E-Governance Through Semantic Web
E-Governance Through Semantic Web
E-Governance Through Semantic Web
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• Transparent Governance • Governance that is cheaper: producing the
same outputs at lower cost.
Need of e-governance • Governance that does more: producing
Government cannot exist or function in isolation. For more outputs at the same total cost.
a government to operate effectively, a government- • Governance that is quicker: producing the
community-citizen infrastructure should be in place. same outputs at the same total cost in less time.
This would result in a secure and meaningful
information flow between the government and
• Governance that works better: producing
the same outputs at the same total cost in the
citizens of a nation. A close-knit infrastructure would
same time, but to a higher quality standard.
yield two fold benefits, which would save time and
money for all concerned: • Governance that is innovative: producing
• Citizens can enjoy faster, effective and new outputs.
timely government services. This would also
evolve a culture of self-service wherein citizens When governments, citizens, and private sector
can help themselves wherever and whenever partners redefine and reengage their roles, better
required. government—better governance—will be the result.
• Government can become more
integrated into the community itself. Also An e-governance model
government can focus its resources where they The three main target groups that can be
are needed the most. distinguished in e-governance concepts are
government, citizens and businesses. The most
Also, mankind has taken a big leap with the advent of common interactions in e-governance, G2C, G2B and
Information Technology and Information highways. G2G, are presented schematically in Figure1 below:
Both information technology and information
highways are here to stay and impact our lives in the
years to come. So, government has take into account
these facts and gears itself to create Simple Moral
Accountable Responsive Transparent governance.
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2. Interaction Intake processes In phase three, the complexity of the technology is
3. Transaction Complete transactions increasing, but customer (G2C & G2B) value is also
4. Transformation Integration & change higher. Complete transactions can be done without
going to an office. Examples of online services are
The model does not imply that all institutions have to filing income tax, filing property tax,
go through all phases and all at the same time. On the extending/renewal of licenses, visa and passports and
contrary, in the Western world, government online voting. Phase three is made complex because
institutions are in phase 1, 2 or 3. of security and personalization issues. E.g. digital
(electronic) signatures will be necessary to enable
legal transfer of services. On the business side, the
government is starting with e-procurement
applications. In this phase, internal (G2G) processes
have to be redesigned to provide good service.
Government needs new laws and legislation to enable
paperless transactions.
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domains. The most frequently quoted definition of markup, to provide (or generate) the appropriate
ontology is provided by Gruber “An ontology is a markup, and to understand the processes which will
specification of a conceptualization.” While this use those objects and the related semantic markups.
sounds much as conceptual modeling, the However, in systems development projects not only
metaphysical background is still somewhat relevant: the life cycle of resources and their markup come into
“The subject of ontology is the study of the focus, but also the organizational aspects of
categories of things that exist or may exist in some information provision and use as well as the
domain. The product of such a study, called an reasoning behind identifying, organizing and sharing
ontology, is a catalog of the types of things that are information. Actually, many authors in the area of
assumed to exist in a domain of interest D from the Semantic Web see a strong connection to knowledge
perspective of a person who uses a language L for the management and believe that those new technologies
purpose of talking about D.” Therefore, ontologies will bring a quantum leap. In consequence, most of
are means for communication. But successful support the envisioned applications related to Semantic Web
is possible only when the concepts included and their rely on advances in knowledge representation,
relations are agreed on by the users and/or a group of intelligent retrieval and facilitation of
experts, in relation to what the purpose of the communication.
communication is.
Semantic Web started out with a document oriented
The degree of formalization may differ significantly approach; the basic idea was to make Web pages
which has consequences for the options of identifiable as informational resources and to
automation. Basically, it is important to distinguish annotate them with semantic markup. However,
between designing and using informational resources is not
• Informal ontology: may be specified by a only a technical and organizational challenge, it must
catalog of types that are either undefined or also take into account the social aspects of
defined only by statements in a natural language, information. “In fact the concept of a unit of
and information is central, not only in the technical
architecture, but in society's concepts of information,
• Formal ontology: specified by a collection as a document is not only the unit for reference,
of names for concept and relation types
retrieval and presentation (typically), but also the unit
organized in a partial ordering by the type-
of ownership, license to use, payment,
subtype relation.
confidentiality, endorsement, etc. so we can’t mess
with it too much.”
