Gotze.eu

Category: eGovernment

  • Mandatory Open Standards in Denmark

    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.

  • Wanted: eGov insights

    “I will give you insights on other leading countries eGovernment strategies if you (or maybe a co-worker to you) would help me with a 12 min. eGov web-survey with 12 questions.”

    That’s how one of my students introduces a survey he’s conducting at the IT University in Copenhagen Denmark. “I am working on an e-Government project – comparing strategies of leading e-Government counties, like yours,” Michael Hvass writes.

    Alas, his target group is a bit reluctant in replying to the survey – he has only asked one person (a key e-gov official) for each of around 20 nations. But as his supervisor, I will argue that he will get valid data for his purposes with a wider target group, so I thought I’d invite anyone working with or for a government on e-gov to participate in his survey.
    The survey is located at: www.hvass.nu/egov

  • Local History of Standards

    Quoting myself:

    This article discusses current and recent developments in Denmark, where open standards have become a central policy issue. Although Denmark is prone for leading the way in true, large-scale openization, a full-blown effort towards these ends is highly unlikely.

    That’s the abstract of an article I wrote for translation into Spanish and publication in Novática, the journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI, Asociación de Técnicos de Informática, issue 184 (November-December 2006).

    The editor, Llorenç Pagés, is also Chief Editor of Upgrade, The European Journal for the Informatics Professional, and will also there soon publish an issue about ODF, in which I will have an extended version of my article.

    Llorenç allowed me to share my English manuscript, so I’ve uploaded it here: You can get the ODF-version or the web-version: A Brief History of Open Standards in Denmark, where the password is ODF 😉

    I invite comments on the article. I’m still working on the extended version, and think improvements are possible …
    On a side-note, I had to hack WordPress to be able to upload ODF-files within it. Bugger, that should be a standard feature!!

    On another side-note, you should be able to use OpenID when leaving your comment.

  • An e-democrazy fellow

    My old friend Steven Clift made a short stop here in Copenhagen this week, and we had a good talk about the status of e-democracy. I had arranged for Steve to make an interview on DR (national radio) – the interview was on the air twice this weekend, and is now online at  Harddisken: Net-demokrati der rykker.

    Steve was recently inducted as an Ashoka Fellow. This will enable him to intensify his important work with local online Issues Forums through an expanded E-Democracy.Org.

  • Strategizing the use of open source in the public sector

    A forthcoming book, Open Source for Knowledge And Learning Management, edited by Miltiadis Lytras and Ambjorn Naeve has a substantial chapter – “Methodological Considerations in Strategizing the Use of Open Source in the Public Sector” – that I co-wrote with Christian Wernberg-Tougaard, Kristoffer Herning, and Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz, all of Unisys.

    In our chapter, we present and discuss an evaluation model build to describe the different layers of impact on a government organisation when deciding whether to use open source or traditional software.

    The book should be available in December, just in time for the Christmas shopping! It can already now be pre-ordered from Amazon.

    Bonus link: Christian has a blog. Subscribed.

  • Report: Use ODF, Save 550 Million

    The Danish debates about open standards continues. Over at Ingeniøren, we are covering the development extensively and continuously, but only in Danish. On Monday, we brought a story with roughly the same title as this entry’s title.

    The story is about the so-called Rambøll-report, which is a report about the costs related to switching to open standards for document formats in the Danish government. The report is made by Rambøll Management, a Danish consultancy, on behalf of The Danish Open Source Business Association (OSL).

    The report establishes three scenarios for the development:

    Scenario 1: Microsoft Office and ECMA Office Open XML. Would cost 380 million kroner over 5 years with migration to MS Office 2007; 105 million kroner if using current versions with plug-in.

    Scenario 2: OpenOffice.org and ODF. Would cost 255 million kroner over 5 years, covering all migrations costs plus already existing MS licence costs until outphased.

    Scenario 3: Microsoft Office (with plug-in) and ODF. Would have only marginally higher costs than in scenario 1.

