Search:

• Login

• RecentChanges
• FindPage
• HelpContents
• Elaboration...f standards

• Immutable Page
• Info
• Attachments
• More Actions: Raw Text Print View Render as Docbook Delete Cache ------------ Check Spelling Like Pages Local Site Map ------------ Rename Page Delete Page ------------ My Pages Subscribe User ------------ Remove Spam Package Pages

1. Criteria for the determination of the potential of the use of standards for the provision and management of services in eGovernment

1.1. Objective

The current section contains the approach towards measuring the usefulness of standards in order to be able to "determine the potential of the use of standards for (the provision and management of services in) eGovernment" as specified in the Technical Proposal that forms the basis of this work.

1.2. Possible perspectives

There are basically two ways that the sentence "determine the potential of the use of standards for (the provision and management of services in) eGovernment" can be read.

• 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.

The project team will look at both perspectives.

1.3. Services perspective

Looking at the issue from the services perspective, a list will be drawn up 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 will be used as a basis for this list.

It may be possible to identify some areas on this level that could be helped by standards (probably in the area of process standards, for example quality and security). However, it will be necessary to go to a deeper level, identifying "service units" where standards may be useful. 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 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, which 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 administrations 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)

Secondary criteria that work best on the higher levels will look at whether standards contribute to increase in usability/accessibility, quality, performance or accountability, etc.

1.4. Standards perspective

Looking at the standards perspective, there are a number of areas where criteria are be defined that measure the usefulness of the standards themselves. These criteria look at the characteristics of the standards and standards process.

1. Wide adoption, across domains (e.g. public and private usage) and across national borders: this would help both interoperability and economies of scale. This aspect will be measured with two criteria:

1. the standard is mentioned on Wikipedia (yes/no)
2. number of hits in Google on reverse lookup of the official or main specification of the standard (numerical scale)
3. number of hits in citeseer as a measure for research touching on this standard (numerical scale)

1. Expected stability and professional maintenance: this would manage the longer-term risk of having to change systems if standards change. This aspect will be measured with one criterion:

1. there is a stable maintenance process for the standard (yes/no)

1. Openness of process and possibility to influence development: this would enable influence of the eGovernment sector to get specific requirements included in the standards. This aspect is measured by three criteria:

1. Participation is free for everybody who wants to be involved (yes/no)
2. Participation is limited to geographically determined representation (yes/no)
3. Participation is limited to a closed user group (yes/no)

Rather than using these criteria to rank standards that are found in the harvesting activity in this project as "good" or "bad", or even worse, have a global ranking list, the project team will make a case that standards that do well on those criteria should be interesting candidates for eGovernment programmes to look at. A possible exception could be if a standard is identified for a particular service unit that is being used by many eGovernment programmes across Europe, in which case the project team may make a strong case for such a standard to be a recommendation.