Version 2007-04-18, Makx Dekkers ( makx@makxdekkers.com )
1. Objective
This is an attempt to analyse what we need to do for the task of identifying potential criteria to "determine the potential of the use of standards for (the privision of and management of services in) eGoverment". This is text from the Technical Proposal, section 2, bullet a, (see link under Scope of Work in the Workplan), with the part between brackets added from the two bullet points in section 3.
This document contains a number of observations on how we could address this part of the work, looking at the possible perspectives and their consequences for the work and its results. This needs to be discussed by the Project Team in the Skype conference on Thursday 19 April 2007, before we can present an approach to the Focus Group meeting on 27 April 2007.
2. Possible perspectives
There are basically two ways we can read the sentence "determine the potential of the use of standards for (the provision and management of services in) eGoverment".
from a services perspective: first, identify the services that eGovernment comprises, then, using some set of criteria, look at whether standards would be useful, and finally see if there are any standards that can be used.
from a standards perspective: first look at available standards in the various categories and subcategories listed in the Draft Standards Ontology, then select those standards that have relevance for eGovernment services, and finally evaluate how useful they are based on some set of criteria.
Looking at the Workplan, we seem to be working primarily from the second perspective (Step 3: Harvesting of Standards). The problem is, I think, that only through perspective 1 can we find out about gaps, because one would need to identify a service for which the use of a standard could be useful before being able to say that there is a gap because no standard exists.
In the following two sections, I try to outline what the approach in both perspectives could be and what types of criteria we would need to define.
3. Services perspective
Looking at the issue from the services perspective, we would need to draw up a list of eGovernment services and related activities (e.g. the "government" of eGovernment) on a high level. Some work on this was done by Cap Gemini for the European Commission which could be a basis for this list.
It may be that we can identify some areas on this level that could be helped by standards (probably in the area of process standards, for example quality and security). It seems to me, however, that we would need to go to a deeper level, identifying some sort of "service units" to be able to determine usefulness of standards. An example: one of the higher-level services could be "Issue driver's licence". At some point in the provision of this service, a "service unit" identify_Person would be invoked. This "service unit" would be helped if there were a standard for identity management and a standard schema for describing persons. Especially if the service involved the transfer of a foreign licence of an immigrant, it would be useful if there was a standard for this used across national borders.
Now in this perspective, criteria for the usefulness of standards would need to measure if the use of a standard would have a positive effect on three objectives that are mentioned in the Technical Proposal:
Interoperability, wich would increase the possibility to exchange information in cross-boundary (national, regional, local) and cross-agency environments -- if a "service unit" needs cross-border communication the score for the usefulness of a standards will be higher; likewise if a "service unit" is used in more than one service (which definitely is the case for identify_Person in the example)
- Economies of scale, which would be the result of many organizations using the same approach so that the market for commercial products is greater which should lead to lower prices, for example if all admistrations used the same database model for registering persons, a database product to manage this would find a greater potential market for vendors (maybe not the best example)
- Avoidance of double work, as developments that start from a common basis are more likely to allow sharing (e.g. procedures for the management of identity could be shared)
Other possible criteria (that would probably work best on the higher levels) could look at whether standards contribute to increase in usability/accessibility, quality, performance or accountability, etc.
4. Standards perspective
If we look at the standards perspective, there are a number of areas where criteria could be defined that measure the usefulness of the standards themselves. These criteria would look at the characteristics of the standards and standards process, and could include (in descending order of importance):
- Wide adoption, across domains (e.g. public and private usage) and across national borders: this would help both interoperability and economies of scale
- Expected stability and professional maintenance: this would manage the longer-term risk of having to change systems if standards change
- Openness of process and possibility to influence development: this would enable influence of the eGovernment sector to get specific requirements included in the standards
5. Discussion
I would argue that we need to look at this from both perspectives: first identifying the services and service units and determine, on the basis of a first set of service-related criteria, whether standards would help to achieve positive effects on the objectives mentioned. If so, look at whether we can find standards that can be used in those areas. If they exist, test the usefulness of those standards using a set of standards-related criteria. If they don't exist, include them in the gap analysis.
The question is, of course, how much we can do within the resources that we have, so we need to discuss this. Of course, if the other team members feel this is the wrong approach, I am open to all and any criticism and alternative approaches.