Stacy Baird stressed the key role played by those who implement eGov strategies, i.e. government employees. He argued that training is critical for the success of new e-services. Workers may otherwise not have the right skills to undertake the needs and not find their place in the new organizational.

Ajit Jaokar pointed out that “Open Government”, a new buzz phrase, does not necessarily demand the implementation of open standards and open source software. Rather, Open Government is Government as a Platform or Government 2.0 which in itself is a philosophy. What is important is not the code but the philosophy of openness. The technology on which eGov services is built could vary.

Steve Mutoski drew some lessons from a recent review of eGovernment Interoperability Frameworks (eGIFS). He argued that many policy makers have an ineffective and misplaced focus. Technological interoperability, which is the main focus, is to a large extent an issue already taken care of by the marketplace. eGIFs deserves further attention.

Tore Hoel took a special look at Learning, Education and Training (LET), which is an emerging domain where the use of standard catalogues is a primary form of governance. He argued that the idea of standards catalogues is flawed. In emerging domains it is difficult to determine the optimal candidate for recommendation, therefore eGovernment standards boards should focus on semantic, organizational, cultural, political and legal interoperability. Then, the LET domain might innovate by the implementation of ‘unstable’ standards.

Oliver Bell went on to point out an important ‘glitch’ in the innovation process of data exchange. The 1990’s switch towards electronic handling of data brought measures to digitally handle information but not to archive it. This has resulted in a decade without appropriate government records. As we now stand before the next step into Government 2.0, we must not make the same mistake. The further digitization of services, communication and interaction needs to be matched by the development of archiving standards. The key is to include archiving standards as a core part of system design, not to try and solve the problem after the fact.

Mattias Ganslandt highlighted some experiences and lessons from Sweden, the number one country on the UN eGovernment readiness ranking. The government’s willingness to use ICT as a means to distribute individualized information and collect information from citizens has resulted in a number of very successful eGov services, e.g. eIdentification and online filing of tax returns. The Swedish experience shows that a pragmatic, value-oriented and neutral approach to eGovernment and procurement of ICT and software works well when applied in an open economy with a good basic ICT infrastructure. It also shows that adoption and development works well if applied on a limited scale.

A common theme for the discussion is the challenges presenting eGov policy makers in the process of creating a decentralized, open and interactive government. Although innovation has taken development of the public sector quite a bit already, much work remains to be done before the vision of trans-nationally interoperable eGov systems is realized.

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Over the past few months, I reviewed a range of (but by no means all) national eGIFs, charted out some of the resulting data and shared it at a workshop at the FutureGov2009 conference in Indonesia. What jumped off the page at me? First, the review suggests that policymakers are focusing too much on technical interoperability, which although significant a decade ago, have increasingly been worked out. Governments (and consultants) are often turning to policy tools that are largely modeled on what the UK did in 2000 (largely focused on the technical domain), to the detriment of much more substantial semantic and organizational issues that today are the main barriers to eGovernment interoperability. It’s not hard to see the common ancestry that many of these technically-oriented eGIFs share. Just one example is the so-called “8µ Law” standard, a non-existent standard that initially appeared on the UK list and then somehow wound up under consideration in at least 7 other countries in the context of their eGIF. The existence of this “standard” across so many other countries raises some important questions about the utility and effectiveness of these policy tools, nearly a decade after they were first rolled out.

Even more intriguing, one of the most touted benefits of these technical focused frameworks– that they give governments a mechanism to mandate specific technical standards which in turn result in better interoperability– doesn’t appear supported by the data. Instead, the data appear to present a case of “the tail wagging the dog.” Rather than dictating the standards that will lead to better interoperability, these standards lists largely capture the commonly used standards that the market has already embraced and agreed to use for interoperability purposes. If you look at the group of standards that are shared across roughly 80% of the standards lists (a dozen or so standards), you don’t find many surprises. What you find are core networking and interconnection standards (HTML, HTTP, XML, etc) that have long been supported by any product that wants to have any chance at achieving widespread marketshare. While there are some interesting questions raised by the many, many other standards that appear on only one or two lists, there is little evidence that eGIFs were/are being used by governments to drive adoption and use (through requirements or mandates) of various standards, with an aim toward improving technical interoperability. It’s possible that the technically-focused approach contributed a whole lot less to improvements in eGovernment interoperability over the last decade than some governments and practitioners believe.

