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5th European Conference on
e-Government University of Antwerp, Belgium
16-17 June 2005
Edited by
Dr Dan Remenyi Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
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Copyright The Authors, 2005. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission may be made without written permission from the individual authors. Papers have been double-blind peer reviewed before final submission to the conference and the Electronic Journal of e-Government. A selection of papers will comprise a special edition of the Journal in September 2005. Initially, paper abstracts were read and selected by the conference panel for submission as possible papers for the conference Many thanks to the reviewers who helped ensure the quality of the full papers. ISBN: 1-905305-01-X Published by Academic Conferences Limited Reading UK 44-118-972-4148 [email protected]
ECEG 2005
Contents
Paper Title Author(s) Guide Page
ProceedingsPage
Preface vii vii
Biographies of Conference Chairs, Programme Chair, Keynote Speaker and Mini-track Chairs
ix ix
Biographies of contributing authors xi xi
e-Government at Community Level – An Empirical Investigation in the State of Hesse, Germany
Paul Alpar and Sylvia Becker School of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps University at Marburg,Germany
1 1
e-Government beyond e-Administration. The Evolution of Municipal Area Environments Could Establish a Digital Framework of Confidence for Citizens
Leo G. Anthopoulos and Anastasios D. Manos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
2 7
The Effectiveness of e-Service in the Public Sector: A Local Government Perspective
Mehdi Asgarkhani Faculty of Commerce, C.P.I.T., Christchurch, New Zealand
3 17
Designing a Robust e-Policing System for Developing Nations of the World
Charles Ayo, Aaron Atayero, Nicholas Ikhu-Omoregbe, and Oludayo Olugbara. Covenant University, Canaanland, Ota, Nigeria
4 27
The Virtual Workspace: Telework, Disabilities and Public Policy
Paul Baker1, Alea Fairchild2, 1Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia USA 2Vesalius College and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
5 33
A Risk Assessment Framework for Electronic Voting
Frank Bannister Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland 6 43
The Governance of Back Office Integration: Some Dutch Experiences
Victor Bekkers Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
7 57
e-Ombudsman: A Tool for Citizen Feedback on Policy Decisions
Lasse Berntzen Vestfold University College, Faculty of Social Science, Tønsberg, Norway
8 67
Accessibility of Public e-Procurement Websites: Methodology and Empirical Evidence
Guiseppe Bruno1, Emilio Esposito1, Michele Mastroianni2, Daniela Vellutino3 1University of Naples Federico II, Italy, 2Second University of Naples, Italy, 3University of Salerno, Italy
9 75
The Movement to an Information Society: A Comparison of Australia and Other Leading Information Society Countries
John Byrne1, Bill Martin1, Hepu Deng1 and Edward Halpin2 1School of Business IT, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 2School of Information Management, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
10 85
i
Paper Title Author(s) Guide Page
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Organizing e-Government for Small Local Government Organizations
Walter Castelnovo1 and Massimo Simonetta2 1Università dell’Insubria, Como, Italy, 2Ancitel Lombardia, Cologno Monzese, Italy
11 93
e-Democracy: A Solution for Disadvantaged Territories
Flavio Corradini, Eleonora Paganelli, Alberto Polzonetti, University of Camerino, Italy
12 101
Effect of Government Modernisation on Visually Impaired Staff in the Irish Civil Service
Natasha Cray, Fidelma Cotter and Denise Leahy Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
13 111
e-Government and the Re-use of Public Sector Information
Martin De Saulles University of Brighton, UK 14 121
Responsiveness of e-Government and the Case of Slovenia
Mitja Dečman University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Administration, Ljubljana, Slovenia
15 127
The Translation of e-Voting Technical Requirements Into Specific Legislation. A Study of Three Spanish Cases
Jordi Barrat Esteve Constitutional Law Department / Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain
16 137
Reviewing Policy, Practice and Potential of e-Consultation in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – A European Case Study
G Honor Fagan1 Michael Murray1 and Paul McCusker2 1National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis at NUI, Ireland, 2Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland
17 143
Stakeholder Governance: Towards A Holistic Approach to Managing e-Government
Leif Skiftenes Flak Agder University College, School of Management, Kristiansand, Norway
18 151
Evaluation of NMS e-Services Environment Within the Context of Four Specific Socio-Economic Domains: Towards the Promotion of a few Best Practices for Improving e-Inclusion and e-Participation
Panagiotis Germanakos, Eleni Christodoulou and George Samaras Computer Science Department, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
19 161
Successful Implementation of ICT Projects in Government
David Gichoya Research School of Informatics, Loughborough University, UK
20 171
ASP implementation of ERP for the Macedonian Government: From fiction to reality
Mijalce Gjorgiev University “Ss Cyril and Methodius”, Skopje, Macedonia
21 463
e-HRM: New Organizational Paradigms in the Public Italian Administration
Ginevra Gravili Università degli Studi di Lecce- Italy 22 473
New Zealand’s Developing e-Democracy : People, Place, Culture, Difference
Dr. Mary Griffiths Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
23 183
Financing e-Government: A Study of Issues, Models, and Funding Strategies
Kenneth A. Griggs, Rosemary Wild Orfalea College of Business, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, U.S.A.
24 193
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Paper Title Author(s) Guide Page
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e-Government in Greece: Opportunities for Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Local Government
Panos Hahamis, Jennifer Iles and Mike Healy Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, UK
25 203
Using e-Government to Improve the Quality of Local Authority Services
Mike Hart1 and Peter Byrne2 1University College, Winchester, UK,2Department, Winchester City Council, UK
26 213
e-Government, Public Policy and the Growth of Conditionality
Paul Henman Social Policy Unit, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
27 223
Towards Integrated Government: A Five Stage Architecture Model
Marijn Janssen and Anne Fleur van Veenstra Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
28 231
Not all the online political forums are futile: The case study of the “radical community”
Raphael Kies European University Institute, Florence, Italy
29 239
Product Classification and Description in Public e-Procurement: Are There Lessons to be Learned From Private e-Procurement?
Joerg Leukel1 and Gregory Maniatopoulos2 1University of Duisburg-Essen, Information Systems, Essen, Germany, 2University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
30 247
The Democratic Potential of South Korean e-Government: A Historical Institutionalist Perspective
Hyeon-Suk Lyu The University of Manchester, UK 31 257
Transparent Government Inspections: Using the Internet to Strengthen Civic Competence?
Albert Jacob Meijer Utrecht School of Governance 32 267
Consultation Cynicism: Whither e-Consultation?
Paul McCusker1, David O’Donnell2, Simon Stephens1 and Ann Marie Logue1
1Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Port Road, Donegal County, Ireland, 2Intellectual Capital Research Institute of Ireland, Ballyagran, Ireland
33 277
On the Way to the Learning City? A Typology of Citizenship Management Using ICTs
Hélène Michel ESC Chambéry - Université de Savoie, Chambéry, France
34 287
U.S. Wireless Policy Landscape in the Disabilities Context
Helena Mitchell, Paul M.A. Baker, and Alan Bakowski Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
35 295
From e-Gov to ‘we’-Gov – Social Inclusion, Government and ICT’s
Paul G. Nixon and Rajash Rawal The Hague School of European Studies, The Hague University, The Netherlands
36 305
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Paper Title Author(s) Guide Page
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Determining Progress Towards e-Government: What are the Core Indicators?
Adegboyega Ojo , Tomasz Janowski and Elsa Estevez United Nations University, Macao, China
37 312
Process modeling towards e-Government – A Systematic Guideline for Comparing Modeling Methods
Sebastian Olbrich School of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps University at Marburg, Germany
38 323
Payment Procedures for Electronic Government Services
Key Pousttchi and Dietmar Wiedemann University of Augsburg, Germany
39 333
A Roadmap for European Research in Learning and Knowledge Creation in e-Government
Jeremy Rose1 and Martin van Rossum2 1Aalborg University, Denmark, 2ELANET, Brussels, Belgium
40 343
Towards a Multi-measurement Platform of e-Government Projects and Services
Pierre Rossel and Matthias Finger EPFL-CDM-MIR, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland
41 349
Reference Model based Process Performance Measurement – Enabler of an Efficient e-Government
Christian Seel and Christine Daun German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbruecken, Germany
42 359
Balanced e-Government Implementation Kris Snijkers Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
43 369
GUIDE Open Identity Management Architecture Design – Key Contribution to the Further Advancement of e-Government Throughout Europe
Kamelia Stefanova1, Dorina Kabakchieva1.and Lia Borthwick2 1Centre for Information Society Technologies, Sofia University, Bulgaria, 2British Telecom, United Kingdom
44 377
Feasibility and Priority Study for Presenting Health Services over the Internet
Amir Talaei-Khoei1, Mohammad Kazem Akbari1, Mojtaba Talaei-Khoei2 and Anahita Hassanzade1 1Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, 2Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran
45 387
e-Government and Interoperability
Efthimios Tambouris1 and Konstantinos Tarabanis2 1Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Thessaloniki, Greece, 2University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
46 399
A Preliminary Analysis of an e-Government Market Segmentation
Tim Turner, Andrea Schwager and Ahmed Imran University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Forces Academy, Campbell, Australia
47 409
A Project on e-Government and e-Health: The Creation of an Epidemiological Data Warehouse On-line Exploiting the Workers Sickness Data
Marco Zanotelli1, 2, Diego Zamatteo2 and Giulio Giannetti2 1University of Milan, Italy , 2INPS - National Social Security Institute, Rome, Italy
48 421
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Paper Title Author(s) Guide Page
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The Impact of the ICTs on Local Power Relationships
Philipp Zimmermann1 and Matthias Finger2 1Institute of Economics & Tourism, University of Applied Sciences Valais, Sierre, Switzerland, 2Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
49 431
Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Voter Turnout in New Zealand Local Election 2004
Jacky Zvulun University of Otago, New Zealand 50 441
Towards Electronic Governance – Gaining Evidence for a Paradigm Shift in Governance From Federated Identity Management
Thomas Zwahr, Pierre Rossel, Matthias Finger College of Management of Technology, Lausanne
51 453
Practitioner Papers
Maximising the Macroeconomic Benefits of e-Government
John Alexander HISL Limited, Redditch, UK 52 481
The Transnational e-Government Agenda: Key Policy Issues for the European Union and its Member States
Manuel Baptista GOPA-Cartermill, Brussels, Belgium 53 493
e-Governance as a Challenge for Knowledge Society
Jaro Berce, The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Sevilla, Spain
54 503
e-Easy: The Internal Digital Divide - The Development of e-Government within Local Government
Peter Byrne Winchester City Council, Hants, UK 55 513
A Computerized Performance Measurement System for City Administrations
Marcelo Costa InfoQuality & Itautec, Goiania / GO, Brazil
56 519
eID: Identity Management in an Online World
Jerry Fishenden National Technology Officer, Microsoft UK, London, UK
57 529
e-Government and e-Clustering – The Public Sector as a key Player in a Regional e-Cluster System
Ute Hansen Bovenau Research, Bovenau, Germany
58 541
Transport Direct: Info-neutral e-Government
Miles Jackson, David Gott, Paul Drummond and Roger Slevin Transport Direct team, Department for Transport, London, UK
59 551
Borsa Lavoro Lombardia: e-Gov Interoperability in the Labour Market
Alessandro Meinardi Agenzia regionale per il Lavoro, Regione Lombardia, Milan, Italy
60 561
Implementing Major Change Initiatives and Securing Productivity Efficiency in a Revenue Office Through Imaginative Use of IT and Ensuring Staff ‘Buy in’ Through Non-hierarchical Project Group Dynamics
Pat Molan, Michael Gladney and Triona Doherty Revenue Commissioners, Limerick, Ireland
61 569
e-Government, Interoperability and Innovation
Benoît Müller Business Software Alliance, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
62 577
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Paper Title Author(s) Guide Page
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Open ICT e-Government Architecture as an Interoperability Framework
Libor Neumann1 and Pavel Benda2 1ANECT a.s., Praha, Czech Republic, 2ASD software s.r.o., Šumperk, Czech Republic
63 585
Distributed Authentication and Authorization in e-Government
Libor Neumann and Pavel Sekanina ANECT a.s., Praha, Czech Republic 64 597
Practical Application of Biometrics for Security, Privacy and Convenience Within the UK Education Environment
Aine Ni Fhloinn Inhouse Training, Dublin 6, Ireland 65 607
Identity Management for Large e-Government Populations
J.R. Reagan and Gordon Hannah BearingPoint, Inc, McLean, USA 66 617
Addressing and Protecting Distributed Resources in e-Government Architectures Using Multiple Digital Identities
Alain Sandoz, Nicolas Haenni, Jean-René Eudes Centre des technologies de l’information, Geneva, Switzerland
67 629
The Global Cross-Reference Data Base – A Tool for Information Logistics in e-Business
Helge G. Simonsen Verdande AS, Drøbak, Norway 68 637
Breaking Barriers to e-Government: Overcoming Obstacles to improving European Public Services
Workshop 69 n/a
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Preface The 5th European Conference on e-Government, ECEG 2005, which is being held at the University of Antwerp has once again attracted a very interesting set of research papers. This year we have been able to accept 68 papers from authors in 24 countries. For the Conference these research papers have been spread across five streams, including two mini tracks, one of which is on the Economics of e-Government and the other on the subject of e-Government Accessibility Issues. We are also very pleased to welcome to the Conference the group of e-Government researchers for the oxford Internet Institute who will present a number of work-in-progress briefings. This conference is being opened by the Belgian State Secretary for Computerisation, Mr Peter Vanvelthoven who will speak on the topic of Future Opportunities for e-Government. In addition the Conference will also participate in a panel discussion with a number of EU e-Government experts led by Paul Timmers, Head of unit e-Government, European Commission. We are looking forward to a very special event this year and we trust that all Conference participants as well as readers of the proceedings will find the work reported to be very instructive. Dan Remenyi Visiting Professor School of Systems and Data Studies Trinity College Dublin [email protected] June 16, 2005
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Conference Executive: Dr Frank Bannister, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, frank.bannister@tcd,.ie Professor Toni Carbo, University of Pittsburgh, USA, [email protected] Bruno de Vuyst, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, [email protected] Professor Dr Guido Dierickx, University of Antwerp, Belgium, [email protected] Alea Fairchild, Vesalius College / Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, [email protected] Davy Janssen, University of Antwerp, Belgium, [email protected] Ibrahim Kushchu, International University of Japan, [email protected] Professor Dr Cas Mudde, University of Antwerp, Belgium, [email protected] Dr Briony Oates, University of Teesside, UK, [email protected] Professor Dr Erik Henderickx, University of Antwerp, Belgium, [email protected] Professor Dan Remenyi, Trinity College, Dublin, [email protected] Andrew Szende, University of Toronto, Canada, [email protected] Professor Les Worrall, University of Wolverhampton, UK, [email protected] Mini-track Chairs: Accessibility issues in e-Government: Denise Leahy, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Economics of e-Government: Dan Remenyi, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Workshop on Barriers to e-Government: Chris Parker, Gov3, UK Conference Committee: The conference programme committee consists of key people in the e-Government around the world. The following people have confirmed their participation: Georg Aichholzer (Institute of Technology Assessment, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria), John Alexander (HISL Limited, Chestnut Farm, Sambourne, Redditch, Worcs.), Paul Alpar (Philipps-Universitaet Marburg, Germany), Joan Ballantine (Queens University Belfast, UK), Victor Bekkers (Erasmus University, Netherlands), Egon Berghout (Groningen University, Netherlands), Lasse Berntzen (Vestfold University College, Norway), Rob Brookes (Conwy County Borough Council, Wales, UK), Ann Brown (CASS Business School, London, UK), Janice Burn (Edith Cowan University, Australia), John Byrne (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia), Jyoti Choudrie (Brunel University, UK), Rodney Clare (EDS and the Open University, UK), Sean Connolly (Revenue Commissioners, Ireland), Leela Damodaran (Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, UK), Geoffrey Darnton (Bournemouth University, UK), Anne Davies (Queens University Belfast, UK), Andrew Dearden (Sheffield Hallam University, UK), Steven De Haes (University of Antwerp Management School, Belgium), Andy Ellis (Microsoft, UK), Matthias Finger (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland), Amanda Foster (Sheffield Hallam University, UK), Paul Frissen (Tilburg University, The Netherlands), Tom Fuller (IPA, Dublin, Ireland), Jenny Gilbert (Sheffield Hallam University, UK), Dave Griffin (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK), Mary Griffiths (Waikato University, New Zealand), Chris Hudson (Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK), Bill Hutchinson (Edith Cowan University, Australia), Paul Jackson (Institute of Public Finance, UK), Marijn Janssen (Technical University of Delft, Netherlands), Lieven Janssens (University of Antwerp, Belgium), Helen Jelich (E-Government Partnerships Public Works and Government Services Canada), Claire Johnson (Glasgow Caledonian University. UK), Steve Jones (Conwy County Borough Council, Wales, UK), Philip Joyce (Swinburne University, Australia), Laszlo Karvalics (Information Society and Trend Research Institute, Hungary), Aideen Keaney (Eircom, Ireland), Raphael Kies (European University, Florence, Italy), Kirsten Krauss (Cape and Penninsula University of Technology, South Africa), Thomas Lauer (Oakland University, Rochester, USA), Kieren Lenihan (IPA, Dublin, Ireland), Kristina Lundevall (mCity, Sweden), Gabor Magyar (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary), Gregory Maniatopoulos (University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK), Joan McCalla (Canadian Government, Canada), Ian McLoughlin (University of Newcastle, UK), Jeremy Millard (Danish Technological Institute, Aarhus, Denmark), Szilard Molnar (e-Gov Research Group, Hungary), John Morison (Queens University Belfast, UK), Hilary Mullen (Faculty of Technology, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University, UK), Olli Mustajarvi (The Finnish Parliament, Finland), Orla Odonnell (Institute of Public Administration, Ireland), Shaun Pather (Cape and Penninsula University of Technology, South Africa), David Price (Henley Management College, UK), Vivien Reid (Glasgow Caledonian University. UK), Andreu Riera (Scytl Online World Security, S.A., Barcelona, Spain), Sabine Rotthier (Hogeschool Gent, Belgium), Spurge Rudman (Cape and Penninsula University of Technology, South Africa), Patrick Sinz (Ethica and University of Paris VIII, France), Kris Snijkers (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), Bernt Solvang (Agder University College, Norway), Kamen Spassov (Coordination Center for Information, Communication and Management Technologies, Sofia, Bulgaria), Bernd Stahl (De Montfort University, UK), John Taylor (Glasgow Caledonian University, UK), Tim Turner (University of New South Wales, Australia), Hein van Duivenboden (Tilberg University, Netherlands), Wim Van Grembergen (University of Antwerp Management School, Belgium), Are Vegard Haug (Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway ), Stuart Warden (Cape and Penninsula University of Technology, South Africa), Rob Wilson (University of Newcastle, UK), Diana Wilson (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), Dushana Zdravkova (Varna District Court, Varna, Bulgaria).
