Enterprisey thoughts – John Gøtze
Posts tagged public sector
Project NemFORM
Feb 14th
The Danish Government Business Reference Model – FORM (in Danish) – is an overview of what the Danish public administration does, which services it provides, and which legislation that regulates these services.
I have been ‘playing around’ with the dataset FORM makes up. In the blog menu, you will find links to pages about Project NemFORM.
To demonstrate how the reference model can be used, I have created this simple application (autosuggesting services; reference), which can also be used on a mobile device (tested on Android only, so far).
If you are interested in the geeky details, read about my experience with FORM XML, and JQuery-empowered FORM usage. You can also read about my implementation of the new FORM widget from Digitaliser.dk.
My project is mentioned in a news story on Modernisering.dk, the Ministry of Finance’s website for digitization of government (and owners of FORM). ‘Innovative use’, they call my project. How nice of them 
Full disclosure: The Ministry of Finance is a client of EA Fellows. NemFORM is however a private project of mine.
Next Book: Government 2.0 and Onwards
Aug 14th
Now the Coherency Management book is out, my next book project has ben launched. With the working title “State of the eUnion – Government 2.0 and Onwards”, the book will be published in min-November this year (reason), so it needs to be written in a rush. I have already invited a number of contributors, but now take the Call for Participation open for a couple of days for anyone to submit an abstract.
We will accept legitimate and relevant remixes and reuses of stuff that deserves to be in a book. But we have pretty high standards, so do not be offended if we reject your proposal. In general, we want thoughtful, wellwritten contributions, shorter or longer, that discuss new business models for government and democracy. Contributions about technical matters are not likely to make it into the book, unless they are really wellwritten and ‘important’. I realise I personally will even have to struggle to build bridges over to, say, Coherency Management, but you just wait and see
As co-editor, I have teamed up with Christian Bering Pedersen, a young professional and digital native, who I supervised in his Master thesis project a few years ago. Christian has a sharp eye and tongue, and will be great to work with.
Confirmed contributors to the book are:
- Don Tapscott, Canada
- Mark Drapeau, USA
- Alexandra Samuel, USA
- Olov Östberg, Sweden
- Tommy Dejbjerg Pedersen, Denmark
- Tim O’Reilly, USA
- David Weinberger, USA
- Chris Potts, UK
- and several others, whose names will be published in the near future.
The book will not be a heavyweight like the coherency managment book (540 pages). It will probably have nearly as many collaborators and contributors though, but typically with shorter chapters (essays).
Follow the book project via its infopage/website.
Next: Canada, US, and Iceland
Jul 13th
As indicated in a 140 char note on Twitter, I’m leaving Europe. For a month, that is. I am going on a flight/roadtrip, part work, part vacation. Locationwise roughly as follows:
- Toronto from July 17th to 25th.
- Washington, DC from July 26th to 31st.
- Ottawa from July 31st to August 6th.
- Boston from August 7th to 14th.
oh, and then a stopover in Iceland: - Reykjavík from August 14th to 18th.
Along the way I will attend The Open Group’s 23rd Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference in Toronto, where I have three contributions: Particapant in Panel Discussion and podcast on Architecture’s Scope Extends Beyond the Enterprise, my lecture Coherency Management and the Future of Enterprise Architecture, and participant in Panel Discussion: Enterprise-Centric Architecture and the Role of “Business”.
I will probably sneak in a bunch of meetings around the Coherency Management book, which is now with the printer, and with a bit of luck, will be able to announce a few events around the book as I travel on. And then I’m planning some meetings around a new book project I plan to announce shortly. Which reminds me: allow me to introduce two new tags: Government 2.0 and Open Government.
If you are located – or happen to be – in one of the locations I visit, and are interested in any of the tags to this post, and want to meet, get in touch.
Mandatory Open Standards in Denmark
Feb 24th
I’d be interested in the international reactions to this piece of news:
On Friday, the Danish Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Helge Sander, made a press announcement (Danish) about his plan for following up on the Parliament Resolution 8 months ago.
The implementation plan is presented in a report which suggests that “open standards should be implemented gradually by making it mandatory for the public sector to use a number of open standards when this becomes technically feasible”.
The report identifies an initial sets of open standards as candidates for mandatory use from 1 January 2008 “if an economic impact assessment shows that this will not involve additional costs to the public sector”.
The implementation plan’s elements are as follows:
- “From 1 January 2008, all new public IT solutions should make use of the mandatory open standards relevant to the IT solution in question unless there are significant reasons for not complying with these standards.
- If there are significant reasons for not complying with the relevant mandatory open standards, this must be reported on signing the contract, stating the reasons for applying the exceptional provisions.
- In case of IT solutions where the technical procurement is above the EU tendering limit, the reasons must be reported to the National IT and Telecom Agency for the purpose of publication.
- All ministers must ensure that mandatory standards are drawn up within their respective areas of responsibility where this is relevant. This must be made in cooperation with local/regional administrations in line with the existing common public projects in the area of digitalization.”
In short: The Danish Interoperability Framework gets a new level of status: Mandatory.
The proposed mandatory standards from 1 January 2008 falls within the following areas:
- Standards for data interchange between public authorities
- Standards for electronic file and document handling
- Standards for exchanging documents between public authorities (Open Document Format and Office OpenXML)
- Standards for electronic procurement in the public sector
- Standards for digital signatures
- Standards for public websites / homepages
- Standards for IT security (only within the public sector)
Around a dozen standards: Compliant XHTML or HTML, complaint CSS, WAI Level 2, OCES (digital signature), XML 1.0, XML Schema 1.0, NDR 3.0, FESD (docuument management), OIOUBL, UNSPSC, and DS484 (ISO 17799).
With regard to standards for exchanging documents between public authorities, the report proposes that “it should be mandatory to use at least one of the document standards Open Document Format or Office OpenXML”, and that it is up to the individual agency to decide what they want. The report explains that a study will be conducted this year with “the purpose of obtaining the necessary experience with these standards before 1 January 2008″.
A revised governance model should ensure more mandatory standards over time. The minister is given more authority, but not much actual power to rule over the sectors. The report goes into the “comply or explain”-principle and how it will be practised, and here, it discusses exceptions … I’ll quote in length from their English summary:
“Requirements regarding the use of mandatory open standards will not involve any obligation or incentive to expedite procurement, upgrading or implementation of new or existing IT solutions by public authorities.
…
To ensure the value of open standards to the individual authority, it is important to avoid the authority being compelled to make inappropriate choices. For this reason, a number of exceptions are made to the general rule of using mandatory open standards.
In connection with contracts and development projects, authorities are exempted from the rules of using mandatory open standards if this means that the authority is compelled to adopt a solution which:
- is significantly more expensive in relation to using other standards,
- degrades the security level critically in relation to using other standards,
- involves a significant reduction in functional performance which is a direct result of the solution being based on mandatory open standards,
- increases the implementation time markedly,
- leads to conflicts with standards applicable within specific areas as a result of international commitments.
Furthermore, public authorities are exempted from the rules of using mandatory open standards if the solution does not involve data interchange with other systems.
In case one or more of the points above are in evidence, the relevant authority may choose to dispense with specific mandatory open standards for the solution concerned.
New solutions where technical procurement involves overall costs exceeding the EU tendering limit must be reported to the National IT and Telecom Agency on signing the contract, stating the reasons for applying the exceptional provisions.
New solutions with overall costs below this limit should also make use of mandatory open standards, unless they fall within the exceptional provisions. However, these solutions are not subject to the reporting requirement.
Download the English summary as PDF or ODF. The full report in Danish is here.
The consultation period ends 23 March.
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