There is a ton of work to be done in the next decade to make eGovernment work better. It is critical as we start out the next decade that we make sure we have the right mix of policy tools at hand. My preliminary look back suggests that we need to take a more thoughtful look at whether the current incarnation of eGIFs is the right starting point for the next decade.

Early eGoverment systems represented a small revolution for many governments, providing ways to increase levels of administrative efficiency while at the same time providing services that were much more broadly available than in previous years.

However, if we turn and look specifically at agencies responsible for archiving governments information then the shift to digitally delivered services also brought some new challenges. Archiving paper is well understood, archiving digital records adds complexity that is still being worked out in many jurisdictions. Only now are we starting to see standards emerge for storage and maintenance of these digital records, over ten years after we saw the mass shift to digital by governments all over the world.

The issues will be obvious to many, governments have a decade wide void in the records that they have managed to keep, information has been simply lost as individual computers and email inboxes have been redeployed or the hardware has been recycled.

At this point in time we are witnessing a second iteration of that revolution, governments, citizens and businesses are collaboratively talking about Government 2.0 (or gov20), examining ways that they will use microblogging, social media and the publishing of massive government datasets to find new ways for government to interact with citizens and for developers to deliver a range of tools that could not be developed by government alone.

Within these gov20 conversations we are seeing more than just the digitization of government services, politicians are finding new ways of communicating directly with their electorate and senior departmental officials are finding new ways to more deeply understand the people that their services ultimately serve.

So once again we are seeing a massive shift in the technology that is being used to run the business of government, and once again we don’t yet have the standards to retain the conversations that take place over microblogging services, or the huge amount of inbound information that departments will eventually use as part of their decision making processes that they collect from an array of social networking tools.

As a standards community, in support of the ongoing evolution of eGovernment, now is the time for us to start to think about how we will solve these complex challenges. Work needs to begin on archiving standards that will retain the information that is driving decisions today and as technology plays an increasingly larger role in the business of government archiving standards needs to be a core part of systems design, not a problem that we try and solve after the fact.

This is a promising step since Sweden is particularly well positioned to take a lead in international work on eGovernment. Dispite is relative smallness it is well positioned to coordinate a common European effort to realize the great potential for improvements and development of public services based on ICT in Europe and elsewhere.

Sweden is not only one of the world´s most open economies (imports and exports account for 54% and 47% of GDP respectively according to Statistics Sweden), it is also the world´s most eGovernment ready country according to a UN ranking in 2008 (read the e-Government Survey).

Sweden, as a small open economy, has great interest in policies that facilitates international trade and specialization (and its interest in playing strategic games in international policymaking to obtain competitive advantages over other nations is limited). This provides favorable conditions for productive international collaboration in a politically sensitive area.

There are several fundamental reasons why eGovernment works well and has further potential in Sweden. One reason is of course the level of development (GDP per capita was 38,100 in PPP-adjusted USD in 2008). Access to broadband, computers and mobile phones is also widespread and citizens are generally well educated and used to ICT technology (80% had broadband Internet access in 2008 and the number of mobile phone subscriptions per 100 users is 106). These factors provide generally favorable conditions for widespread use of internet services in general and eGovernment services in particular.

There are also several factors that are specific to the public sector that are important for eGovernment development in Sweden. One historical factor that plays an important role is that Swedish citizens generally have considerable trust in the public sector. This trust stems from the fact that for many centuries the State, unlike other countries, has not been a source for oppression but rather a means for providing services in the public interest.

Furthermore, Sweden was one of the first countries with a legal right for citizens to have free access to information and it has a far reaching principle of transparency in the public sector. The right to access documents as well as information about individuals – citizens and companies – is constitutional (as expressed in the Freedom of the Press Act). Citizens as well as government agencies thus think of transparency as the rule rather than an exception.