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Biographies of Conference Chairs, Programme Chair, Mini-track Chairs, Workshop Chair and Keynote Speaker Professor dr. Wim Van Grembergen is professor and Chair of the Information Systems Management Department at the Economics and Management Faculty of the University of Antwerp (UA) and executive professor at the University of Antwerp Management School (UAMS). His research focuses on IT governance and its mechanisms such as the IT balanced scorecard and the COBIT control framework. Dr. Van Grembergen recently established the ITAG Research Institute (www.uams.be/itag) that aims to contribute to the understanding of IT Alignment and Governance. He has published several books and journal articles on IT governance and IT performance management and since 2002 has been the Track Chair of "IT governance and its mechanisms" at the HICSS conference. Professor Van Grembergen is a frequent speaker at academic and professional meetings and conferences and has served in a consulting capacity to a number of firms. He is also a member of the board of directors of several IT companies.
Davy Janssen is a PhD researcher at the political sciences department of the University of Antwerp in Belgium. For the last two and a half years, he has been doing policy relevant research on e-Government for the Flemish government. He is currently working on a PhD concerning the deliberative potentialities of online forums. His research interests include public space theory, (deliberative) democracy theory, eParticipation/eDemocracy in general and online forums in particular
Dr Dan Remenyi is a Visiting Professor in Information Systems Management at the School of Systems and Data Studies at Trinity College Dublin and an associated member of Faculty at Henley Management College in the United Kingdom. His original academic interests are in the field of information systems management and he has researched and been published widely in that area. In recent years he has taken a strong interest in research methodology and the sociology of research. He now works extensively with research candidates and their supervisors at both doctoral and masters level. He conducts a number of seminars to topics related to improving effective academic research and obtaining better results. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 books and some 50 academically refereed papers. He is published in all 4 of the A rated Journals in the United Kingdom in Information Systems Management. He is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Acta Commercii (a general management journal) and the Journal of Information Technology. He is the editor of the Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation and advisor to a number of other electronic journals. Denise Leahy is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director in the Department of Computer Science in Trinity College, Dublin. Her research interests are in the area of digital literacy and accessibility. She was a member of the Task Force which set up the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL). This standard in digital literacy is
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now accepted in over 130 countries world wide; outside Europe it is called the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL). Denise works with the ECDL Foundation to identify barriers to achieving certification and to ensure accessibility to all while maintaining the standard.
Chris Parker: After a 14 year career as a high-flying civil servant in the UK government, Chris founded his own business – gov3 limited – in September 2004. In the five years previous to this, he had been Deputy e-Envoy to the UK’s Prime Minister, and Chief Operating Officer of the Office of the e-Envoy. In this role, he led the team at the heart of the UK government which developed and delivered one of the world’s most successful strategies to create a Knowledge Society. The strategy
successfully moved the UK economy from being one which, in 1999, lagged behind the other major economies in embracing the Internet, to one which is a world leader. After successfully meeting all the stretching targets which had been set by the Prime Minister in 1999, Chris wound up the Office of the e-Envoy in 2004. Along with other senior civil servants from the Office of the e-Envoy, in September 2004 Chris launched gov3 - providing strategic advice and support to Government leaders responsible for driving IT-enabled transformation, within the public sector and across the wider economy. Since its creation, gov3 has: supported the Finnish government on its public sector productivity review; been engaged by the Hong Kong government to develop a roadmap for customer-focused service transformation; helped the Danish government to develop an e-business support strategy for SMEs; supported the Slovenian government to implement global best practice approaches to boosting home ownership of computers; been appointed by the Turkish Government, with lead partner Peppers and Rogers (Turkey) to undertake a six month strategy development process for e-Turkey; assisted a number of major global IT companies on development of their public sector strategies; worked with the British Council to develop its knowledge society support strategy for developing nations; provided support to the United Nations on development of its e-Africa strategy; published its first White Paper, sponsored by Intel, on government best practice in building a digitally-inclusive society (available at www.gov3.co.uk/whitepapers). Keynote Speaker: Peter Vanvelthoven Since becoming Belgian State Secretary for Computerization of the State in 2003, Peter Vanvelthoven has been quite busy. Last year he initiated the e-Government awards, which were presented for the first time in December 2004. Other on-going projects include email-2-all,e-working, the eID, tax-on-web, a light version of Broad band, the electronic registration of birth, and safety of children on the internet. Prior to taking the post of Secretary of State Peter was Federal MP and a lawyer. He also has a special degree in Fiscality and Accounting Research. He is a member of the sp.a party committee.
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Biographies of contributing authors (in alphabetical order) John Alexander has been the driving force behind what is now HISL since proposing the creation of an application development Centre of Excellence at AT&T ISTEL in 1982. During his spell at AT&T his main roles were the development of an applications development process model whilst creating and managing the aforementioned centre of excellence. His role then extended to the management of an applied research project to build a toolset to support that process and finally the management of the integration of that toolset into the Product Development division. On leaving AT&T in 1996 and acquiring the rights to exploit the toolset, John founded HISL. John has experience of working in the US, including two years consulting on Wall Street. This assignment led to the development of an application architecture and economic model for "shared real-time application services". HISL has developed solutions based on these concepts for Personal Finance, Capital Markets and e-Government markets. Paul Alpar is Professor of Business Ad-ministration and Management Information Systems in the School of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps University at Marburg. He is author of four books and many articles that appeared in such journals as J. of MIS, Int. J. of Electronic Commerce, or IEEE Trans. on Engineering Management Mehdi Asgarkhani is currently a principal lecturer (associate professor) in Strategic Management of ICTs at the Faculty of Commerce of the CPIT in New Zealand. His experience within the ICT industry (prior to joining the CPIT) includes taking on various roles in corporate sector - such as Business Support Services Manager, Business Strategy Analyst/Advisor; Project Director; and ICT Solutions Consultant. Paul M.A. Baker is the Associate Director of Policy Research with GCATT/Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Project Director for both the Wireless and Workplace Accommodations Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERC). Baker is currently researching the role of policy in advancing technology and universal accessibility goals for persons with disabilities; and institutional issues involved in public sector information policy development and state and local government use of information and communication technologies. Manuel Baptista is a Brussels-based consultant who has been working for GOPA-Cartermill on the European Commission’s e-Government Observatory project since November 2003. Currently undertaking a PhD in political science at the Universidade Nova in Lisbon, Manuel Baptista specialises in public policy analysis and has an educational background in international relations and marketing. Sylvia Becker has earned a Master degree in Economics at Philipps University at Marburg. The topic of her master thesis was “The State of E-Government at Community Level”. Before her studies of Economics, she completed a training as a Civil Servant at the Community of Lahntal in Germany Prof. dr. Victor Bekkers is professor of public administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam – the Netherlands, and academic director of the Center of Public Innovation, which is located in the same university. Jaro Berce accomplished his BA in electrical engineering and received his PhD from the Faculty of social science - both at the Ljubljana University, he also gained a masters degree in computer science (USA). His professional work started with R&D of information
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systems and technology. Later on he became skilled at management consulting, entrepreneurship and project management - working with multinational consulting companies Lasse Berntzen is an associate professor at Vestfold University College. He received his Cand. Scient. degree in Computer Science from University of Oslo. He is currently doing research on e-Government and e-Democracy, with focus on new tools give citizen increased influence on political decision making. Peter Byrne is employed as the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) Systems Manager at Winchester City Council Development Services Directorate. The Division covers the service areas of Planning, Building Control, Engineering, Traffic & Transport and Estates. Winchester City Council is a local district Council located in Hampshire England. Walter Castelnovo is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Insubria, Italy. He teaches Information Systems and Organization for students in Computer Science. His research interests are in the area of technological and organizational innovation in Public Administration. He is the strategic consultant of ANCITEL Lombardia in the area of e-Government and he is a permanent invited member of the Department of Institutional Reforms, e-Government, Cooperation and Communitarian Policies of ANCI Lombardia (the Association of Municipalities of Lombardia, Italy). Marcelo Costa has a Master’s degree on mechanical engineering and is an ASQ Certified Quality Manager; Senior Member of ASQ; Guru of the Qualiforum – The Brazilian Quality Forum www.qualiforum.com.br ; Consultant of the Brazilian Public Sector Quality Prize; and Consulting Director of InfoQuality, a software house specialized on the development of tools for performance measurement. Dr Martin De Saulles has been a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton since 2003. He studied for his Doctorate at the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex and has worked for a number of years in management consulting and the media Florence de Villenfagne is a researcher at CRID, the Centre de Recherches Informatique et Droit of the University of Namur (FUNDP). She studied Law at the University of Louvain (UCL) from 1993 to 1998 and obtained a Post-graduate Diploma in Law and Management of Information and Communication Technologies at the University of Namur in 1999. She was a research fellow at CRID from 1999 to 2001. Between 2001 and 2003, she was a lawyer at the Brussels Bar. Florence has conducted a number of research projects and published several articles related to IT-law and more specifically to data protection, electronic signatures, IT contracts and e-Administration. She has made several presentations on those issues to lawyers as well as to business managers. She took part in the European project PACE (Public Administration and e-Commerce in Europe). Mitja Dečman graduated in 1997 at University of Ljubljana and gained Masters of Computer science in 2001. He is an assistant at University of Ljubljana - Faculty of Administration for the field of informatics and is currently working on his PhD about long term preservation of authentic electronic records. William H. Dutton is Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Internet Studies at the University of Oxford, where he is also a Fellow of Balliol College. Until joining Oxford in July 2002, he was a Professor in The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. In the UK, prior to directing the
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OII, Bill was a Fulbright Scholar (1986-87), and later the National Director of the UK's successful Programme on Information and Communication Technologies (PICT) from 1993 to 1996. He has been conducting research on the social implications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) like the Internet since 1974. In the area of e-Government, Bill was one of the principal investigators on the first large-scale assessment of the impacts of computing in American local governments and has continued to research ICTs in the public sector. Among his early publications related to e-Government are The Management of Information Systems (Columbia Un Press 1981); Computers and Politics (Columbia Un Press 1982);and Modeling as Negotiating (Ablex 1985). More recent publications include: Transforming Enterprise, edited with Brian Kahin and others (MIT Press, 2004 and ‘The Cyber Trust Tension in E-Government: Balancing Identity, Privacy, Security’, Information Polity 10(2005): 1-11. Jordi Barrat i Esteve is Constitutional Law Assistant Professor in the Rovira i Virgili University (Catalonia, Spain). He is a Member of the Electronic Voting Observatory of the University of Leon (Spain) and the e-Democracy Center of the University of Geneva. Rebecca Eynon graduated in Psychology with Statistics from Royal Holloway, University of London in 1995 and gained a distinction in her Masters in Mass Communications from the University of Leicester in 1997. She completed her PhD at the Department of Sociology, City University, London in 2003 and continued to develop her interests in the use of ICTs in Higher Education as an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow. Rebecca has also worked at the Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, the School of Education, University of Birmingham and the Department of Sociology and Cultural Studies at Birmingham. Her current research interests include organisational culture and e-Government. Alea Fairchild, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in Management and Computer Science at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her areas of interest are transaction cost economics, value networks and innovation management. She received her PhD in Applied Economics from Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Diepenbeek, Belgium. Her latest book, ‘Technological Aspects of Virtual Organisations,’ was published by Kluwer in August 2004. Matthias Finger is a political scientist and holds since 2002 the chair of the management of network industries at l’Ecole polytechnique fédérale of Lausanne. He recently launched a global executive masters program in electronic governance in collaboration with European and International Universities. Jerry Fishenden is Microsoft’s UK National Technology Officer. Jerry has previously been an Associate Director of IT in the NHS, Head of Networking at the Houses of Parliament, and Head of Business Systems for the financial services regulator. He has authored numerous whitepapers and articles on the successful delivery of e-Government. Leif Skiftenes Flak is employed at the department of Information Systems at Agder University College, Kristiansand, Norway. He is currently a PhD student at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. Flak’s main research interest relates to e-Government in general and e-Government management issues in particular. Panagiotis Germanakos is a PhD candidate and Research Associate of the Laboratory of New Technologies of the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens with research interests on Web Adaptation and Personalization Environments and Systems based on user profiling encompassing amongst others visual attention and cognitive psychology (mental and emotional)
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processes, implemented on desktop and mobile / wireless platforms. He is also a Research Associate of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Cyprus collaborating on nationally and internationally funded projects, concentrating mainly on the analysis, design and development of open interoperable integrated wireless / mobile and personalized technological infrastructures and systems on the ICT research areas of e-Government and e-Health. Additionally, he has over four years of experience in the provision of consultancy of large-scaled IT solutions and implementations in the business sector. Giulio Giannetti has a Degree in Engineering, specialisation in Bioengineering and Computer Science. He is Analyst at INPS, Dept. of Information and Communication Technology and has been working on projects funded by the European Commission, both under the 4th and 5th Framework Programmes (Telematic Application Programme and Socio-Economic Cross-Programme respectively). Mijalce Gjorgiev is Junior teaching Assistant for group of e-Business subjects at the Faculty of Economics - Skopje. He got his Bachelor of Science in International Marketing Management at the Fontys University from Eindhoven, The Netherlands in January 2003. He is enrolled on MSc in e-Business at the Aberdeen Business School, at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in Scotland. Michael Gladney works in the Collector-General’s Division of the Irish Revenue Commissioners. He is project manager for the Collector-General’s change management programme (Synergy Project). He has extensive knowledge of Revenue IT systems and is also skilled in the area of change management and industrial relations. Ginevra Gravili is assistant professor of Organization Theory at the“de Viti de Marco” University of Economics, Lecce, Italy. In 1992 she achieved her degree in Business administration, University of Pescara. 1997, she received the Ph.D. in “Organization of labour” at University of Bari and since 2001 she has taught Management at University of Lecce. Her research focuses on: recruitment, knowledge management, usability of the web site, SME’s. Ken Griggs is an Associate Professor of Information Systems in the Orfalea College of Business at CalPoly, San Luis Obispo, California. He teaches classes in systems analysis and design and e-Commerce and has published in the Communications of the ACM, The International Journal of Electronic Government, The International Journal of Forecasting, and many others. He is currently working with the Deputy CIO of San Luis Obispo County on e-Government issues. Panos Hahamis is a Senior Lecturer in Business Information Management and Operations at the Westminster Business School. He holds a BA (Hons) in Politics and an MSc in Advanced Information Technology. A former diplomatic agent and military officer, in recent years his research interests have focused on e-Government. Dr. Ute Hansen studied economics at the universities of Passau and Kiel. As executive director of the taxpayer association of Schleswig-Holstein she focussed her research activities on the public sector. She received her Doctorate in 1998. She is head of the unit telecommunication and multimedia in the government of the State of Schleswig-Holstein. Mike Hart has been the Professor of Business and Informatics at University College, Winchester since 1997. In this post, he has developed a range of undergraduate courses in business and in public sector management. His research interests include the
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development of communities of practice and an examination of pedagogies in higher education. Dr Paul Henman lectures in social policy in the School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences at the University of Queensland, Australia. His key research interest is the nexus between social policy, public administration and information technology, an area in which he has researched and published since the early 1990s. He is co-editor of Administering Welfare Reform: International transformation in welfare governance (Policy, 2005) and he is currently completing a book entitled e-Government: reconfigurations in public administration, policy and power. Dr. Marijn Janssen is assistant professor in the field of management information systems for public administration at the Information and Communication Technology group of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology. Joerg Leukel is a senior researcher and lecturer in the Institute for Computer Science and Business Information Systems at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He has a PhD in Business Information Systems from that same University, as well as substantial standardization experience in national and European projects on B2B e-commerce standards. His research interests are in the areas of e-procurement, e-markets, catalog and product data management, product classification, business ontologies, and standardization. Gregory Maniatopoulos is a doctoral student at the Newcastle Centre for Social and Business Informatics (SBI), UK. He holds a MSc in Information Management from Lancaster University. His primary research interests focus on the e-Government agenda; social informatics and socio-technical system design and the uses of information and communication technologies in socio-technical context. Helen Margetts is a Professor of Society and the Internet in the Oxford Internet Institute and a Professorial Fellow at Mansfield College, University of Oxford. Previously, she was Professor of Political Science and Director of the School of Public Policy at UCL (1999-2004); lecturer in politics at Birkbeck College (1994-1999); research officer at LSE (1991-1994) and a systems analyst in the private sector (1984-1989). She has a BSc in Mathematics (University of Bristol, 1983), MSc in Politics (LSE, 1990) and PhD in Government (LSE, 1996). She has worked as a principal investigator on several studies for the UK National Audit Office (including Government on the Web, 1999; Government on the Web 2, 2002; Cultural Barriers to e-Government, 2002; and Incentivization of e-Government, 2003) and for the ESRC (including Public Private Partnerships in Central Government ICT Systems, 2001-3 and the London Elections Study, 2000 and 2004). She is the author of Information Technology in Government: Britain and America (London: Routledge, 1999), several major research reports commissioned by government bodies and over 60 articles and book chapters on policy-related subjects. Albert Jacob Meijer studied chemistry at the University of Nijmegen and communication science at Wageningen University. He received his PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam for a thesis on parliamentary and legal accountability in the information age. Albert works as an assistant professor at the Utrecht School of Governance. Helene Michel holds a Doctorate in Public Management. Her work deals with the impact of ICTs on the relationships between local government and citizens. She is also Professor of Public Management in the Chambery Business School, France.
