New website of the Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia on the basis of nrwGOV

Public administration websites are associated with very specific content management system requirements. With deGov, publicplan GmbH addresses precisely these requirements and offers corresponding services to the federal, state and local governments on the basis of open source software. On behalf of d-NRW AöR the partners publicplan, 1xINTERNET, and Reinblau have created nrwGOV, a system tailored to the requirements of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The basis for this was the open source software deGov. The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior is the first website to go live with the new system.

An advantage from which both the users of the open source solution deGov and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will profit: The nrwGOV system, which was developed in cooperation with the d-NRW AöR, is available to all public institutions in the state. Additional developments, that are not specific to the requirements of NRW are contributed to the open-source core deGov and are therefore available to the entire community.

The content management system deGov already offers numerous functions in its basic installation that are ideal for use in public administration. On behalf of the d-NRW AöR, publicplan has integrated specific extensions into the content management system (CMS) together with the partners 1xINTERNET and Reinblau, thus creating the nrwGOV system, which has been specially adapted to the needs of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This lays the foundation for further launches of web portals of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: The software is available to all public institutions in NRW for free use. Hartmut Beuss, the country's chief information officer (CIO), is also convinced by nrwGOV: "nrwGOV offers the perfect opportunity to technically modernize websites and professionally present online content."

Diverse and modular

"One big plus over other solutions is that the core of nrwGOV, the deGov distribution, is built entirely on the open-source Drupal 8 software," says Dr. Christian Knebel, Managing Director of publicplan GmbH. "DeGov is free for everyone." As the world's leading open source CMS, Drupal benefits from a large developer community that is constantly evolving and improving the system. This will also fix errors and vulnerabilities quickly and reliably and individually desired functions can be easily added. "The open-source approach gives us maximum flexibility in implementation. This is not only of great importance for the different requirements of the public sector - it also opens the design framework for new ideas. "

Professional digital appearance

The basic technology of deGov as well as the specific extension nrwGOV contain useful functions to adequately represent a state ministry in the digital world. One point that is immediately catching on with the Ministry of the Interior website: nrwGOV respects the CIO's recommended unified design. In addition, web sites based on deGov have a responsive user interface and therefore offer maximum user-friendliness in the mobile view as well. In order to make content available to the largest possible group of users, the pages are also barrier-free and can be made available in multiple languages. DeGov is not only suitable for the implementation of Internet sites, but has also been developed as a technical basis for the implementation of complex web-based eGovernment portals., such as topic portals or intranet applications. In line with the Open Source concept, deGov's functional scope expands with every further development for other areas of application. "We invite you to use the free open source license and to optimize the software together with us and for the community," explains Dr. Christian Knebel.

About the implementation partners

publicplan GmbH

As an industry specialist for the public sector, publicplan GmbH develops individual software solutions for complex web-based processes and specialized procedures. The company relies on the innovative further development of open source software and adapts it to the individual requirements of public authorities. In another business segment, E-Government Consulting, a team of tech-savvy eGovernment consultants offers professional help with the realization of IT solutions.

www.publicplan.de

1xINTERNET GmbH

1xINTERNET was founded in 2011 as a company for professional software development, with the aim to offer state-of-the-art web-based software solutions. The company specializes in Drupal and React and offers solutions in the areas of portal software, corporate websites, marketing sites, e-commerce, intranet and workflow systems.

www.1xinternet.de

Reinblau eG

The Reinblau eG is a cooperative organized agency that specializes in consulting, design and implementation of web projects. The open-source CMS Drupal is the first choice for complex projects. With agile methods such as Scrum and Lean UX Pure Blue focuses on the best added value for its customers. Openness and transparency are guiding principles for corporate structure and communication.

www.reinblau.de

nrwGOV is an extended version of the content management system deGov for authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia. A trial version of deGov is available at www.deGov.org.