The bureaucracy is relatively efficient and the level of corruption is relatively low (Sweden ranks number one in the 2009 Global Corruption Report from Transparency International). Most government agencies work continuously to improve productivity. Some government bodies have been quick to use ICT to improve information processing and to make information distribution to citizens better, faster and less costly. The willingness to ICT as a means to distribute individualized information and collect information from citizens has resulted in a number of very successful eGov services. For instance, the vast majority of citizens now file tax returns online or by mobile phone (SMS) (see e.g. this article in Swedish). Most parents and employees have access to information and can report parental leave or sickness online to obtain social security benefits.

The Swedish government’s approach to ICT has been in line with a general approach to make production and organizational choices based on economic considerations rather than ideology or special interests. With a large share of IP-intensive companies, the Swedish economy relies on protection and international recognition of patents, copyright and other intellectual property rights. The approach to ICT standards and software is generally pragmatic and economically rational. This has also been true when government bodies have chosen ICT systems and software; often IP-based, external and built on proprietary code.

While Sweden has been fast in using ICT for cost-effective distribution and individualization of information in the public sector, development in other areas has been considerably slower.

The use of Internet for interactivity and citizen participation – i.e. eGov 2.0 – has been relatively limited. There are few, if any, examples of user-contributed services. eGov 2.0 services are absent in essentially all areas of the public sector, including important services such as education, transportation, culture, health care and  media (public service). This is probably due to a political resistance, which stems from ideas that service quality in the welfare state needs to be politically controlled to ensure “fairness” and “equity”.

The use of Internet services to improve participation in the political process, eDemocracy, is also limited. This is partly explained by a strong tradition of representative, rather than direct, democracy.

Finally, eGovernment in Sweden is limited to ICT use in the interaction between government agencies and citizens. A strategy to empower citizens as consumers of public services by enabling substitution between producers, which would contribute to competition and market integration, is lacking.

Portability and control of data by individuals is a non-existing phenomenon. For instance, Sweden does neither provide electronic health records available to patients nor electronic portfolios for students. With funding rather than production being a core public task in many sectors, including education, health care, pensions, childcare etc, a significant potential remains for new and innovative technologies in these areas.

The Swedish experience shows that a pragmatic, value-oriented and neutral approach to eGovernment and procurement of ICT and software works well when applied in an open economy with a good basic ICT infrastructure. It also shows that adoption and development works well if applied on a limited scale (Sweden has a relatively homogenous population of 9 million people).

Not surprisingly, it is relatively more easy to use ICT for rationalization of existing government services and information processes. There is significantly more resistance to use ICT for development of new and innovative services with substantial contributions from a dispersed network of citizens and external contributors. In addition, using ICT to transfer power and control over data and empowering citizens as consumers presents very difficult challenges.

What does Open Government imply for standards?

Let’s take a step back. Prior to 1999, I used to work for an ERP vendor. ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a complex class of software that is typically intended to manage all the functions of a company (such as Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Billing and so on). Inspite of their complexity, there was a mad scramble to install ERP systems which was mainly motivated by the Y2K deadline.

However, did ERP really make a difference in terms of innovation?

Not really.

ERP was all about internal functions of an organization, the ‘plumbing’ so to speak. It made very little difference to the customers as to what billing system a company used or what General Ledger the company used.

Last week, the White House adopted Drupal, the Open source content management system which has a strap line of ‘community plumbing’. Whitehouse.gov is now running on Drupal. However, like ERP, if it is used only for internal functions (aka ‘plumbing’) – it should make no difference to anyone at all…

After all, Whitehouse.gov is a pretty structured website in terms of its content; photos of the President, videos, some blogs, information on legislation etc. And that content is mostly structured (apart from comments). One could argue that Drupal has many extensible libraries that third parties can build. But so do many other platforms.

Thus, the adoption of Drupal should be viewed more as a symbolic gesture for the use of Open Source; and in that role lies its greater significance and implications for standards.

Tim O’Reilly discusses the wider impact of the Drupal announcement under the concept of Gov 2.0.

The introduction of the terms Open Government/ Gov 2.0/ ‘Web 2.0 for Government’ adds to two already complex terms i.e. ‘Open Source’ and ‘Open Standards’. As viewed by Tim O’Reilly, Open Government is the concept of ‘Government as a platform’ which could also be seen as ‘Web 2.0 for Government’.