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Benoît Müller is Director, Software Policy—Europe and is in charge of the Business Software Alliance’s European software policy activities. Before joining the BSA, Mr. Müller, among other positions, served as Secretary General of the International Publishers Association. Mr. Müller holds law degree from University of Geneva and was admitted to practice as an attorney at the Bar of Geneva. Dr. J. (Sjaak) Nouwt is Assistant Professor at Tilburg University, Faculty of Law, where he is a member of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT). He studied Dutch Law at Tilburg University from 1978 to 1985. He was a University Lecturer in Computers and Law at the Faculty of Law at Tilburg University from 1985 to 1987. At present, he teaches courses in Computers and Law and, in particular on Privacy and Data Protection, and Government Information Law. These courses are given to both Dutch and foreign students. In 1997, Sjaak Nouwt published his doctoral thesis on the use of information technology in the health care system and the protection of medical data. He has written several other articles on privacy and data protection issues. He is editor-in-chief of a Dutch journal on Data Protection in Health Care (Journaal Privacy Gezondheidszorg) and also member of the editorial staff of other journals, text-books, and loose-leaf publications on privacy and data protection. He also coordinates, among other things, the Privacynetwork research program on Reasonable Expectations of Privacy, and the development of e-learning programs for legal information skill requirements. Sjaak Nouwt is also editor-in-chief of the Dutch Internet Law Library. Sebastian Olbrich is graduated economist and a doctoral student at the department of Management Information Systems (chair Professor Paul Alpar), School of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps University at Marburg. His doctoral studies focus on e-Government. He has working experience as a consultant for information systems and as a lecturer in economics and computer science. Eleonora Paganelli got a degree in computer science from the University of Camerino. She is currently doing research in the area of e-democracy, as a member of the e-Government research group of the University of Camerino Dr. Key Pousttchi studied economics and organizational sciences at the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich (major field of study: business informatics). He served as an officer in the armour and armoured reconnaissance troops before returning to the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich as a research and teaching assistant at the faculty of informatics. Since 2001 he is a lecturer/assistant professor and heads the mobile commerce working group at the Chair of Business Informatics and Systems Engineering at the University of Augsburg. Since 2004 he is additionally heading the Microsoft Mobile Business Competence Center with the focus on mobile business processes. He is a member of the Visiting Faculty of the University of Zurich, of standardization bodies and industry fora for mobile payment (e.g. heads the German National Roundtable M-Payment of mobile network operators and banks on behalf of the German Ministry of Economics), author of books and professional articles, member of numerous program committees, and organizes national and international conferences on mobile commerce. Jeremy Rose is Associate Professor at the Department of Computing Science, Aalborg University, Denmark. He is currently a member of the PITNIT and SPV research projects in Denmark, and active as a member of the IFIP WG8.2 community. His research interests are principally concerned with IT and organisational change, the management of IT and systems development, and he has published over thirty articles in management, systems and IS journals and international conferences. He has been involved with research in
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computing in the public sector both in England and Denmark. He is the director of the Centre for EGovernance at Aalborg University.http://www.cs.auc.dk/~jeremy/ Pierre Rossel holds a PhD in anthropology and works at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale of Lausanne. Specialised in Technology Assessment and early detection of technological trends and shifts, he has been involved in two European projects administrative process reengineering, as well as COST A14 (“Government and democracy in the information age”). Alain Sandoz graduated in mathematics from the University of Neuchâtel and in computer sciences from the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Lausanne, where he obtained his doctorate in 1992. His thesis was concerned with replication and fault tolerance in distributed databases. Since 2000, he is an independent consultant and works for the federal and several local governments in Switzerland on e-Government projects, in particular on questions related to functional and technical architectures of large scale public information systems. He also teaches operating systems and fundaments of algorithms in Lausanne and Neuchâtel. Kris Snijkers is Licentiaat in Political Science (K.U.Leuven, 2001). Since 2001 he is research assistant at the Public Management Institute. From 2001 till 2002 he worked on a project on task allocation between different levels of government. Since 2003 he works at the Policy Research Center in the track ‘ICT and e-Government’. His research interest is situated in the area of ICT and public administration. Dr. Kamelia Stefanova is a Project Manager at the Centre for Information Society Technologies (CIST) and a board member of the European Bank Training Network. Since 1984 she has been a lecturer in Information and Communication Technologies, teaching Management Information Systems Design. She has been a Director of International Banking Institute, Bulgaria till 2001. Dr. Stefanova has developed great expertise in the fields of e-Government, Banking and Finance, Knowledge Economy. She has participated as an active researcher in many projects within 5FP and 6FP, Minerva, Phare Tempus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Socrates, and other RTD programmes of the EU. Kamelia Stefanova is one of the key researchers participating in GUIDE project, leading the Scientific Committee which is part of the project management. She has gained valuable experience and is very well acquainted with the latest research findings and technological decision in the e-Government field. Tim Turner has been involved in the IT industry for over 16 years, with the focus of his last eight years being e-Commerce, and particularly e-Government. He has concentrated his attention on assisting governments at all levels to understand how information technology can be used to enhance effectiveness and efficiency. He has played significant roles in several of Australia’s leading e-Government projects and continues to consult to peak government and industry bodies in the e-Government arena. Tim has also delivered significant projects in the private sector in information technology generally and electornic commerce specifically. As a lecturer in information systems at the Australian Defence Force Academy in the nation’s captial, Canberra, Tim is teaching Australia’s future military leaders to understand and exploit information technology. He is also pursuing a vigorous research career seeking a theory of e-Government grounded in his experience and that of Australian governments at the Federal, State and Local levels. Web-sites: ADFA: http://www.cs.adfa.edu.au/itee/staff/turnert/index.html Consulting: http://www.electricspells.com.au
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Martin van Rossum is ELANET (CEMR) expert; Developing e-Government Community of Practise tools; ICT Center Friesland advisor on Interregional transfer e-Government best practise (Hanse-Passage project); Coordinator of MUTEIS project; Socio-economic research – e-Adoption cluster policies and Senior lecturer public management, human competence management and business administration at The Hague University of Professional Education; coordinator graduate course on e-Governance Anne Fleur van Veenstra is a Master of Science student at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management and she is currently writing her graduation project at the Dutch Inland Revenue. Marco Zanotelli holds a degree in Mathematics, specialisation in Artificial Intelligence. He is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Milan University, Vice-Director of the Central Directorate ‘Studies and Research’ of INPS with the responsibility of external and international research and Member of the Scientific Committee of S.R.I. (Stanford Research Institute) CA, USA. Diego Zamatteo specialises in Computer Science and Database development. He is analyst at INPS, Dept. of Information and Communication Technology. He has been working on projects funded by the European Commission, both under the 4th and 5th Framework Programmes (Telematic Application Programme and Socio-Economic Cross-Programme respectively). Philipp Zimmermann has a Masters’ degree in Business Administration from the University of Berne. His study specialization in Innovation Management and e-Commerce as well as his working experience on new technology projects, led him to specific interest in the impacts of ICT on organizations. He actually works as a research associate at the University of Applied Sciences Valais (Switzerland) and prepares his Ph.D. in e-Governance at the chair MIR of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Jacky Zvulun B.A, M.A is a PhD candidate at the University of Otago (New Zealand) whose interest is in political participation in New Zealand local government, the electoral system, voter turnout and minority representation. Recently presented and published on the implementation of Single Transferable Voting in the 2004 New Zealand local body elections (APSA Conference 2004) Thomas Zwahr graduated at the University of Federal Armed Forces Munich as an Aerospace Engineer in October 2001. During his studies he focused on Technology and Innovation Management and was majorly involved in setting up the research institute CeTIM (Center for Technology and Innovation Management) in Munich. Thomas joined MIR in order to pursue PhD research in the area of e-Governance and new technologies. He is in the lead of the e-Governance competence center and responsible for its Executive Master Program. In his free time he loves spending his time on freeriding and mountaineering in the Swiss alps.
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e-Government at Community Level – An Empirical Investigation in the State of Hesse, Germany
Paul Alpar and Sylvia Becker School of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps University at Marburg, Germany In Germany, like in most other countries, the most visible efforts toward e-Government have been undertaken at the country level. Governmental agencies at this level are usually hierarchically organized, they are big organizations with specialists in all functions, and the work of each agency is governed by one set of laws and internal regulations. Therefore, planning and implementation of e-Government projects is a complex but manageable task for them.
At the other end of the hierarchy of governmental agencies are municipalities and communities. They are often small in size with the size usually correlating to the size of the population served by the unit. They often lack resources, for example, computer specialists. Therefore, data centers have been established that develop and run applications for such communities. However, each community can decide from which supplier to obtain services that it cannot produce by itself. The work of communities in Germany is governed by federal and state laws. Since state laws differ from state to state, the regulatory frame for communities in different states differs also.
Given the described situation and the relatively large number of independent units at the community level, the potential for efficiency gains from the development of standardized e-Government applications is high. Since the budgets at the community level have been tightened in the last years while their tasks have increased, a standardized solution would be easier to afford and could significantly speed up the process of introduction of e-Government at that level. We surveyed a sample of communities in order to determine whether this approach has been followed since it appears to be rational from an economic point of view.
Since most of the core community data processing was provided by a state-owned data center, we expected that this was also the main provider of e-Government applications. Surprisingly, this was not the case. One reason was the dissatisfaction of some communities with the services of this data center.
Another result of our research was the observation that the web sites of the communities often did not reflect the goals they stated in interviews. Further findings will be reported.
Keywords: community e-Government, provider selection, goal alignment
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e-Government beyond e-Administration. The Evolution of Municipal Area Environments could establish a Digital Framework of Confidence for Citizens
Leo G. Anthopoulos and Anastasios D. Manos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece e-Government refers to the transformation and the re-designation of the Public Administration based on Information and Telecommunication (IT) infrastructures. Current e-Government applications focus on means and procedures that deliver public services to the citizens, in order to improve the quality of public services and to minimize expenditures in public transactions. While huge e-Government projects are under development around the world, citizens have not yet been persuaded about their efficiency and they prefer to use traditional means when transacting with public Administration. The main reasons refer either to the dissatisfaction of the citizens’ requirements, or to the fact that the users do not persuade themselves for the improvement of their job. In this paper we examine how digital means offer the proper environment where Administration could become a Trusted Partner for citizen in all everyday situations. We are inspired from a case study in Greece where a Digital City is under development in the town of Trikala, central Greece.
Digital City is defined as a union of IT applications focusing on public needs in a specific medium-sized city. Although differences based on geographical or cultural characteristics could lead to the development of different municipal area environments, the Digital City comprises a molecule of the future, more “human like” Administration, where citizens don’t need to apply for services, but Administration is everywhere, realizing citizen and social needs, offering civil protection, maintaining privacy and civil rights, but also supporting the improvement of everyday life and without superseding the human factor and the people working on the support of these services.
In a Digital City a citizen is member of an open information society, able to access public documents and services, or to participate on policy making. On the other hand a Digital City could develop links among Public Administration, Businesses and directly to citizens through portable or home devices. This new architecture of cities could lead to the next generation of e-Government where citizens don’t need to apply for public services, and where automatic record updates could even suppress the existence of certificates. Additionally, authorities like protection, health and care relating, could receive and deliver messages and trigger batch jobs that improve everyday life in small societies.
Keywords: e-Government, digital public services, information society, cross border, transactions, digital city, civil rights, e-participation, innovative organizational change.
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The Effectiveness of e-Service in the Public Sector: A Local Government Perspective
Mehdi Asgarkhani Faculty of Commerce, C.P.I.T., Christchurch, New Zealand Recent advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have resulted in a staggering growth in the development of e-technologies (the Internet and Web-based solutions) – which have fundamentally transformed the technological, economical and social landscapes. What’s more, the globalisation of national economies has intensified competition within both the private and the public sector. It appears that access to ICT and e-technologies has become a catalyst for social and economic development.
For a number of years the competitive imperative of the private sector has directed businesses towards embracing the digital world. Most of the private sector has therefore increasingly set high standards of service through the adoption of e-technologies both domestically and internationally. As public interest in the application of e-technology solutions continues to grow, there is an increasing expectation that they will be adopted in national and local government organisations – the same way they are introduced and utilised in the private sector. Communities and citizens appear to increasingly expect the same level of service from the agencies in the public sector as they do from businesses in the private sector. Consequently, many innovative public sector agencies worldwide (e.g. Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR – to name but a few) are having to constantly create new ways in which to use e-technology solutions in order to provide digital governance facilities and services. Local, regional and national governments throughout the world are attempting to broaden service delivery and citizen involvement by providing effective e-services through the adoption of e-technologies.
There has been much debate about the role and effectiveness of e-technologies in the public sector. Technology is undoubtedly the backbone of the infrastructure that is required to support electronic or digital government initiatives. Yet there is a danger in placing too much emphasis on the technology aspect of e-services. What’s more, political and financial support for e-service projects can be accompanied by political rhetoric and hype. The potential benefits of e-technologies in the public sector can only materialise when they are introduced as part of a well-planned and properly supported social, cultural and political environment. There is also a need for performance measures in order to not only assess progress (and effectiveness) but also ensure that rhetoric of digital government is matched by reality. If citizens are to benefit from the efficacy and potential cost-effectiveness of digital government, it is essential that traditional public sector structures and conventional governance paradigms are revised.
Keywords: e-Technologies, e-Service, e-Readiness, Digital Divide, e-Government
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Designing a Robust e-Policing System for Developing Nations of the World
Charles Ayo, Aaron Atayero, Nicholas Ikhu-Omoregbe, and Oludayo Olugbara. Covenant University, Canaanland, Ota, Nigeria With the recent clamour for an ICT-based government (e-Government) by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), better services are expected through e-health, e-education, e-business, e-police, and e-judiciary to mention just a few. Particularly, in a developing economy like Africa where governance is characterized by hunger, poverty, sickness, unemployment and war. E-Government will guarantee better quality services, transparency, economic empowerment, and higher productivity without gender discrimination.
This paper considers a robust e-policing system which is prime to e-Government and will guarantee a safe, secure, and crime-free environment for all and most importantly an environment that is conducive for foreign investment. This system incorporates Electronic Driving License (EDL) for tracking traffic offenders, enhanced e-surveillance through the deployment of internet camera and distributed patrol vehicles equipped with both electronic and mobile devices and possibly incorporating a Global Positioning System (GPS) for fast tracking of offenders.
The system ensures an increased police presence in the community which places a check on crime rate. Both EDL and Crime Record Database (CRDB) connects to a National Identity DataBase (NIDB) for effective monitoring and control.
Keywords: e-Government, e-policing, Voice recognition, and e-surveillance.
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The Virtual Workspace: Telework, Disabilities and Public Policy
Paul Baker1 and Alea Fairchild,2 1Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia USA 2Vesalius College and Vrije Universiteit Brussel The widespread adoption of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) while allowing for increased efficiencies in the delivery of services, facilitation of communication and online transactions, nevertheless excludes a portion of the population. Much of the focus of the technological discourse (in the US at least) has generally assumed that patchy use (or lack of use of) ICTs is a function primarily of socioeconomic variables. A consequence of these kinds of analyses is that a serious omission has occurred by neglecting a key group with functional limitations that go beyond relatively remediable conditions (i.e. economic, educational, locational): people with disabilities.
Policymakers are beginning to recognize the use of ICTs as being a reasonable workplace accommodation for people with disabilities but focused, comprehensive programs targeted at advancing these applications of ICT have yet to be developed. Universal accommodations, in this respect, can be thought of as local (to the person's home) as opposed to more global (workplace) preserving the idea that each person's disability is, in some sense, unique. The downside of the Virtual Workspace is its potential to marginalize and stigmatize people with disabilities; moreover, it may act to decrease (or at least alter) the kinds of social networks that disabled people have within their occupations. This, in turn, may be important because if the contacts are limited then people with disabilities operate at a disadvantage within the work environment.
This paper addresses a specific, and generally overlooked, aspect of the "Digital Divide" and discusses the use of Telework (ICTs) as a reasonable workplace accommodation, as well as providing increased access to governmental services relevant to occupational needs. This paper provides an overview of both the U.S. and European policies on telework for people with disabilities. We identify positive as well as suboptimal implementations of Telework and the Virtual Workspace and conclude, from our geographic comparison, with some suggested Telework related policy initiatives and areas that may merit further investigation.
Keywords: disability, telework, ICT, universal access
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A Risk Assessment Framework for Electronic Voting
Frank Bannister Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Electronic voting is one of the most basic uses of information and communications technology in e-democracy. It offers considerable scope not only for faster, less expensive and more efficient elections, but also the prospect of accurate and non contestable results. Its proponents claim that such technologies may make it possible, or a least more economic, to hold more frequent referenda and/or other forms of public consultation.
However e-voting is also deeply controversial. Paperless e-voting has been the subject of criticism on a number of fronts, not least from people in the computer industry and citizens concerned about the potential for widespread electoral error or fraud. Paper based voting systems have the great advantage of being both observable and verifiable; nothing is hidden in the bowels of some machine; everything is open to public scrutiny. Hence the demand for voter verifiable audit trail (VVAT).
In Ireland, the government undertook pilot runs of an e-voting in three constituencies in the 2002 general election. In each constituency, the system worked without major problems. The government therefore proposed extending the system nationwide for the local and European elections in 2004. Nonetheless, many people were unhappy about the lack of adequate testing and openness. A rising tide of public concern subsequently forced the government to set up a Commission on Electronic voting to examine the safely of the proposed systems in March 2004. Two months later, in May 2004, the Commission announced that it could not satisfy itself as to the safety and reliability of the chosen system and the government had to abandon its plans and revert to the old manual voting system.
Amongst the analyses on which the Commission based its conclusions was a risk analysis of the chosen electronic voting system. This paper looks at how this analysis was done and what it found and suggests that the framework used can be applied to any e-voting or even other technologies, such as on-line voting.
Keywords: e-voting, e-democracy, risk, risk management
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The Governance of Back Office Integration: Some Dutch Experiences
Victor Bekkers Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands In this paper we present the results of a comparative case study, in which several successful back office integration projects, in the Netherlands, have been studied. The goal of this article, is to identify critical factors which account for the success of ICT integration projects between back offices. In each case study we have asked relevant stakeholders to give us the main reasons, why the integration of the involved back offices was successful, looking at the complex mixture of co-operation and conflict between the involved information domains. The next question is: What do these findings tell us about the way in which back office integration should be organized? Should back office integration in e-Government projects be defined as a management problem, which is the rather dominant frame of reference of many information and project managers, who are heavily involved in the implementation of e-Government, or should back office integration be defined as a governance challenge?
In section two the concept of e-Government will be elaborated as well as the interoperability problems which will occur when more sophisticated services will be provided. In section three we will argue why it is important to define the integration of back offices as a complex mixture of conflict and cooperation between information domains, as a governance challenge. In section four a research strategy will be sketched which has been used to obtain information about the way key-figures who have been engaged in back office integration, deal with these problems of conflict and cooperation. In section five the results of four case studies will be presented. In section six the question will be answered if back office integration should be seen as information and project management challenge or a governance challenge.
Keywords: Integration back offices; project management; process management; governance; colloboration; consensus building; information domains; interorganizational information systems
7
e-Ombudsman: A Tool for Citizen Feedback on Policy Decisions
Lasse Berntzen Vestfold University College, Faculty of Social Science, Tønsberg, Norway This paper reports on one current effort by the Norwegian municipality Våler to implement a feedback system using paper based forms complemented by local government appointed ombudsmen to over-see the processing of the feedback. Following a short discussion of the ombudsman role as a mediator between citizens and government, a proposal is made to substitute this manual feedback system with a web-based tool (e-Ombudsman). The web-based tool facilitates effective communication between a citizen and a group of politicians and/or civil servants working together to fill the ombudsman role.
Keywords: e-Democracy, e-Participation, e-Ombudsman, policy evaluation, structured feedback
8
Accessibility of Public e-Procurement Websites: Methodology and Empirical Evidence
Guiseppe Bruno1, Emilio Esposito1, Michele Mastroianni2, Daniela Vellutino3 1University of Naples Federico II, Italy 2Second University of Naples, Italy 3University of Salerno, Italy This paper shows some results of a multidisciplinary research whose aim is to identify and test a methodology for the improvement of accessibility of public e-procurement services. The specific goal is to specify a group of attributes and characteristics that can be measured using quantitative indicators, which allow for the comparison of e-procurement web sites.
