Given the number of visitors and the heterogeneity of the publics received as well as the projects monitored, the managers of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine’s Arobase Public Multimedia Space had, since its launch, been seeking an information tool able to manage both administrative and educational aspects.

Faced with a lack of technical solutions on the market capable of handling Linux servers and customer PCs and Mac computers, the managers decided to develop this freeware-based application. It had to be intranet / extranet / internet compatible. It had to allow users themselves to take responsibility for their enrolments and the management of their administrative and educational processes.

Inaugurated in November 2001, Arobase (registered trademark) is the public digital space (EPN) of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, a commune of 25,816 inhabitants in the north-western part of the Ile-de-France region.

This EPN has two rooms, one devoted to individual access (9 networked computers and the necessary peripherals) and one devoted to collective usages – events, training, content production - (8 networked computers, webcams, screen and video-projector).

Arobase offers an introduction to the internet and the opportunity for individuals to access the internet to search, produce, construct, communicate and educate themselves using digital tools. It also supports individual or collective creative projects.

Based on the principle that a public digital space must be a platform that is conducive to the discovery of operating systems and applications other than the most standard (the most commercial?), the project included in its initial objectives the determination to create a tool that could be reused by other spaces (syndication and mutualisation) with a focus on the use of freeware.

 The Arobase team to draw up the specifications, test the various versions, monitor the project, with new service proposals.
 Crystal, an Epita (Ecole pour l’Informatique et les Techniques avancées or “School for Computing and Advanced Technology”) “junior company”. At the launch of the project, Crystal was responsible for designing the minimum platform required to meet the initial urgent needs.
 The Association for freeware promotion and research (April) –advice on freeware.
 The use of mutualisable tools on Savannah (Source Forge equivalent ), CVS (Concurrent Versions Systems ) server technical platform.
 The Mairie de Paris for the proceedings model for the distribution of Linux in Paris EPNs (proceedings not used).
 The Mission Interministérielle pour l’accès public à la micro-informatique, l’internet et au multimedia or Interministerial Mission for public access to microcomputing, the internet and multimedia (MAPI ) - moral support and promotion.
 The Association des développeurs et des utilisateurs de logiciels libres pour les administrations et les collectivités territoriales or Association of developers and users of freeware for administrative bodies and regional authorities (ADULLACT): project relay to other local and regional authorities.
 The Cité des Sciences de la Villette (Paris) cyberbase as first user and serious contributor.
 The Agence pour les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’administration or Agency for information and communication technologies in administration (ATICA ) as consultants for transition to freeware.
 The Collectif des réseaux d’accès aux technololgies de l’information en France or Group of information technologies access networks in France (CRéATIF ) as consultants in the field of mutualisation and communication.

The initial “client” is the Mairie de Pierrefitte-sur-Seine which, following the proceedings of the Municipal Council, offers the product to the "Freeware community".

These proceedings proved compulsory. The project leader, having created the product, had registered the application under GPL – “General Public Licence”. This approach was, in fact, prohibited by labour regulations, the application belonging to the leader’s employer - in this case the Pierrefitte-sur-Seine town hall - , hence the need for these proceedings which posed the municipal council no difficulty.

The service offered is a “web interface”, accessible from any browser, written in PHP/MySQL allowing:
 the administration of public digital space account users, the creation of bar-coded user cards, the management of credit hours and of various pricing structures. Users can manage their accounts online. user accounts (e-mail, identification on local network and personal folder) are automatically created on the server.
 the management of user skills (by self-assessment positioning) and their educational paths (paths planned as a function of the objective of the user and introductory course history).
 management of introductory courses (educational resources), training schedules (including providing partners with training room), enrolments in sessions, educational and administrative appraisals.
 management of computer use (description, potential usages, time-table, reservations).
 management of statistics relating to use of computers and rooms, courses and appraisals by users…

In keeping with the freeware principle, it is a non-market sector service.

Alongside this utility, the implementation of a remote training tool for users is planned. Presentation of epnadmin in pdf format

Epnadmin is aimed at managers, administrators and leaders of public internet access spaces to help them manage their spaces whilst enabling them to move the application forward as a function of their specific needs.

As it allows users of these spaces to manage their own user accounts as well as to monitor their training and the skills acquired, it is also a tool available to the public.

The development of epnadmin is based on the development of freeware and, as such, voluntary help is significant but difficult to quantify (at the project’s stage of development, this voluntary help is valued at 40 intervention days and around €230/day, i.e. around €10,000).

To initiate the project, the Mairie de Pierrefitte-sur-Seine provided specialist commune personnel, the equipment and the premises required (valued at around €7000).

The initial core of the program, developed by Crystal, an EPITA junior company, cost €1,500.

Maintenance and subsequent developments can only be valued at a later date, as a function of the extent to which the Freeware community adopts this project.

Communication and advertising are also difficult to quantify as they are internet-based, using circulation lists, forums, specialist information sites and people networks.

The implementation of the project was empirical.

Resulting from discussions between leaders of public digital spaces which took place at the first EPN leaders’ event at Autrans 2002, the project may be considered to have achieved its objective following the vote of the Pierrefitte-sur-Seine municipal council, in October 2002, making the freeware tool available to internet access and internet usage training structure managers in France and…abroad.

From the moment the town’s municipal council made the epnadmin application available under “GPL”, the project can be considered to have been constantly evolving.

Designed on the basis of needs expressed by project leaders and public user input, the epnadmin project was not subject to prior research other than that relating to its technical feasibility. At the outset a simple set of specifications was drawn up and the design and task management related to implementation were carried out on a priority basis.

The initial core services were created by subcontractors to speed up the project’s progress.

Real-time trials were conducted online on a collaborative site and led to the production of successive versions of the application.

