Government as a social machine in an ecosystem

The Web is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout all aspects of human activity. As citizens and organisations adopt Web technologies, so governments are beginning to respond by themselves utilising the electronic space. Much of this has been reactive, and there is very little understanding of the impact that Web technologies are having on government systems and processes, let alone a proactive approach to designing systems that can ensure a positive and beneficial societal impact. The ecosystem which encompasses governments, citizens and communities is both evolving and adaptive, and the only way to examine and understand the development of Web-enabled government, and its possible implications, is to consider government itself as a “social machine” within a social machine ecosystem. In this light, there are significant opportunities and challenges for government that this paper identifies

Government as a social machine - the implications of government as a social machine for making and implementing market-based policy

This is the second of two reports from the Government as a Social Machine project. The first report gave an overview of the evolution of electronic/digital government, and explored the concept of 21st century government as a \u27social machine\u27. This report identifies seven social machines developed by governments in Australia and New Zealand. These social machines harness digital technologies in order to deliver more effective and efficient services, develop better business practices, and enable better accountability and transparency. The report gives an overview of each social machine in context, describing the social need that is being met and the community that has developed it, and begins to unravel some of the socio-political consequences that might arise from the use of these social machines within the public policy context. These reports are not intended to be comprehensive (further educational materials are being developed as part of the ANZSOG Case Library), but they are intended to begin a conversation amongst those studying or practicing in public policy as to how governments can better understand, manage and employ these evolving social machines for better governance and social benefit

Governance in the age of social machines: the web observatory

The World Wide Web has provided unprecedented access to information; as humans and machines increasingly interact with it they provide more and more data. The challenge is how to analyse and interpret this data within the context that it was created, and to present it in a way that both researchers and practitioners can more easily make sense of. The first step is to have access to open and interoperable data sets, which Governments around the world are increasingly subscribing to. But having ‘open’ data is just the beginning and does not necessarily lead to better decision making or policy development. This is because data do not provide the answers – they need to be analysed, interpreted and understood within the context of their creation, and the business imperative of the organisation using them. The major corporate entities, such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, have the capabilities to do this, but are driven by their own commercial imperatives, and their data are largely siloed and held within ‘walled gardens’ of information. All too often governments and non-profit groups lack these capabilities, and are driven by very different mandates. In addition they have far more complex community relationships, and must abide by regulatory constraints which dictate how they can use the data they hold. As such they struggle to maximise the value of this emerging ‘digital currency’ and are therefore largely beholden to commercial vendors. What has emerged is a public-private data ecosystem that has huge policy implications (including the twin challenges of privacy and security). Many within the public sector lack the skills to address these challenges because they lack the literacy required within the digital context. This project seeks to address some of these problems by bringing together a safe and secure Australian-based data platform (facilitating the sharing of data, analytics and visualisation) with policy analysis and governance expertise in order to create a collaborative working model of a ‘Government Web Observatory’. This neutral space, hosted by an Australian university, can serve as a powerful complement to existing Open Data initiatives in Australia, and enable research and education to combine to support the development of a more digitally literate public service. The project aims to explore where, and in which contexts, people, things, data and the Internet meet and result in evolving observable phenomena which can inform better government policy development and service delivery.&nbsp

Government as a social machine: the implications of government as a “social machine” for making and implementing market-based policy - Report 2: the Machines

This is the second of two reports from the Government as a Social Machine project. The first report gave an overview of the evolution of electronic/digital government, and explored the concept of 21st century government as a 'social machine'.This report identifies seven social machines developed by governments in Australia and New Zealand. These social machines harness digital technologies in order to deliver more effective and efficient services, develop better business practices, and enable better accountability and transparency. The report gives an overview of each social machine in context, describing the social need that is being met and the community that has developed it, and begins to unravel some of the socio-political consequences that might arise from the use of these social machines within the public policy context.These reports are not intended to be comprehensive (further educational materials are being developed as part of the ANZSOG Case Library), but they are intended to begin a conversation amongst those studying or practicing in public policy as to how governments can better understand, manage and employ these evolving social machines for better governance and social benefi

Critical success factors to yield business benefits from semantic technologies

The purpose of this chapter is to explore opportunities offered by and issues associated with the use of emergent semantic technologies in enhancing an enterprisee's business position. These technologies include a foundation level set of standards and descriptive languages supporting interpretive connections to applications. The chapter is more oriented towards applications and the human side of the human/machine interface. We draw on both the literature and case material available to us as active practitioners to illustrate benefits realized and potential barriers to the uptake of semantic technologies. Critical success factors are related to user learning capabilities, the establishment of trust in the technology and its providers, and factors influencing the nature of potential engagement with users and markets

Ethical and legal support for innovation on web observatories

In this paper, we consider the ethical and legal context and challenges for the further development of Web Observatories (WOs). First the need for and importance of a transparent and robust legal and ethical framework that can be adopted by WOs is outlined. Then, the legal and ethical challenges faced are explored. Finally, characteristics of best practice and an outline of the proposed solutions, including the development of a new ethical model -- PRO-SENT, are set out