    The Open Source Business Association Rambøll Management estimates that the whole of government (including local government) could save 550 million kroner by migrating to OpenOffice.org and ODF. That’s around 94 million US Dollars. Quite a lot of money for a small country like Denmark.

    Three politicians from Parliament, Morten Helveg, Morten Messerschmidt and Anne Grete Holmsgaard, participated in the press conference about the report on Monday. These three were the driving forces behind B103, the Parliamentary decision about open standards. All three expressed satisfaction with and support to the report’s recommendations. Messerschmidt even offered to personally bring it over to the Minister of Finance, who on Tuesday will present the Annual Budget.

    There are no official comments from Government. Last week, a governmental committee published a report about interoperability. That report recommended a number of initiatives, but was also criticised for being indecisive on many issues, for example those related to document formats. The Parliament Order states that government must use open standards, and sets January 1, 2008 as a deadline for the implementation. “It’s hardly time to be indecisive now”, as Morten Helveg commented.

    In an unsurprising move, Microsoft Denmark totally dismissed the Rambøll-report. They were also the first to comment on the governmental report, which they found good and constructive.

    Update: By request of Rambøll Management, we brought an update. Their report only speaks about the state, and they will not draw conclusions for the complete public sector. The $ 94 million figure is suggested by the Open Source Business Association, based on data from IDC.

  • Belgium Jumps On The ODF Wagon

    I have been inspired by BELGIF for a while, but here is somethig that puts Belgium on The ODF Map:
    Dominique Deckmyn of ZDNet reports (same here) some very interesting news from Belgium:

    “In a blow to Microsoft, Belgium’s government departments will be instructed to use an open file format for internal communications.”

    There is a press announcement from the Belgian Council of Ministers about “Use of open standards for the exchange of office documents”. The announcement is available in only French and Dutch, none of which are languages I am very proficient in, but as far as I can tell, the decision proposed by Mr. Peter Vanvelthoven, Minister for Employment and Computerization, was made Friday by the Council of Ministers, and essentially says:

    “All federal government agencies must from September 2007 ensure that they can receive and read ODF documents. This does not exclude the use of other formats. It is up to each agency to determine the way in which the functionality of reading is guaranteed.

    Depending on the results of an impact analysis carried out by Fedict, ODF will from September 2008 be the standard format used for the exchange of office documents.”

    Someone who speaks French or Dutch, please verify my translation.

  • Openize Denmark, Parliament Orders

    On Friday (June 2, 2006), the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) had its last session before the Summer break, and on a very long agenda, the very last issue (#57) was the second and last reading of Morten Helveg‘s Proposal for Parliamentary Resolution on Open Standards (B103). I posted a bit about it earlier this week, and said then that it was still pending, and that it was opposed by the Government. That was accurate information as of a week ago.

    But politics is the art of changing things, and over the last week, crafty politicians have been at work, and changed things. Morten Helveg pushed for settlement, and then Danish People’s Party’s Morten Messerschmidt and Jørgen Dohrman put their fingerprint on the resolution with an ammendment, so a majority vote would be reached. And to cut a long story (see below) short, on Friday afternoon, the Parliament voted and decided the following resolution (my translation):

    Parliament imposes on the government a duty to ensure that the public sector’s use of IT, including use of software, is based on open standards.

    The Government should adopt and maintain a set of open standards by 1 January 2008, or as soon as technically possible, which can serve as an inspiration for the rest of the public sector. Open standards should be part of public IT and software procurement with the object of promoting competition.

    The Government should ensure that all digital information and data that the public sector exchanges with citizens, companies and institutions, are available in open standards based formats.

    Note that the translation is mine, and might not be 100% accurate. It for example differs slightly from the one provided on Groklaw. Furthermore, the original decision in Danish is actually not now available yet in the Parliament’s public information system (case file here, around 50 documents, in Danish), so be advised that a formal translation of the decision is, well, pending.

    The challenge is not just one of language nuances between Danish and English, but indeed also one of interpretation of the resolution itself, and of its reach and scope in particular. And here caution is an absolute necessity, because we know how distorted things in our field always get.

