Enabling Semantic Interoperability in e-Government: A System-based Methodological Framework for XML Schema Management at National Level

Articulating semantic interoperability in e-Government remains in question as long as the international standardization efforts do not reach a consensus on how to semantically annotate and exchange data, but merely focus on the syntactic aspects by publishing sets of XML Schemas. As one-stop governmental services at national and cross-county level become an imperative, the need for standardized data definitions, codification of existing unstructured information and a framework for managing governmental data in a unified way emerges. Effectively applied to the Greek e-Government National Interoperability Framework, this paper proposes a methodology for designing semantically enriched XML Schemas with which homogenized governmental information complies, based on the UN/CEFACT Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS). A discussion around a prospective architecture for managing large sets of XML Schemas is also motivated in order to recognize the necessary components and the key issues that need to be tackled when designing a Governmental Schema Registry

From Understanding to Use and Compete: A translational Platform for Business Transformation

This article discusses a translational cycle and a translational platform which have been designed in the context of the FutureEnterprise project, a European Commission funded support action. One of the main strategic axes of the FutureEnterprise project is related to a specific focus on translational research activities, aiming to bridge academic and industrial research with Internet-based entrepreneurship and digital business innovation. The term ‘translational research’ appeared in Pubmed illustrates, for the first time around 1993 to identify the “translational gaps’’, hindering the transformation of discoveries in the life sciences into improvements having societal profit from basic research. As for the management research, translational issues have been pointed out as relevant and critical factors within Academy of Management (AOM) research community, identifying two types of translational challenges for an effective impact of management research on practice: a “lost in translation” (fail to find the right way to transfer research results in the practitioners language, understanding, and needs) and “lost before translation” (fail to identify an appropriate and systematic translation process as the one leading from “bench to bedside” in life sciences ). The contribution presented in this article aims to face the challenges of ‘translational research’ in the context of technology management and innovation from a design science stance, thus identifying key constructs further developed through a translational platform which represents the resulting IT artifact (existing MOOC) from a “tool view”

ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling: Visionary Directions and Research Paths

The role of government in the society is undergoing continuous change, acceler-ated in the recent years due to the widespread adoption of ICTs. The legitimacy of government action is increasingly put into question and it is recognised that the emergence of new and complex problems requires government to collaborate with non-governmental actors in addressing societal challenges, moving into a new era in which the provision of public services is oriented towards the creation of public value and user empowerment. In recent years we have assisted to a flourishing of user-driven ICT tools addressing public service delivery and administrative proc-esses. But yet this domain is still very much unchartered, led by bottom-up initia-tives, with little consolidation, with mostly small-scale experiments, at the margin of Government's initiatives. In this context, consensus is starting to build around the potential that collaborative technologies have in the field of governance and policy modelling, but for effective citizen empowerment and participation to be-come mainstream, at a greater scale, several challenges will have to be faced, which will require new tools to be developed. The major research questions that comes up on the surface is which new ICT-enabled governance models and meth-ods of monitoring, interaction, collaboration for policy making and enforcement are emerging, and which are the appropriate policy modelling mechanisms that will effectively re-engage citizens in the decision making process.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

The Decalogue of Policy Making 2.0: Results from Analysis of Case Studies on the Impact of ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling

Despite the availability of a myriad of ICT tools and methodologies for supporting governance and the formulation of policies, including modelling ex-pected impacts, they have proved unable to cope with the dire challenges of the contemporary society. In this chapter we present the results of the analysis of a set of promising cases researched in order to understand the possible impact of what we define 'Policy Making 2.0', which refers to 'a set of methodologies and technological solutions aimed at enabling better, timely and participative policy-making (CROSSOVER, 2012; Misuraca et al., 2014). Based on the analysis of these cases we suggest a bouquet of (mostly ICT-related) policy implications and practical recommendations stemming that are relevant to researchers, practitioners and policy makers in order to guide a the introduction and implememntation of Policy Making 2.0 initiatives. We argue that this 'decalogue' of Policy Making 2.0 could be an operational checklist for future research and policy to further explore the potential of ICT tools for governance and policy modelling, so to make next generation policy making more 'intelligent' and hopefully able to solve or anticipate the societal challenges we are (and will be) confronted today and in the future.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Enhancing cancer patient's well-being and health status improvement following treatment using AI methods - project ONCORELIEF