Web 2.0 itself is a philosophy i.e. a broad concept based on the foundation of Data, which many people wrongly equated to specific technologies (like the AJAX programming language).

Similarly, Open source (the technological foundation) is not necessarily needed for Open Government (which could be viewed as the concept/philosophical foundation of ‘Government as a platform’).

The question of whether Governments should mandate specific standards or technologies is more complex. Today, in the minds of most people we have a benevolent administration in the White House. But administrations can change every five years, and often they do. And consequently, enthusiasm for Government led ideas can wane.

The philosophy of Openness is correct, as is the idea of ‘Government as a platform’. However, just like Web 2.0, its technological implementation may be varied.

The standards for Open Government may be independent of the technology that is used to implement its internal systems as long as the philosophy of Openness and the idea of the ‘Government as a platform’ is maintained.

LET is an emerging domain. Everything technological is in flux. And then we have standards that are supposed to be stable. It sounds strange, and as a matter of fact, it does not make sense. In the European project I am meeting a strong respect for what is classified as a standard (related to formal standard setting bodies). And I observe a less strong respect for what is classified as specifications (often related to user communities). Having been part of the process of producing standards I know too well that you cannot analyse standards by reputation of the organisation behind it.

European eGovernment initiatives give standards boards a prominent role in the governance of standards, also LET standards. One of the instruments of governance is a standards catalogue, which is intended to guide users towards appropriate standards to implement. Again, it goes without saying. Formal standards are more likely to end up in standards catalogues than community based standards.

Together with Paul Hollins of the UK Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards I have analysed the standards catalogue approach against a horizon scan report of current standardisation projects in the sector. First, given the emergent nature of the LET domain, we are not sure that the right candidates for recommendation are put forward. Second, we also question if bad decisions or obsolete recommendations would be withdrawn from the catalogue. The process models behind these initiatives have weak feedback mechanisms, and point more or less in one direction: towards the registry. There is a growing awareness in the LET standards community that we are not good at dispensing some of our earlier, less strong ideas, i.e., putting some of our standards into the bin.

However, what is more important is the effect the standards catalogues will have on what we would call the standards discourse. There is a growing awareness in standards bodies, e.g., demonstrated recently through a number of work method seminars organised prior to standardisation meetings in CENWS-LT, of the need for a meta level discussion on “the way we do standards”. The standards catalogue approach may steer discussions in the direction of the standards that are on the list, and what level of mandation these standards are assigned.

Therefore, we suggest that eGovernment standards boards should focus on semantic, organisational, cultural, political and legal interoperability, in preference to attempting to stabilise practice around a limited number of technical interoperability standards.

In conclusion, “unstable standards” might be more in line what the LET stakeholders need than stifled standards that are not serving innovation in the domain. Then we have just to talk about standards – and give up the hidden quality denotation in keeping up the categorisation of standards vs. specifications.

The government enterprise may need to reorganize to eliminate barriers to collaboration. Enterprises may need to reform the organizational structures, management hierarchy, mission statements, rules and leadership guidance to implement changes to information management, workflow and business processes. For example, historically, business processes were designed to meet needs internal to the enterprise.  Today, an enterprise must start with the service being consumed by the end user – the citizen, small business, industry or other government agency – and design business processes to provide the service most efficiently.  Similarly, the enterprise may need to redesign their information management to achieve the proper degrees of information sharing and privacy protection.

Individuals, whether staff or senior managers, need to adapt. As business processes and practices are altered or eliminated – managers may have to identify new means to measure productivity, transition the old revenue streams and methodologies to new processes and organizational structure, or identify new revenue streams.  Workers at any level of the administrative hierarchy may feel threatened by new interconnectedness.  Trust, norms, and networks central to social capital are fluid and could be threatened by reorganization.  Change in job content, loss of status or power, changes in interpersonal relationships, changes in the decision-making approach, and job insecurity are common reasons employees resist new technologies. A worker may perceive a threat to their “ownership” of information — their influence, or social stature — that may have accrued over many years of service. One method to avoid some of these problems is to include the workforce in the design of the eGovernment initiative from the outset. Their input could lead to innovations otherwise lost.  Workers may not have the skills to effectively undertake the imperatives of an eGovernment strategy and do their job within a new organizational structure with new processes and systems.  The government must make it a priority to develop proper training for, and achieve “buy-in” by, all who manage and work for the enterprise, these are the people who will or will not implement the eGovernment strategy.

