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Regarding the proposal to upload the Council papers onto the Internet, it is both technically feasible and recommended from the PR angle. If the Council should release committee papers and minutes of meetings onto the Internet, some programming efforts (of the order of HK$60,000) and sufficient manpower to carry out the data-conversion work will be required. However, the data-conversion efforts can be minimized if only documents starting from 1998 onwards are published onto the Internet.
If Members consider that there is a need to release committee papers and minutes of meetings onto the Internet, the Council's IT Sub-Committee and PR Sub-Committee will be asked to work out the details (e.g. the extent of information to be released, manpower and financial implications, timetable for implementation etc.)
Regarding the second part of the question, the main function of the Council's Document Management System is to enable Councillors and staff of the Council Secretariat and Urban Services Department to locate information on previous Council decisions made by the Committees concerned speedily.
Concerning uploading the records of proceedings of Council Meetings and Annual Convention Debates into the System, again, the major consideration would be the manpower required for retrospective data-conversion efforts. If only records of proceedings of Council Meetings and Annual Convention Debates from 1998 onwards are to be included, the conversion efforts should be minimal.
If Members consider that there is a need to include the records of proceedings of Council Meetings and Annual Convention Debates, the IT Sub-Committee will be requested to work out the details (including the data conversion efforts, manpower and financial implications and implementation timetables etc).
Mr. Wu Chi-wai (in Cantonese): My follow-up question concerns a point mentioned in the written reply, which is, if only documents from 1998 onwards are published onto the Internet, the data-conversion work will be minimal. As far as I understand, when the Council uploaded documents onto the Document Management System, the same method of storage was adopted. I don't see any difference between the two. To have post-1998 documents published onto the Internet, minimal data-conversion is required, whereas data-conversion for pre-1998 documents would take two to three years. Isn't it too long? Data-conversion is not a very complicated process. I hope the Chairman of the Select Committee will clarify this point. This is the first follow-up question.
The second follow-up question. Supposed a lot of problems cropped up concerning the data-conversion, would the Chairman of the Select Committee still be certain that the Council's post-1998 documents could be placed onto the Internet?
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Page 39 of 606
Page 39 of 606
PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
61
Regarding the proposal to upload the Council papers onto the Internet, it is both technically feasible and recommended from the PR angle. If the Council should release committee papers and minutes of meetings onto the Internet, some programming efforts (of the order of HK$60,000) and sufficient manpower to carry out the data-conversion work will be required. However, the data-conversion efforts can be minimized if only documents starting from 1998 onwards are published onto the Internel.
If Members consider that there is a need to release committee papers and minutes of meetings onto the Internet, the Council's IT Sub-Committee and PR Sub-Committee will be asked to work out the details (e.g. the extent of information to be released, manpower and financial implications, time-table for implementation etc.)
Regarding the second part of the question, the main function of the Council's Document Management System is to enable Councillors and staff of the Council Secretariat and Urban Services Department to locate information on previous Council decisions made by the Committees concerned speedily.
Concerning uploading the records of proceedings of Council Meetings and Annual Conventional Debates into the System, again, the major consideration would be the manpower required for retrospective data-conversion efforts. If only records of proceedings of Council Meetings and Annual Conventional Debates from 1998 onwards are to be included, the conversion efforts should be minimal.
If Members consider that there is a need to include the records of proceedings of Council Meetings and Annual Convention Debates, the IT Sub-Committee will be requested to work out the details (including the data conversion efforts, manpower and financial implications and implementation time-tables etc).
Mr. Wu Chi-wa! (in Cantonese);—My follow-up question concerns a point mentioned in the written reply, which is, if only documents from 1998 onwards are published onto the Internet, the data-conversion work will he minimal. As far as I understand, when the Council uploading documents onto the Document Management System, the same method of storage was adopted. I don't see any difference between the two. To have post-1998 documents published onto the Internet, minimal data-conversion is required, whereas data- conversion for pre-1998 documents would take two to three years. Isn't it too long? Data-conversion is not a very complicated process. I hope the Chairman of the Select Committee will clarify this point. This is the first follow- up question.
The second follow-up question. Supposed a lot of problems propped up concerning the data-conversion, would the Chairman of the Select Committee still be certain that the Council's post-1998 documents could be placed onto the Internet?
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