This document summarizes a presentation on establishing a Legal Interoperability Lab. The lab was a fully online training course developed by Dr. Fotis Fitsilis involving the Hellenic Parliament, National School of Public Administration & Local Government, and Hellenic OCR Team. The course covered legal informatics, interoperability standards, and used the LEOS tool to draft sample legislation. The lab was successfully conducted and provided a basis to develop further interoperability training and engage stakeholders, though technical barriers remain to fully utilizing open-source tools like LEOS.

1. LEGAL INTEROPERABILITY
LAB
ΒΥ DR. FOTIS FITSILIS
WORKS @ HELLENIC PARLIAMENT
LECTURES @ NATIONAL CENTRE FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
CONTRIBUTES @ HELLENIC OCR TEAM
10 NOVEMBER 2020

2. TOPICS
• Motivation
• Entities involved
• Legal informatics
• Interoperability dimension
• The Lab
• Conclusions and next steps

3. WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?
• Increasing systems and legal
complexity
• Cooperation across EU system
• New standards and tools
• Disruptive technologies
• Established bureaucratic systems

4. HELLENIC PARLIAMENT
• Supreme democratic institution
• Legal data hub
• Network of stakeholders
• Base of heterogeneous systems
• Interdisciplinary parliamentary
personnel

5. NATIONAL SCHOOL OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION &
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
(ESDDA)
• Part of EKDDA
• Pandemic disrupted regular operation
• On the lookout for innovative
approaches
• Already implements a set of action to
promote interoperability of public
services

6. HELLENIC OCR TEAM
• Hellenic Parliament scientific spin-off
• Crowdsourcing initiative
• Processing & analysis of parliamentary
data
• Open source interoperability solutions
• Entered EU’s transparency register
• Acknowledged as
joinup.eu solution
+
Est. 11111100001
+IPU, innovation tracker 3, 2019

7. HELLENIC OCR TEAM
• Click on the image to see the team’s
latest video on the COVID-19
pandemic

8. LEGAL INFORMATICS
• On the rise
• Reigns at the interface between Law and Information Science
• Builds on a series of standards, vocabularies and ontologies
• Non-standartized tools and methods
• Open source vs. proprietary systems
• What about a ‘killer app’?
• The role of AI technologies
+
+

9. INTEROPERABILITY
• EU ISA2 programme: “Interoperability
solutions for public administrations,
businesses & citizens”
• European Interoperability Framework (EIF):
“… improve the quality of European public
services and create an environment where
public administrations can collaborate
digitally”
• Evolution of Interoperability Academy:
“advanc[ing] digital skills of civil servants in
Interoperability
layers
Sources:
https://ec.europa.eu/isa2/
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/

10. TRANSFORMING
THE PUBLIC
SECTOR
• Digital transformation
• Goes hand in hand with BPR+
(Business Process Re-engineering)
• Re-education of public administrators
• What about the officials?
Evolution or disruption?
+Grover et al., 1995

11. THE LAB
• Developed from scratch
• Fully online (3 blocks x 4 hours) ≈ ½ ECTS
credit
• Manual available as e-book (in Greek)
• End-to-end training
• Digital laboratory vs. standard course
• Full title: “Laboratory for legislative drafting
and the processing of regulatory texts” Interoperability manual
front page (Fitsilis, 2020)

12. IMPLEMENTATION • Theoretical and practical aspects of
(legal) interoperability
• Teaching blocks:
1. Ontologies & standards
2. Legal informatics in practice
3. Methodology of legislative drafting
• Tool: LEOS - Legislation Editing Open
Software (an ISA2 solution)
• Goal: drafting of a Greek presidential
decree (proedrikó diátagma)

13. TEACHING CHALLENGES
• Technical language
• Embedding in a wider framework
• Conduct an online lab
• Choice of the case study
• Selection of the set of tools
• Installation & parameterization
• Proof of concept
• Capture metrics and lessons
learned
• Offering diploma theses (0/3)
• Missing institutional support

14. EVALUATION
• Overall: 100% of users described LEOS as ‘good’ or ‘very good’
• User experience: 90% of users perceived tool handling as ‘good’
• Legislative drafting: 78% thinks LEOS can provide high added value to
it
• Tool configuration: mixed feelings…

15. …AND NOW?
CONCLUSIONS
• Interoperability lab successfully
organized and conducted
• LEOS interesting as authoring
tool for public administrations
• High entry barriers: open source
and still in the development
pipeline
FOLLOW UP
• Basis for development of linked
interoperability labs and courses
• Proof of concept for a wider pilot
• Engage stakeholders and create
a community

16. fitsilisf@parliament.gr
https://fitsilis.gr
See you in the field!