Rui Pedro Lourenço

An analysis of open government portals: A perspective of transparency for accountability

Abstract This study aims to assess whether the current structure and organization of some of the most prominent open government portals (‘data.gov’ type) is adequate for supporting transparency for accountability. A set of requirements was established based on key characteristics of desired data disclosure proposed by the literature on open government and transparency assessment. These requirements were used as a framework to analyse the structure and data organization of the selected portals. Results suggest that this type of open data portal does not possess important structural and organizational elements needed to fully support ordinary citizens engaged in public accountability efforts. Examples of good practices were found in some portals and should be considered by those responsible for open government programs.

Using ELECTRE TRI outranking method to sort MOMILP nondominated solutions

Abstract Several interactive methods exist to identify nondominated solutions in a Multiple Objective Mixed Integer Linear Program. But what if the Decision Maker is also interested in sorting those solutions (assigning them to pre-established ordinal categories)? We propose an interactive “branch-and-bound like” technique to progressively build the nondominated set, combined with ELECTRE TRI method (Pessimistic procedure) to sort identified nondominated solutions. A disaggregation approach is considered in order to avoid direct definition of all ELECTRE TRI preference parameters. Weight-importance coefficients are inferred and category reference profiles are determined based on assignment examples provided by the Decision Maker. A computation tool was developed with a twofold purpose: support the Decision Maker involved in a decision process and provide a test bed for research purposes.

Public Accountability ICT Support: A Detailed Account of Public Accountability Process and Tasks

A key objective of open government programs is to promote public accountability by using Information and Communication Technologies ICT to release data on the internal working of public agencies. However, it is not clear how actual accountability such as sanctions or rewards may be achieved from the data disclosed. Nor it is clear how ICT in general should support it. To better understand how ICT can support open data initiated accountability processes in achieving their goal, this paper considers the three phases information, discussion, and consequences usually used to describe such processes. Defining ICT support for these major phases is a difficult effort, since each phase encompasses different tasks and support requirements. This paper aims to address this problem by providing a detailed account of the tasks associated with the whole public accountability process. This may be used by those responsible for open government programs to design and deploy comprehensive ICT support platforms using a task-technology fit perspective.

e- Participation: A Discursive Approach

This chapter analyses some of the distinguishing characteristics of public participation processes, justifying the case for a discursive deliberative approach. It identifies tools’ requirements to effectively foster deliberation, presenting a comprehensive evolution of discursive support tools up to the Web 2.0 generation. Integration with tools from several research areas, including decision-analytic approaches is also discussed. Finally, this chapter ends with some considerations about the potential and limitations of the discursive approach and the challenges ahead.

A bliki model to support political discourse formation

This paper presents a bliki model which combines the potential of a blog and a wiki in order to support the creation of a constellation of political discourses in the public sphere and promote critical reflection among them. The model is inspired on traditional local public participation events that usually take the form of a face-to-face meeting where participants discuss some issue or problem and, in the end, produce a document summarizing the highlights of the event. The model embraces the collaborative paradigm fostered by the Internet and tries to support the creation of a set of documents (using a wiki), each one representing a particular discourse, whose content is generated from the discussion held in a blog. It is based on the identification of relevant ideas expressed in the blog, which are then sorted according to the point of view (discourse) they support, and are incorporated into the wiki document representing that discourse by those participants supporting it.

Open data driven public accountability

Purpose This paper aims to analyse extant literature on open data, distinguish and categorize the strands of public accountability research and use the results to provide better clarity in the concept of open data-driven public accountability. Design/methodology/approach Systematic review of 135 open data articles and 155 accountability articles from the e-government reference library. A multi-stage analysis results in 12 articles which are categorized using Bovens’ (2007) accountability theory of information, discussion and consequences. Conceptual development, using the literature analysis, forms the final section of the paper. Findings Research demonstrates that a range of open data topics has been advanced. However, just 12 articles exist that simultaneously address open data and accountability theory. Of the total 155 public accountability articles, the preponderant focus is on the information (N = 25) and discussion (N = 7) stages of the accountability process. Just one article focuses on the complete accountability process. To address this problem, the characterization of open (government) data-driven public accountability establishes conceptual crispness and clarity. Originality/value Public accountability theory on open government has become overshadowed by social and economic value perspectives. This paper clarifies and advances the open data-driven public accountability perspective. It takes stock of public accountability research, delimits the key issues and questions and highlights the next steps needed for developing scholarship.

