Elsa Estevez

Lean government and platform-based governance: doing more with less

Governments from all over the world are looking for ways to reduce costs while at the same time to stimulate innovation. While pursuing both objectives, governments face a major challenge—to operate in a connected environment, engage stakeholders and solve societal problems by utilizing new methods, tools, practices and governance models. As result, fundamental changes are taking place on how government operates. Such changes are under the larger umbrella of ‘lean government’ (l-Government). Lean government is a new wave which is appearing as a response to traditional approaches—like electronic government (e-Government) and transformational government (t-Government), and aims at reducing the complexity of the public sector by simplifying and streamlining organizational structures and processes, at the same time at stimulating innovation by mobilizing stakeholders. In l-Government, public organizations introduce platforms facilitating innovation and interactions with other public organizations, business and citizens, and focus on their orchestration role. Experimentation, assessment and gradual improvement based on user requirements are key factors for realizing l-Government.

Electronic Governance for Sustainable Development — Conceptual framework and state of research

Electronic Governance (EGOV) research studies the use of Information and Communication Technologies to improve governance processes. Sustainable Development (SD) research studies possible development routes that satisfy the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. Despite substantial progress in advancing both domains independently, little research exists at their intersection — how to utilize EGOV in support of SD. We call this intersection Electronic Governance for Sustainable Development (EGOV4SD). This paper: 1) proposes a conceptual framework for EGOV4SD, 2) proposes EGOV4SD research assessment framework and 3) applies both frameworks to determine the state of EGOV4SD research. The main contribution of the paper is establishing a foundation for EGOV4SD research.

Interoperability in Big, Open, and Linked Data--Organizational Maturity, Capabilities, and Data Portfolios

Defining their data interoperability maturity level, expanding capabilities, and developing a data portfolio can help guide organizations as they move toward ubiquitous information sharing.

Conceptualizing Electronic Governance Education

Responding to the issues of complexity, relevance, cost and risk of Electronic Governance (EGOV), we witness a specialization of the roles responsible for EGOV development and operation, professionalizationof the personnel playing such roles, and utilization of the EGOV services and information to fulfill citizen needs. In order to build competencies required by such(managerial, professional, technician and user) roles, education becomes a key success factor, and a growing variety of EGOV learning opportunities emerges. However, lacking conceptual underpinnings for EGO education, the discovery, analysis and integration of such opportunities is difficult. To address this need, the paper develops a theoretical construct for EGO education, applies six measures to this construct: who-- learners, why -- roles, what -- competencies, how --programs, where -- schools, and when -- prerequisites, and validates it through a landscaping exercise focusing on EGOV university programs.

Whole-of-government approach to information technology strategy management: building a sustainable collaborative technology environment in government

The Whole of Government (WG) approach is increasingly seen as an imperative for delivering coherent and integrated policies, joined up and seamless services, and integrated program management in government. Although no generic WG framework currently exists, there are reported cases of WG initiatives by different governments. Grounded in existing theories, frameworks and cases related to inter-organizational collaboration, collaborative Electronic Government (EGOV) and joined-up government, this article describes how to build a collaborative IT Strategy Management (ITSM) environment based on the WG approach. The article first develops a WG model to identify the enabling elements for the WG approach. Next, it identifies the necessary conditions for creating a collaborative ITSM environment in government, applies the WG model to synthesize a set of generic requirements for implementing the WG approach, and presents a WG ITSM toolset to support the implementation. Finally, the generic WG-ITSM requirements are used to analyze a case study involving the WG-ITSM development in a city government. Based on the case study, the validity of the WG model and generic WG-ITSM requirements as well as the usefulness of the toolset are discussed. The article closes with the recommendations for the WG-ITSM practice and for further development of the WG framework.

Improving Government Enterprise Architecture Practice--Maturity Factor Analysis

Recognized as a critical factor for the whole-of-government capability, many governments have initiated Enterprise Architectures (EA) programs. However, while there is no shortage of EA frameworks, the understanding of what makes EA practice effective in a government enterprise is limited. This paper presents the results of empirical research aimed at determining the key factors for raising the maturity of the Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA) practice, part of an effort to guide policy-makers of a particular government on how to develop GEA capabilities in its agencies. By analyzing data from a survey involving 33 agencies, the relative importance of factors like top management commitment, participation of business units and effectiveness of project governance structures on the maturity of the GEA practice was determined. The results confirm that management commitment and participation of business units are critical factors, which in turn are influenced by the perceived usefulness of the GEA efforts.

Government-Enterprise Ecosystem Gateway (G-EEG) for Seamless e-Government

The paper presents some challenges to seamless e-government, and proposes a technical solution - government-enterprise ecosystem gateway (G-EEG) to address them. G-EEG is a framework through which multi-organizational processes and applications can dynamically build, apply and evolve complex communication structures to asynchronously exchange messages in specific application contexts, e.g. to deliver seamless public services. In addition to basic messaging, G-EEG supports high-level messaging functions through dynamically-enabled horizontal (process-independent) or vertical (process-dependent) extensions. A number of extensions are described as solutions to the challenges for seamless e-government. Currently a research prototype, G-EEG is specified formally and implemented using open standards

Performance prediction of the hough transform

Based on three different implementation schemes, this paper strongly demonstrates that the performance of the Hough transform depends crucially on its implementation scheme when it is used for line detection. Moreover, the obtained results can be used as a theoretical basis to predict the performance of the Hough transform as well as to eliminate the noise in Hough space coming from image noise.

Establishing government chief information officer systems: readiness assessment

Effective Information Technology (IT) leadership is critical for achieving a good alignment between business needs and IT means of an organization. In the public sector, IT leadership is increasingly realized through the Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) function, typically established by governments based on local circumstances and emerging needs. This makes peer-learning about the working of such systems and their transfer between different government contexts challenging. To address this concern, the authors introduced earlier a GCIO System - a set of inter-related activities to guide governments in gradually establishing, operating and sustaining the GCIO function. Based on a common conceptual model of the GCIO function, this paper defines a methodology for conducting the readiness assessment part of the GCIO System. The methodology comprises a set of assessment areas and a step-wise process to conduct assessment in these areas. The paper also shares the experience in applying this methodology in practice, and proposes how the assessment could inform the execution of other activities of the GCIO System.

Smart cities and service integration

E-government advancements have not fully resolved the challenge of providing citizens with a single entry point for services that involve different government entities. The Smart Cities and Service Integration project (hereafter, SmartCities) aims to establish a framework for smart city service integration that would assist in the management of large scale projects related to the integration of services across governments. By using comparative case studies of six cities (New York City, Seattle, Quebec City, Mexico City, Macao, and Shanghai), the project aims to develop a theoretical framework to guide smart cities service integration. The project will highlight integration of public services and cross-boundary information sharing by focusing on specific policy domains. An additional goal of this project is to develop research capabilities of graduate students who participate in the research. The research project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.