New Content Management System for Entities and Debates

We developed a new system for managing entities and debates. Until now, it was very time-consuming to create new entities such as people or organisations in the Open Parliament TV database. These entities are not only a fundamental part of the platform’s structure (profiles of members of parliament, additional information in the video player), but also an important building block during data import. For example, if a person does not exist in our database as a member of parliament, they cannot be assigned as a speaker during import.

To simplify these steps, we created an interface in which new entities can be added, updated, and managed in just a few steps. If this affects speeches that have already been imported, those can be updated directly.

Managing Parliamentary Debates

Another important component of the platform’s structure is the hierarchy of electoral period > session > agenda item > speech. During data import, speeches are automatically assigned to the corresponding electoral period, session, and agenda item. If these do not yet exist, they are created. To make managing this structure easier, we developed an interface through which all of these elements can be edited and adjusted. This also helps to get a better overview of debates.