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This work introduces LibreDTE, an initiative providing software tools and support for electronic invoicing in Chile. LibreDTE is mainly built upon libredte-lib, a free software library that directly connects with the Chilean Internal Revenue Service, thus enabling automatic emissions of official e-invoices and other electronic tax documents. LibreDTE is either: (1) the first (and so far, the only one) Chilean framework for free-software-driven e-invoicing, and (2) an official software solution with featured e-business capabilities. In this paper, we describe both, the community (or free software) version, and the official (or commercial) version of LibreDTE. We focus on their primary building blocks and major technical differences, and we show, in a tutorial way, some of the key design considerations behind their common e-invoice generation. We also discuss some lessonslearned from earlier implementations, as well as the latest (and promising) features incorporated within the official version.This paper was partially supported by National Funds through FCT/MCTES (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology), within the CISTER Research Unit (UIDP/UIDB/04234/2020) and by FCT through the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Regional Operational Programme (ROP) Norte 2020, under grant 2020.06685.BDinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

eHealth Conversations : using information management, dialogue, and knowledge exchange to move toward universal

The publication of eHealth Conversations, developed with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), represents a major step forward for the PAHO/WHO Strategy, since it explores ways of implementing regional mechanisms with free and equitable access to information and knowledge sharing. These initiatives aim to advance the goals of more informed, equitable, competitive, and democratic societies, where access to health information is considered a basic right. This publication is one of the instruments used by PAHO/WHO to develop the initiatives outlined in the Strategy, which coincides with the global eHealth strategy. One of the fundamental needs for the improvement of eHealth is the dissemination of information, and PAHO/WHO is assuming a leading role in this effort. The development of this new electronic publication is a key step in disseminating information that will be useful for decision makers on applying these technologies for the health of the Americas. This electronic book is one of the products of PAHO/WHO’s project: “eHealth Conversations: Using Information Management, Dialogue, and Knowledge Exchange to Move Toward Universal Access to Health.” Participants in these conversations included experts on electronic health and other specialties. Through virtual dialogues, the experts contributed with knowledge and reflections on the present and the future of eHealth in the Americas, analyzed the situation, and made recommendations for the implementation of electronic health initiatives. These recommendations are not only intended for PAHO/ WHO, but also for governments and the private sector. The aim of the project is to guarantee the convergence of local, national, and regional initiatives regarding the adoption and application of ICTs for public health, with special attention on critical issues in this field. It also intends to strengthen individual and collective capacities of health workers and institutions, connecting them in a network of on-line health networks, as well as to reinforce the PAHO/WHO eHealth program.Acknowledge the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) for its financial support in preparing this publication and developing the project titled “eHealth Conversations: Using Information Management, Dialogue, and Knowledge Exchange to Move Toward Universal Access to Health;

An eGovernment Platform for Improving Communication among Municipalities and Citizens in the North of Chile

Government and its further development has been increasingly associated with the use of IT and communication. This interconnection is also happening in developing countries such as Chile. This study is designed to assess the e-government infrastructure and the use of IT and communication among some municipalities in Chile in order to implement a platform that allows government to government (G2G), government to employees and government to citizens (G2C) communication. The proposed platform will allow these municipalities to share information about citizens and corporations in the region. This study is conducted in second region of Chile and considered eight municipal governments. The findings suggest that while all the municipalities are highly interested in e-government initiatives, their infrastructure are different and in a very early stage of development. Thus, the study suggested e-government platform highly flexible to incorporate the differences in infrastructure among the municipalities, as secure as possible to allows government interactions, and implemented using an Application Service Provider (ASP) solution. As a result a distributed system using a Java system (J2EE) was the technology chosen e implemented for the ARM2 e-government platform

