Online EU-consultatie

Please, specify the name of your organisation

Stichting Petities.nl (or Foundation Petitions.nl)

Please, specify your first and last name

Reinder Rustema

Please, specify your contact information (e-mail address, phone number)

reinder@rustema.nl +31621224775

Please complete the following questions for each identified system

1. Do you have/do you know about any online data collection systems[1] in place
and/or in development? [1] An online data collection system is a web-based software
application that is able to collect, store and process data.

Yes

1.1 What is the name of the system?

petities.nl, the national signature data collection system in the Netherlands, part of the EuroPetition.eu project.

1.2 What is the URL/web page address?

http://petitions.nl is the online national data signature gathering system. A showcase of the upcoming version can be found at http://demo.petities.nl an 'explanimation' video about it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKAiBMzA10M and the open sourced code at http://github.com/petities

1.3 Which party/Who developed the system? It can be a natural person or a company.

The Foundation Petitions.nl in collaboration with Alias Internet Publishing. The source code can be found at github.com/petities It received several rounds of funding from the Dutch national government. Programmers R. Tuithof, S. Onland, J. Kok and S. Preeker have worked on the code since 2005.

1.4 For which purpose or what organisation is it used?

The goal of the foundation Petitions.nl is to make it easy for citizens to start or sign a petition, pass it on to the relevant authority and broadcast the answer from the authority back to all the signatories. Between May 2005 and February 2011 around 1,3 million confirmed signatures have been collected in one database for more than 700 local, national and European petitions and citizens initiatives. Only national citizens initiatives so far, but the system will be ready for European Citizens Initiatives as soon as the requirements are known. Both the code and the service will be publicly available to all Europeans.

The system has a history with three versions. Version one and two were developed with the Alias Internet Publishing framework and version three (December 2009) is built with the Ruby on Rails framework. Currently version 3.2 is being developed which will be the first with an open sourced code. Also it will be multi-lingual. At least English will be supported, but theoretically all languages of the European Union can have an interface the moment it is translated.

What are the technical characteristics of the system?

2.1 Is it an open-source software ? Open-source software (OSS) is computer software
that is available in source code and certain other rights normally reserved for
copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study,
change and improve the software.

Yes

2.2 In which programming language is the source code written?

PHP

2.3 Is the source code available on line?

Yes

2.3.1 Where is the source code published ? (http://...)

http://github.com/petities

2.4 Under which license is the source code available?

GPL

Other

2.4.1 Please specify 

AGPL to be precise

3. Does the tool contain help functionalities or frequently asked questions?

Yes

Which data input features has the system?

4.1 Is the data filled in on screen or uploaded by document?

The data input is mainly done by individual citizens through a centralised web interface, but other interfaces (mobile web, SMS, mobile App, Java-widgets on other sites, applets, interactive television and what comes in the future) can all do input using the application programming interface (API). The system always sends out an e-mail to have a signature confirmed and ask to fill in extra (required) fields. Without an e-mail address one can not sign.

Existing databases with signatures can be uploaded to the website on request, under the condition that each signature comes with a working e-mailaddress and each signature (statement of support) is confirmed by e-mail.

4.2 Are the data fields fixed or can they vary per country, region or
language or vary depending on the answers to previous questions?

Certain data fields can remain hidden or not compulsory. For example, petitions have less compulsory fields than citizens initiatives. Our ambition is to further the petitions datastandard from the EuroPetition project and establish an XML standard for both petitions and citizens initiatives, with petitions being 'upwards compatible' to citizens initiatives. In other words, an citizens initiative which does not comply to formal requirements can still function in the same system as a petition.

4.3 Does the system allow the definition of input controls on certain fields? (e.g. data format, number format)

Yes

4.4 Does the system allow the definition of mandatory fields?