The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) 1.0 was first introduced in 2002, along with the eEurope Action Plan 2005, in purpose to provide recommendations concerning technologies and further information which could facilitate pan-European eGovernment services.

The EIF is directed towards the Member States’ public authorities, setting guidelines as to how ICT services should be designed and implemented and how the procurement process should be handled to ensure future trans-national interoperability and cross-border mobility.

The EIF was originally founded on eight fundamental principles; Accessibility and Multilingualism-services should be available and accessible by all, Security and Privacy- online solutions should have a maximum level of security and transparency, protecting user information, Subsidiarity- each Member State and EU institution is responsible for achieving interoperability, Use of Open Standards- use of open standards is recommended, Assess the Benefits of Open Source Software (OSS)- OSS should be considered when constructing an ICT solution, Use of Multilateral Solutions- on single solution implemented in several areas result in multilateral interoperability.

In 2008, an official draft version of the EIF 2.0 was made available for public comments. The Commission expresses the need for updating the EIF 1.0 definition of interoperability, which simply meant that ICT and business processes enabled the sharing of data, information and technology, since different aspects of the meaning of Interoperability has been found. Therefore, a broader definition has been introduced describing interoperability as the ability of diverse organizations and systems to work together and thus increase efficiency.

EIF 2.0 recommends that public policy should Support Standardization and Innovation and Ensure Administrative Neutrality. The idea is that public administrations should ensure that the standard selections process is fair to all vendors and make sure that the fee to be paid is not prohibitively expensive. Although the EIF 2.0 still states that open standards should be preferred and open specifications implemented where possible, the direct referencing has been replaced.

More lately, an unofficial draft of the EIF 2.0 has leaked (the exact source and status of this document is disputed), in which the wording on openness differs from EIF 1.0. First, openness is merely seen as the willingness to share knowledge. Second, no direct referencing to open standards or OSS is expressed. Third, the document refers to an “openness continuum” between open and closed. Fourth, the draft refers to interoperability can be achieved if all actors are using identical technology.

The Commission has declined to confirm that the leaked draft reflects the opinions or views of the EU.

The original eGovernment Act of 2002 calls for the adoption of standards which are “open to the maximum extent feasible”.

What seems most important is implementing standards which ensure the interoperability across agencies. NIST is responsible for testing eGovernment standards making sure that only mature technologies are implemented.
The Obama administration also recognizes the need to protect Intellectual Protery. In a manifest prior to the election Obama expresses that “IP is to the digital age what physical goods were to the industrial age”. Therefore, copyright and patent systems need to be updated or reformed to ensure that IPR holders are treated fairly and innovation is promoted.

On the individual state level a 2008 report highlights Delaware, Georgia, Florida, California, Massachusetts, Maine, Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana and Tennessee as the highest ranking states is eGovernment progress. The ranking is based on examining certain criteria in websites, such as accessibility, databases, privacy-security policy, audio-video clips etc, where Delaware scored a top 83.7 percent. What has improved the most in state eGovernment is first and foremost the range of provided electronic services including the acceptance of credit card payments and digital signatures.

In summary, the US have come a long way towards the goal of making information accessible and transparent.

Further reading:

E-Government Act of 2002 http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/egov-act-section-207.html

eStrategy Information Center http://www.estrategy.gov/drilldown.cfm?action=it_policy_documents

“Obama’s e-government off to a good start” http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-technology/obamas-egovernment-off-to-good-start-20090427-ak9j.html

State and Federal Electronic Government in the United States, 2008 by Darrel M West (Brookings) http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2008/0826_egovernment_west/0826_egovernment_west.pdf

Obama ’08: Barack Obama on Technology and Innovation http://lessig.org/blog/Fact%20Sheet%20Innovation%20and%20Technology%20Plan%20FINAL.pdf