The degree of formalization usually corresponds with
the complexity of the conceptual modeling: a simple
keyword catalogue can be quite helpful and is easy to
E-government approaching the Semantic Web
implement, while e.g. thesauri and topic maps need
The domain specific research and real-life projects in
far more support for construction and use. To
organizations both are only starting to integrate the
represent ontologies as knowledge objects on their
diverse technical and organizational issues focused
own there are several languages available.
on information management, knowledge
Meanwhile there are a number of methods and tools
management and Semantic Web. This applies also to
for ontology construction, as well as a various
the field of e-government.
options on how to employ ontologies in systems
development and how to construct “ontology-driven”
In practice, there are strong efforts in information
information systems.
management to support also e-government issues,
mainly through defining
Ontologies are also regarded as a key to solving
metadata standards and interoperability frameworks.
interoperability problems. The standardization of
Just recently there is a growing interest in Semantic
ontologies used within a network provides a common
Web technologies which are reckoned to be a key to
frame of reference for cross-organizational
solve many e-government interoperability problems.
applications. And if such an agreement is not
possible, there is still hope to bridge semantic gaps
From the administrative point of view, Semantic Web
through mapping and reconciliation of ontologies.
and ontology-based approaches seem to promise
support for at least the following objectives:
From the perspective of information management, the
• systematic management of dealing with all
main challenges related to Semantic Web are to
kinds of (electronic) informational resources
identify the objects which will need semantic
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• support for administrative processes • formalization of governmental business
crossing borders of organizations, systems and processes in an unambiguous structure
infrastructures • better support to front line by allowing one-
• improving service quality: e.g. responding to stop, customer focused and multiple view-point
requests, information retrieval and knowledge access to services and shared information.
management with respect to different actor
perspectives
In all of these, each of the local administrations has Conclusion
its own understanding of the domain (e.g. of the
The term e-governance is of recent origin and has
services to be given to the citizens and other clients)
become the buzzword in all developing countries. In
as well as of the interoperability needs. Domain
fact, it is the use of Information and Communication
specific standardization as well as methods and tools
Technology (ICT) for redesigning the traditional
may certainly help, but they will not unify the
mode of governance, through better coordination and
perspectives and the (professional) language of the
sharing of power among different components of
actors involved. The variety of perspectives and
government; thus taking care of the traditional
interpretations will even increase since Semantic
problems of governance. The lack of information and
Web technologies and the use of ontologies enable
communication infrastructure results in people
the treatment of informational resources on a far
having to waste time and money. Lack of clarity in
more fine grained level: now any bit of information
processes, and corruption and mismanagement in
or any knowledge object could be given an identity
systems and operations, is rampant. In this context,
and assigned attributes (metadata) allowing for more
Information and Communication Technologies
sophisticated applications and services also in e-
(ICTs) can play a significant role in making
government.
information available at a reasonable cost. ICTs
promise to provide innovative solutions to the
Therefore, the main challenge of applying Semantic
problems of poverty and inequality by accelerating
Web technologies for e-government services is how
development and introducing transparency into
to support corporate as well as cooperative
systems and operations. Thus from above discussions
information management (and partly even knowledge
we conclude that a long term and a short-term
management) taking into account the increased
strategy for e-Governance implementation is the need
granularity of informational resources and the
of the hour. For successful implementation
manifold semantic differences in dealing with those
Standards, Infrastructure, Legislations, Strategy all
resources. In the next section we examine a case of
needs to be in place. It also requires establishment of
developing a prototype for an ontology-driven e-
various institutions under the Ministry of Information
government application based on Semantic Web
Technology. It requires a Global Vision and local
technologies in order to learn more about how to
implementation. And above all it requires e-readiness
interrelate systems development with the tasks of
in the minds of citizens and the Government
information and knowledge management related to
employees. For e-Governance to make a tangible
the e-government service provision.
difference to the lives of the millions of un-served
and under-served in our country, the government has
A few of the promising advantages of using Semantic
to switch from a mindset of procurement where
Web Services in e-Governance are,
technology is seen as input to one where it is focused
• reduction of cost and risk on outcomes and services. Therefore, use of
• increase in flexibility technology in government has to be less about
• automated integration, reasoning and ordering PCs and servers but rather what one can do
mediation among heterogeneous data sources with them in terms of making government more
and processes available at distinct government efficient.
levels;
• discovery of new or previously unknown
services REFERENCES
• aggregating services on the basis of user
preferences i.e. personalized services [1] Turban, Efraim. Electronic Commerce: A
• better services to community partner Managerial Perspective, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle
organizations and individual citizens River, NJ, 2004.
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[2] Alter S, “ Information Systems: Foundations of
E-Business”, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ,
2002
[3]
www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/reports/report3.pdf(18
sep 2009)
[4] www.idmigoyo.com/.../Overview%20on%20e-
Governance.pdf –(20 sep 2009)
[5] http://egovstandards.gov.in/
[6] http://www.egovindia.org/
[7] http://dqindia.ciol.com