The EU Services Directive - Reusing Existing Resources In Public Sector Interoperability

The paper presents a case study of an ongoing implementation project in the framework of the European Union Services Directive. In the German federal state of Brandenburg, authorities are preparing a common taxonomy of professions and industries for general use and in particular for business registration. It is a measure for the creation of a point of single contact as required in the Services Directive. Existing code lists and taxonomies are used as semantic interoperability assets and consolidated for the new purpose with the help of the Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe SEMIC.EU). The unique contribution of the strategy chosen in the case is the combination of real-life feasibility and the instant creation of interoperability through semantic harmonization with an existing 20-language catalogue and an established classification of business activities

Framework for a business interoperability quotient measurement model

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova da Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial (MEGI)Over the last decade the context of Interoperability has been changing rapidly. It has been expanding from the largely technically focused area of Information Systems towards Business Processes and Business Semantics. However, there exists a need for more comprehensive ways to define business interoperability and enable its performance measurement as a first step towards improvement of interoperability conditions between collaborating entities. Through extensive literature reviews and analysis of European Research initiatives in this area, this dissertation presents the State of the Art in Business Interoperability. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a model that closely captures the factors that are responsible for Business Interoperability in the context of Collaborative Business Processes. This Business Interoperability Quotient Measurement Model (BIQMM), developed in this dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach to capture the key elements responsible for collaboration performance. Through the quantification of the relevance of each element to the particular collaboration scenario in question, this model enables a quantitative analysis of Business Interoperability, so that an overall interoperability score can be arrived at for enhanced performance measurements.Finally, the BIQMM is applied to a business case involving Innovayt and LM Glassfiber to demonstrate its applicability to different collaboration scenarios

Exploring Semantic Interoperability in e-Government Interoperability Frameworks for intra-African collaboration: A Systematic Literature Review

While many African countries have called for ICT based intra-African collaboration, services, and trade, it is not known whether this call is technically feasible. For such intra-African based collaboration, semantic interoperability would be required between the national e-government systems. This paper reviewed the e-government interoperability frameworks (e-GIFs) of English and Arabic speaking African countries to identify the evidence and conflict approaches to semantic interoperability. The results suggest that only seven African countries have e-GIFs, which have mainly been adopted from the UK\u27s e-Government Metadata Standards (eGMS) and on Dublin\u27s Core metadata (DC). However, many of the e-GIFs, with the exception of Nigeria, have not been contextualized to the local needs. The paper, therefore, concluded that more effort needs to be placed in developing e-GIFs in Africa, with particular emphasis on semantic interoperability, if the dream of intra-African collaboration is to be achieved

National Forest Programmes in Europe: Generating policy-relevant propositions for formulation and implementation

The COST Action E19 on National Forest Programmes in a European Context assembled more than 70 researchers and civil servants from 20 European countries and the USA. Some meetings were also attended by scholars from Canada, China and Japan. The participants aimed to provide policy makers in Europe with improved means for the formulation and implementation of National Forest Programmes (NFPs) for ensuring sustainable forest management. In order to accomplish this objective the work programme comprised the following tasks: to interpret the basic elements and institutional and procedural requirements of NFPs, to assess the effects of these elements and requirements on NFPs, to assess the supporting and impeding factors for the development of substantive NFPs, to evaluate the significance of NFPs in comparison to other policy means

The SEEMP Approach to Semantic Interoperability for E-Employment

SEEMP is a European Project that promotes increased partnership between labour market actors and the development of closer relations between private and public employment services, making optimal use of the various actors’ specific characteristics, thus providing job-seekers and employers with better services. The need for a flexible collaboration gives rise to the issue of interoperability in both data exchange and share of services. SEEMP proposes a solution that relies on the concepts of services and semantics in order to provide a meaningful service-based communication among labour market actors requiring a minimal shared commitment

An analysis of existing production frameworks for statistical and geographic information: Synergies, gaps and integration

The production of official statistical and geospatial data is often in the hands of highly specialized public agencies that have traditionally followed their own paths and established their own production frameworks. In this article, we present the main frameworks of these two areas and focus on the possibility and need to achieve a better integration between them through the interoperability of systems, processes, and data. The statistical area is well led and has well-defined frameworks. The geospatial area does not have clear leadership and the large number of standards establish a framework that is not always obvious. On the other hand, the lack of a general and common legal framework is also highlighted. Additionally, three examples are offered: the first is the application of the spatial data quality model to the case of statistical data, the second of the application of the statistical process model to the geospatial case, and the third is the use of linked geospatial and statistical data. These examples demonstrate the possibility of transferring experiences/advances from one area to another. In this way, we emphasize the conceptual proximity of these two areas, highlighting synergies, gaps, and potential integration. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Conceptualizing the parliamentarization and politicization of European policies

In the past 20 years, two related literature strands have gradually moved centre stage of the attention of EU Studies scholars. The first is preoccupied with the ‘politicization of European integration’, a multi-faceted concept that aims to tie together a multitude of political and societal manifestations underlying an increasing controversiality of the EU. A second concerns the parliamentarization of the EU, referring to the changing (institutional) role and EU-related activities national parliaments engage in. The key point of this contribution is simple, but often overlooked: We can and should be seeing parliamentarization as a necessary, yet insufficient, component of a wider process of politicization. Doing so goes beyond the often ad hoc or pars pro toto theoretical assumptions in both literature strands, sheds new light on the normative consequences attached to these phenomena, and furthers a more complete understanding of how a ‘comprehensive’ politicization of European policies develops

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse