Supporting public decision making in policy deliberations: An ontological approach

This is the post-print version of the Paper. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 SpringerSupporting public decision making in policy deliberations has been a key objective of eParticipation which is an emerging area of eGovernment. EParticipation aims to enhance citizen involvement in public governance activities through the use of information and communication technologies. An innovative approach towards this objective is exploiting the potentials of semantic web technologies centred on conceptual knowledge models in the form of ontologies. Ontologies are generally defined as explicit human and computer shared views on the world of particular domains. In this paper, the potentials and benefits of using ontologies for policy deliberation processes are discussed. Previous work is then extended and synthesised to develop a deliberation ontology. The ontology aims to define the necessary semantics in order to structure and interrelate the stages and various activities of deliberation processes with legal information, participant stakeholders and their associated arguments. The practical implications of the proposed framework are illustrated.This work is funded by the European Commission under the 2006/1 eParticipation call

Evaluation study supporting the interim evaluation of the ISA² programme. CEPS Project Report. June 2019

In compliance with Article 13 of Decision (EU) 2015/2240 establishing the ISA2 programme, the interim evaluation assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, EU added value, coherence, utility and sustainability of ISA2. Based on primary data collected from 129 consulted stakeholders, extensive desk research, and expert assessments, the evaluation confirms that ISA2 performs well in all the evaluation criteria. The objectives pursued by ISA2 are still pertinent in relation to the evolving needs and problems in the field of interoperability of digital public services, and the results achieved so far are aligned with the objectives of the programme. As ISA2 progresses and solutions are further developed, the expected results should be attained, given that the implementation of the programme is continuing as planned. There are substantial synergies and limited overlaps among ISA2 actions. Moreover, particularly strong synergies exist with the Connecting Europe Facility. ISA2 contributed to enhancing cross-border interoperability and users generally tend to be satisfied with the solutions provided. Overall, ISA2 plays a crucial role in enhancing the interoperability landscape in the European Union. In light of these findings, the evaluation outlines some measures to improve the performance of ISA2 and future editions of the programme

Gap Analysis Methodology for Identifying Future Ict Related eGovernment Research Topics – Case of “Ontology and Semantic Web” in the Context of eGovernment

Modern ICT enables governments all over the world to improve their operation in order to become more efficient and effective. Despite of all possible benefits of using modern ICT, governments still struggle with the problems of inefficiency of their operation. eGovernment is being discussed in many contexts. Expectations of research and implementation in this field were high. However, many investments have not met the visions and reached the maturity aimed at. What are the deficiencies of current developments in eGovernment? What is the role of research in advancing the field? In an European Commission - funded project, eGovRTD2020, eGovernment research is being investigated in terms of current state of play and future needs of eGovernment research based on visionary scenarios of governments using modern ICT in 2020 for their service provision and interaction with their constituency (citizens, companies, other governments, etc.). To understand the future needs of eGovernment research, a structured methodology of analyzing the gaps of current research in respect to the future needs has been developed. This paper presents the gap analysis methodology with the example of identified gap and future research theme “semantic web and ontology in the context of eGovernment”

A Business Ontology for supporting cross border cooperation between European Chambers of Commerce

The recent EU enlargement opens up new opportunities, but poses new issues to be addressed. In particular, in order to enable and support cooperation between firms from different countries, it is necessary to address interoperability issues. The LD-CAST project aims at enabling cross border cooperation between European chambers of commerce (CCs) for supporting the development of private company initiatives. The project objective is to build a European network of portals that will enable end users (mainly private companies) to access in a seamless mode services provided by public organizations registered in each portal. This paper briefly presents a cooperation framework for semantic interoperability mainly based on the following semantic technologies: ontology management, semantic annotation, and semantic search and discovery. Finally the business ontology produced in the course of the project is presented.The recent EU enlargement opens up new opportunities, but poses new issues to be addressed. In particular, in order to enable and support cooperation between firms from different countries, it is necessary to address interoperability issues. The LD-CAST project aims at enabling cross border cooperation between European chambers of commerce (CCs) for supporting the development of private company initiatives. The project objective is to build a European network of portals that will enable end users (mainly private companies) to access in a seamless mode services provided by public organizations registered in each portal. This paper briefly presents a cooperation framework for semantic interoperability mainly based on the following semantic technologies: ontology management, semantic annotation, and semantic search and discovery. Finally the business ontology produced in the course of the project is presented.Uninvited Submission

A Review Of Interoperability Standards And Initiatives In Electronic Government

Being important at organizational, process and semantic levels, interoperability became a key characteristic of the new electronic government systems and services, over the last decade. As a crucial prerequisite for automated process execution leading to “one-stop” e-Government services, interoperability has been systematically prescribed, since the dawn of the 21st century: Standardization frameworks, that included guidelines ranging from simple statements to well defined international Web-Service standards started to appear at National and Cross-Country levels, powered by governments, the European Union or the United Nations. In parallel, most international software, hardware and service vendors created their own strategies for achieving the goal of open, collaborative, loosely coupled systems and components. The paper presents the main milestones in this fascinating quest that shaped electronic government during the last 10 years, describing National Frameworks, key Pan-European projects, international standardization and main industrial and research achievements. Moreover, the paper describes the next steps needed to achieve interoperability at technical, semantic, organizational, legal or policy level – leading to the transformation of administrative processes and the provision of low-cost, high-quality services to citizens and businesses

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