John Hunter, Head of IT, European Court of Human Rights 
Categories
  • Data to Decisions
  • Technology Optimization & Innovation
The Project 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is an international Court, whose rulings affect more than 800 million inhabitants in 47 member states. To ease the search and access of the 90,000-plus documents hosted on ECHR’s public-facing website, we recently embarked on a revolutionary document management endeavor to reshape our search functionalities using Microsoft FAST and Workshare. Through this effort, we have been able to significantly reduce the amount of time visitors need to spend trying to locate documents, representing a positive step forward in our organization’s relationship with the people.

The Technology

Cloud Collaboration, Workshare 

Metrics Matter

Being a website and document repository, there are two very easily measurable metrics that we use to determine success: visitor numbers and downloads. Both had been lagging prior to the FAST/Workshare integration. 

Since the FAST/Workshare integration, we have seen a steady increase in site visitors and a decrease in time spent searching for documents. Also, for the first time, we have chosen to allow all of the documents in our repository to be indexed on major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing -- so anyone searching for a specific case or area of law will be able to access the document via a Web browser. This eliminates the need to upload the documents on multiple databases, recreating the content to effectively share the information.

Disruptive Factor 

The ECHR’s new search functionality through Workshare empowers users to easily find what they’re looking for, regardless of their previous research experience. On top of that, we’ve built-in an automated document metadata tagging system, so search becomes infinitely easier and relevant for users. The new search interface also includes granular, key word, real-time search functionality, further promoting visitors’ ability to quickly return relevant searches. 

Shining Moment 

Because we chose Workshare, both employees and customers required minimal education and training in order to get used to the new system. Not only that, but its ability to integrate with our selected Microsoft installations, meaning that we didn’t have to consider the costly “rip and replace” or “rip and reinstall” options. The new system allows more than 4.6 million visitors a year to search and retrieve an ever-expanding library of more than 90,000 ECHR judgment-related documents in a more efficient and intuitive manner.

 

ABOUT The European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.