    A few specific observations:

    1. Anne Østergaard’s Denmark to follow in the foot steps of Massachuchets on open standards is flawed, in my opinion. The decision does not say that the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation has to make a law proposal in the next session of Folketinget.
    2. Søren Thing Pedersen’s Denmark mandates open standards by 2008 is accurate enough, but only because mandation can mean many things. I do agree with Søren in his assessment, though. Also, check his site for a link to a video with the 30 minute reading in Parliament.
    3. Jeff Kaplan’s Looking for IT Leaders? Try Denmark is a must read.

    At any rate, Friday was indeed a good day for the Danish IT policy, as Morten Helveg also said during the reading in Parliament. On Saturday, he made a post tited Victory! (Sejr!) in his blog. He writes (my translation):

    …
    But it was a bizarre procedure. Wednesday afternoon, the Liberals attempted to outvote the resolution’s formal vote-taking. Completely uheard of! Then the Standing Orders Committee intervened to ensure that I of course could get my resolution to a vote in Parliament.

    A majority without the Government was established with Danish People’s Party, and then the Liberals and the Conservatives turned on a dime. Even if it was a pitiful attempt to demean the resolution made by the Liberals, considering they would vote for the resolution. It didn’t make sense. I think it was pretty clear to everyone who saw the debates that the Liberals were out on a limb.
    …

    On Thursday before the Parliament session, Michael Aastrup Jensen from the Liberals made a press announcement where he announced that the Liberals would vote for the resolution. The argument put forward is that the proposal carries good intentions. But Jensen also argues that the resolution will have no effects, and that the Liberals would have wanted to go even further. During the reading session, his tone sharpened, and he called the resolution “empty symbol politics of the worst kind”.

    Helge Sander, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, is from the Liberals. On August 15, he has invited the IT-spokespersons from Parliament to a meeting, where he according to Jensen will present how the Government wants to proceed.

    In conclusion, the vote in Parliament ended in an unanimous decision, but not in fence-mending. Quite the contrary, actually.

    But at the end of the day, and that’s what counts, Denmark is now a nation who has a parliamentary mandate for open standards. Thank you to the three Mortens: Morten Helveg, Morten Messerschmidt and Morten Østergaard, and to Jørgen Dohrman and Anne Grete Holmsgaard for carrying this through, and thanks also to Michael Aastrup Jensen and Helge Sander, and all other MPs for voting for this historic resolution!

    Bonus news: In the report from the Science Committee, one can read that there’s more to ODF in Denmark: Also the Ministry of Finance will from September 1, 2006 publish its new publications in ODF “unless certain contractual or content-related conditions occur”. The Government aims to have 3-4 or more ministries in the pilot launched by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

    So, we will have concrete ODF adoption projects in Denmark. Now. Very exciting! Kudos to Helge Sander for rolling that showball! Why didn’t you make decisions like that when I worked for you? Allow me to give you a hint: You know about Massachusetts, right? Did you know that they recently made a Request for Information (RFI) titled “OpenDocument Format Plug-in for Microsoft Office Suite”, and got some very interesting response? You should get your guys to talk to guys in Massachusetts. You could also make your own RFI, of course.

    Danish readers: I posted more over at my Danmark 2.0 blog.

  • 2006 International Enterprise Architecture Survey

    Get the journal article we wrote about this.

    Peter Engelund Christiansen and I are pleased to announce a new report and website: EASurvey.org: International Enterprise Architecture Survey – Trends in Governmental Enterprise Architecture on a National Level.

    The report presents key findings from an international survey about governmental EA on a national/federal level conducted earlier this year. 16 countries participated in the survey: Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nothern Ireland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and USA.

    The survey documents trends in governmental EA and focuses on eight areas:

    • EA motivation
    • Achieved goals and barriers
    • EA measurement
    • EA process
    • EA framework
    • EA tool
    • EA governance
    • Existing EA assets

    The key findings are:

    EA on a national level is emerging fast
     93.3% of the participating governments are already having – or planning to have within the next two years – a national EA program. Only one government does not have any future plans incorporating a national EA program.

