About this site

The Information Providers Guide (IPG) is intended for all people involved in the creation of online content for EUROPA (webmasters, internet editors, coordinators, contractors, ...). It covers editorial, technical and graphic aspects.
The rules set out in the IPG are compulsory in order to best ensure a coherent and user-friendly service to the users. The IPG is freely available on EUROPA in English. This is a living document which is regularly updated.

The content is divided into 2 groups:

Follow the steps - task centric chapters, which start with beginning (BASICS) and ends with publishing and maintaining your web site.

and

Resources - list of useful tools, free services you can use, procedures you have to follow and other numerous things that are available while building EUROPA sites..

Restricted area: This link points to internal pages and may not work if you are browsing as an external user. This symbol indicates that a document is currently not available to those outside the EU Institutions.

Follow the steps

The main part of the IPG is organized in task centric chapters, which starts with beginning (BASICS) and ends with publishing and maintaining your web site.

Chapter	Description
BASICS	Start by reading this chapter for an overview of the key aspects of EUROPA’s structure, organisation, and management, for example: if you want to know about the different kinds of sites that can be created, how is a site integrated into Europa, and other basic information.
PLAN	Gathering all the relevant information and/or making key decisions throughout the conception, structure and development phases of your web site can be found in this section.
CONTENT	Browse this chapter for detailed information about the different types of web site content, and instructions, recommendations, and rules to be followed.
DESIGN	Make sure your site fits in the EUROPA family, by examining the guidelines and rules on visual design, including a walkthrough of the standard templates and their elements.
BUILD	Explore this chapter for information on the life-cycle and process of site development and construction, standards that apply and other guidelines to be followed in order to prepare an IPG-compliant web site.
GO LIVE	When you are ready to push the button and go live, read this chapter to get instructions on the series of actions necessary to bring the site to life, make it known and follow its progress.
MAINTAIN	Keep checking this chapter to know about the various activities necessary once a site has been launched, including day-to-day maintenance, gathering of feedback from surveys, statistics and other means, and their analysis in order to improve the site. The chapter covers also the aspects of site archiving.

Resources

Explore the RESOURCES for useful tools, free services you can use, and other numerous things that are available while building EUROPA sites.
Chapter Standards will tell you which standards we use on EUROPA.
You will find templates, images, legal notices, standards messages and many more in the Library. In the Procedures, you will find explanation about different procedures you have to follow and addresses. Do not forget chapter about Training with the latest material from our workshops.

Chapter	Description
TOOLS	Browse this chapter to learn about the tools that are used to make (ec.)europa.eu websites.
SERVICES	Explore this chapter to can find numerous already available e-services, which can be integrated in EUROPA web sites.
LIBRARY	Browse this chapter, when you need images, templates, standard messages and other useful material.
STANDARDS	Make sure your site fits in the EUROPA family, by examining the guidelines and rules on web accessibility and others in this chapters.
QUALITY ASSURANCE	Explore this chapter for information on quality checks and quality control tools.
PROCEDURES	You can find explanation about different procedures you have to follow while buidling EUROPA website in this chapters.
TRAINING	Keep checking this chapter to find new trainig available and also all the training material from many workshops organized by EUROPA forum or internet editors.

Restricted information

Some links in this guide are followed by a lock icon Lock . This indicates that the link leads to information available only for EC officials. If you are an EC official and have problems accessing the locked link, try replacing http://www.cc.cec/ part of the address with http://intracomm.cec.eu-admin.net/.