Efthimios Tambouris

A Framework for Assessing eParticipation Projects and Tools

An increasing number of governments worldwide understand the importance of electronic participation (eParticipation) i.e. the importance of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to more actively engage citizens in democratic processes. As a result, the number of eParticipation projects and relevant tools is rapidly growing. This makes the need for recording and reviewing such projects and tools both timely and critical. In this paper we present a framework for assessing eParticipation projects and tools. The proposed framework is based on distinguishing between participation areas and ICT support for these areas and suggests assessment to be performed using specific templates that are developed for this purpose. We further apply this framework in order to assess 19 relevant European Commission co-funded research projects. The preliminary results suggest that research in the domain of eParticipation is at its early stages. More specifically, the results suggest that projects focus on the more elementary eParticipation areas, such as information provision and opinion polling, while there is a trend for using multiple access channels, e.g. mobile technologies

Understanding the predictive power of social media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consolidate existing knowledge and provide a deeper understanding of the use of social media (SM) data for predictions in various areas, such as disease outbreaks, product sales, stock market volatility and elections outcome predictions. Design/methodology/approach – The scientific literature was systematically reviewed to identify relevant empirical studies. These studies were analysed and synthesized in the form of a proposed conceptual framework, which was thereafter applied to further analyse this literature, hence gaining new insights into the field. Findings – The proposed framework reveals that all relevant studies can be decomposed into a small number of steps, and different approaches can be followed in each step. The application of the framework resulted in interesting findings. For example, most studies support SM predictive power, however, more than one-third of these studies infer predictive power without employing predictive analytics. In addition, a...

A classification scheme for open government data: towards linking decentralised data

Open government data (OGD) refers to making public sector information freely available in open formats and ways that enable public access and facilitate exploitation. Lately, a large number of OGD initiatives launched worldwide aiming to implement one-stop portals acting as single points of access to governmental data. At the same time, the so-called linked data technologies emerged aiming at publishing structured data on the web in such a way that enables semantically enriching data, uniform access to data, and linking of data. In this paper, we first propose a classification scheme for OGD initiatives based on the relevant literature. We thereafter, review and analyse OGD initiatives based on the proposed scheme. We finally present an architecture and prototype implementation for the most advanced OGD class in our scheme, which enables linking decentralised data.

Open government data: a stage model

Public sector information constitutes a valuable primary material for added-value services and products, which however remains unexploited. Recently, Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives emerged worldwide aiming to make public data freely available to everyone, without limiting restrictions. Despite its potential however there is currently a lack of roadmaps, guidelines and benchmarking frameworks to drive and measure OGD progress. This is particularly true as proposed stage models for measuring eGovernment progress focus on services and do not sufficiently consider data. In this paper, we capitalize on literature on eGovernment stage models and OGD initiatives to propose a stage model for OGD. The proposed model has two main dimensions, namely organizational & technological complexity and added value for data consumers. We anticipate the proposed model will open up a scientific discussion on OGD stage models and will be used by practitioners for constructing roadmaps and for benchmarking just like the European Union stage model is currently used for measuring public service online sophistication.

An integrated platform for realising online one-stop government: the eGOV project

One-stop government refers to the integration of public services from a citizens point of view. Currently, the realisation of online one-stop government in Europe is in an infant state. The eGOV project recognises that online one-stop government can only realise its full potential if supported by an integrated, open and extensible platform. The aim of the project is to develop and evaluate this platform, which will include the next generation of governmental portals, the service repository and service creation environment, the Governmental Markup Language, and the supporting network architecture. The use of the platform is expected to provide significant benefits to both citizens and public authorities. This platform will be evaluated by public authorities in three European counties including two ministries in charge of realising online one-shop government.

A framework for evaluating web sites of public authorities

Purpose – In this paper, the aim is to develop a framework for evaluating the web sites of public authorities. The proposed framework consists of four axes: two for assessing the general characteristics and content of the web sites (namely general characteristics and e‐content); and two for assessing specific functionalities addressing their governmental character (namely e‐services and e‐participation).Design/methodology/approach – The proposed framework is gradually built through a critical analysis of the two relevant domains, web site evaluation and e‐government. The methodology used in the case study includes the construction of an appropriate questionnaire for assessing the framework metrics. The practical use of the framework is demonstrated by means of a case study, namely evaluating the web sites of Greek public authorities at local and regional level.Findings – The proposed framework presents a more holistic approach to e‐government web site evaluation, while the case study provides some interes...

A Domain Model for eParticipation

The introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the field of public participation led to the emergence of electronic participation (eparticipation). The area of eparticipation is currently a rapidly evolving one. Although, a few eparticipation-related frameworks have been developed they actually aimed to address specific purposes. As a result, there is no work aiming to model the whole eparticipation domain. In this paper, a first attempt to model the domain of eparticipation is presented. For this purpose, we identify and describe the most significant aspects that characterize the eparticipation domain according to the relevant literature. In addition, we define a domain model in order to formally describe these aspects and the relationships between them. This model is illustrated using a set of Unified Modeling Language (UML) package and class diagrams.

Online One-Stop Government

Online one-stop government refers to the integration of public services from a customer of public services’ point of view. It allows citizens, businesses and other authorities to have 24 hours access to public services from their home, their offices or even on the move using different access media and devices. The concept requires that all public authorities are interconnected and that the citizen is able to access public services by a single point even if these services are actually provided by different departments or authorities. One-stop government requires the reengineering of the public sector’s processes towards online public services. It calls for a holistic framework that supports integrated modelling of electronic public services and synchronisation with the technical developments.

Ontology-Enabled E-gov Service Configuration: An Overview of the OntoGov Project

For electronic government initiatives to succeed, in addition to modernising the front office, attention should be also paid in order to streamline, re-organise and support the back-office processes of public administrations that provide public services to citizens. Furthermore, actions should be taken to limit the loss of critical knowledge assets during the life cycle of electronic government services. In this paper, the OntoGov project is outlined aiming to develop, test and validate a semantically-enriched (ontology-enabled) platform that will facilitate the consistent composition, re-configuration and evolution of electronic government services.

GovML: a markup language for describing public services and life events

The Governmental Markup Language (GovML) has been proposed by the IST eGOV project to define structures (or vocabularies) for governmental data and metadata. In this paper, the GovML data vocabularies for describing public services and life events are presented. Technically, GovML is a proposed format for XML documents. Its adoption by public authorities will allow users (citizens, businesses) of public services to exploit the potential of XML technology. For example, users will be able to access governmental information in a unified presentation style through multiple communication channels (web browsers, mobile phones, handheld devices etc).