An Online Transparency for Accountability Maturity Model

Online transparency for accountability assessment exercises reported in the literature rely solely on the analysis of public entities’ individual web sites, measuring the data disclosed and the way it is disclosed, and not taking into consideration the context in which these ‘target’ entities operate. This paper aims at identifying key contextual elements that may influence the way data is disclosed by public entities in their individual web sites, and therefore should be taken into consideration when designing the assessment models and exercises. The contextual elements identified were organized into an online transparency for accountability maturity model that may be used on its own to assess the overall level of sophistication of a country or region (‘context’), or it may be used in a stage-gate approach to define the appropriate type of entities assessment model. Researchers wanting to assess a set of ‘target’ entities should therefore begin by analyzing the context in which they operate (using the proposed maturity model) and then define their assessment model according to the recommendations proposed in this paper for the corresponding maturity level.

Classification of Nondominated Solutions in Multiple Objective Linear Integer Programming Problems

Given a problem stated as a Multiple Objective Linear Integer Program, the Decision Maker might be interested in identifying the problem’s nondominated solutions and assigning them to a set of predefined categories. The authors suggest a new approach which uses an interactive “branch-and-bqund like” technique to progressively build the nondominated set, combined with the ELECTRE TRI method to classify the identified solutions. The ELECTRE TRI outranking model is a commonly used multiple criteria classification method which requires the Decision Maker to set many preference parameters. Since this is often a difficult task, the proposed method tries to infer some of these parameters from solution assignment examples based on holistic evaluations made by the Decision Maker.

Open Government Policies: Untangling the Differences and Similarities Between the US and the EU Approach

The purpose of this work is to explore the main differences and similarities between open government policies developed since 2009 by the US and the EU, two major powerhouses in what concerns eGovernment-related policies. For that purpose, the authors analyzed the information on webpages and main policy documents as available to any ordinary citizen. The results show that both the US and EU policy share the same core concepts and goals. However, while the US opted to formulate an autonomous policy under a unifying ‘open government’ umbrella term, the EU choose to incorporate the goals and principles into an already existing eGovernment development effort, emphasizing ‘public services innovation’ instead. As a consequence, in the US case it is easier to identify and understand the policy main goals, and to find policy-related information online. Furthermore, the US policy seems to have had a bigger external impact and recognition.