e-Government interoperability frameworks : a worldwide inventory and comparison

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia e Gestão de Sistemas de InformaçãoDesde o final da década de noventa que se verificou uma proliferação das soluções de egovernment (e-gov), que partiu de um momento de mudança e grande melhoria nos canais de informação e comunicação disponíveis. Esta mudança de paradigma levou ao aparecimento de novas formas de trabalhar na administração pública. Na altura, verificava-se um ambiente de total falta de comunicação e de incompatibilidade entre os sistemas de informação da administração pública, cada agência funcionava como uma ilha totalmente separada das restantes. Para harmonizar as várias iniciativas de e-gov dentro de um país, tem-se assistido à publicação e adoção do que se chama Interoperability Framework (IF). O IF é composto por um ou mais documentos que contêm um conjunto de políticas, diretrizes e boas práticas. O primeiro IF foi lançado no Reino Unido, no ano 2000. Desde então foram vários os países que os adotaram, não só por os considerarem importantes, mas também devido a pressões politicas exercidas por comunidades internacionais, e devido a questões financeiras. Apesar de reconhecia a importância e disseminação da adoção dos IFs, não é conhecida a sua dispersão mundial, vários levantamentos foram já realizados, mas com âmbito restringido a grupos de países. Assim, foi identificada a necessidade de se catalogar as existências e inexistências dos IFs em todos os países do globo. Para o registo das existências dos IFs foi criada, no âmbito deste projeto, a tabela de recolha. Durante a primeira fase de recolha de IFs, foi possível obter 42 IFs. Para completar esta primeira recolha foi lançado um questionário, que permitiu ainda obter mais 2 IFs e registar 10 países como não tendo IF. Em paralelo com a necessidade de inventariar os IFs, foi identificada a necessidade de se criar um referencial comparativo compreensivo, que sirva também de ferramenta de comparação e avaliação dos IFs. Referenciais comparativos já tinham sido anteriormente criados, mas com limitações quer no seu âmbito quer na sua aplicação. Com a aplicação do referencial comparativo desenvolvido neste projeto, obteve-se a tabela comparativa. Nela figuram os 28 IFs que cumpriram os requisitos linguísticos que limitaram a aplicação do referencial. Terminada a tabela comparativa, foi tecida uma análise aos dados que nela figuravam com vista a perceber tendências, similaridades e diferenças entre os vários IFs.Since the late nineties, that there has been a proliferation of solutions for e-government (e-gov), which came from a time of great change and improvement in the information and communication channels available. This paradigm shift has led to the emergence of new ways of working in public administration. At the time, a total lack of communication and inconsistency between the information systems of public administration was the norm, each agency operated as a completely separate island from the rest. To harmonize the various e-gov initiatives within a country, the public administrations started to publish and adopt what is known as Interoperability Framework (IF). The IF is composed of one or more documents containing a set of policies, guidelines and best practices. The first IF was launched in the UK in 2000. Since then several countries have adopted the IF not only because they considered them important, but also due to political pressures exerted by the international communities, and due to financial issues. While recognizing the importance of the adoption and dissemination of FIs, their world spread is not known, several surveys have been conducted, but with restricted scope to groups of countries. Thus, a need was identified to inventory the IFs in all countries around the globe. For the record such inventory of IFs the collection table was created as part of this project. During the first phase of collection IFs, 42 IFs were obtained. In order to complete this first collection a questionnaire was released that allowed the collection of two more IFs and the record of 10 countries as having no IF. In parallel with the need to inventory the IFs, a need to create a comprehensive comparative referential was noted. This comprehensive referential will also serve as tool for comparison and evaluation of the IFs. Comparative referentials had already been created, but with limitations both in its scope and in its application. With the application of the comparative referential developed in this project, the comparison table was obtained. It included the 27 IFs that have met the language requirements that restricted the application of the standard. After the comparative table was completed, na analysis was made over the data included therein in order to understand trends, similarities and differences between the various IFs

Free/Open Source Software - Open Standards

Co-published with Elsevier a division of Reed Elsevier India Private LimitedThis primer is part of a series of primers on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) from IOSN serving as introductory documents to FOSS in general, as well as covering particular topic areas that are deemed important to FOSS such as open standards. Open standards are not the same as FOSS. However, like FOSS, they can minimize the possibility of technology and vendor lock-ins and level the playing field. They can also play an important role in promoting the interoperability of FOSS and proprietary software and this is crucial in the current, mixed Information technology (IT) environment. Being a primer in the IOSN FOSS series, the issues concerning open standards are approached from the FOSS and software perspectives and emphasis is given to the relationship that some of these standards have with FOSS. The definition of an open standard has generated much controversy with regard to whether it should contain patents licensed under reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms. The FOSS community, in general, is of the view that such RAND-encumbered standards should not be considered as open standards but most of the standards development organizations and bodies do accept patents available under RAND terms in their standards. The primer has incorporated definitions of open standards from both sides and also put into perspective the minimal characteristics that an open standard should have. It is hoped that this primer will provide the reader with a better understanding as to why open standards are important and how they can complement FOSS in fostering a more open IT environment. As users and consumers, the readers of this primer should demand from their software, conformance to open standards as far as possible. In addition to promoting interoperability and making more choices available, this will make it easier for FOSS to co-exist and take root in environments filled with proprietary software