It is the same tools available to all the site’s potential contributors - http://epnadmin.pierrefitte93.fr/ - that authorise modifications or the application of new functions.

Given that the use of the application is not compulsory, the project’s progress is assessed using statistics relating to the number of visits to the online service (e.g.: downloading of the application).

The technical resources available to the project are those of Arobase, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine’s public digital space - 144 m2, two rooms and 18 heterogeneous computers (PC/Mac), miscellaneous peripherals, a platform of four servers and two websites: Arobase Pierrefitte et EPNadmin.

In addition to the technical resources, there are the web resources of the Freeware community: sites, forum, news group, discussion list, etc.

Seven people are registered for the epnadmin project:

 a regional contract worker, responsible for ICT development in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine,
 two cyber-space leaders on youth employment contracts,
 two IT students,
 two members of associations using Arobase services.

In terms of outside assistance, the project has had the input of an engineer from INT in Evry, cyberbase leaders from the Cité de Sciences de la Villette and EPITA students.

The user public of epnadmin is narrow, at best a few thousand public digital spaces either existing or to be created in France in the coming years and, as such, the communication relating to this project is based mainly on resources offered by the internet:
 existence of specialist circulation lists (EPM, RAM, etc.),
 discussion forums,
 freeware usage promotion associations (APRIL, ADULLACT, etc.),
 public space promotion structures (MAPI, CRéATIF) with their own websites, spaces that support human networks of managers and leaders.

Major professional events, initially, and the increasing numbers of regional events also represent promotion spaces for this application.

The initial objective of providing a free, multi-task management tool (organisation, educational paths, etc.) for managers and leaders of multimedia public spaces has been doubly achieved:
 by the effective existence of the application,
 and by its availability to users following the vote of the town of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine.

But the fact that we are talking about freeware means that, by its very nature, this objective will be constantly evolving since its aesthetic may be freely modified, its initial functions enriched by new ones in accordance with, in particular, new roles that EPNs may be given, (interfaces with remote training platforms, remote procedure access spaces, regional content creation environments, etc.).

The positive points of the assessment are:
 the site’s hit statistics (including downloads of the various versions of the application) which prove the impact of the communication and the interest of the target publics,
 the number of leader users and end users (public) declaring their satisfaction.

Amongst the success factors can be highlighted:
 the fact that the project depends on open code which enables a responsiveness to new needs and the transferability of the application, with anyone being able to grasp it easily,
 the fact that the creation of the application has raised awareness amongst numerous other players such, as municipal officers and allowed the public digital space (Arobase) to play its role as an experimentation centre to the full,
 the fact that the Mairie de Pierrefitte-sur-Seine chose the same freeware tools for its other applications,
 a return on investment for the town in terms of image.

Amongst the problems encountered by the project’s leaders can be cited:
 a lack of knowledge, in the beginning, of the way freeware development works and hence the need for training and adaptation time for both decision-makers and developers,
 the administrative and legal vagueness existing in France with respect to free licences and in particular the GPL.

Evaluation

“It’s a great project, and very useful. I am very hopeful that the project can be adopted and genuinely used by other multimedia spaces. There is still a lack of relevant documentation and we also need to work on simplifying the installation”, says Loïc Dayot, the project’s initiator, who is in no doubt that the project is a success.

Epnadmin’s nomination as in the “Electrophées 2003” competition organised by ATICA (Agence pour les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’administration or Agency for information and communication technologies in administration) is the best proof of this.

But, having gone beyond the stage of making the application available to users, a new, somewhat frustrating waiting phase begins: the appearance of new contributions and new developments dependant on the time and availability of contributors and their capacities to mobilise finance for returns on investment that are not always easy to define.

Advice for future project leaders

At the end of this project, the leaders are offering some advice to future contributors or initiators of new freeware-based applications:

 Approach associations dedicated to freeware such as ADULLACT or APRIL to get a clear idea of freeware development methodology,
 Ensure compliance with standards right from the start of the project by approaching ATICA - tend towards the best definition possible of the specifications to avoid “daily cobbling together”,
 Do not hesitate to turn to subcontractors and thus progress more quickly and more coherently.

The epnadmin project is remarkable in the way it illustrates a method of producing digital applications deviating from traditional channels (software house, for example).

Rather than giving an external service provider a set of specifications to meet, this project begins with the end needs of users, mobilises its designers and forces them to find both the technical solutions and human and financial resources they require for themselves.

Dependent on the modular nature of IT tools together with the existence of a community capable of taking an interest in the project and adopting it themselves in order to take it forward and disseminate it, a project such as epnadmin can be reproduced and appears to be durable. Its limits are linked to its relevance. Like any “community” or collaborative project, it stems from the active investment capacities of its designers and players.

It can only be reproduced and developed if, beyond the small circle of creators, the human resources capable of investing intelligence, time and material resources, without dwelling on any immediate returns on investment, can be found.

Like any freeware, it will also be subject, in the future, to pressure from proprietary systems and applications.

In September 2006, Epnadmin is at version 0.8 which tends to prove the project’s continuity over time.

A new website, richer in content and services (downloading, maintenance, contributions, etc.), has been opened.

In keeping with the freeware development approach, numerous contributors have joined forces with the initial contributors who have stayed with the project as reflected in the list of functionalities now offered to users: http://epnadmin.net/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=32

Numerous tests have been conducted by a large number of spaces likely to use Epnadmin and some of them now use it in their day-to-day practice.

However, it does seem that this tool is not being deployed as universally as hoped: competition from other tools (proprietary!), time and resource constraints for many spaces (often only one leader for ever increasing public demand…), lack of political support for the development of freeware and, more generally, erratic policies in the area of deployment of public internet access in local authorities and associations.