ONCORELIEF improves post-treatment health status, well-being and follow-up care for cancer patients in order to meet their needs and allow for timely suggestions before these patients face increased therapeutic side-effects, emotional distress, or biobehavioural factors promoting cancer progression

Prosperity Indicators: Foundations, Concerns, and Prospects of Usage in Policy Making-The Policy Compass Approach

Prosperity indicators aim at making the concept of prosperity measurable, and hold thus the potential to be used for measuring and assessing the impacts of policies and policy measures over the society. Nevertheless, the abstract and multidimensional nature of prosperity, weaknesses around their definition from a methodological perspective and concerns on their legitimacy among other factors pose difficulties on the exploitation of prosperity indicators for public debate. This paper reviews the usage of prosperity indicators in policy making, bringing up developments, trends and concerns around their conceptualization and use. It further presents the Policy Compass approach, which provides an observatory for experimentation with prosperity indicators with the view of influencing the policy-making process at the local and regional level, and thus contributing towards the vision of more responsive governance

Accelerating Policy Making 2.0: Innovation Directions and Research Perspectives as distilled from Four Standout Cases

People are lately re-considering the advantages of becoming once again an active part of the society, as they everyday discover new ways of connecting with each other towards common goals. This increasing change of attitude calls for new tools and methods as traditional tools for policy making have proved unable to predict and cope with most of today's pressing and persistent challenges. In this context, it is considered as of pivotal importance to study a set of representative set of modern PolicyMaking 2.0 best cases, in order to scout towards evidence-based future directions, policy propositions, documented results and conclusions. The purpose of the paper at hand is to provide policy makers, practitioners, aswell as other interested stakeholders,with a bouquet of (mostly ICT-related) policy implications and practical recommendations that steam through an evidence based, domain-wide study, aiming at directing them towards more efficient and effective launch, steering and sustaining of Policy Making 2.0 initiatives. Early engagement of stakeholders, openness, user friendliness and agility in the whole procedure constitutes only a high level presentation of the propositions and implications derived as a result of the analysis that follows.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Paving the Way for Future Research in ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling

Part 1: FoundationsInternational audienceIn light of the contemporary societal challenges and the current technological trends that have revolutionized collaboration and creativity, ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling has recently emerged to achieve a better, participative, evidence-based and timely governance. Bringing together two separate worlds, i.e. the mathematical and complex systems background of Policy Modelling with the service provision, participation and open data aspects in Governance, it has recently gathered significant attention by researchers and practitioners. This paper presents the grand challenges that will inspire research in the domain in the next years, as well as the track from the state of play study, the visionary scenarios building and the gap analysis that has eventually led to their recognition. The specific research challenges target at achieving a collaborative, model-based governance with a strong scientific basis, empowered with data in order to reach collective intelligence, and providing public services as a utility

Paving the way for future research in ICT for governance and policy modelling

In light of the contemporary societal challenges and the current technological trends that have revolutionized collaboration and creativity, ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling has recently emerged to achieve a better, participative, evidence-based and timely governance. Bringing together two separate worlds, i.e. the mathematical and complex systems background of Policy Modelling with the service provision, participation and open data aspects in Governance, it has recently gathered significant attention by researchers and practitioners. This paper presents the grand challenges that will inspire research in the domain in the next years, as well as the track from the state of play study, the visionary scenarios building and the gap analysis that has eventually led to their recognition. The specific research challenges target at achieving a collaborative, model-based governance with a strong scientific basis, empowered with data in order to reach collective intelligence, and providing public services as a utility. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

Current and Future Challenges of Software Engineering for Services and Applications

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and, in particular, software is more and more pervasive and it cannot be considered anymore as a minor element of a complex systems. In domains like cloud, big data, IoT (Internet of Things), CPS (Cyber-Physical Systems) it is the core element. We need to consolidate the software engineering discipline, which, despite the impressive achievements in the area of software technology, is probably one of the youngest scientific and technological disciplines with about 60 years of history. This paper summarizes the challenges that the Software Engineering for Services and Applications (SE4SA) cluster is considering as relevant