We assume that the main objective of an e-procurement public web site is to allow the access to the widest number possible of users. From this point of view is crucial to analyse the problem of evaluating the accessibility of e-procurement service considering both the web site (technical aspects and performance) and the user (needs and perceptions).
For this purpose, a model based on a hierarchical system (the tree of evaluation) articulated on three levels has been introduced. The tree of evaluation represents a powerful tool to improve the accessibility of e-procurement web sites. The first level represents the e-procurement web site as a whole, that is divided into a set of attributes (second level). Each attribute is defined through a set of characteristics (third level). The first level allows for a comparison among different service and synthesises the accessibility of the service. The second level individualises possible attributes to improve and the professional skills involved. The third level indicates what kind of intervention must be realised.
The weight that users assign to each characteristic and each attribute are evaluated through the so-called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is one of the powerful techniques of measurement which can be used to scale elements in a hierarchic structure with mutually independent elements in each level. The proposed methodology has been used to evaluate and compare several Italian public e-procurement services.
Keywords: Accessibility, E-procurement, Web sites evaluation, Indicators, Skills.
9
The Movement to an Information Society: A Comparison of Australia and Other Leading Information Society Countries
John Byrne1, Bill Martin1, Hepu Deng1 and Edward Halpin2
1School of Business IT, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 2School of Information Management, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK In recent times a number of indices have been published purporting to benchmark the development of various nations in e-Government preparedness or their movement towards information society status. Each of the indices appears to use a number of different criteria, although in some cases the criteria appear to overlap. In this paper we evaluate a number of these indices and use them to try and compare e-Government preparedness and information society status for a basket of leading industrial countries. The nations considered are made up of European Union countries, leading Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. We build a single index encompassing many of the available indices in an attempt to rank these countries.
Keywords: benchmarking, ranking, e-Government, information society
10
Organizing e-Government for Small Local Government Organizations
Walter Castelnovo1 and Massimo Simonetta2 1Università dell’Insubria, Como, Italy 2Ancitel Lombardia, Cologno Monzese, Italy According to a general definition, “e-Government is the continuous optimization of service delivery, constituency participation and governance by transforming internal and external relationships through technology, the Internet and new media”. Besides adopting ICTs for the implementation of on-line services, e-Government requires the reorganization of Public Administration in order to improve its efficiency and effectiveness through the use of ICTs. The reorganization of the back office of local government organizations is particularly crucial in contexts characterized by a large number of small local government organizations (SLGOs). Actually, administrative fragmentation has been identified as one of the most critical obstacles for the realization of e-Government, also because of the fact that SLGOs often lack the resources, organizational more than technological, which are necessary for the implementation of e-Government.
In the paper we suggest the associated management of services as an organizational model especially fitted to overcome the problem of the fragmentation of Public Administration, safeguarding the role of local autonomies. By elaborating on the concept of the associated management of services, the paper introduces the idea of Integrated System of Local Government (ISLG) as an organizational and technological platform for the sharing of resources between SLGOs and describes some organizational roles necessary for the setting up and maintenance of an ISLG.
In the definition of ISLG ICTs play a fundamental role, both as communication and coordination technologies. For this reason, we argue that the concept of ISLG can be considered both a pre-condition and a result of e-Government. It represents a pre-condition because it provides SLGOs a cooperative environment for sharing the resources necessary to manage technological and organizational innovation. At the same time, the implementation of an ISLG can be seen as the result of the application of ICTs in the reorganization of local Public Administration.
Keywords: e-Government, Networked Government, Small Local Government Organizations, back-office reorganization, inter-organizational cooperation
11
e-Democracy: A Solution for Disadvantaged Territories”
Flavio Corradini, Eleonora Paganelli, Alberto Polzonetti, University of Camerino, Italy The collaboration, comparison, relationships and involvement between public institutions and private (individuals or collectives) are more and more frequent in our society.
This work focuses on the concept of e-Democracy. It compares different (international) definitions and analyses both the organizational/methodological point of view and the technological ones of the basic elements for the design, implementation and management of an involvement project of the citizens to democratic institutions based on ICT.
In particular, we aim at analysing the impact on the citizens’ social life that results by the introduction a taxonomy of e-democracy parameterised by categories of services and citizens’ target. To the success of this aim at least the following two kinds of innovation are needed: on one hand, it is certainly needed a suitable adaptation of the way democratic
institutions operate in the new social context, with a more direct involvement of the citizens in the decisional processes;
on the other hand, it is mandatory to exploit, as much as possible, the opportunities offered by the information and communication technologies in order to keep open a constant dialogue with citizens.
Finally, we propose a technological (ICT-based) solution that allows the citizens participation to democratic institutions life also where census, culture and poverty makes it not possible.
Keywords: e-democracy , digital divide, identity management
12
Effect of Government Modernisation on Visually Impaired Staff in the Irish Civil Service
Natasha Cray, Fidelma Cotter and Denise Leahy Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
This paper examines how the deployment of Assistive Technology has eliminated potential barriers and increased e-Participation of visually impaired staff in the Irish Civil Service focussing on the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
Previous research showed how the lack of Assistive Technology limited the work experience of a person with visual impairment and the implications of this for career development and promotional opportunities. This paper investigates how recommendations made on the basis of that research were implemented and their effects.
Statistics from all visually impaired staff in the Department were used in the paper and these show that the use of Assistive Technology has changed the work practises of the staff in question. A comparative study, with statistics, was performed in the target Department in order to ascertain the changes and their impact.
The paper also shows how the modernisation of the Irish Civil Service is embracing technology and improving accessibility for staff with disabilities. Finally the paper shows how these changes can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Irish Civil Service.
Keywords: Visually Impaired, Civil Service, Assistive Technologies, e-Participation, Modernisation.
13
e-Government and the Re-use of Public Sector Information
Martin De Saulles University of Brighton, UK As the largest generators of information, local and national government bodies have a central role to play in the development of information-intensive economies. This includes information on the economy, census data and geographic data from land planning agencies. The EU Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information lays out guidelines for how public bodies should make this information available and mechanisms for charging users wishing to re-use and re-package it. The process of drafting this directive incorporated a number of consultations that generated a large number of responses from both producers and users of public sector information. At the heart of many of these responses lies a debate on whether, and if so how, public bodies should charge for the information they produce. At one end of this debate are those who argue for free and open access to this information on the basis that the broader economic and social benefits to society will outweigh any benefits to individual government bodies from charging for access. At the other end are proponents of the introduction of charging mechanisms which may encourage public bodies to act as commercial suppliers in the information marketplace. These arguments serve to highlight a number of important issues surrounding the economics of information as well as the role of government in the provision of information services to citizens and organisations. This paper explores some of these discussions and argues that an open access model of public sector information provision provides a basis for a more vibrant and inclusive European economy. These arguments are particularly relevant within discussions of e-Government as new interactive technologies and networks provide platforms for the efficient delivery of information to end users in a variety of formats.
Keywords: e-Government, re-use of public sector information, information markets
14
Responsiveness of e-Government and the Case of Slovenia
Mitja Dečman University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Administration, Ljubljana, Slovenia The paper discusses the importance of responsiveness in the implementation of e-Government services and introduction of new communication channels in public administration concerning government to citizen (G2C) and government to business area (G2B). As the e-Government is expending the horizon of government in new ways of doing business, offering services and communications, the technology is not the only obstacle on its path. The people that take care of communication, including those that are directly included in the services and those above, that are responsible for providing policy and management, are often rigid. Different researchers in the world are taking care of measuring and benchmarking e-communication levels of public employees and their organisations, especially concerning e-mails, to find out the situation in this area. As responsiveness is considered as the first step of establishing communication, either in e-service or e-democracy field, governments should take great care in it. Slovenia, as the country trying to be as developed in this area as possible, is shown in the results of the empirical researches as country that is basically at the beginning of e-Government and e-democracy communication development and therefore ready to learn from experiences of others. The paper presents the results of recent research made in Slovenia and the comparison to the results of previous four years. The comparison with the results of other researchers in this field elsewhere in the world is presented as well, analysing the importance of responsiveness as a part of e-Government communication channels for providing the better services for the citizens and developing e-democracy.
Keywords: measuring e-Government, responsiveness, benchmarking, communication.
15
The Translation of e-Voting Technical Requirements Into Specific Legislation. A Study of Three Spanish Cases
Jordi Barrat Esteve Constitutional Law Department / Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain During the last years, several European countries have begun experimental e-voting projects. The aim of these initiatives has been to recollect enough data in order to decide if these new electoral procedures are safe. Anyway, some countries already accepted these methods with a binding format (e.g. Belgium) and others, like Spain or France, are now beginning to accept binding e-voting experiences after a period of pilot essays. In these cases, it is compulsory that the Parliaments, or other competent bodies, pass detailed Acts. Since they are not pilot elections, the citizens have the right to have an electoral legislation with a complete translation of the technical guarantees of electronic voting into a specific and normal legal language.
This is not an easy task because electoral legislations have to be very accurate. The paper will analyze some of these new Acts in order to know how the Recommendation of the Council of Europe and other similar international guidelines could be included in our national legal documents. I will focus on the following three Spanish binding experiences: the Basque country e-voting Act and the legislation recently passed by the Barcelona Engineering Association and by the government of Andalucia for the election of the parents boards in the regional schools.
Although there are several democratic principles that any e-voting experience should respect, the paper will only analyze the auditability mechanisms of the systems (paper receipts, Electoral Boards, etc.). This is a key question since these electronic tools reduce the transparency and clarity of the traditional ballot boxes and each e-voting system tries to solve this problem in a different manner. I will analyze therefore the solutions provided by the three specific statutes previously mentioned. There are also other important issues like, for instance, the official information that the citizenry receives, the identification procedures, the freedom, secrecy and equality during the voting’s act and the social measures foreseen to reduce the digital gap, but the paper will be focused on the auditability problem.
Keywords / Keyphrases: electronic voting, legislation, Spain, law
16
Reviewing Policy, Practice and Potential of e-Consultation in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – A European Case Study
G Honor Fagan1, Michael Murray1 and Paul McCusker2 1National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis at NUI, Ireland 2Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland e-Government hasn’t really happened yet for citizens in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, but policy is beginning to be put in place. A review of the present state of e-Government on the island of Ireland concludes that unless you use the Internet to let people meaningfully interact with the process of governing and decision-making, you are not fully engendering citizenship. This paper analyses the potential to digitally renew democracy and digitally engender participatory forms of democracy at the level of (a) policy, (b) availability of technology and equally important, at the level of (c) the culture of politics in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Keywords : Public Consultation, Participation, e-Governance, e-Consultation
This research is funded by the European Union’s Peace & Reconciliation Fund.
17
Stakeholder Governance: Towards A Holistic Approach to Managing e-Government
Leif Skiftenes Flak Agder University College, School of Management, Kristiansand, Norway Improving efficiency and service quality in government operations is not just a matter of new technologies; it also involves clear vision and objectives as well as a sound business strategy. Clarity in vision and objectives are key concerns in the development of e-Government. Not only does e-Government impact traditional governance, there are significant challenges related to managing the development and implementation of e-Government itself. Yet little emphasis has been put on investigating management approaches and frameworks related to e-Government.
The public administration literature often describe the public sector as having multiple and often vague objectives. In addition, e-Government project settings are often highly complex, involving a variety of stakeholders whose interests are not always compatible. The nature of the complexity issue varies depending on type of e-Government project. Typical examples include horizontal and vertical sectoral integration of information, systems and work processes. Another complexity issue is the diverse users of e-Government systems. Online, or digital, public service provision is ideally targeted at every citizen. Until now, user requirements have typically been “suggested” by case handlers and public clerks based on their experiences with citizens requests. Yet little is known on how to identify and incorporate the actual citizens’ requirements into e-Government solutions. In addition, public agencies continuously struggle with the tradeoffs between increasing internal efficiency to reduce costs and providing innovative and citizen centric services.
This paper discusses the theoretical precepts for outlining a management approach for e-Government. Key e-Government management challenges are anchored in characteristics of public sector in general and descriptive theory of e-Government. This is supplemented with insights on organizational impact of IT. Stakeholder theory is outlined as candidate management framework and finally stakeholder governance is outlined as a promising approach to address the management challenges of e-Government.
Keywords: Stakeholder Theory, e-Government, e-Governance.
18
Evaluation of NMS e-Services Environment Within the Context of Four Specific Socio-Economic Domains: Towards the Promotion of a few Best Practices for Improving e-Inclusion and e-Participation
Panagiotis Germanakos, Eleni Christodoulou and George Samaras Computer Science Department, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Europe’s Lisbon strategy has reinforced e-Government as a potential ‘provider of major entomic boost by facilitating new and better services for all citizens and companies’. Equally important, it is expected to further ‘reinforce democratic development in Europe’. e-Government has emerged as a significant challenge in the information and Knowledge Society. Amongst others, as a promoter of public participation in decision-making and policy, e-Government is considered as the enabler of the e-Democracy Domain and its functional areas of e-Inclusion and Access, e-Participation and e-Involvement.
The issues identified as relevant for the development of a coherent and forward-looking European Information Society policy beyond 2005 could be considered e-Inclusion and citizenship, content and services, public services, skills and work, ICT as a key industrial sector, interoperability, trust and dependability and ICT for business processes. The Commission invites the Member States and other stakeholders to play an active role in elaborating the new Information Society policy for the coming years and to respond to the issues identified above.
Based on the latter consideration, in this paper we will explore the e-Services situation of Cyprus as a New Member State. It will be examined based on four specific socio-economic domains, namely: work and skills, the digital SME, social inclusion and regional development the level of e-Readiness of the governmental and business mechanisms to provide adequate e-Services to the citizens complying more with the European policies and strategies. Main emphasis will be given on the evaluation of the policies and research implications that should constitute an open interoperable infrastructure for the provision of better services in areas like e-Participation and e-Inclusion. Eventually, since the implementation of IT systems to enhance active participation of citizens and support the collaboration between actors for consultation, policy- and decision- making purposes is considered critical, the last part of this paper will be dedicated on the presentation of few local and trans-European best practices and their characteristics focusing on key areas like registration, payments, citizen services providing financial benefit and citizen services providing social benefits, e-Health, and people with disabilities.
Keywords: Cyprus, e-Government, e-Services, e-Democracy, Best Practices, Four Specific Socio-Economic Domains
19
Successful Implementation of ICT Projects in Government
David Gichoya Research School of Informatics, Loughborough University, UK In this paper, the characteristic challenges that developing nations face, which make ICT implementation in government fail to succeed are considered. A government is a huge and complex organisation, whose operations and strategic focus could be greatly enhanced by the well-focussed application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to support improvements in productivity, management effectiveness and ultimately, the quality of services offered to citizens. While the benefits of ICT in government cannot be disputed, there are several concerns about its success as well as the strategies to be adopted in implementation of systems in various countries.
After a thorough literature, a research framework for identifying the attributes of ICT implementation is designed and used. It shows how ICT implementation success affects ICT facilities quality and information systems quality. In turn ICT facilities quality and IS quality affect the perceived benefits. Each of these dimensions has some attributes that affect them.
A descriptive framework for categorising key factors in ICT implementation in government illustrated with references to the literature is proposed. The input variables are categorised into factors for success (drivers and enablers), and factors for failure (barriers and inhibitors). The output variables are categorized into organisational and technological benefits.
For success to be achieved, an action for success is proposed. This action require increasing the impact of factors for success while reducing the impact of factors for failure and using good practice. It also involves local improvisation to increase the chances of success.
To aid the development of a framework for ICT implementation in government, a case study is done in Kenyan government. The key factors are identified, synthesised and categorised under common broad categories. This results in a rich picture of ICT implementation experience that can help identify possible solutions.
The resulting framework builds on previous frameworks in terms of applicability to real life situations, its inclusive nature, its cohesiveness, and its ability to generate questions for further research. A careful review of ICT implementation in developed countries is done for identifying factors for success and failure and learning from good practice experience.
Keywords and phrases: Government informatics, ICT projects implementation, e-Government, information system, success and failure of ICT projects
20
ASP implementation of ERP for the Macedonian Government: From fiction to reality
Mijalce Gjorgiev University “Ss Cyril and Methodius”, Skopje, Macedonia The Governments all around the world are starting to offer their services online. Developed countries are leading this process in front of the developing countries. The gap with the time is increasing because of the old and inefficient inner processes, poor infrastructure and lack of qualified human resources embedded in the developing countries. Because of this the developing countries government needs approaches and tools through which it will be able to reorganize its self, offer quality services to its citizens and lower the gap with the developed countries in offering its services
Macedonian government its in the same position as the rest of the developing countries. By taking in account all the constraints that the Macedonian government is facing analyzing the appropriateness to use Enterprise Resource Planning through Application Service Provider in order to move the Macedonian government towards e-Government should clarify an option that the Macedonian government can use it.
Analysis of the current situation and readiness of the Macedonian government for e-Government is done by using researches performed by other parties. Various models are used to analyses the appropriateness for ERP and ASP and at the end identifying possible problems and issues in the implementation of ERP through ASP.
The governments in the developing countries should seriously consider to use the option for implementing ERP through ASP in order to prepare them self to digitalize its processes and start offering online services
The results can be used as a guideline not only by the Macedonian government but also by the other countries which are facing the same constraints and want to move towards e-Government to see what are the possibilities for usage of ASPs to move towards e-Government.
Keywords: e-Government, ASP, ERP, Developing countries,
21
e-HRM: New Organizational Paradigms in the Public Italian Administration
Ginevra Gravili Università degli Studi di Lecce- Italy e-Government has become a fundamental theme in the debate on the renewal and modernization of the country. But, the use of ICT in public administration is not new, having had it’s beginning some decades ago. And what has changed, then? As years passed into the second half of the nineties the application of the IT system to the Public Administration sector doesn't resolve more in the automation of the processes or in the recording of information in digital form. The true mission of e-Government today is to transform the operations of public administrations in a radical way, thanks to the use of ICT.
e-Government, understood as strategy aimed to use the opportunities offered by the new technologies to deeply modify the relationships between administrations and users, is a decisive factor to improve the efficiency of public administrations and to offer more timely services - easier access and better quality - to the consumers. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions.
There is much interest in Italy and abroad in utilizing the Internet to improve communications between governments and citizens. The Internet has great potential in giving individuals greater access to their governments, while at the same time improving efficiencies and cutting bureaucratic red tape.
Such objectives require adequate strategies on the slope of the technological adjustment, but they imply also the same incisive interventions on the organizational dimension - for the demand to project again the processes of job and the procedures on the base of the Information and Communication Technology - to manage the process of change.