    Limited realisation of EA goals
    54% of the governments with national EA programs have experienced the achievement of EA goals.

    The lack of skilled staff is considered as the greatest barrier against the achievement of EA goals
     55% of the governments report “lack of skilled staff” as the greatest barrier against the achievement of EA goals.

    Less than half of the governments are measuring EA program performance
     Accordingly, less that one half of the governments are using key performance indicators.

    Less than one fifth of the governments are calculating the ratio EA benefits to cost
     18% of the governments, Japan and Taiwan, are calculating the total expenditures in EA, the total amount gained from EA and the ratio EA benefits to costs.

    Less than one fifth of the governments have mandated their EA programs via legislation
     18% of the governments, USA and Korea, have national EA programs that are mandated by legislation.

    Less than one third of the governments know whether their publicized EA processes are used
     72% of the participating governments have publicized guidelines describing an EA process. 29% of those governments do not know whether the guidelines are used or not.

    We conclude with some calls to action:

    • Define clear and measurable EA goals
    • Do not uncritically buy the vendors ‘Ten steps to successful EA’ and expect the world to change in any advantageous direction
    • Measure EA performance to ensure progress and ultimately EA success
    • Calculate EA expenses-/earnings to enable communication in a monetary terminology; it becomes necessary
    • Do not make the mistakes of the past
    • Do not isolate an EA team and expect them to generate value-adding EA

    The survey is endorsed by the Association of Enterprise Architects (a|EA), but a|EA does not necessarily agree with our calls to action.

    The bulk of the work was done by Peter in his Master of IT thesis project, which explains the survey in excruciating levels of detail, and which is as clear an A+ as I’ve ever seen and supervised. I helped connecting Peter to the survey I started two years ago, and introduced him to relevant respondents around the world. After the exams, we have worked together on quality assurance and recommendations, but Peter should really get all the credit.

    Get the journal article we wrote about this.

  • ODF in Denmark

    [Note: Almost all links here are in Danish]

    The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation will from 1 September 2006 make its online publications and other written communication available in ODF. That was announced by Minister of Science, Helge Sander, during an open consultation meeting in the Science and Technology Committee of the Danish Parliament held on 23 May. Mr Sander said that “the use of open standards is essential to the development of e-government”, and that the decision to publish in ODF is “a first step”, and will be evaluated after a 6-months trial period.

    Mr Sander and his ministry has been under pressure for a while on the issue of open standards. The consultation meeting was called after the first reading of Morten Helveg‘s Proposal for Parliamentary Resolution on Open Standards (B103) in the Chamber of the Parliament. The second and final reading is still pending. I summarized the resolution here; it basically goes much further in enforcing open standards.

    Mr Sander and the Liberal-Conservative Government has opposed the resolution, which is put forward by the opposition. The resolution does however appeal to not only the opposition parties, but also the Government’s support party (Danish People’s Party, far-right) whose Morten Messerschmidt and Jørgen Dohrman however do hesitate supporting the resolution due to unknown economical effects. Those concerns have been at the heart of the debates, and been Mr Sander’s main argument against the resolution.

    On the day before the consultation meeting, the Danish daily newspaper, Berlingske.dk, published a news story, “Secret Report”, where they revealed the conclusions from an internal report from the ministry. Mr Sander promptly decided to send the report to the Committee and hence make it publically available, in order “to avoid any myth creation”, he said. The report is an initial analysis of the economic effects of enfording the use of open standards, and it concludes that although it is not possible to put an exact figure on the total costs (and benefits) of enforcing open standards at large, there is much reason in making open standards compulsory where interoperability is at stake. The report is dated December 2005, but I can reveal that the bulk text is even older, as I was the main author of the report as one of the last tasks I did before I left the ministry in September 2005. I’m glad the report is now public, so I can refer to it. I just re-read it, and although I personally might not agree to everything in it – it being a product of many opinions and “government speak” – it is still a good read, I’d dare say.