Tomasz Janowski

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.

Government information networks: mapping electronic governance cases through public administration concepts

Facing economic pressure, social tensions, global competition and low public confidence, governments can no longer afford to address increasingly complex and interdependent public goals alone or step back and rely on the markets. Instead, they have to work through networks of state and non-state actors to organize existing resources, knowledge and capabilities in the pursuit of public goals. The new paradigm increasingly relies on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to connect actors to the network and to build, manage and sustain relationships between them. We refer to such ICT-enabled networks as Government Information Networks. This article serves as an introduction to the current issue of Government Information Quarterly on Government Information Networks. The issue comprises twelve cases of such networks selected from the papers submitted to the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ICEGOV2010, held in Beijing, China, October 2010. The article also presents a conceptual framework for public administration networks, and applies the framework to describe, analyze and compare the cases, thus relating the volume to the Public Administration literature.

Enabling development through governance and mobile technology

The impact of mobile technology on governance and development has attracted significant interest in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development and Electronic Governance communities. There is growing consensus that governance mechanisms must complement access to technology to achieve greater impact on development. However, few or no rigorous research exists to show how such mechanisms can support the delivery of mobile services to vulnerable groups. This study fills this important gap by first providing a conceptual framework, based on the Choice Framework and the Structuration Theory, to elaborate on the relationship between ICT, governance and citizen capabilities. Second, the framework is applied to analyze livelihood needs of 45 women head porters interviewed in Accra. Third, as all women under study have access to mobile phones, we determine which governance mechanisms are needed to support the delivery of mobile services to them. Results show that three governance mechanisms enable the contribution of mobile technology to meeting the livelihood needs of this group: 1) updating financial and telecommunication regulations to enable the provision of mobile-based services e.g. mobile microfinance, to vulnerable groups; 2) mobilizing local communities in the production of local contents; and 3) engaging non-governmental organizations in building capacity of government agencies in mobile service delivery and in training vulnerable communities in effective use of mobile technology to access information and services critical to their needs. We conclude by discussing the use of the Structuration Theory along with the Choice Framework to shape development processes based on citizen needs and by discussing the applicability of our framework to similar vulnerable groups.

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.

Building theoretical foundations for electronic governance benchmarking

The success of the electronic governance (EGOV) benchmarking has been limited so far. Lacking a theory to integrate existing conceptualizations has made the acquisition and sharing of knowledge produced by different benchmarking exercises difficult. In order to address this problem, this paper: 1) explains the nature of the EGOV benchmarking activity though a wellestablished theoretical framework - Activity Theory, 2) applies the framework to carry out a mapping between a number of existing EGOV benchmarking conceptualizations, 3) develops an unified conceptualization based on these mappings and 4) validates the resulting model though a real-life national EGOV strategy development project. The use of the Activity Theory in the paper has enabled defining and relating initial dimensions of the EGOV benchmarking activity, and mapping the dimensions present in existing conceptualizations. This not only created a unifying theoretical basis for conceptualizing the EGOV benchmarking activity but allowed learning from and integrating existing conceptualizations. The work impacts on the EGOV benchmarking practice by enabling a logical design of the activity, and contextually correct understanding of existing EGOV benchmarking results with respect to their intended usage.

Dynamic Scheduling and Fault-Tolerance: Specification andVerification

Considera distributed real-time program which is executed on a systemwith a limited set of hardware resources. Assume the programis required to satisfy some timing constraints, despite the occurrenceof anticipated hardware failures. For efficient use of resources,scheduling decisions must be taken at run-time, considering deadlines,the load and hardware failures. The paper demonstrates how toreason about such dynamically scheduled programs in the frameworkof a timed process algebra and modal logic. The algebra providesa uniform process encoding of programs, hardware and schedulers,with an operational semantics of a process depending on the assumptionsabout faults. The logic specifies the timing properties of aprocess and verifies them via this fault-affected semantics,establishing fault-tolerance. The approach lends itself to applicationof existing tools and results supporting reasoning in processalgebras and modal logics.

Mobile governance for development: strategies for migrant head porters in Ghana

A promising strategy to promote good governance is harnessing the opportunities provided by the use of mobile phones, widely accessible to most segments of the society, for delivering public information and services and for decision-making by government. This paper investigates the design and implementation of mobile governance (MGOV) strategies for development (MGOV4D). Specifically, it presents an MGOV4D strategy framework to support mobile Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development (MICT4D) projects in meeting their development objectives. The paper consists of four parts. First, it presents a framework for determining the governance and related MGOV requirements for MICT4D initiatives. Second, it applies the framework to determine the MGOV4D requirements for a concrete case study of migrant head porters -- local micro-logistic service providers from Ghana, involving the use of mobile phones to meet the porters livelihood needs. Third, based on the identified requirements, it presents a set of MICT4D initiatives that could be developed into MGOV4D programs to address the requirements. Fourth, it synthesizes the MGOV4D strategies that can support the inclusion objectives for the head porters and similar vulnerable groups. In the conclusions, the paper discusses how these results can support policy efforts for achieving the Millennium Development Goal 1 -- Poverty Alleviation, and 3 -- Gender (specifically Women Empowerment).

Programmable messaging for electronic government - building a foundation

Electronic Government offers citizens and businesses a single interface to all public services, implemented through cross-agency processes and applications. This paper presents a fragment of a software infrastructure that enables agencies to collaborate in the delivery of public services, responsible for automated, process-driven exchange of messages between applications. In addition to basicmessage exchange, the infrastructure supports high-level messaging through dynamically-enabled horizontal (process independent) and vertical (process dependent) extensions. In particular, the paper presents a fragment of a semantic model to formalize the process of specifying and implementing messaging extensions, and demonstrates a prototype implementation of this model to underpin a reliable delivery of government services.