Evaluating eGovernment in the Large - A Requirements Oriented Approach

An increasing level of cooperation between public administrations nowadays on national, regional and local level requires methods to develop interoperable eGovernment systems and leads to the necessity of an efficient evaluation and requirements engineering process. In this paper, we propose a framework to systematically gather and evaluate requirements for eGovernment in the large. The evaluation framework is designed to help requirements engineers to develop a suitable evaluation and requirements engineering process. The methodology is motivated and explained on the basis of a European research project

Model Based Identification and Measurement of Reorganization Potential in Public Administrations – the PICTURE-Approach

Public administrations are faced with a modernization and performance gap. On the one hand citizens and companies have increasing requirements. On the other hand the financial and human resources remain static or even decrease. In recent years public administrations tried to counteract with reengineering their business processes. However, it is observable that reengineering projects in public administrations have a too narrow focus as they concentrate on a small subset of their overall processes. In this paper we claim that significant progress in the identification and measurement of reorganization potential can only be achieved by including the majority of all administrational processes – the process landscape. Therefore, we propose a method architecture which is capable of two things: Firstly, it supports a distributed modeling process across a whole public administration in order to capture the process landscape. Secondly, it is able to estimate the reorganization potential within the process landscape based on an analysis model. A working example derived from a currently funded EU project is supplemented in order to demonstrate our approach and to make it more comprehensible to the reader

Enhancing Performance Management and Sustainable Development through e-government policies in Urban Areas

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how system dynamics modelling can be used in e-government policy and systems as an aid to spport territorial ananlysis, planning and governance, sustainable performance in urban areas and the assessment of policy outcomes. Topics such as renewable energy, efficiency, the design and exploitation of urban energy, water and waste management infrastructure and the alignment of different stakeholders provide relevant fields of study for the analysis of this paper. Specifically, we reflect upon the way in which a preliminary dynamic performance management model of an exemplary case study can be used to foster a common shared view among different policy makers as a way to highlight new ways to enable sustainable development in urban areas

Training needs analysis: an empirical study of the Abu Dhabi police

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityTraining Needs Analysis (TNA) is often considered the most important step among the stages in the training cycle and, therefore, should precede any training intervention. However, in spite of the importance of TNA, the literature contains little empirical work on the topic. This study investigates the current practice of TNA within the Abu Dhabi Police (ADP), in order to identify the different barriers to its effective implementation, and to develop a suitable framework that can not only be applied to the Abu Dhabi Police, but also has wide applicability to other public sector organisations. Four areas are examined, these being: current practices of TNA, training decisions, effectiveness of TNA, and the barriers to its implementation. The study adopts a phenomenological approach, using inductive qualitative data in the main. The research population is categorised into three groups: a) policy-makers, top management, and academics, b) trainers, and c) trainees. In total, 51 individuals from the ADP are interviewed. The results show that TNA in the ADP is generally conducted formally on a regular basis. To a certain extent, all the methods are in use by the ADP in identifying its training needs, and the overall perceptions of the respondents regarding TNA practices are high. However, the study has identified some barriers to the implementation of effective TNA practices in the ADP. It is to be noted here that lack of expertise of the trainers; nepotism, kinship and personal relations between the supervisors and the employees, disrupt the training selection process in the ADP. Based on the findings this study has suggested some recommendations. This study hopes to contribute to, and extend, the body of knowledge on TNA by developing a novel, holistic conceptual framework, which provides general guidelines for TNA practitioners in the public sector of the UAE to ensure the successful and effective implementation of TNA. Additionally, it will contribute to the body of knowledge of TNA in the Middle East generally, and TNA in the Middle Eastern public sector, being the first exploratory empirical study conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as far as the author believes.H.H. Lt. General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior of the UAE, and the Abu Dhabi Police General Headquarters (ADPGHQ

Representing the family: how does the state 'think family'?

Over the last decade the family and family-centred policies and practices have received increasing attention within the public service agenda, culminating in the emphatic instruction to ‘think family’ individually, collectively and institutionally. This has occurred at a time when the sociology of the family has increasingly emphasised the difficulties of thinking family in a coherent way. In this article we explore this agenda through an examination of the representational tools with which public service professionals and managers have been recently equipped. We conclude by questioning the adequacy of these tools for effectively representing family relations

Beyond Paper and Plastic: A Meta-Model for Credential Use and Governance

ID cards, public transport tickets, and diplomas are examples of credentials that society has established as a means to provide trustworthy information to others. In the digital world, the emergence of self-sovereign identity as a new paradigm for the management of digital credentials aims to narrow the conceptual gap between digital and physical credentials. The ongoing digital transformation in the public sector requires dealing with a large variety of credentials in different forms systematically. However, there is still currently no generic conceptual model of credentials in the Information Systems (IS) discipline. We employ design science research to develop a unified meta-model on credentials, their use, and their governance. Our results contribute to research through an empirically grounded conceptualization of credentials and provide practitioners with a common basis to capture, analyze, and design the handling of credentials in real-world scenarios