The objective of this paper is to analyze, in light of the cultural, economic, and technological factors, the state of e-Government of the public administration in Italy. In particular, the present study briefly examines the notion of e-Government and its different meanings and emphasises its importance. Data from the Cranet data base is used in this analysis.
Keywords: e-Government; information society; best practice; organizational paradigms.
22
New Zealand’s Developing e-Democracy : People, Place, Culture, Difference
Dr. Mary Griffiths Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand Successful online enhancements of democratic practice depend as much on the specificities of people, place and culture as on technological innovation.
Boyle and Nicholson, in a snapshot of NZ e-Government, note that not only are Kiwis early adopters of technology, but that a 2001 UN benchmarking exercise placed New Zealand at number three in the world of e-Government. Listing the relative simplicity and scale of the country’s government system, the size of the population – and Wellington, the digital readiness of the population, and the cheerleading role that government have all contributed to the success of e-Government, they predict that the ‘transformation of government itself’ will be next. Assuring a healthy e-democracy depends on more than establishing these pre-conditions, or even the provision of online services to ‘citizen-customers’ in e-Government. A distinction needs to be made between two fields of policy-making and action, and the notions of citizen on which each depends. Secondly, specific NZ features of culture need to be identified which might impact on online uptake of government-citizen, citizen-citizen interactivity. Developing towards full citizen participation requires an understanding of bi-cultural history and protocols in NZ.
This paper first suggests ways of conceptualising the connections between e-Government and e-democracy, and canvasses arguments about ‘citizen-centric’ policy. Then, it identifies and discusses selected specificities of a bi-cultural NZ e-democracy: the re-invention of government, participation policy, the draft Digital Strategy, the governing and self-governing of cultural difference, Maori sovereignty, broadcasting content and national identity, and local e-democracy development, portals and lobbies. The more obvious top-down NZ drivers and agents of change are discussed, within an analysis of the likely future trends, before the argument is again put that the specificity of people, place and culture must take priority in policy-making over a culture-free notion of a one-size-fits-all-polities technological enhancement of democracy.
Keywords: e-Democracy, e-Government, culture, e-readiness, digital strategy, Maori participation.
23
Financing e-Government: A Study of Issues, Models, and Funding Strategies
Kenneth A. Griggs and Rosemary Wild Orfalea College of Business, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, U.S.A. This paper contains a preliminary report on a study of financial approaches employed by government entities in the funding of development and deployment of e-Government services. The paper examines a range of issues in structuring e-Government program financing that include cost/benefit analysis, contracting, risk evaluation, justification, and support models. A variety of mechanisms are cited including: user fees, micro-payments, premium services, targeted taxes, private sector incentive contracts, advertising fees, and other techniques.
Other relevant issues include the costs associated with providing accessibility to citizens with disabilities, low income, and the aged. The paper includes a collection of diverse examples of government experiments in the creation of cost effective and properly funded e-Government services.
Keywords: e-Government Financing; e-Government Funding Models; e-Government Planning; e-Government Cost/Benefit Analysis
24
e-Government in Greece: Opportunities for Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Local Government
Panos Hahamis, Jennifer Iles and Mike Healy Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, UK The EU is keen to promote the Information Society which is emerging today through various programmes and frameworks. Currently in Greece, the Operational Programme for the Information Society (OPIS) of the 3rd Community Support Framework by the European Commission is dealing with the promotion of ICT in all layers of society and especially in the public sector. However, e-Government appears shyly on the horizon in Greece, mainly with the creation and establishment of citizen service centres that act as public sector ‘one-stop shops’. Online presence is still in its infancy.
This paper examines the current stages of development of e-Government in Greek cities, municipalities and rural communities using C. G. Reddick’s model of e-Government development. Reddick identifies two stages: Stage I is characterised by the cataloguing of information online and Stage II by transactions being completed online. The model is applied to data from a content study of 460 central and local government websites, from an online survey that yielded a response rate of approximate 20% from employees in central and local government and from interviews with key government officials. These data, in corroboration with other studies on the use of the Internet and ICT in Greece, indicate that most central government and nearly all local government websites are at Stage I.
The reasons for this are discussed with reference to the technological, cultural and organisational challenges. It is recommended that the Greek government should prescribe and enact the adoption of e-Government measures, particularly by local government authorities in order to improve the delivery of services and the quality of government and public service efficiency.
Keywords: Information society, e-Government, EU, Greece, public sector, local government
25
Using e-Government to Improve the Quality of Local Authority Services
Mike Hart1 and Peter Byrne2 1University College, Winchester, UK 2Department, Winchester City Council, UK UK government policy has been to exhort local authorities to expand and develop the role of e-Government in their provision of services. One mechanism by which this is achieved is through the development of Implementing Electronic Government (IEG2) statements annually to ODPM detailing past progress and future plans. Whilst much has been achieved in terms of infrastructure, this paper examines some IEG2 statements in one of the counties of the UK (Hampshire) to examine the progress made to date. Whilst the provision of information online (via websites) and forms on line has been relatively straightforward, the move towards transactions on line has proved to be much more problematic. The relationship between electronic modes of access, quality of service provided and perceptions of quality will be addressed. The paradox of quality of service improvement without a commensurate increase in perceptions of quality will be addressed, including the possibility that increasing facility of access may create unrealistic expectations that are hard to meet. The paper concludes with an examination of the ways in which target-driven and check-list driven modes of monitoring performance and quality is a central feature of contemporary public administration and points to some of the dangers inherent in such an approach.
Keywords: e-Government, quality, local authority services, IEG2
26
e-Government, Public Policy and the Growth of Conditionality
Paul Henman Social Policy Unit, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Research on e-Government has generally focused on administration, service delivery and democratic processes. The implications of e-Government for the shape and substance of public policy is generally overlooked. This can be explained by the underlying assumption that information technology contributes to the processes of government, not its substance, thereby reflecting the traditional divide between public administration and public policy. Drawing on over a decade of detailed empirical research on the use of information technology in Australia and British government, this paper, nevertheless, illustrates how e-Government is contributing to changes in the substance of social policy. Of the range of changes, this paper examines how electronic data exchange networks are enabling and constituting conditional policies, whereby a person’s eligibility in one policy domain becomes contingent on their behaviour in another. Although eligibility to social services has always been conditional on the circumstances, situation and behaviour of citizens, there is now a proliferation of conditionality which now reaches beyond traditional organisational, policy and conceptual boundaries. For example, by linking eligibility to government family benefits to a child’s attendance at school, the formerly separate policy logics of social protection and public education become enmeshed. It is argued that the growth of these policy directions must be understood as a result of both the growth of a neo-liberal political rationality and developments in information technologies. A detailed case study of the e-Government project, the Australian Immunisation Register, and the Maternity Immunisation Allowance (a welfare benefit) illustrates the paper’s arguments. Other Australian and international examples will be given to demonstrate the wider applicability of the paper’s arguments.
Keywords: e-policy making; social policy; conditional; welfare; electronic data exchange
27
Towards Integrated Government: A Five Stage Architecture Model
Marijn Janssen and Anne Fleur van Veenstra Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Government agencies all over the world are in various stages of development to migrate their service and product catalogues from information, via communication to more horizontal and vertical integrated architectures. Most public agencies have felt the need for some form of on-line delivery of services and information by now. The ideal is to create information architectures able to capture and react to new events in real-time. Decision-makers, chief information officers and information-managers of government agencies have no support yet for decisions concerning the evolvement of their information architecture to support the delivery of their services. A kind of reference architecture describing various growth stages can support decision-makers. In this paper a stage model for the development of the information architecture for government agencies is presented and tested on applicability.
The stages are identified based on the fundamental concept of classification, discontinuity. Discontinuity helps to find the boundaries for groups of like things. We classify the various architecture stages based on technology developments. The proposed architecture development stage model for e-Government consists of five stages: 1) No integration, 2) One-to-one messaging, 3) Warehouse, 4) Broker and 5) Orchestrated broker architecture. In every stage the complexity of the technology increases, thus also the need for a higher level of organization increases.
The applicability of our architecture stage model was preliminary tested by conducting a number of interviews at two municipalities. Most of the interviewees indicated that the information architecture of their organization could be positioned in stage two and three. We found primarily that the need for an architecture stage model is two-fold. First of all, the current activities deployed by municipalities can be mapped according to some key characteristics and secondly, a roadmap for future development can be designed, since the model is a description of a logical path of architecture development with increasing technical and organizational complexity.
The interviews conducted to test the model had an explorative nature. Currently we are planning to test the architecture on a larger-scale using a survey. This survey will be submitted to information managers, ICT-architects and e-Government project managers of small, medium-sized and large municipalities and other government organizations. This survey aims at positioning the current status of the architecture of government agencies in the Netherlands. It also focuses on the fit between the stages and the real architectures.
Keywords: information architecture, local government, stage models, technology, middleware
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Not all the online political forums are futile: The case study of the “radical community”
Raphael Kies European University Institute, Florence, Italy This paper draws insights from several interviews (40) that online forums can play important democratic functions within political organizations. It focuses on a particularly interesting case study, the Italian party “radicali italiani”, and analyses three aspects: i) the technical and organizational characteristics of the forum; ii) the reasons for participating (or not) in the forum; iii) the functions that forum fulfills for the different political actors (leaders, activists and sympathizers).
Keywords: e-democracy; political parties; online deliberation;
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Product Classification and Description in Public e-Procurement: Are There Lessons to be Learned From Private e-Procurement?
Joerg Leukel1 and Gregory Maniatopoulos2 1University of Duisburg-Essen, Information Systems, Essen, Germany 2University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK In the EU, public sector procurement has undergone a paradigm shift in the last few years with government-based initiatives that fundamentally affect the way that government bodies perform their procurement activities. As a result of this movement, public e-procurement has drawn a lot of attention due to expectations towards reducing process costs, streamlining processes, shortening lead times, improving procurement services, and realizing reductions in procurement spending. Looking at recent developments in private procurement, we see considerable efforts to automating processes based on aligned, thus standardized descriptions of products and services being the object of all procurement activities.
A key instrument for achieving a common understanding of a product domain is classification by standard product classification schemes (standard PCSs). However, this current trend is yet not fully reflected in public e-procurement and its respective standard, the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV). This paper aims at providing arguments for the existing gap concerning product classification and semantic interoperability. We provide criteria for comparing the contributions of standards PCSs to private and public e-procurement. In addition, we evaluate two representative schemes, eCl@ss and CPV. By this comparison, we answer the question if there are lessons to be learned from private e-Procurement. Our findings may help standards makers in developing extended schemes for public e-Procurement.
Keywords: Public Procurement, Interoperability, Standards
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The Democratic Potential of South Korean e-Government: A Historical Institutionalist Perspective
Hyeon-Suk Lyu The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Despite the wide adoption of e-Government (e-Gov) for the implementation of administrative reforms around the world, the potential of e-Government in the democratic process has only recently begun to be recognized. The question then arises whether e-Gov-led practices promote participatory democracy. This paper explores the democratic issues associated with e-Government in South Korea using a new institutionalism framework for understanding the interaction between technology, human agency and institution. It provides a historical account, arguing for the historical and institutional embeddedness of e-Participatory projects.
Keywords: e-Government, Participatory democracy, Historical Institutionalism, Path dependency
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Transparent Government Inspections: Using the Internet to Strengthen Civic Competence?
Albert Jacob Meijer Utrecht School of Governance Modern inspection services are increasingly confronted with citizens that closely follow their actions. The work and the results of inspection services have been opened up to the general public. Transparency of inspection data has been viewed as a way to enable civic competence. Civic competence can be defined as a citizen’s ability to accomplish public tasks. From this perspective, the task of government is not only to directly enforce rules and regulations but also to enable citizens to pressure companies and public organizations into behaving according to popular demand.
The Internet adds a new dimension to civic competence. Publishing inspection data on the Internet enables citizens to get direct information about the performance of companies and public organizations. One can argue that the Internet creates opportunities for direct involvement of citizens in inspecting companies and public organizations. Civic competence – the ability of citizens to accomplish public tasks – could be strengthened through the Internet.
This paper presents the results of an explorative study into the increased transparency of government inspections and civic competence in two policy domains in the Netherlands: high school education and disaster management. In both sectors the research showed that the information was accessed by citizens but hardly used to influence companies, public organizations or inspection services. Websites enable civic competence but the opportunities are not used to a limited extend.
In short, the Internet offers governments opportunities to improve its regulatory functions. Electronic government is not only about better service provision but also about better regulation. Inspection services should be careful when using the Internet to avoid adverse effects. Apart from publishing data they should use the Internet for public debate on regulation. Stimulating citizens to get involved in the public sphere is an interesting challenge for electronic government.
Keywords: Government inspection, regulation, Internet, civic competence
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Consultation Cynicism: Whither e-Consultation?
Paul McCusker1, David O’Donnell2, Simon Stephens1 and Ann Marie Logue1 1Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Port Road, Donegal County, Ireland 2Intellectual Capital Research Institute of Ireland, Ballyagran, Ireland Citizens simultaneously occupy two positions in democratic society: they are both members of society and bearers of the political public sphere. As members of society (employees, consumers, taxpayers, patients, clients of state bureaucracies and so on) they are exposed to the requirements, benevolence and failures of the corresponding service systems—such systems viewed here as the primary responsibility of government. Private spheres and local lifeworlds, in turn, link to the public spheres of deliberative democracy. Not forgetting that in the final instance “only the state can act”—the threshold separating these spheres is viewed here as marked not “by a fixed set of issues or relationships but by different conditions of communication” that channel the flow of communication from one to the other.
We focus here on such “flows of communication” in the context of a discussion on consultation processes between state and citizen. This is a preliminary, but key, element in a larger ongoing research project on e-consultation. We present a simple argument and we pose a fundamental question. Based on focus group research, supplemented with some evidence from wider national contexts, we claim that there exists a massive culture of cynicism amongst citizens and community activists with respect to state initiated consultation processes. Many citizens remain totally unaware or gloriously oblivious of their existence; others totally ignore such processes and do not participate. Some view them as public relations (PR) exercises or as an expression of political correctness (PC). Others, as our focus group transcripts amply demonstrate, participate because they believe “they have to” in order to ensure that certain resources (usually material or financial) will flow in their direction. In other words they “play the game”, “doff the cap” and submit to the perceived power of the System within the consultation process to protect the interests of their Lifeworlds—but they do not really believe that their views are either listened to or that their views will have any substantive effect on policy—addressing Power these citizens exude power-less-ness—and such is definitively not consultation. We tease out some further, and more specific, insights from the transcripts in this paper. Finally, this brings us to our question: if such levels of cynicism exist—notwithstanding the sophistication of the technology employed—whither the effectiveness of future e-consultation processes? We present no simplistic, naïve or premature answers here—but we do grant precedence to e-Democracy over e-Government.
Keywords: consultation cynicism; e-Consultation; e-Democracy; Habermas; public sphere
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On the way to the Learning City? A Typology of Citizenship Management Using ICTs
Hélène Michel ESC Chambéry - Université de Savoie, Chambéry, France Public managers seek in ICT possibilities to generate new practices of citizenship or to make the existing practices more effective, in order to increase the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making process and to improve the services rendered by public organization. Indeed, jointly with the disavowal of the traditional processes, some authors see in the progress of the means of telecommunication new perspectives for an electronic citizenship through deliberative surveys and e-Voting. These tools seem particularly suitable for "citizen-consumers" accustomed gradually to the quality of service offered by the ICT and become more demanding and more critical about public organizations. The question is: How can a local government integrate the potential benefits of the ICT in its interactions with the citizens? The foreseen theoretical contributions are to clarify and create a model of the interactions between citizens and local elected, integrating the impact of the ICT. The aim is to give the public organizations a model for positioning their strategies and choosing the adequate tools.
Citizenship implies a certain model of relationship between citizens and their government. This type of relationship can be conceived in several ways. Citizenship would then be presented in the form of an "object to be governed" according to various modes. We analyzed the models resulting from the literature, highlighting their contributions and limits. This enabled us to define the elements infrequently studied by the authors and requiring a specific research. We then proposed a method of research-action and ran a two-year study in the town of Vandoeuvre (France). Thus, we elaborated a new model composed of four modes: e-Administration, e-Government, e-Governance and “The Learning City”.
Keywords: e-administration, e-Government, e-Governance, learning city, double loop governance
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U.S. Wireless Policy Landscape in the Disabilities Context
Helena Mitchell, Paul M.A. Baker, and Alan Bakowski, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Mobile wireless information and communication technologies (ICTs) have emerged as an important medium in which to communicate as well as to conduct transactions and to obtain information to assist in navigating daily activities. Deployment and adoption of new wireless technologies including cell phones and mobile computers could greatly increase the independence of people with disabilities, a key policy objective. Barriers (such as lack of awareness, economic, technological and regulatory) to the use of these technologies by people with disabilities can be mitigated through the development of appropriate policy. In the United States, the community of people with disabilities and those with a connection to people with disabilities represents a sizeable yet inadequately studied population. According to the U.S. Census, an estimated 49.7 million men, women and children have a disability that impacts their everyday activities.
Wireless technologies and mobile devices could be a key to helping persons with disabilities overcome the unique and diverse challenges they face. Only 25 percent of persons with disabilities own a computer, compared to 66 percent for non-disabled adults. In addition, only 20 percent of people with disabilities have access to the Internet, compared to over 40 percent of U.S. adults who are classified as non-disabled. The development of wireless technologies is influenced by a variety of factors including economic variables, key stakeholders such as policymakers, regulators, manufacturers, other industry interests, and end-users. This paper provides a background and overview of the U.S. wireless policy environment and identifies critical issues, opportunities and barriers that can be addressed within a policy framework in order to facilitate increased access to wireless and other information and governmental services, as well as an enhanced quality of life for people with disabilities.
Keywords: Wireless Technology, disabilities, U.S. policy, access
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From e-Gov to ‘we’-Gov – Social Inclusion, Government and ICT’s
Paul G. Nixon and Rajash Rawal The Hague School of European Studies, The Hague University, The Netherlands The paper examines the possibility of the potential of the increasing use of e-Gov to discriminate against certain groups within society. It then goes on to suggest possible remedies that may need to be factored into e-Gov programmes in order to maximise the use of the undoubted potential of Information and Communication Technologies.
There is little doubt that the notion of access to e-Gov services, whilst theoretically open to all, is in reality more unevenly distributed. Resources, knowledge and capabilities are not uniformly distributed. We can identify significant minority groups who are disadvantaged through the increasing use of e-Gov. For example those in rural communities have fewer open access facilities from which to access the internet. Internet cafes and library based access points abound in urban areas but there is a dearth of such facilities in many rural areas. Best practice from various case examples in Europe will be outlined.
There are issues of linguistic competencies that may add to the discrimination and alienation felt by immigrant communities this is particularly true for example of menu driven electronic phone systems, which assume a certain level of vocabulary in the host language which can cause misinterpretation leading to dissatisfaction and frustration.
