Gotze.eu

Tag: public sector

  • Project NemFORM

    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

    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

    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

    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.

  • On the radio: Sutor, Munk and Gøtze

    During Bob Sutor’s visit in Copenhagen (I posted the homemade video with Bob Sutor the other day), I had organised for him to be interviewed by DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation, national public radio).

    Tonight, DR brought the interview with Bob in their program Harddisken (third section), with an almost half-hour long theme about open standards hosted by Henrik Føhns. He had invited me in the studio for comments and debate with Marie Munk, Deputy Director General in the National IT and Telecom Agency. Bob apprears in edited and partly-translated form, but Marie and I were live on the air (and didn’t get to hear Bob!). So, it was there and then. Afterwards, of course – oh, why didn’t I say this and that, and all that, but it was also fun being live.
    The whole show is now downloadable as a podcast — the Harddisken podcast-feed should reach 10.000 users, I was told, and is the third most used podcast of all in DR. Go get the podcast and help Harddisken become the most downloaded podcast! (of course, it’s in Danish, but the music is great 😉 – and Bob does get a bit of airtime, which of course is in English). About two-thirds into the MP3-file.

    Since I cannot get DRs online radio and their fancy DRPlayer to work in my system (Mac OSX, Firefox) I chose not to link to those services here … but want to say to DR: Thank you for the podcasts!

  • 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.

  • Digital Identity Management – Challenges and Benefits

    Amir Hadziahmetovic has published his MSc in IT thesis, which he made under my supervision. It is in English and is called Digital Identity Management – Challenges and Benefits (Download PDF). Besides giving a nice introduction to and analysis of Identity Management, Amir makes some interesting observations about the identity management situation in Denmark. I recommend everyone to read this good thesis.

    I’ve extracted a few central paragraphs introducing the project:

    The main research problem is how to find the optimal model that will solve Digital Identity (DI) management and the data interchange for electronic business in new network economy. The problem lies in unknown path of how to make choices for interoperable DI, and how to find the optimal strategy to implement chosen model. The research will commence with exploring the area of general Digital Identity Management, continue with analyzing platform for interoperable management and exchange of DIs, including implementation challenges, and end with listing the benefits of having such a platform implemented.

    Imagine the sewerage management of a bigger city where each building block has a container for waste waters instead of a city-wide sewerage system. Without drain-pipes connecting the containers, every now and then a container would fill up, and for emptying a pump-trucks would be needed. They would pump out the content from a container, and spill it out at some depot outside the town. This would be very complex system of containers and trucks, difficult to control and manage. Some of the containers would certainly get overfilled, causing flooding and bad smell. With the growth of the city, the system would get even more unreliable. Therefore the majority of today’s cities have outspread sewerage system, which connects the depots, automating the spill of waste waters.

    The similar problem modern business has with today’s DI management: Identity data in containers, filling up quickly; the system unable to exchange data with other systems; difficult to maintain and automate the spill of data. To enable development of electronic business, more reliable system for DI management is required.

    Business trends today push organizations toward strengthening of cooperation and linking of business processes between them. Many companies and governments are tending to expand their activities by integrating online services and systems, and letting external users access internal data. Individual users want comfortable Web experience, and minimal effort in getting tailor-made products and services. Inability of today’s IT systems to match these trends is choking present development of business. Strengthening of cooperation and linking of business processes is putting pressure on IT systems and belonging infrastructure, requiring that Digital Identity data is created in unified fashion, and safely exchanged between organizations.

    Digital Identity Management (IM) is a fundamental part of integrated company systems and online services. It defines who has access to what in some cases, and identifies customers and users of the services in other cases. IM architecture of today has to evolve from predominantly silo to common, interoperable architecture, based on open standards. This kind of architecture is a fundament for Federated IM, where identities are safely exchanged.

    This project will try to look at Digital Identity Management, technology and architecture in relation to business goals and strategies. The main concepts of Digital Identity Management will be addressed i.a. concepts like Federated Identity, Single Sign-On (SSO), and Open Standards. The report will present a study of business and technical implications of Federating Identity, where Identity management is the central issue.

    An analysis of the practical as well as architectural aspects of Federated Identity will be covered. An analysis of open standards for interoperability will be covered, especially those advised by Danish National IT and Telecom Agency and their Reference Model for Identity. The report will focus on standards from the Model such as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Public certificates for electronic services – OCES Digital Signature, but also will discuss alternatives. Finally privacy issues will be considered.

    The fundamental objective of any enterprise IT system must be full support to business flexibility and agility in ever-changing business environment. The ultimate goal of this project is to perceive the challenges of the IM evolution path, and to show how Identity Management supports connection between the systems and the processes, providing users with better web experience.

    Method: The project will list general theoretical issues, comparing different views on these issues, and presenting own reasoning.

    The obstacles in relation to acceptance of Reference Model for Identity will be analyzed. The analysis will be based on empirical research including feedback from involved organizations, interviews with individuals from selected organizations, conferences, and forums.

    Again: Download Amir’s thesis (PDF).