About the service

The Norden2007.fi site distributes information on the Finnish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers 2007. The site operates in Finnish, Swedish and English, but all material is not necessarily available in all three languages. Some documents may also be found in other languages.

Content

The items in the main menu consist of basic information on Nordic countries and the cooperation between them. The Finnish Presidency and its different objectives and emphasis are also a crucial element of the main menu. On each subsection of the main menu, there are links to topical material concerning separate subject matters.

Read and participate includes all of the interactive material of Norden2007.fi

• Blog consists of articles produced by the Secretariat for Nordic Cooperation where people can openly comment and share their views on different topics. This section is mainly in Finnish and Swedish.
• Picture contest gives anyone the possibility to send pictures related to Nordic culture to the Norden2007.fi webteam. The Secretariat for Nordic Cooperation acts as the panel of judges for the competition. The best pictures will be rewarded and the best pictures will be published on the Norden2007.fi website.
• Send an e-card contains different pictures which people can send to each other by email, directly through the Norden2007 website.
  
  

Current affairs includes all the topical information related to the Finnish Presidency. All of the material can be downloaded to an RSS reader through our RSS-feed.

Calendar includes information on all of the upcoming events related to the Presidency. Different events include Conferences and seminars, events for the youth, ministerial meetings and others.

Programme section contains the Programme for the Finnish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers 2007. Objectives and key points can be found listed by different sectors. A PDF version of the Finnish Presidency programme in different languages can also be downloaded here.

Basic information section contains basic information on Nordic cooperation. The section includes a short description of the history of Nordic cooperation, information on the Nordic Council and Council of Ministers, a list of agreements and treaties signed between the Nordic countries, a list of Nordic institutions as well as a list of useful abbreviations.

Nordic countries includes basic information on all of the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland) as well as their self-governing areas (Åland islands, Faroe islands, Greenland).

Nordic youth deals with the Finnish Presidency from the youth’s perspective. The section includes 10 points from the Presidency programme which deal specifically with young people and a list of events that are for or may interest young audiences.

Picture gallery includes pictures taken during the Presidency year. Here you will find images of the Nordic countries, Nordic politicians and officials, meetings and other events.

Contact information contains the contact details of each ministry as well as the contact information of their Nordic liaisons. This section also includes links to the webpages of each ministry as well as a link to their organisation chart.

Technical information

You can access the service with any standard browser, without plug-in adds-on or other programmes. The service also operates when JavaScript is disabled.

The service has been optimised for the following browsers and their more recent versions: 

Special programmes

All the material on the Current affairs subsection can also be monitored with an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary).  Users can subscribe to a newsgroup and receive notifications of updates. This helps avoid constant visits to the website in order to be notified of new and changed content.

An RSS feed requires a reader which can be downloaded from the Internet for free. Instructions concerning the use of RSS are available, for example, at:

• http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
  
• http://www.talentum.com/rss-ohje.jsp
  
• http://www.yle.fi/rss-ohjeet.html

Use of the pages

At the top right-hand corner of the page, you will find the languages, site map, feedback and search links. 

The Swedish and English versions operate on a different user interface. In connection with individual press releases or documents, mention is made on whether the information is also available in other languages.

The site map functions as a directory and clicking the plus sign in front of a word will open the navigation on the next level and show the content on the pages.

Visitors can use the feedback form to send messages to the Secretariat for Nordic Cooperation. The feedback will be dealt with as soon as possible.

The search function is based on a free-text search.  The advanced search provides visitors the option to narrow down the search and words can be truncated using the *-symbol and Boolean connectors, such as AND or OR. The evaluation of search results in an order of priority is based on the Microsoft SQL Server. The statistical method is called Jaccard coefficient. The method evaluates the search words based on

• how frequent the search word is in the whole database;
• how frequent the search word is in the document where it occurs.
  
  

On the right hand side of individual pages, information is given on the possible foreign language versions of material on the page and links to other pages related to the subject matter. The related links have been divided into three groups: Also on this site, Related topics on other Foreign Service websites, and Related websites.

• Also on this site means that related information can be accessed in other parts of the same network service.

• Other Foreign Service websites means that related information can be found, for example, on the websites of Europe Information, or at formin.finland.fi, virtual.finland.fi and the Kauppapolitiikka magazine online.

• Related websites means that more information can be found on the websites of other service providers.

Copyright policy

Copyright to the texts and pictures published on the website belongs to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs or other parties mentioned in connection with the published material. For example, the copyright to pictures can belong to others but the Ministry has made an agreement on the use of the photos.

Linking to the texts is free and texts can be quotes as long as the source is mentioned. Other kind of use of the material must be separately agreed upon with the Ministry.

Linking to individual photos is categorically denied.   

Privacy policy

Identifiable personal information of service users is not collected. We do not need users' contact details to other ends than to be able to respond to their feedback or to process their participation in the picture contest.

Responsibility

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs takes responsibility for the content of this website, which will be kept as up-to-date as possible. Possible mistakes will be corrected without delay.

The Ministry does not assume responsibility for the correctness of information of linked pages maintained by other service providers.

Further information

The service is maintained by the Secretariat for Nordic Cooperation of the Ministry's Department for Europe, which also gives further information about the service.