The ManyLaws project consists of 7 Activities through the successful implementation of which, the envisioned project milestones will be achieved:
Activity 1: Conceptual framework definition and user requirements
This activity will define the conceptual framework of the services (i.e. technical, legal and operational specifications), as well as their user requirements. Activity 1 consists of three distinct, interrelated tasks: first, a detailed investigation into existing frameworks, methods and tools for smart access to digital legal open data, existing CEF DSIs that could be used by ManyLaws, and relevant projects and initiatives; second, a rigorous assessment of potential target users, and their needs and requirements; and third, an exploration of the project's legal and ethical ramifications.
Activity 2: Big data acquisition and management
The main objective of this activity is to identify public sources of legal information and analyse their available metadata. The analysis will cover the legislation of the European Union, Austria and Greece. This will result in the design of a data reference architecture and generic processes that will handle the acquisition and management of big data coming from the selected sources. The architecture will comprise several interconnected components that will address specific requirements such as pre-fetching and pre-analysis, automated (meta)data acquisition, information crawlers, data curation etc.
Activity 3: Information processing tools
The main objective of this activity is to apply advanced text mining and natural language processing features to the resources selected in order to automate data extraction from the textual data (accessed and pre-processed in Activity 2). Furthermore, information extraction methods will be applied in particular for the enrichment of data models to enable different views on the same data.
Activity 4: Development of Services for Citizens, Businesses and Administrations
The activity will implement and deploy the services listed in the scope of the action through the design and implementation of the ManyLaws infrastructure. The task will have four main phases: (a) preparation of the environment (including access to the data), (b) installation and configuration of the service portal to be used by the end-users, involving development and integration at UI level, (c) technical testing and deployment of services in the end-user environments, and (d) incorporation of data catalogues based on the specifications resulting from Activity 2 that will allow the aggregation of relevant datasets in compliance with the requirements of the EDP.
Activity 5: Stakeholders’ engagement and pilot application
Under this activity, the services will be deployed in the pilot environment and assessed through the application of a pre-defined evaluation framework. The goal is to test ManyLaws services in real settings, focusing on how end-users utilise the technologies developed. Data gathering will be conducted via field user studies in realistic settings, making use of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The final result will be a set of application cases for the Austrian and Greek Parliaments. A stakeholder engagement and training plan will also be developed.
Activity 6: Dissemination and Sustainability
The specific objectives of this activity are: a) to create and deliver a strategic communication campaign for ManyLaws across European public organisations; b) to widely disseminate the Action's developments and findings to all key actors in the broader European community and national public bodies, integrating their feedback at key points of the project and reaching out to potential users through different channels and c) to ensure the sustainability and uptake of the ManyLaws results after the end of the Action.
Activity 7: Project Management and coordination
This activity will ensure the smooth operation of the Action in terms of day-to-day management.
