Rialtas.net - Government 2.0

The EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, publicly supported the use of open source software in eGovernment, in a public speech at a seminar hosted by OpenForum Europe in Brussels on 10 June 2008.

The Commission must do its part. It must not rely on one vendor, it must not accept closed standards, and it must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession.

This view is born from a hard headed understanding of how markets work – it is not a call for revolution, but for an intelligent and achievable evolution.
But there is more to this than ensuring our commercial decisions are taken in full knowledge of their long term effects. There is a democratic issue as well.
When open alternatives are available, no citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to use a particular company’s technology to access government information.
No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one, through a government having made that choice first.

These democratic principles are important. And an argument is particularly compelling when it is supported both by democratic principles and by sound economics.

I know a smart business decision when I see one - choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed.

Read the full text of the commissioner’s speech..

‘EUtube’, the European Commission’s new channel on YouTube, was officially launched on 29 June 2007. By offering an additional way of communicating Europe to its citizens, EUtube indicates that some of the European Institutions are starting to keep pace with some of the newer developments on the web. EUtube is another example of the use of the ‘Web 2.0’ communication technologies at EU policy level.

YouTube is a popular video-sharing website where users can upload, view, share, and rate video clips. Both the average ratings and the number of viewings are made public. As such, YouTube is a typical ‘Web 2.0’ communication IT tool, allowing viewers not only to receive information but also to publicly comment it, react and confront points of view. About 50 % of YouTube users are under 20 years old.

Following the conclusion of a non-exclusive arrangement between the EU Commission and YouTube, the EUtube channel now offers approximately 50 video clips on a wide range of topics that explain EU workings on main issues from across the 27 Member States. Topics covered by EUtube stretch from the EU’s first post-war historical steps to current environment concerns or even the EU’s ‘Help!’ campaign against smoking.

As for the regular YouTube contents, EUtube users can post comments and rate the video clips. At present, there is content in English, French and German with plans to add more languages wherever possible.

In presenting the main reasons for setting-up the channel, Commission spokesman Mikolaj Dowgielewicz stated: “We have audiovisual material on our own website…but people don’t know it exists… It’s part of our strategy to use the tools that people use,” he added.

This is not the first of the EU’s moves towards ‘Web 2.0’ communication technologies. Already implemented is the practice of blogging, which was adopted by several EU Commissioners.

http://www.youtube.com/eutube 

The overall goal of the EU Funded OKKAM initiative at the University of Trento is to enable the Web of Entities, a global digital space for publishing and managing information about entities, where every entity is uniquely identified, and links between entities can be explicitly specified and exploited in a variety of scenarios. Compared to the WWW, the main differences are that the domain of entities is extended beyond the realm of digital resources to include objects in other realms like products, organizations, associations, countries, events, publications, hotels or people; and that links between entities are extended beyond hyperlinks to include virtually any type of relation.

However, to make this happen, the Web of Entities must trigger (as the WWW did) what economists call network externality effect, and this requires at least three pillars to be in place:

1. a suitable infrastructure which can support the open and sustainable growth of the Web of Entities;
2. a critical mass of new entity-aware content and data accessible to a very large number of users in a relatively short time;
3. a collection of exemplary and high impact applications, which can prove to the key players in ICT that investing on the Web of Entities is worthwhile.

The OKKAM project presents a strategy and an effective work plan to build the three pillars of this Web of Entities, not only from a technical point of view, but also from a social, organizational and business-oriented perspective.
To achieve this goal, Okkam have been the promoters of a large European initiative, which ended up in a successful Large-Scale Integrating Project called … OKKAM - Enabling the Web of Entities. Check the new project web site.

http://www.okkam.org/

The UN E-Government Survey 2008: From E-Government to Connected Governance assesses the e-government readiness of the 192 Member States of the UN according to a quantitative composite index of e-readiness based on website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource endowment. ICTs can help reinvent government in such a way that existing institutional arrangements can be restructured and new innovative arrangements can flourish, paving the way for a transformed government.