Some older people may not have the skills to adapt to the changing environment. Clearly training needs to be given in internet and other skills. Whilst these are available at the moment there needs to be more encouragement if senior citizens are to take up that training and thus play a full role in a society which is increasingly basing its governance online or on other new ICT solutions wherever possible.
Keywords: Social inclusion, access, discrimination, knowledge,
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Determining Progress Towards e-Government: What are the Core Indicators?
Adegboyega Ojo1, Tomasz Janowski and Elsa Estevez2 United Nations University, Macao, China There are several well-established surveys that focus on e-readiness, digital divide and other factors central to e-Government. These surveys differ in a number of dimensions: some are qualitative while others are quantitative, some concentrate specifically on e-readiness while others on digital divide, and some use individual variables while others employ aggregate measures. The resultant effect of this diversity is the difficulty in determining the true progress towards e-Government.
This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of three well-known international benchmarking series on e-readiness, all carried out from 2000 to 2004: UN e-Readiness Reports; Accenture e-Government Leadership Reports; and Global e-Government Reports from the Centre for Public Policy, Brown University.
We reveal the degree to which these surveys agree and diverge in their outcomes, and provide explanations for the differences. In addition, we identify a set of ‘core indicators’ for assessing e-readiness based on the data provided by the three surveys, and suggest ways in which weights may be determined for these indicators. Finally, we examine the notion of a ‘target e-ready state’ and how it may provide a scale for determining the progress of individual countries towards e-Government.
Keywords: e-Readiness, e-Government, e-Government Indicators, Benchmarking, Target e-Ready State
1 Adegboyega Ojo is on leave from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. 2 Elsa Estevez is on leave from the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina.
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Processes Modeling Towards e-Government – A Comparison of Modeling Methods
Sebastian Olbrich School of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps University at Marburg, Germany In the recent years, most of the states around the globe did huge effort in their e-Government programs. Yet, the majority of these efforts did not pay off as expected. We believe one of the reasons is that little time and effort has been spent on modeling public processes. Often, there has been no detailed process analysis on e-Government taken place before starting the programs.
A number of methods exist for modelling of business processes. Some of these methods, such as “event-driven process chains”, are used to represent the processes embedded in major enterprise resource planning software (e.g., SAP R/3) or to guide the customization process during the implementation of such software. In principle, these methods can be used to model government processes too. However, government processes are usually more regulated than business processes, especially those process parts that are carried out within a governmental organization. We, therefore, propose to take a closer look at the needs for modelling public processes.
As a first step, the paper points out the characteristics of the public workflow. Afterwards, these characteristics are employed in order to develop requirements for public process analyzes and criteria for a suitable modeling method. For instance, a modeling method should know extensions to show the impact of the legal framework or of other peculiarities on public processes. Finally, we compare the most spread modeling methods on the market using these criteria. We differ between formal modeling tools like the UML, Petri-Nets and informal ones like EPC, Flow-Charts, etc. Given these analyzes we are able to derive recommendations when to bring into play which method.
As a demonstration example, we model the distribution process of new phone numbers at the German regulation authority for telecommunication and post, the “Regulierungsbehörde für Telekommunikation und Post” (RegTP). Since only registered phone companies can apply directly for phone numbers at the RegTP, the process describes an interaction between private businesses and the administration. In this sector, E-Government efforts should soon pay off, if public and private processes can be managed to harmonize.
Keywords: e-Government, public process modeling, administrative workflows, modeling methods, RegTP
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Payment Procedures for Electronic Government Services
Key Pousttchi and Dietmar Wiedemann University of Augsburg, Germany In electronic commerce (EC), market participants had to realize that the potential of business models only based on sponsoring or advertisement is limited. In order to generate direct revenues, adequate forms of payment are required. Thus, the integration of payment functionalities in EC applications is crucial.
Although the reason is different, we find the same problem regarding electronic government (EG). Citizens and enterprises (further referred to as users) are increasingly able to use EG services on the Internet. However, whereas simple and free information services are already widespread, the introduction of services with costs is a major difficulty because their implementation in EG underlies a special set of requirements and restrictions. Nevertheless, solving the paying problem in EG could prove to be beneficial for EC, too, as such a solution could introduce a de-facto and legally secure payment standard for many applications.
EG services are not only beneficial to users but also to public agencies. Users receive faster and more convenient services with a smaller error rate and a larger transparency of the services from a more responsive and informed public agency. Public agencies themselves realize benefits in the form of improved efficiency, effectiveness, quality of services and proximity to users. These potentials are far from being utilized to their full extent if EG services lack electronic payment functionality. In connection with EG services with costs adequate payment procedures are most important in realizing the potential of EG and provide an essential infrastructure precondition for EG services connected with fees, contributions, deliveries and taxes.
As is shown in the paper, for many EG services it is necessary to select a procedure meeting a special set of requirements and restrictions. The nearly unclear number of payment procedures currently available on the market and the dynamism of the payment system complicate the search and the selection of a suitable payment procedure. The selection is thus no trivial task and must take into account the circumstances of each individual EG service. For example, requirements to a payment procedure in connection with an EG service frequently used by a professional are of a quite a different nature as with an EG service rarely used by a citizen. For this reason, the weight of some requirements could differ from EG service to EG service.
The aim of this paper is to examine some of the relevant characteristics of payment procedures with a focus on the special set of requirements to payment procedures in order to be used for EG applications. Based on this, we provide a scheme that allows public agencies to specify the requirements of their EG service to a payment procedure and to assess any given payment procedure for compliance.
Keywords: electronic government, payment procedures
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A Roadmap for European Research in Learning and Knowledge Creation in e-Government
Jeremy Rose1 and Martin van Rossum2 1Aalborg University, Denmark 2ELANET, Brussels, Belgium The principal effort in the first wave of E-Government research and innovation has been directed at transactional efficiency and improving services to citizens across the net, and focused on cost saving. However the second wave of e-Government research could be directed at second order improvements which are only possible on the back of efficient transactional services: learning and knowledge creation. The paper reviews the current state of research in learning and knowledge creation in European e-Government and finds it fragmented, particularly between basic technological research and that based on social theories of community. It suggests a roadmap for European research which addresses this fragmentation
Keywords: e-Government, knowledge management
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Towards a Multi-measurement Platform of e-Government Projects and Services
Pierre Rossel and Matthias Finger EPFL-CDM-MIR, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland In 2005, e-Europe is entering its second phase and evaluation tools and programs are to be urgently developed, deployed and discussed. Economic benefits of e-Government undertakings are of course a major concern and should be considered not only in the narrow sense (where cost reduction of administration activity can be effectively acknowledged), but also in a larger sense, bringing into the picture possible counter effects due to external cost increase as well as learning costs. However, measuring the value of e-Government projects and practices should go beyond this mere cost-minded appraisal as more profound reasons support the implementation of e-Europe, i.e., overall competitiveness based on increased knowledge capabilities for a large variety of actors, increased well-being, citizen and inter-regional equity, administration user empowerment and more globally the building up of a more pervasive, yet consistent Information Society.
This multi-dimensional set of goals requires an evaluation toolset allowing reporting upon a large and heterogeneous number of features. Based upon various past and current European projects, as well as in-depth national experiments in e-Government processes, we have conceived a polar compass comprising ten evaluation dimensions, each one being broken down into more discrete components of “measurable” nature. Their regrouping into one single evaluation tool aims at dynamically confronting the more quantitative goal of carrying out benchmarking operations among equivalent sorts of e-Government programs or services, with the more qualitative assessment of given programs or e-Services.
The problem is also to avoid reaching an excessive convergence or conformity, and leave room for creativity and diversity. When more than 95 % of European political entities will have their e-portal, when the nations having today a 65 % Internet access will have got the 95 % mark, and the currently less digitalized nations a 75 to 85 % Internet access, this open issue of conformity/creativity (or convergence/diversity) may as a matter of fact prove to be vital. Any tool bearing this medium-term provision is therefore claiming an important added-value to start with. As new forms of computing pervasiveness and user-knowledge emerge as inevitable lifestyle standards and commonalities, a measuring toolset capable of appraising e-Government transformations in terms of immediate achievements as well as more open, qualitative, open-scenario compatible developments seems to be a safe bet, at least one to be worth discussing. Concrete references of past research and ongoing observations will help documenting our point. Envisaged as a continuing evaluation activity, it can stem the very basis of an e-Government observatory.
Keywords: evaluation, benefits, appraisal, tools
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Reference Model based Process Performance Measurement – Enabler of an efficient e-Government
Christian Seel and Christine Daun
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbruecken, Germany Facing the immense investments related to e-Government, the Return on Investment (RoI) ensured by cost decreases or effectivity increases has become a central aspect. Nevertheless, the implementation of Information and communication technologies (ICT) doesn’t lead compulsorily to the expected effects. Experiences have shown that – especially within the sphere of Public Administrations (PAs) – increased ICT-investments don’t necessarily correlate with improvements in productivity. Keeping this productivity paradox in mind, the necessity of organizational changes has to be considered as basis for the effective ICT-usage and the corresponding realization of an adequate RoI. Reference models constitute a well-proved and widely accepted instrument to merge technological and organizational aspects. Benefits of a reference model’s usage are e. g. time and cost savings or best practice provision.
Concerning the last-mentioned aspect, adequate and approved performance indicators complementing the ideal type of process structures should be incorporated into the reference model. Thus the controlling of the e-Government processes’ efficiency according to the PA’s aimed strategical goals is facilitated. Additionally, a benchmarking among various PAs can be conducted quite easily if their e-Government processes are based on such reference models and the corresponding indicators. On the other hand, these indicators may as well be benchmarked with the same indicators in conventional processes that don’t use ICT thus showing the potentials of e-Government and justifying further efforts.
The resulting awareness on the process performance as well as the realization of a comprehensive process performance management enables the achievement of an adequate RoI. Comparing the actual performance with the relevant target values deduced from the e-Government strategy or from the benchmarking, the PA is able to monitor the process´ effectiveness and efficiency, so that the intended productivity and financial effects of the e-Government implementation are ensured.
Keywords: benchmarking, reference model, process performance, reference architecture for e-Government
The presented paper is based on results of the research project “RAFEG – Reference Architecture for e-Government”, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research.
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Balanced e-Government Implementation
Kris Snijkers Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium The implementation of e-Government seems to be a difficult matter. During the 1990’s a lot of promising policy documents were published in countries throughout the world. However, the actual realizations often do not fullfill the intended goals. In this paper we want to analyze the way in which e-Government projects are implemented and the pittfalls that accompany this implementation.
We distinguish three important elements in e-Government implementation: (1) technology (ICT), (2) back-office administrative reforms and (3) front-office use of applications and public services. These three elements are mutually interrelated and interdependent. These elements are not necessarily phases that follow each other in a chronological way. It is possible that a country first looks at technology and the way in which this technology can improve back-office processes before the front-office applications are developed, but this is not always the case. It is possible to start with the front-office and only in second instance to look at the back-office. However, the choice that is made and the priorities that are set can create a strong path-dependency. When the emphasis is placed on one specific element, this can have a negative impact on the further development of an e-Government project.
In this paper we will elaborate a theoretical framework concerning the three elements of e-Government implementation and will look at the relationship and the balance between these elements from the viewpoint of different public administration theories (rational policy-model, incremental policy-model). Next, we will apply this theoretical framework to the e-Government policy of the Flemish government. The Flemish government started a large e-Government project in 1999. During the past five years this project was amended several times. We will look at the way in which the Flemish government focussed on the three elements of e-Government implementation and tried to find a balance between them.
Keywords: e-Government, back-office, front-office, policy development, policy models, Flanders
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GUIDE Open Identity Management Architecture Design – Key Contribution to the Further Advancement of e-Government Throughout Europe
Kamelia Stefanova1, Dorina Kabakchieva1.and Lia Borthwick2 1Centre for Information Society Technologies, Sofia University, Bulgaria 2British Telecom, United Kingdom This paper presents the main research aspects of creating a European Identity Management Architecture for e-Government within GUIDE, a project in the e-Government field, financed by the 6FP of the EC. The GUIDE achievements will contribute to the further development of the European Research Area, enhancing the methods and scope of activities. These efforts, address the modernization and innovation of the European Identity Management e-Government solutions, and will contribute to the open mobility of European citizens and businesses within Europe, making European Citizenship and Common Market a reality.
The paper discusses the European dimensions of Identity Management e-Government issues. The scope of the research activities is determined, including GUIDE’s position within the e-Europe initiatives and the variety of standards, relevant to identity management and interoperability, which will be considered for the project fulfillment. The design methodology and the architecture functionality, achieved as a result of the collaborative project partners’ efforts, are briefly presented. The development of Open Identity Management Architecture is based on the Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework and is foreseen as a Service Oriented Architecture. Due to the need for a highly secure approach, it will be implemented by using the Web Services Security Model. The eight axioms driving the GUIDE Architecture design are further described, leading to the definition of the Identity Management Grid and the Generic Identity Management Co-operation Model.
The e-Government concept involves significant transformations along institutional, policy, legislative, and technological lines. The encompassing interdisciplinary approach to Identity Management used in GUIDE seeks to overcome the existing fragmentation of initiatives, which inhibits the seamless and efficient operation of e-Government services they are designed to facilitate. The re-design of existing structures and processes with the aim of improving collaboration between and across different government departments and the harmonization of e-Government practices on a pan-European level are the main challenges GUIDE addresses.
Identity Management can be applied to many different e-Government services solutions by creating a consensus on European Identity Management Architecture. Identity Management Services can be key contributions to the further advancement of e-Government throughout Europe to create the European market leadership.
Keywords: Identity Management, Open IdM Architecture, e-Government, Interoperability
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Feasibility and Priority Study for Presenting Health Services over the Internet
Amir Talaei-Khoei1, Mohammad Kazem Akbari1, Mojtaba Talaei-Khoei2 and Anahita Hassanzade1
1Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 2Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran Electronic Health services are ambiguous when viewed from a technological point of view: on the one hand (technological) innovation is abundant in diagnostic, surgical and monitoring equipment. On the other hand the organization of healthcare is traditionally focused on providing medical services within institutions which are run in a fairly bureaucratic manner. Information technology application on an institutional level is usually focused on administrative applications with a more traditional and conservative outlook on innovation. But for putting “e” in health services needs the essential methods to provide the all requirements of health system stake holders. In developing e-health system, Firstly, through the analyzing e-heath system, situation in countries without IT industry, six main participating parts are identified and for each, several problems are determined by considering PIECES framework. Secondly, by statistical analyzing, the importance and intensity of each problem are surveyed. After suggesting eleven e-health services, we also have defined several enhancing and restricting parameters and collected their statistical data. Service feasibility identification is made through considering the effect of enhancing and restricting parameters on it. Finally, applying AHP method for our two-criteria problem, the priority of feasible services was set.
Keywords: Electronic Health, Enhanced and Restricting Parameters, AHP
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e-Government and Interoperability
Efthimios Tambouris1 and Konstantinos Tarabanis2 1Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Thessaloniki, Greece 2 University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece In this paper we study interoperability in the context of electronic government (e-Government). We start by presenting a review of relevant literature aiming to define interoperability and determine its role, significance and potential in the context of e-Government. The reviewed literature includes documents by the European Commission and other organizations as well as reports presenting the results of standardization bodies, initiatives and projects. We then present our experiences from a recent study aiming to formulate recommendations for a national strategy towards interoperability. This study focused on organizational (rather than technical) aspects of interoperability and specifically evaluated interoperability between the Greek Citizens Centers (acting as front-office) and the back-offices at various public authorities.
Keywords: Interoperability, organisational change, e-Government, Citizens Centers.
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A Preliminary Analysis of an e-Government Market Segmentation
Tim Turner, Andrea Schwager and Ahmed Imran
University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Forces Academy, Campbell, Australia This paper presents some early results from research in progress investigating whether the use of market segmentation can aid in the design of e-Government services. The paper reviews the formal characteristics of market segmentations and then considers a previously proposed segmentation in this light. The paper proposes measurement dimensions to aid in identifying e-Government service segments. The paper presents initial findings of the segmentation being reviewed in the light of transaction data for e-Government services available to the researchers. Analysis of the data using the measurement dimensions developed reinforces the belief that the segmentation proposed is mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Further analysis is underway to attempt to reinforce the belief that the segments display differential responsiveness.
Keywords: e-Government; Market Segmentation; IS Design
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A Project on e-Government and e-Health: The Creation of an Epidemiological Data Warehouse On-line Exploiting the Workers Sickness Data
Marco Zanotelli1, 2, Diego Zamatteo2 and Giulio Giannetti2 1University of Milan, Italy 2INPS - National Social Security Institute, Rome, Italy This paper describes a project led by INPS (National Social Security Institute, the biggest welfare institute in Italy) in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Health, pertaining both to e-Government and e-Health domains, and that is aimed at the development of an innovative large Epidemiological Data Warehouse (EDW) on-line that will exploit the sickness data of workers and of the related firms. By this project, INPS intends to render available fundamental information and in-depth knowledge about the health status of the population, by treating and aggregating elementary data otherwise not suitable for analysis. The creation of this EDW is coupled to an e-Government application which is being currently accomplished by INPS and that is going to become compulsory by a specific state law inserted in the main Italian financial law for year 2005: the electronic compilation and submission of sickness certificates of workers to INPS by the family doctors. This application allows for a continuous augmentation of the EDW, that will become in this way the base for a monitoring system able to map the health status of a large fraction of the population, even day by day. This Data Warehouse will constitute indeed an achievement of extraordinary importance, since it is unique not only in Italy but also at European level. The value of the EDW is given by the fact that it pertains to the majority of the working population in Italy: nearly all the dependent workers of the private sector, several categories of the public sector and most self-employed workers, reaching a total of more than 20 million people. Based on this Data Warehouse, a wide number of epidemiological analyses and studies will become possible, especially about the incidence of professional and work-related diseases, also in view of finding suitable counter-measures. The EDW, that meets a request from the medical and scientific community, will constitute an integrated system for the collection and dissemination of health information at all levels of the society: the Ministry of Health, the Local Health Units, other authorities, academic and research centres, the whole public. The project follows the guidelines of the European Commission (Programme of Community action on matter of Public Health 2003-2008) and in particular, with reference to the 2004 work plan, it focuses on the priority area of health information, developing and coordinating an health information and monitoring system.
Keywords: e-Government, e-Health, Data Warehouse, Epidemiology, Health information system, Health monitoring system.
