Synathina

**Synathina Joomla project

An online tool to help cities collaborate with active citizens,connect and empower civil society stakeholders.

SynAthina.gr Project offers the platform in which citizens' groups engaged in improving the quality of life in the city. To achieve that, City of Athens created this Platform, based on the wide known free and open-source Content Management System (CMS) Joomla!.It is for publishing web content that allows to developers to build powerful online applications).

www.synathina.gr is a mainly user-generated content website which maps the activities of civil society and active citizens operating in city of Athens. The platform allows its registered users upload their activities on a map, publish open calls, book a space for their activities and interconnect with other stakeholders. The platform operates as a live, dynamic archive of socially beneficiary activities which have taken/ will take place in the city of Athens and contains a news blog.

For a detailed presentation of synathina project and how to install configure and re-use it see the project's wiki (https://github.com/eellak/synathina/wiki)

List of Functionalities and Features of the platform

-Member Profiles: Citizens Groups (NGOs and informal groups of citizens) and Supporters (Companies, Foundations, City Services) can register in the platform and create a profile including their logo, description text, links to other URLS, presentation attachments, photos. The platform also allows supports to create invisible and anonymous profiles. The member profiles can optionally become newsletter subscribers. Acceptance of Terms of Use is obligatory. Visible member profiles can be searched by entering key-words or filtering thematic categories.

• Mapping: Activities taking place in the city are pinned on a -google- map of the city of Athens. The map has (single or team) pins pointing at the locations where active citizens are organizing their future activities. Clicking at each single pin, opens a pop-up box containing basic info (title, address, date & time, citizen groups' name, poster, short description) on each activity. Clicking at each team-pin (for activities taking place at the same address) helps user browse through different single pins by going left-right on a slider. The borders of the city of Athens is highlighted on the pin. The periphery of the City of Athens is also divided into its seven municipal districts via color coding. There is also a checklist where visitors can search forthcoming activities by thematic category. Scrolling over the map visitors can see can also see the number of citizens groups which have organized activities in each municipal district and the number of activities which have taken place in each of them.

• Activities Archive: All activities are stored into a dynamic archive which the website visitor can search by entering key-words or by filtering thematic categories, municipal districts, and time periods. Each activity has its own page which contains: title, key visual, date & time, address, symbols of thematic categories and a description text. All the above data is entered by registered users through the activity submission form. All activity entries are approved, after proof checking and editing by the website administrator.

• Booking Tool: Registered users also have the ability to book a specific municipal space (synathina kiosk), through the activity submission form, by entering a tickbox and the time/date they want to use it. The space's online calendar is also online for active citizens to refer to regarding availability of slots. Again, these entries are approved, after proof checking and editing by the website administrator. Bookings at the synathina kiosk are dynamically updated in an online calendar.

• Connection Tool: Through the activity submission form, citizens' groups can seek for various forms of support (by a ticking on a tick-box menu) and directly message the supporters -via email- who offer the respective form of support. Moreover, through the activity submission form, citizens' groups can submit their requests to the municipal services by forwarding their written requests to the Help Center of the municipality.

• **** Open Calls:** Registered Users can upload open calls including a photo, a text and file attachments.

• **** Data Collection & Statistics:**www.synathina.grprovides the following dynamic statistics and data:

Front End: -Total number of registered users (by year)

-Total number of registered supporters

-Total number of submitted activities (by year)

-The citizen's priorities as derived from the uploaded activities' thematic categories

Back End: - Registered users data

• **** Registered users by municipal district**

• **** Support request monitoring tool sorting requests by time period & thematic category. **

• **** Citizens' activities can be filtered by time period, thematic category, municipal district, usage of synAthina's space,

• **** types of requests submitted, requests submitted to the municipality**

• **** New users stats: Tool to search users by profile registration time period.**

• **** Citizens' Groups' filtering tool: Citizens groups can be filtered by the municipal district in which they have developed activities**

• **** Supporters' stats: a tool which produces an export list including contacts of all registered supporters and the form of support they can provide.**

• **** Newsletter: a tool which exports a list of all the subscribers of synAthina's newsletter.**

• **** Contact Tool:** Registered and unregistered users can communicate with the administration team of synAthina via a contact form.

• **** Notifications: The website's networking tools and administration is based on a web of automated email notifications.**

Notifications to users:

Registered users receive email notifications when

-Their profile is submitted

-Their profile is approved and published

-They submit an activity

-The activity they submitted is published by the administrator

-They submit an open call

-A submitted activity or open call is unpublished

-A request for support is expressed (for supporters)

The website's administrator receives email notifications when:

-A new profile (user) is created

-A new activity is submitted

-The synAthina kiosk is booked

-A new open call is submitted

-The contact form is submitted

• **** Content uploading:** The website's administrator can upload the following forms of content

• **** Open Calls**

• **** Activities**

• **** News items on the blog**

• **** Best practices**

All written content in the website is editable by the admin.