Sistemas Multi-Agente no Apoio à Decisão

O Acto de gerir adquiriu ao longo do tempo uma crescente complexidade. Cada vez sao mais as incertezas quanto ao seu resultado, e cada vez maior o numero de variaveis que tendem a influencia-la. Como tal, os Sistemas de Informacao sao hoje um recurso chave no apoio a tarefa “Gerir”. Nunca foi tao importante explorar ao maximo toda a informacao que prolifera numa dada organizacao. “Gerir e decidir em cenario de incerteza, com suporte probabilistico e intuicao, na procura constante de antecipar o futuro, actuando o mais cedo possivel, com um determinado nivel de risco. A informacao constitui o recurso-chave para a reducao da incerteza na gestao empresarial. Saber gerir a informacao de forma a apoiar a gestao global da unidade economica, e actualmente um dos principais desafios que se coloca as empresas” [Zorrinho, Carlos 1995]. Aproveitar os meios que as TIC (Tecnologias de Informacao e Comunicacao) disponibilizam, passou a ser nao somente um factor de sucesso mas essencialmente um factor de sobrevivencia.Apresenta-se um sistema de apoio a decisao (SAD) cujo principal objectivo e aplicar metodos formais de apoio a decisao, no âmbito da gestao de uma rede rodoviaria. Partindo de uma analise efectuada a dados disponibilizados pelo Instituto para a Conservacao e Exploracao da Rede Rodoviaria (ICERR), foi adaptada uma estrutura de dados que permitiu eliminar as redundâncias, inconsistencias e lacunas detectadas. O Sistema de Informacao (SI) desenvolvido corresponde aos requisitos fundamentais de um sistema de apoio a decisao (flexibilidade e interactividade), e permite a visualizacao dos resultados em ambiente grafico. Integra um Sistema de Informacao Geografica (SIG) – ArcView - e um Sistema de Gestao de Bases de Dados Relacional (SGBDR) - 4th Dimension. O metodo de apoio a decisao implementado foi o ELECTRE TRI, por se abordar este caso como sendo um problema de afectacao, de situacoes observadas, a classes que sao pre-definidas a partir de situacoes de referencia. A classificacao em classes tem por objectivo permitir ao Agente de Decisao (AD) tomar decisoes de forma coerente e fundamentada, no que respeita a afectacao de recursos (sempre escassos) para as operacoes de conservacao de uma rede de estradas.Neste artigo aborda-se o tema gestao do conhecimento nas organizacoes, apresentando-se o estudo de caso do Departamento de Informatica da Universidade da Beira Interior. Estuda-se o processo de geracao, transmissao e partilha de conhecimento no contexto deste Departamento e, propoe-se um Modelo de Gestao do Conhecimento que facilite a interaccao entre as pessoas, armazene e favoreca a partilha de informacao e conhecimento no Departamento. No modelo proposto, consideram-se dois niveis: o nivel organizacional e o nivel aplicacional/tecnologico. Ao nivel organizacional sao abordados os aspectos que devem ser considerados para implementar um processo de gestao do conhecimento no Departamento. Ao nivel aplicacional e desenvolvido um Sistema de Gestao do Conhecimento integrado na intranet do Departamento, suportado em tecnologias que facilitam o armazenamento e a partilha de informacao e conhecimento e que inclui, nomeadamente, documentacao cientifica e administrativa, fora de discussao e “melhores praticas”. O sistema serve de suporte ao modelo em termos organizacionais. Como abordagem metodologica adequada para o desenvolvimento deste trabalho, foi escolhido um estudo de caso explicativo e interpretativo, recorrendo-se a triangulacao de metodos, atraves da administracao de um questionario, da observacao participante e da analise documental.Com a finalidade de auxiliar os usuarios, proporcionando recursos e procedimentos para um gerenciamento eficiente das informacoes, a Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina – Unisul implantou um Sistema Integrado de Gestao (Enterprise Resources Planning - ERP), apoiado por uma Arquitetura de Sistemas de Informacao (Information Systems Architecture - ISA). Este artigo apresenta algumas experiencias da implantacao do SAP/R3 e do uso do ARIS na reestruturacao da Unisul, para promover uma melhor integracao dos alunos, docentes e colaboradores aos processos de gestao universitaria, sendo que o aperfeicoamento e a manutencao destes sistemas e apoiada por um grupo de pesquisa, que tambem proporciona suporte e inovacao aos processos de aprendizagem que se vem praticando. Alem disso, descreve-se neste trabalho, uma abordagem do ensino de Reengenharia de Processos de Negocios (Business Process Re-engineering - BPR), considerando que mudancas tecnologicas possibilitam a execucao de tarefas, de modo bem diferente dos anteriores. Tendo em vista que a reestruturacao da universidade e a implantacao do ERP sao tarefas de longo prazo e que exigem melhorias continuas, o principal objetivo deste artigo e contribuir com a aplicacao de conceitos de integracao, mudancas organizacionais e tecnologicas nos procedimentos de ensino.Apresentamos um modelo para geracao automatica de programas para invocacao de transaccoes em sistemas ERP em operacao desconectada. O modelo estende estes sistemas para alem da sua natureza cliente-servidor tradicional, permitindo a existencia de um novo tipo de aplicacoes cliente, executaveis em PDA, capazes de invocar transaccoes das varias areas funcionais dos ERP. Este processo de geracao tem por base as API ja existentes nos ERP, permitindo a construcao de aplicacoes simples correspondentes aos processos elementares do negocio, com capacidade de sincronizacao com o sistema central.Compara-se neste artigo o papel dos Sistemas de Informacao e das Tecnologias de Informacao em duas industrias: texteis e do vestuario; e moldes de plastico. A comparacao e efectuada na optica da cooperacao entre empresas dessas industrias. A presenca mais intensa e generalizada de Sistemas Informacao e Tecnologias de Informacao na industria dos moldes de plastico favorece esta industria, na forma como se envolve em processos de cooperacao inter-organizacionais. A concentracao geografica das empresas das duas industrias em estudo, aponta para a existencia de clusters. No entanto, na industria de moldes de plastico, a evidencia de concentracao geografica das empresas ligadas a industria e mais forte do que para as industrias texteis e do vestuario. Este aspecto parece gerar maiores oportunidades de cooperacao.ERP implementation success is influenced by a large number of factors, which most of the times are difficult to measure objectively. User involvement and participation is one of the most cited critical success factors in ERP implementation projects, and one of the most critical ones for the their satisfactory outcome. This study attempts to define a set of metrics for monitoring user involvement and participation within ERP implementation projects by using the Goals/Questions/Metrics method. The results of this work are twofold. First, a literature review is presented on the user involvement and participation topic as related with ERP implementation projects. And second, a Goals/Questions/Metrics preliminary plan is proposed to monitor and control user involvement and participation within ERP implementation projects.