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The Impact of the ICTs on Local Power Relationships
Philipp Zimmermann1 and Matthias Finger2 1University of Applied Sciences Valais, Sierre, Switzerland 2Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland This paper is grounded in the empirical reality of a growing use of the information- and communication technologies (ICTs) in public administrations at all levels, even though we will focus here exclusively on the local level. Generally, such ICTs are being introduced in an organization in order to increase operational efficiency, quality, and transparency. Thus, most research focuses on such issues. However, besides these intended effects, the introduction of the ICTs also leads to substantial changes in the power relationships among all involved actors. Consequently, and as a result of ICT enhanced or modified operations, some of the actors will increase their power, while others will loose some of their power. So far, little research has been done on the impact of ICTs and e-Government initiatives on the power relationship between the public sector and its stakeholders and the existing literature does not properly conceptualize and even less so address the issues of power in such contexts. This, however, has to be done if one does not want the public sector to loose some of its power when making use of ICTs.
This paper therefore studies the implications of ICTs on the changing power relations in local public administration settings. We work with a stakeholder approach and have identified, at the local level, the following relevant stakeholders of a public administration in Switzerland: citizens, businesses, other public administrations, politicians, parliament and justice, NGO’s / IO’s / associations, media, and, finally, employees. On the basis of our stakeholder model, which is grounded in an indepth analysis of literature on stakeholder theory in public administration settings, we will systematically analyze the change (increase/decrease) of power in the relationship between the administration and the identified relevant stakeholders. We will finally try to assess who wins and who looses power as a result of the introduction of ICTs in particular and of e-Government efforts in general. As such, our paper is a contribution to further theorizing the way the public administration adapts thanks to the ICTs.
Keywords: Information- and communication technologies (ICTs); local administration; power relationships; stakeholder theory.
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Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Voter Turnout in New Zealand Local Election 2004
Jacky Zvulun University of Otago, New Zealand In 2001, the New Zealand government passed the Local Electoral Act. One aim was to modernise local government legislation and in particular to provide general empowerment for local authorities in respect of the socio- economic, environmental and cultural well being of their communities, as part of a more general devolution process. Electoral reform at the local level had been partly prompted by the major changes that had already occurred at the national level with the introduction of the German-modeled Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system in 1996. One of the advantages of MMP – with its list component - as compared with FPP was that it encouraged voter mobilization by providing incentives for smaller parties and other groups and movements across the nation. The normal expectation was that participation, namely voter turn out would increase.
Particular clauses in the Local Electoral Act allowed local discretion in the choice of electoral systems. Local authorities could use either the First Past the Post (FPP) or the Single Transferable Vote (STV) in local elections. Additionally, District Health Board (DHB) elections were to be undertaken using STV. Local councils could choose between FPP and STV themselves, or set up referendums and allow the community to decide. Only ten city councils out of a total of 86 (11.6%) opted for STV.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of STV in those ten city councils. I would expect that STV would lead to greater turnout, especially in those councils where mobilization may have already occurred during the previous FPP/STV referendum. This paper will compare the turnout data within the STV electorates and between STV and FPP electorates, and compare turnout rates over the last three election cycles .The second part of this paper looks at voter turnout in relation to e-voting. It argues that implementation of e-voting in New Zealand local elections would not increase turnout to any great extent. The paper will show that STV it is not a factor contributing to low turnout but neither did it increase turnout in the 2004 local elections. Regarding e-voting, it suggests that it would not make any difference on voter turnout in New Zealand.
Keywords: voter turnout, local elections, electoral system, local government, proportional representation e-voting.
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Towards Electronic Governance – Gaining Evidence for a Paradigm Shift in Governance From Federated Identity Management
Thomas Zwahr, Pierre Rossel, Matthias Finger College of Management of Technology, Lausanne The paper is conceptual in nature. It presents a model with which the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in governance systems can be described, explained and forecasted.
A governance system is a dynamic environment in which at least two actors work on a common problem. The model uses three distinct and static variables, namely actors, levels, and functions, to capture a snapshot of such a governance system. The governance system is characterized by its governance mechanisms and governance structures, the so-called physical layer. The model describes how ICTs are used to mirror the physical layer of the governance system. The result of the mirroring process is called logical layer. It offers a higher level of abstraction than the physical layer and reduces the complexity of the governance system. Hence, the logical layer facilitates the analysis of the mechanisms and structures of the governance system. The results of the analysis are reversely implemented into the governance system by means of ICT.
The model allows anticipating, whether the implementation of a new technology into a governance system can achieve its objectives. Thus, the paper contributes significantly to the emerging dialogue of what electronic governance is and how information and communication technologies should be used to govern collective problem solving processes. Keywords: governance systems, electronic governance
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Maximising the Macroeconomic Benefits of e-Government
John Alexander HISL Limited, Redditch, UK The situation in computing today is analogous to the evolution of industrial power generation a century ago where local power, such as generated by waterwheels, (microeconomic – used for competitive advantage) was superseded by the national grid (macroeconomic – shared utility), which was both cheaper and more reliable. The objective of this paper is to outline a radical approach to maximise the macroeconomic benefits of e-Government through the creation of a comparable shared utility. The hardware side of the equation, both computers and data communications equipment, continues to fall in price and increase in reliability. However, in order to maximise the benefit of that infrastructure the transaction processing software side needs to be completely overhauled.
The paper starts by revisiting the original value proposition of standalone computing, the substitution of labour with capital (both computer hardware and transaction processing applications), and highlights the importance of the value creation process (holistic process redesign and application development). The same value proposition and value creation arguments are then re-applied to the “e” platform, i.e. networked real-time computing with ubiquitous access for all (Web Browsers), including mobile computing.
The result is a radically different architecture, moving from multiple IT Departments to a single shared Utility, and subsequently a very different business model with today’s internal cost centres being replaced by application services delivered by this new Utility. From an economic perspective IT is no longer a large operational cost, major capital expenditure and a significant operational risk for organisations, these costs and risks are replaced by a monthly bill (as per the other Utilities). Only such an approach can radically transform the delivery of public services and reinvent the way in which public service providers and citizens interact. Today’s approaches to e-Government are extensions of the traditional computing model and have not, and can not, deliver radical change. Indeed, there are few signs of any positive return on investment to date.
The paper then touches on the problems associated with the value creation process today and outlines a solution that enables this radical transformation to be managed incrementally.
The paper ends with a challenge. Consider how you would re-apply the original business proposition of computing to tomorrow’s inexpensive, high bandwidth networked computing infrastructure. If you can devise an economically more efficient, functionally more effective, or operationally more robust solution with a less expensive, lower risk transformation and transition plan then I would be very happy to discuss it with you.
Keywords: shared utility, value creation, maximise macroeconomic benefit, e-Government
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The Transnational e-Government Agenda: Key Policy Issues for the European Union and its Member States
Manuel Baptista GOPA-Cartermill, Brussels, Belgium Since the 1990’s, a transnational e-Government agenda has emerged from strategic initiatives taken by a number of leading countries, international organisations, the European Union, and major consulting, research and IT companies. This agenda and its commonly accepted principles are now inspiring supranational, national and regional e-Government programmes throughout the world.
This paper argues that the agenda is not politically neutral and goes beyond the use of information and communication technology by Government to improve its processes. Indeed, the agenda conveys a new vision for the entire public sector and has the potential to transform the relationship between state, citizens and businesses. In this respect, the agenda is not really new, but it enables, magnifies, and accelerates the implementation of public sector reforms that have been at work since the 1970’s and particularly since the 1980’s in the so-called Western world. There are however a number of conflicting policy elements within the agenda, such as ‘increased government transparency’ versus ‘increased citizen surveillance’.
The technological aspects of e-Government have often relegated the debate to a community of experts from the public, academic and industry sectors. This paper argues that the political aspects of e-Government should be brought to a more public debate. e-Government policies can be seen both as a sub-set and a driver of government and public sector reform, and their implementation raises or amplifies a number of political issues in the following areas: Government and governance: ideology, policy, strategy. Further privatisation of the
public sphere and the changing role of government. Public administration reform: impact on services, service delivery, service take-up, and
the re-organisation of public administrations. Democracy: political participation, citizen engagement, and the future of representative
democracy. Competitiveness: governments, businesses, people, and strategies for growth. Security and control: identification, authentication, data-sharing, border security and the
surveillance society. Technology policy: system interoperability, open standards and open source software,
and the future of the software industry. All of these issues imply a number of choices within the framework of the EU and its Member States. Such issues should be publicly debated and dealt with by the political system before any major strategic e-Government choices are made. However, this is rarely the case, as the agenda provides a number of obvious pre-made choices deemed to be applicable to all situations regardless of political preferences and often presented as the inevitable result of technological progress.
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e-Governance as a Challenge for Knowledge Society
Jaro Berce, The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Sevilla, Spain The complexity of supplying information and services on-line through the Internet reveals both the difficulty and the richness of the e-Government concept. It is not about connecting and offering information and services on-line or electronically, but about how organized and networked the back-offices of government organizations are. It is hence more about internal changes in organizational structures. These changes bring together human networks and Information Communication Technology networks (Intranet or Internet) as enablers. Only through a joint effort in the two fields of organization and technology can efficiency and effectiveness be improved.
The creation of an accurate system for measuring intangible constituents is a challenging task that cannot be entirely done by direct means. In this research, the task was carried out by the means of two distinguished approximation methods. One involved the qualitative dimension: policies, programs and implementation strategies to promote knowledge management and networking and learning organization activities with the help of Information Communication Technology. The other involved the quantitative dimension: the creation of statistical measures in monitoring and evaluating e-Governance development initiatives based on ICT, knowledge management and learning organization practices. The questionnaire survey method and other resources (observations, administrative resources) were used to collect the data required.
Through the course of research these activities were segmented. This method helps to capture all the human and organizational factors that are important for delivering good e-Governance, and goes beyond the formation of Information Communication Technology. Through the course of research a multidimensional method was introduced, as opposed to present-day models that describe only one dimension of government digitalization (e-Government and i-Government) through usage of Information Communication Technology, introduces two new dimensions: Knowledge Management and Learning Organization behaviour.
Results show that a strong linking of all mentioned factors (social, economic, technology) and their proper transform order are the winning solutions. The answer lies with recognition of peoples dimension: knowledge (people’s and organization’s), sharing and networking knowledge and information, learning, and organizational issues encouraged with economic dimension (rewarding, budget, and financing) and driven by new technology solutions. Therefore, Information and Communication Technology is a general “driving” force that makes Knowledge Management, Learning Organization, and e-Governance more important activity than in the past.
Keywords: e-Governance, Knowledge Management, Learning Organization, Information Communication Technology, e-Government, i-Government
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e-Easy: The Internal Digital Divide - The Development of e-Government within Local Government
Peter Byrne Winchester City Council, Hants, UK The era of e-Government will emphasise the role local councils play in helping people access electronic services to involve voters in local decision making. Local government will offer a range of channels, so that the citizen can make a “channel of choice” Key to the programme is public sector staff, public sector employees need to be involved, not just confronted with it. This paper will discuss the issues relating to public sector staff and the internal digital divide offering practical examples within a Local Authority in Hampshire.
Some of the difficulties of suitable levels of skills in Information Technology which could result in the risk of inadequate skills will be developed by examples, from a practitioner’s point of view. Further examples will include, against the backdrop of e-Government per se, the need for a better understanding to help reduce some of the uncertainties faced by public sector employees. System Training in the public sector is often an 'add-on' with no input from the people who will work with the processes. Often addressed after new technology purchased, this makes employees anxious about the changes to their work environment. The paper will also include practical examples of the successes and failures
The presentation will conclude with a live demonstration of where the Authority is today and where it should be tomorrow
Keywords: Local government, channel of choice, public sector staff,
55
A Computerized Performance Measurement System for City Administrations
Marcelo Costa InfoQuality and Itautec, Goiania / GO, Brazil The interest in the use of performance measurement and evaluation systems (PMESs) is growing rapidly in Brazil. Many organizations started working to meet the criteria for performance excellence of the National Quality Prize and the Public Management National Prize. One of the most demanding areas for performance data and information are city administrations. Brazil has more than 5.500 cities, and their mayors and managers are being increasingly pressured by citizens to present results of the governmental action.
Focused on this need, a model of a computerized PMES for municipalities was developed. This model can be customized to better fit specific needs, but is comprehensive enough to provide a reference set of performance measures for these administrations. It is based on four fundamental concepts: Balanced Scorecard; PDCA Cycle Performance Measurement System Report of the Foundation for the National Quality
Prize; Public Management National Prize Excellence Criteria.
The system is being operated, since 2002, by the managers of one small city (120.000 people) and a mid-size city (230.000 people). Measurable results have already been achieved, and the managers of these municipalities rely no more just on “feelings” and “experience” of their subordinates to guide their decisions.
Keywords: performance measurement, balanced scorecard, PDCA cycle, strategic planning, local government.
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eID: Identity Management in an Online World
Jerry Fishenden National Technology Officer, Microsoft UK, London, UK Reliable electronic identity (eID) lies at the core of delivering successful, trustworthy online government services. Yet in the move away from paper- and documentary-based forms of face-to-face identity management complex questions arise, such as “How can any user’s true identity be proven?”
This paper discusses proposed ‘laws’ for identity. It outlines a need for eID models that recognise the need for both integration and federation. And it looks at various national eID programmes, examining in particular the Belgian eID card and the proposed UK National Identity Card, summarising the extent to which these developments appear to conform to the proposed laws of identity.
In a European context, federated trust approaches for user identity management are emerging as a compelling model – one that matches local, regional, national and international aspirations with the need for cross-issuer trust and recognition. An outline model of a federated user identity management framework is discussed that aims to tackle some of the most common issues facing online government services (both internal and cross-boundary).
The paper concludes by outlining options for the evolution of improved eID frameworks.
Keywords: eID; authentication; authorisation; identity management; privacy
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e-Government and e-Clustering – The Public Sector as a key Player in a Regional e-Cluster System
Ute Hansen Bovenau Research, Bovenau, Germany The strategy of a regional e-Cluster system is focused on the sustainable development of a region. The strategy is aimed on cluster building to support regional networks and collaborative processes of competitive and cooperative actors in a cluster. An economic cluster initiates and pushes the networking of all participants in a value-added chain, which are companies, institutions, such as universities and research institutes, customers, supplying industries, employees, representations of interests and the public sector. In accordance with the concept of cluster building it is the intensity of the interaction of the actors and not the individual actor which has a positive effect on the sustainable development of a regional cluster.
The focus of the following analysis is to investigate the effects and backlashes of e-Government in a regional e-Cluster system. Many processes of information, communication and transaction between the public and private sector exist. The companies have to comply with requirements of the public sector. Furthermore, the public sector is a very important supplier of information and knowledge. In addition, the public sector orders services of the companies and subsidies them by funding activities. e-Government-strategies have the objective to organise public services as processes and to support them with information and communication technologies. The digitalization of government processes is a competitive factor for a regional e-Cluster system. It is necessary to identify the cluster specific government processes and to integrate them in a regional e-Clustering strategy. In this way, it is possible to integrate e-Business- and e-Government-applications in a regional e-Cluster system and to produce positive competitive effects.
The regional e-Cluster system is characterised by a high degree of complexity and dynamics. To develop and realize a sustainable e-Government-strategy you need information about the role of e-Government in this system. What can be the effects and backlashes of e-Government on the components of the regional e-cluster system like innovation potential or employment? The complex, interdisciplinary and dynamic problems of systems and developments need a new method for the processes of planning and decision in the public and private sector. The applied methodical approach combines the instrument of the balanced scorecard with a systematic approach which takes the cybernetics of this cluster system into account.
Developing on hypotheses one exemplary case of the regional e-Cluster system you receive a starting point for a dynamic strategic and political process to evaluate the dynamic system behaviour. Consequently, the hypotheses concerning the valuation of the vision, mission, of the strategy and the components require a permanent controlling and if necessary adjustments.
58
Transport Direct: Info-neutral e-Government
Miles Jackson, David Gott, Paul Drummond and Roger Slevin Transport Direct team, Department for Transport, London, UK Whilst integrated transport has been an avowed goal of governments for some time, national transport information has, until now, been mostly non-integrated. Internet-based technology has enabled the UK Government's Transport Direct programme to address this by joining up existing sources of information, enabling citizens to make better-informed travel choices. In addition, this contributes to the UK Government's wider agenda for electronic delivery of its services.
A key activity of the Transport Direct team is to engage with relevant parties to set standards for the way in which data can be exchanged between interested parties – particularly, but not exclusively, to meet the needs of the Transport Direct service itself. This is work that is also of wider interest both within Europe and internationally. Transport Direct is seeking to ensure that work in the UK complies with or even leads the emerging relevant standards.
Introduction: Transport Direct – The Vision: integrated/intelligent journey planning joining up and presenting private and public transport information in one place real-time information integrated ticket retail focus on people's needs rather than on modes of transport
Research undertaken by the Transport Direct Team into key factors influencing travel decision making into usability of the Transport Direct portal and other planned channels of delivery
The benefits of the sucessful delivery of Transport Direct for: the travelling public (enabling more informed decisions when planning journeys) transport providers the British transport system / environment
Transport Direct Portal Development Transport Direct team hardware and software used collection and maintenance of data, including continuous update and improvement standardisation of data
Future plans for Transport Direct ticket availability portable delivery channels compare journeys by price combined car/public tranport journeys cycle routes
Keywords: integrated transport information portal data
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Borsa Lavoro Lombardia: e-Gov Interoperability in the Labour Market
Alessandro Meinardi Agenzia regionale per il Lavoro, Regione Lombardia, Milan, Italy As established by National Law 276/03 in Employment and Labour Market affairs the main objective of the Biagi Reform is the development of a trasparent and more efficient labour market offering more and better jobs and guaranteeing full accessibility for all.
To do this entails the implementation of the so called Borsa Continua Nazionale del Lavoro (National Labour Stock Exchange), which is meant to be a national e-Government service delivered through interoperabile systems working at different geographical levels both with administrative bodies, across administrative boundaries and with the private sector.
Borsa Lavoro Lombardia (BLL) is the first of the above mentioned interoperable systems, which was launched in March 2004 in Lombardy. Implemented and managed by the Regional Employment Agency of Lombardy, BLL is a web portal (www.borsalavorolombardia.net) based on an integrated-access system providing employment, training and education services. The ultimate goal is to create a transparent and seamless services framework addressing citizens and companies, accessible over different channels (a web portal, a call centre, the DTT, an interactive TV service) and linking up public administrations acting in the labour market at different local levels. The objective is not only to provide job matching, but also to allow users to have access to understandable information on education and training opportunities and to databases of private recruiters and placement offices, to submit requests.
Through a back-end system which is interoperable with local institutions and private recruiters through Web Services technologies and principles, the interoperability subsystem aims to build up an infrastructure enabling the share of information coming from different archives. The underlying principle wants the interoperability system to be as less invasive as possibile.
The proposed solution is consistent with the paradigm of Application Integration established by the Public Administration which is based on the platform-independent model of Web services.
In line with the principle of subsidiarity, Borsalavorolombardia has been linked with most of the local institutions in Lombardy. Further links with other Italian regions are close to occur. Future plans include a specific and tailored access for non-EU citizens.
