Part of the activities to find potential new EuroViews users and to keep contact with the existing ones are the yearly news letters which are planned EuroView deliverables. Additional activities to raise the awareness of the EuroView project are necessary, including press releases and attendance of relevant European conferences.
In spite of those more informative actions described above - which should be addressed to a brought spectrum of potential users - a more formal user group will be formed. The user group shall enable its members
1. to contribute to decisions on how the EuroView Directory service will be formed;
2. to obtain a good understanding of the environment (the EuroView pilot project) in which their part of the Directory will operate;
3. to gain a common understanding of the issues related to the use of the Directory, such as naming and information structures;
4. to agree on administrative questions which should be commonly decided by all users of the EuroView Service.
While EuroView is the „active" part in this Group, who prepares any decision by producing appropriate recommendations, the EuroView project shall take advice from its User Group.
The concrete User Group's working style is open. Points 1 and 4 require some form of discussion forum, which might be either Email based discussion boards (mailing lists) or user group meetings.
Which form will be selected will depend on the facilities and working styles of the user group members as well as the number of members in the user group. User group meetings might be impractical for a high number of members.
It is feasible most of the work will be handled via mailing lists, however, meetings may also be held about twice a year.
It is assumed that the willingness of most of the user group members to participate in international meetings will - with regard to effort and costs of travelling - not be very high. Thus it is proposed that user group meetings are held on a national basis. This might have an impact on the design of the service provided by EuroView. A certain level of „national autonomy" might be considered, where appropriate, to minimise the need for decisions which must be taken by the complete user group.
Produce a charter for user groups, containing a description of current work items, goals and milestones.