Information Technologies for Diplomatic Activities by Stefano Baldi

Providing Information

Websites

One of the most important aspect of makinga availabe Webpages of diplomatic missions, is the ability to provide information on a seven days a week/ twentyfour hours a day basis.

It is far less expensive to provide information through the web than use the phone, the fax or the ordinary mail.

On top of that updates and corrections can be posted immediately.

The best approach for building a website is to start with the essentials:

- country backgrounders on travel and

economic topics

- visa regulations, contact information.

- timetables

It is better to start small and add content later than planning to build a large

site right away. It is important to keep in mind the sustainability of the page taking into account the available (human and financial) reasources for the site.

• Basic Principles to provide useful information
• Building websites (basic hints)
• Diplomatic Posts around the world
• Ministries of Foreign Affairs online

Basic Principles to provide useful information

1. Observe what has already been done by others.

Before starting making pages some time should be spent should be spent navigating to see what is already available and how other pages by similar organisations have been made. If an interesting page is found in terms of solutions to problems a look at the corresponding HTML code, which could be readapted if necessary, is useful.

2. Reuse existing links and images.

In the course of the search you might spot some pages to which compatible links may be made to the service it is intended to provide. It is possible to save the images (gif or jpg) and use them on site pages. It is important to pay attention to possible restrictions or copyright on what you want to recycle.

3. Plan the content of the site.

Before carrying out the actual making of the site it is a good idea to somewhat schematise the contents. Even the use of symbols and images should be carefully thought out beforehand in order to be used in the most efficient way.

4. Carefully consider the sustainability of the site.

While it is relatively easy to make the first pages, it is more difficult to organise the resources for updating the information. Before expanding the pages of a site, the ideal dimension which will allow for continuous updating of the most important contents of the site must be carefully considered. There is nothing worse than a well constructed site which has been left to its own devices. Therefore start with essentials such as country information on institutional, economic and touristic topics, visa regulations and contact information.

5. Insert a disclaimer.

Many of the sites visitors may be inexperienced and prone to thinking that the content of what can be found in the pages (and in the links) may be directly referable to the site itself. Therefore it is advisable to specify what are the limits of the contents of the pages and of the correspondent links as far as responsibility and officiality is concerned.

6. Do not make excessive use of graphics and frames.

One should not forget that the principal aim of site of an embassy (or any organisation dealing with international politics) is principally informative. Therefore it is of no use to overload the pages with images or frames. By doing so one runs the risk of fading the contents into the background together with prolonging the loading time (and thus the access time). In particular, it is not advisable to make use of animated images (animated gif).

7. Always leave a reference for pages which are moved.

When certain pages of the site are moved or eliminated it is better to leave an indication of the new address where the information previously contained in the pages can be found. In this way possible links that could have been made to the pages may be modified from the relative webmaster.

Before constructing WEB pages to be put online you must face and solve two problems:

a) Learn the rudiments of the HTML language in which the pages must be written.

b) Always have space available on a server connected to Internet to be able to put the pages online.

Building websites (basic hints)

There are many resources on the Internet to help building websites. Here is a list of some of them:

A Beginner's Guide to HTML - http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerAll.html

For images (clipart):

http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Graphics/Clip_Art/

Diplomatic Posts around the world

There are two sites EmbassyWeb (http://www.embpage.org) and The Electronic Embassy ( http://www.embassy.org/ ) where it is possible to consult a section which contains a list of websites maintained by diplomatic offices located in various countries around the world.

Ministries of Foreign Affairs online

» See document: http://www3.itu.int/MISSIONS/Italy/mofa.htm