion taken into account will be a barrier free access for those handicapped users.

The jury will select three finalists and one winner in both categories. The main prize will be awarded to the competitor whose web site got the highest number of points for the three criteria. Individual criteria will have the same weight for the final evaluation. The specialist jury may award an additional Special Award of the Specialist Jury of the award called the Most Popular Pages.

7. Deadlines

The contest will be announced in December 2002.
Nominations will be accepted by 31^st January 2003.
Finalists for both categories will be published on 20^th March 2003.
The results of the EuroCrest Contest will be announced at an award ceremony during the ISSS 2003 Conference.