The focus of the report this year, in Part II, is e-government initiatives directed at improving operational efficiency through the integration of back-office functions. Whilst such initiatives, if successful, will deliver benefits to citizens, the primary purpose is to improve the effectiveness of government and governmental agencies. Models of back-office integration, irrespective of the delivery mode, fall into three broad categories: single function integration, cross functional integration, and back-office to front-office integration. The level of complexity, expressed in terms of the number of functions within the scope and number of organizations involved, is the primary factor influencing a successful outcome - with a tendency amongst the more ambitious projects to fail to deliver the full anticipated benefits. The key variables involved in the delivery of back-office integration are the people, processes and technology required.

Here are some excerpts from the report:

E-Consultation

The Survey clearly indicates that few countries are implementing e-consultation applications and tools. Only 7 per cent of the countries surveyed received a score of more than 50 per cent. One way to improve these results is for governments to implement online applications to engage and include citizens in a dialogue.Web 2.0 has generated a class of online individuals and groups that want to share their views through blogs and/or online community networks such as MySpace, YouTube,Facebook and LinkedIn to name a few. As of October 2007, the blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 108.6 million blogs. This recent explosion in online blogging and publishing tools underscores a significant interest of web users in creating and consuming user-generated content. A few governments are beginning to acknowledge this phenomenon.

Countries that Use an Open Web Forum for Discussing Topics

Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia,France, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia,Mozambique, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sweden, Ukraine, and United States of America.

E-Decision-Making
E-decision-making evaluates the extent of a government’s commitment to eparticipation,as evidenced by the definitive acknowledgement of an individual citizen’s input and by a stated commitment to take it into account when making decisions. The Republic of Korea is the leader in this assessment, followed by Denmark and France. With a number similar to e-consultation, approximately 66 per cent of the countries surveyed received a score in this section. To balance the heavily quantitative scoring, a few qualitative questions were still included to allow researchers to rate the general edecision-making performance. Only 11 per cent of countries surveyed committed themselves to incorporating the
results of e-participation into the decision-making process. This figure clearly indicates that the majority of not in position to directly involve citizens into the decision making process.

Governments that Publish Findings/Results of Citizen Opinions,including e-Opinions, on Websites

Australia, Bhutan, Canada, Cape Verde, China, Denmark, Estonia, France, Israel,Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, New Zealand,Republic of Korea, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom,United States of America and Viet Nam.

Of Interest to Irish Readers

Ireland ranked 19 (out of 35) in the e-government readiness index and 17th out of 35 for web measurement assessment.

The web measurement assessment looks at how governments are providing egovernment policies, applications and tools to meet the growing needs of their citizens or more e-information, e-services and e-tools. It measures the online presence of national websites, along with those of the ministries of health, education, welfare, labour and finance of each Member State.

One Irish Government project was identified as a Regional best practice, this was the Etenders website: http://www.etenders.gov.ie/

“Ireland has implemented a single portal to centralize government procurement. As a one-stop shop for businesses to work together with the Irish Government, this portal handles tender submissions and vendor registration. The portal provides businesses with a simple two-page set of instructions in its “Suppliers-Getting Started page. Subscribers to this website receive e-mail alerts as new opportunities are published, access to business opportunities with the public sector, and clear and concise information on working with the government.”

Also on a positive point, Ireland listed as 1 of only 20 countries that use RSS to update and involve citizens, the total list included was:
Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, ElSalvador, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Togo, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Download the full report here:

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan028607.pdf

European eGovernment Services Conference: IDABC and beyond

Halfway into the IDABC programme, the European Commission has decided to organise, together with the Slovenian Presidency of the European Union, a mid-term IDABC conference, European eGovernment Services Conference: IDABC and beyond, on 12 and 13 February 2008 in Brdo, Slovenia.

The mid-term IDABC conference is a part of the eGovernment days (11 to 13 February 2008) organised jointly by the Slovenian Government and the European Commission. eGovernment days will feature two main events:

* 11 February 2008: eGovernment conference ‘Alliance with Users’
* 12 – 13 February 2008: the mid-term IDABC conference ‘European eGovernment Services Conference: IDABC and beyond’

“Countries that score high on public-sector openness, efficiency and eGovernment readiness are also top on the economic performance and competitiveness scoreboards. This strong link between national competitiveness, innovation strength and the quality of public administrations means that in the global economy better government is a competitive must”

states the Commission’s Communication i2010 eGovernment Action Plan.

Link