Keywords: Interoperability, Application integration, Job matching, Employment, education and training, Citizens, companies and public administration
60
Implementing Major Change Initiatives and Securing Productivity Efficiency in a Revenue Office Through Imaginative Use of IT and Ensuring Staff ‘Buy in’ Through Non-hierarchical Project Group Dynamics
Pat Molan, Michael Gladney and Triona Doherty Revenue Commissioners, Limerick, Ireland This paper examines how imaginative and lateral utilisation of available technology freed up significant resources from routine processing work in the Collector General’s Division and allowed for a greater concentration on risk rated debt control. The paper also examines the procedures adopted to secure staff ‘buy in’ to the change process without incurring industrial relations unrest.
In January 2004 the Collector General launched a Synergy Project to evaluate the processes and procedures adopted across the entire spectrum of the Divisions functions. The remit of the Synergy Group was to use available technological infrastructures to re-engineer aspects of the work that were both labour intensive and expensive. The key performance indicators for the Project, which is on-going, are to: Improve the Division’s Customer Service standards without a loss of productivity in any area; ensure that all staff are employed in productive and challenging work; develop IT platforms capable of handling routine processing work thus freeing up valuable resources for debt management work. By the end of 2004 Synergy is to increase the amount of staff on debt management by 40%.
To date Synergy has developed automated solutions to PAYE annual and VAT bi-monthly tax returns processing. In addition to freeing up staff the automated solutions are processing tax returns and payments far quicker than had previously been the case. There has also been a significant reduction in overtime costs in the processing units. Synergy has also linked the Division’s geographically separated customer services Help Line areas into a single amalgamated Call Centre of 51 staff, which is now answering all customer phone calls within 30 seconds. The telephony technology installed on this project allows for the seamless transfer of calls between the Division’s Limerick and Nenagh offices to ensure customers receive a premium service at all times. The amalgamation of the call centre areas required intensive training of staff to ensure that each agent was capable of answering the full range of queries.
One of the key strategies of Synergy has been to ensure ‘buy in’ from local staff on each of the sub projects. This is achieved by the central Synergy Team working in coalition with the ‘on the ground’ managers and staff thus giving ownership of the projects to those who will be affected most by the implementation of the various recommendations. Giving ownership of the change to the staff helps to ensure that new initiatives are allowed to anchor and become the norm for future generations of managers and staff.
Keywords: Synergy, Utilisation of available technology, risk rated debt control, automated solutions, staff ‘buy in’, ownership of change
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e-Government, Interoperability and Innovation
Benoît Müller Business Software Alliance, Brussels, Belgium Surveys have demonstrated that the basic government services available online grew dramatically between 2001 and 2003. Over this period, we have learned first-hand that e-Government implicates many complex issues. At the forefront of these issues is interoperability. Any IT system that is based on a multifaceted infrastructure or intends to transcend borders must confront this challenge.
In dynamic, highly competitive IT markets, companies have strong commercial incentives to make their products interoperate with each other. These commercial incentives must be reinforced by appropriate public policies, including support for:
Voluntary, Supplier-led Standards (including open standards): With growing demand for interconnectivity, interoperability and sharing among hardware, software and IT services, the role of standards is increasing in importance. To promote innovation in the standards context, the market should be allowed to lead. Voluntary, supplier-led standards (including open standards) are best able to quickly and effectively meet consumer demands, thereby encouraging innovation and interoperability.
Technology Neutrality: Technology preferences, including procurement preferences, give rise to product uniformity and risk freezing innovation and reducing incentives to create interoperable products. In contrast, technology-neutral approaches promote competition in the marketplace, ensuring innovative solutions from multiple sources.
Intellectual Property Protection: The link between IP and innovation is well-established. By ensuring that authors and inventors can realise a financial return on their investments, IP yields incentives and resources to invest in creating new products and new technologies. Strong IP protection that respects the interests of all right holders is essential to ensure broad consumer choice and ongoing innovation.
Neutral R&D Funding Policies: Government plays an important role in financing basic software research. When public funds are used to support basic or software R&D, such funding should be made equally available to all software developers, regardless of the development model chosen to do the research. The innovation that results from this work should be licensed in a way that allows for shared knowledge and ensures that the outcome of such research can be applied to commercialised products.
Keywords: e-Government, interoperability, innovation, standards, technology neutrality, software development model
62
Open ICT e-Government Architecture as an Interoperability Framework
Libor Neumann1 and Pavel Benda2 1ANECT a.s., Praha, Czech Republic 2ASD software s.r.o., Šumperk, Czech Republic The paper deals with results of the "Communication Framework" Expert Working Group established by Ministry of Informatics, Czech Republic.
This Framework is designed to enable independent funding and managing of different e-Government projects for different central, regional and local subjects of public administration and to enable interoperability and controlled security of interconnected information systems. The proposed solution should support long-term development of “e-Government back-office” in continuously changing conditions such as a shift in the political situation, new legislation or new technologies.
Moreover, the solution should be technologically neutral and enable competition of service providers together with logically unique behaviour of ICT in all public administration. The described solution is based on the principle of strict use of international open standards.
The solution is based on the principle of service provision. The services provision is included both in the architectural layer as SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and in the real systems layer.
From the organizational point of view, independent organization of public administration is the basic architecture unit. The integral part of the solution is the “three-level methodology” for interoperability and security management. The methodology is based on three key parts: - Long-term stable Architecture - Specification with controlled life cycle - Implementation of real ICT systems in separated projects. This methodology enables systematic, sustainable management of solution development life cycle in the future, expecting reaction on both new unpredicted needs of public administration and new technology possibilities.
Keywords: architecture, open standard, interoperability, life cycle management, security management
63
Distributed Authentication and Authorization in e-Government
Libor Neumann and Pavel Sekanina ANECT a.s., Praha, Czech Republic This paper describes an authentication and authorization solution for public administration.
The solution assumes the responsibility of every organization unit for its own data access control. It also assumes that every unit is responsible for its own employees, employee job responsibilities, employment status. The solution assumes that the data are in different units from staff, that one person may need to work with many data sources in many other units and that one data source can be used by persons from many other units.
The main principle of the solution is a set of interconnected directory services with defined roles of cooperation. Every organizational unit manages and publishes information about its own employees and theirs access rights according to an agreed method. The EAD (External Authorization Database) is used for this task. Data publishing organization unit uses a logically unique virtual directory to flexibly unify all information about all users from all partner units needed for the authorization module of the data service.
The solution enables authentication and authorization of individual users and it frees the data provider from very complicated access rights management of particular users from many other units. Access rights management is delegated to the unit where the user is employed.
The solution is fully compatible with frequently used Web access technology (http, https, HTML, XML). The solution is based on standard LDAP and it is technology neutral, as it was implemented using Open source and commercial platforms. It is open for future enhancements (e.g. SAML).
Keywords: authentication, authorization, directory services, e-Government back office, generic security service
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Practical Application of Biometrics for Security, Privacy and Convenience Within the UK Education Environment
Aine Ni Fhloinn Inhouse Training, Dublin 6, Ireland
This paper describes the implementation of a practical identification solution using biometrics for a secondary school in the UK. RFID technology together with iris and facial biometric systems have been selected in which policies and technology will be tested in terms of security, privacy and convenience with the goal of building a biometric enabled system that protects vulnerable participants.
Keywords: identification, biometrics, privacy, policies, Data Protection Act
65
Identity Management for Large e-Government Populations
J.R. Reagan and Gordon Hannah BearingPoint, Inc, McLean, USA Identity Management projects have shown success in decentralizing secure credential issuance globally in an environment where physical security of all links is simply not possible. However, in the field of smart cards, PKI, and identity infrastructure, a system to unify digital identity and end-to-end management is encumbered when credentialing non-vetted populations. Among the problems to solve are coordinating applications, tokens, local registration authorities, various directories and certificate authorities into a unified system to securely manage digital identity for millions of personnel. Various programs inside the e-Governments are now evolving to add biometric authentication and to integrate physical and logical network access. All of these requirements involve unifying identity data from disconnected systems world-wide and creating a system of distributed enrollment for the smart cards themselves. Along the way significant real world experience has been gained with respect to what the real concerns of credential users are respecting privacy and concerns about loss of private information.
The architecture for these next-generation Identity Management Management System (IDMS) programs include the ability to add technologies, e.g., iris, hand geometry, facial recognition, etc; flexibility to accommodate a broad range of technologies; and operational enrollment that supports both physical & logical access. Additionally, the following components are critical to providing and end-to-end system: Sponsor Registration; Sponsor Pre-Enrollment; Worker Pre-Enrollment; Enrollment; Biometric check (1:n against IDMS); Fingerprint-based background check interfaces; Name-based background / threat checking; Card production and personalization; Card management system; Card issuance and re-issuance; Adjudication; Card Activation; Privilege Granting; Interfaces between access control systems and IDMS; Biometrics; Card revocation; System auditing/logging/monitoring methodologies; System administration; Help Desk; Reporting.
This presentation will highlight Identity Management processes and technologies for credentialing and integration of large-scale citizen populations.
Keywords: Security, Identity Management, eID
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Addressing and Protecting Distributed Resources in e-Government Architectures Using Multiple Digital Identities
Alain Sandoz, Nicolas Haenni, Jean-René Eudes Centre des technologies de l’information, Geneva, Switzerland The full paper presents the framework for digital identification currently under construction in Geneva.
A digital identity in e-Government is a bridge between two mutually suspicious groups: 1) people, concerned with protecting personal data from unauthorized access and sharing only the minimum of information to receive service; and 2) the government, striving to provide service while applying regulation.
The underlying technical and organizational environments are large and heterogeneous. Thousands of users should be able to access multitudes of services implemented over time using various guidelines and technologies. Several levels of government interfere, with higher levels imposing standards on lower ones. This makes it difficult and risky for local governments to set up an infrastructure to identify users and authorize them to access services from the Internet. So progress in this critical area is slow.
The Canton of Geneva is an authority situated at the level between municipal and federal governments in Switzerland. It has designed a homogeneous mechanism which controls access to shared services and conforms to a strict regulation on privacy. Digital identity frames are used as containers to describe the user, as well as his context, role and anticipated behaviour in relation to possible requests. Authentication is defined according to the sensitivity of the application domain and the data it might contain.
Different types of identities are managed using different policies, so not surprisingly an identified actor can have several digital identities (e.g. when a doctor accesses a patient’s hospital file vs. when the same person requests an online service for herself, both from home). The mechanism is recursive, allowing protected services inside the government infrastructure to access resources unreachable from the Internet. This provides for delegation as well as for cross-organizational transactions in a transparent manner. The e-Voting system deployed in Geneva for several democratic consultations last year illustrates these concepts.
The underlying mechanism has the following characteristics: based on a capability-list model, it solves the problem of sharing distributed resources between mutually suspicious domains; it is homogeneous and its performance is adapted to e-Government; it will be deployed step by step without requiring a redesign of the existing technical framework. At the organizational level, it is generic and will allow the integration of the digital identity policies that the federal government is expected to make mandatory in the future.
Keywords: digital identity management ; mutually suspicious domains ; protection and privacy; cross-organization transactions.
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The Global Cross-Reference Data Base – A Tool for Information Logistics in e-Business
Helge G. Simonsen Verdande AS, Drøbak, Norway A number of nomenclatures are related to different aspects of international trade, e.g. customs, e-business, statistics, special interest etc. Most of them live in splendid isolation from each other. E.g. the international customs authorities have one system (HS) which does not ”speak” with other commerce ”languages” like CPV or UNSPSC, thus making it necessary to fill in information manually multiple times – although it could have been done by computers only once and at very low costs.
Lack of information standardisation is a major problem in e-business, especially in the context of e-catalogues – the backbone of e-business.
This is a recognized problem and is sought addressed through different means, i.e. competition between the nomenclatures; creation of a super-mega-metadata system with semantic interoperability covering all interests
There is a third way, i.e. the establishment of a Global Cross-Reference Database for all major nomenclatures. As they have been created for different special interests, there is no reason why these interests should be given up when the nomenclatures can be correlated and thus “speak” with each other.
The governments should have an inherent interest in establishing cross-references between different nomenclatures as a part of their e-Government programmes in order to promote and facilitate efficient e-business.
The data base should be managed by a pertinent international body, e.g. the OECD.
A database giving correlations between the major international nomenclatures will give enormous advantages to both private and public (government) sectors in e-business. The correlation data base can: eliminate the need for multi-entering the same information; reduce errors in e-business; give better e-catalogues; automate and speed up transaction processing; reduce transaction costs; give better statistics for public authorities on e.g. electronic trade; give enterprises a tool for analysis on their spending; provide transparency in the procurement process
This will especially help the SMEs who lack expertise in dealing with such advanced aspects of e-business. An extra bonus will be exchange of trade information between organisations and countries who fight illegal capital flight, organised crime, money laundering, fraud and terrorist financing.
Keywords: Nomenclatures, Metadata, Cost reduction, Information infrastructure, Interoperability
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WORKSHOP
Breaking Barriers to e-Government: Overcoming Obstacles to improving European Public Services
This workshop will introduce a new European Commission project to investigate the legal, organisational, technological and other barriers to expanding effective e-Government services using the Internet. The project is led by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), a multidisciplinary department at the University of Oxford studying the Internet and society. Its project partners are: gov3, a leading UK-based e-Government consultancy; and legal experts at TILT, the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, University of Tilburg, Netherlands, CRID the Research Centre for Computer and Law, University of Namur, Belgium and the University of Murcia, Spain. Representatives from each partner institution will present an overview of the project and their current research into the 11 key barriers to e-Government that are the focus of study. These are: privacy, identification and authentification, liability, intellectual property rights, public administration transparency, public-private partnerships, administrative law, e-procurement, cultural barriers, co-ordination, and channel rivalry. Panellists will introduce these key issues that can constrain e-Government growth, and outline the research designed to address them. Feedback from the audience on the selection of the barriers, and on good cases that might address each barrier is an important part of each session. A website has been set up to disseminate outputs of the project and a bi-monthly newsletter provides details of upcoming events, reports, publications and other project developments. If you would like to find out more please visit the project website http://www.egovbarriers.org. The sessions are as follows:
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"Breaking Barriers to e-Government"
Bill Dutton and Rebecca Eynon Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK The study sets out to identify and explore key issues that can constrain e-Government growth, drawing on real-life case studies. This rich data source will be analysed to define possible initiatives at a European level to overcome such obstacles, including best practice recommendations. The study will: create awareness of potential e-Government legal and regulatory constraints, with a particular focus on aspects relevant at the European level; build a rich and informative online inventory of all significant issues that are, or can become, obstacles to e-Government take-up; analyse and assess how such issues affect e-Government advancement, particularly in relation to organisational and technological aspects; define and develop clear views on possible productive initiatives and solutions with a European dimension to overcome barriers to e-Government growth; collect relevant e-Government cases and use them to create an e-Government Good Practice Framework; and engage a broad group of legal experts and e-Government practitioners through a comprehensive outreach and consultation programme. Legal barriers relating to Public Administration transparency.
Florence de Villenfagne CRID, the Research Centre for Computer and Law of the University of Namur, Belgium The identification of legal barriers to e-Government is the first step of a larger research project that aims to analyse the barriers to e-Government in order to provide a prospective analysis of possible initiatives and solutions at European level to overcome them. Transparency, publicity of Public Administration documents is a guarantee for democracy and, allowing the access to those documents by electronic means is part of a democratic e-Government strategy. The transparency issue is, however, not tackled as such at European level. Member States determine the overall approach, while the European approach is only sectoral: European Directives do exist as regards some specific aspects of the issue, such as the access to environmental information, (e-)procurement publicity and re-use of public information. This presentation will aim at presenting the legal issues relating to Transparency of Public Administration information (e.g. the problems of the sectoral approach and the conflicts that can arise with other democratic principles, such as the protection of privacy) in order to identify the existing barriers to an European e-transparency and make first prospective steps towards solutions.
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Legal barriers to electronic government in the field of liability law, intellectual property rights, electronic signatures and electronic commerce.
Sjaak Nouwt Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, University of Tilburg, Tilburg, Netherlands The development of e-Government is closely related to barriers and opportunities that can be provided by national and international legal rules and regulations. However, not only laws and regulations, but also the way in which these are applied in real life cases can lead to interesting conclusions. Within this research project, TILT will mainly focus on the laws, regulations and real life cases on the issues of liability law, intellectual property rights, electronic signatures, and e-commerce. The research will not just be limited to defining barriers to e-Government, but will also draw lessons from the past experiences with these legal issues in order to effectively lift remaining barriers to e-Government. This presentation will introduce the above mentioned legal issues along the lines of different cases. These cases will illustrate the importance of further research on these issues in developing e-Government. Organisational Culture as a Barrier to e-Government
Helen Margetts and Rebecca Eynon Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK The tools of e-Government - particularly web-based technologies - have created a new technological environment for both citizens and governments. Different institutions - with different organisational cultures - will vary in their cultural responses to the possibilities that these new technologies provide. The anthropologist Mary Douglas suggests that there are four cultural 'myths' which underpin institutional or group responses to certain environments. These myths 'provide the foundation for the essential "unity in diversity" of human experience. They were originally applied to eco-systems but were adapted by Margetts and Dunleavy to sum up different cultural attitudes to the new technological environment facilitated by web-based technologies.
The first myth is Technology Benign - which tells us that the technological world is forgiving: no matter what knocks we deliver the ball will always return to the bottom of the basin. The managing institution can have a laissez-faire attitude. This myth encourages and justifies trial and error: 'bold experimentation in the face of uncertainty'. Technology Ephemeral is the opposite - the technological world, it tells us, is a terrifyingly unforgiving place and the least jolt may trigger its complete collapse. The managing institution must treat technology with great care – it only takes a little jolt to push the ball off the peak. This myth is justification for those who would resist technological innovations (particularly large scale interrelated systems) and use technology only in modest, decentralised ways. In the Technology
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Perverse/Tolerant myth, technology is forgiving of most events but is vulnerable to an occasional knocking of the ball over the rim of the 'saucer' shape shown in the diagram. The managing institution must, therefore, regulate against unusual occurrences - neither the 'unbridled experimentation' nor 'tiptoe behaviour' of the other two myths is appropriate: 'everything hinges upon mapping and managing the boundary line between these two states'. Technological experts are vital for this task. In contrast to all the other three, Technology Capricious is a random world - where the ball may slide to anywhere. Institutions with this view of technology do not really manage or learn: they just cope with erratic events, suffering the by-products of continual technological innovation. This project builds on Margetts and Dunleavy to explore the existence and implications for e-Government of these alternative cultural myths in governmental organizations across Europe. It is argued that the capacity of government organizations to develop e-Government will be determined in part by individual organization’s historical relationship with information technology and the development of varying technological myths.