The e-Government Development Discourse

research agenda for e-Government. When e-Government was first conceived, it was designed upon basic technologies where the emphasis was only on the simple display of government information for citizens to read. Nowadays, e-Government design comprises many complicated modules such as upload and download consoles, two-way interaction consoles between citizens and government agents, integrated government business processes presenting the whole of government, and it does not depend solely on technology. The complexity of e-Government has now evolved to include political, cultural, economic, social and technical dimensions. Bringing all these difficult aspects together is so complicated that it needs carefully planned strategies informed by local contextual characteristics. Rather than giving formulaic definitions and conceptual standpoints on many aspects of e-Government, as is the case in many e-Government publications, this book will explore the frontiers of global knowledge value chains by discussing current and future dimensions of e-Government. For example, the book discusses the concept of data governance by exploring how actual opening up of government data can be achieved, especially in a developing world context. Further, the book posits that opening government data should be followed by the opening up of government business processes in order to peddle the concept of accountability and responsiveness. Much text on data governance has concentrated on articulating the basic definitions surrounding this concept. Another very important topic explored in this book is regarding how the concept of decolonisation can be extended to e-Government by providing practical examples as to how researchers in the developing world can contribute to the advancement of e-Government as a scientific field of enquiry and guide its implementation, thereof. Decolonisation is advocated for in e-Government research so that there is a balance in the inclusion of the Afrocentric knowledge into e-Government advancement other than over-reliance on the Euro-, Asia- and America-centric knowledge value chains (Mbembe 2015). As e-Government is a very expensive undertaking, the issue of funding has excluded African countries and a majority of the developing world from implementing e-Government. Despite funding being a critical cornerstone of e-Government development, there is a dearth of information on this topic. Therefore, this book provides a chapter which discusses traditional and innovative ways of funding e-Government design and implementation which can go a long way in improving e-Government penetration into the developing world. Further, the book explores how intelligent e-Government applications can be designed, especially in resource-constrained countries. A couple of emerging technology innovations such as fog computing and intelligent information technology are explored within the realm of e-Government design

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

The e-Government Development Discourse

research agenda for e-Government. When e-Government was first conceived, it was designed upon basic technologies where the emphasis was only on the simple display of government information for citizens to read. Nowadays, e-Government design comprises many complicated modules such as upload and download consoles, two-way interaction consoles between citizens and government agents, integrated government business processes presenting the whole of government, and it does not depend solely on technology. The complexity of e-Government has now evolved to include political, cultural, economic, social and technical dimensions. Bringing all these difficult aspects together is so complicated that it needs carefully planned strategies informed by local contextual characteristics. Rather than giving formulaic definitions and conceptual standpoints on many aspects of e-Government, as is the case in many e-Government publications, this book will explore the frontiers of global knowledge value chains by discussing current and future dimensions of e-Government. For example, the book discusses the concept of data governance by exploring how actual opening up of government data can be achieved, especially in a developing world context. Further, the book posits that opening government data should be followed by the opening up of government business processes in order to peddle the concept of accountability and responsiveness. Much text on data governance has concentrated on articulating the basic definitions surrounding this concept. Another very important topic explored in this book is regarding how the concept of decolonisation can be extended to e-Government by providing practical examples as to how researchers in the developing world can contribute to the advancement of e-Government as a scientific field of enquiry and guide its implementation, thereof. Decolonisation is advocated for in e-Government research so that there is a balance in the inclusion of the Afrocentric knowledge into e-Government advancement other than over-reliance on the Euro-, Asia- and America-centric knowledge value chains (Mbembe 2015). As e-Government is a very expensive undertaking, the issue of funding has excluded African countries and a majority of the developing world from implementing e-Government. Despite funding being a critical cornerstone of e-Government development, there is a dearth of information on this topic. Therefore, this book provides a chapter which discusses traditional and innovative ways of funding e-Government design and implementation which can go a long way in improving e-Government penetration into the developing world. Further, the book explores how intelligent e-Government applications can be designed, especially in resource-constrained countries. A couple of emerging technology innovations such as fog computing and intelligent information technology are explored within the realm of e-Government design