Verwaltungskooperation

The website Verwaltungskooperation is a German-language wiki that aims to provide a platform for knowledge about cooperation in public administration (the meaning of "verwaltungskooperation"). The wiki focuses mainly on documenting projects, people related to these projects, topics related to these projects, institutions, literature and further resources, mostly around Austria and Germany. The content structure makes it easy for users to grasp the essential project information at a glance. Links to pages for topics, project partners, and contact persons encourage further exploration of the wiki, and external links to projects' websites invites readers to go into further detail.

Why a wiki on cooperation in public administration?
Cooperation between authorities has a long tradition in Europe, especially among municipalities. In Austria and its German-speaking neighbor countries, this issue has been intensely discussed in the last years. Due to the financial crisis, public bodies face a tightened financial situation, resulting in recent discussions about merging smaller municipalities versus inter-municipal cooperation (IMC). The number of practical examples of cross-municipal cooperation is growing, but documentation of cooperation projects has always been quite fragmented.

Who is using the platform?
The platform’s main target group is civil servants from all levels of government who seek knowledge on previously-executed cooperation projects, or seek to publish information about their projects in order to make them more visible to other users. Secondary target groups are experts in the field of cooperation of public administrations as well as students, press and a broader public interested in the targeted topics. As the potential users are scattered over different (European) countries, reading and editing of content has to be easy enough to enable users to carry out required tasks on their own.

Current status
After three years of operation, more than 100 users have signed up for a free platform account and some 130 cooperation projects have been documented. The statistics show up to 1,000 visitors per month.

Behind the scenes
Verwaltungskooperation.eu was implemented by KDZ - Center for Public Administration Research. The first 50 projects were added from a KDZ book publication from 2006. The platform was operational as of 2008. In Fall 2008 it received a jury recognition of the Multimedia Staatspreis (Austrian National Multimedia Award). In 2010 the German KGSt joined the project to disseminate it in Germany.

The initial setup of SMW and other extensons including all necessary configurations required not more than ~2,5 person days.