Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-Government (2002) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Vision for IT-Enabled Enhancement of Government
1 Vision for IT-Enabled Enhancement of Government
Pages 21-44
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From page 21... ...
In Fiscal Year 2001, the total annual federal IT investment was roughly $44.5 billion.1 This level of spending reflects government's great reliance on IT systems in carrying out its diverse missions. The emergence of the Internet into the mainstream, along with the growth of other electronic-commerce technologies, is fundamentally altering the environment in which government delivers services to citizens, businesses, and other government entities.
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From page 22... ...
have also developed kiosk systems, using Web technology, to provide access to information resources in public locations. The federal government now offers a number of information portals, which aggregate and present government information for access by customers in particular "market segments" (such as students, workers, or senior citizens)
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From page 23... ...
For example, the committee's consideration of the federal statistical agencies revealed that while fedstats.gov, coordinated by the Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy, was of one of the earliest implementations of interagency portals, there was also an instance in which the Bureau of the Census had only recently retired an obsolete Univac computer system. The inquires of the committee also revealed cases of government bodies having very specific technology needs that have not been adequately addressed.
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2001. "Is Your Local Government Plugged In?
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Available online at |
From page 28... ...
And as IT innovation in the private sector continues apace, the gap between private sector and government practices appears to be growing. Congressional hearings, reports of the federal Chief Information Officers Council, agency analyses, and similar activities at the state level attest that governments are aggressively exploring how to shape their policies and practices to leverage IT technologies most effectively and to stimulate ongoing innovation and experimentation.
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From page 29... ...
has written numerous reports related to more immediate implementation challenges associated with e-government programs. See, for example, GAO, 2001, Electronic Government: Challenges Must Be Addressed with Effective Leadership and Management (GAO-01-959T)
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. Thus government services, at the very least, are also expected to overcome barriers of time and distance and to be customer-oriented.
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From page 32... ...
For example, Web sites operated by state and municipal governments offer services for small business operators that present a uniform, business-oriented interface, even though this requires integration of interactions with separate government entities. Business owners, for example, are then freed from having to maintain comprehensive and detailed working knowledge of the roles of the various agencies with whom they must interact the Web site embodies this knowledge for them.
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It also has responsibility for providing citizens with access to most government information, though access to certain information is
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The long-term vision expressed by ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ . 1 ~ many (and called for In the Government Paperwork Elimination Act of 1998; see more details in the subsection "E-Government Policy Initiatives" in this chapter)
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From page 35... ...
Achieving it will, for example, depend heavily on improving capabilities for protecting privacy, integrating or establishing appropriate authentication capabilities, and providing other safeguards with respect to access to governmentheld information. Increasing Participation in Government Information technology is also a way of providing new means for interactions between citizens and governments both to improve the interactions and to engage people who have not participated in the past.
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From page 36... ...
Most commercial efforts, however, address broadly identified market needs that may not satisfy the requirements of government applications. Such requirements include providing for exceedingly stringent precautions (e.g., for national security or for protecting individual tax records)
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From page 37... ...
; · Interoperation challenges arising from working across organizational stovepipes; · Rules constraining the nature of information sharing across government agencies and programs; · Funding new online systems while maintaining existing ones; · Difficulties in identifying and maintaining funding for what are inherently cross-agency activities; and · Resolving technical issues such as protocol design, information representation, and security and authentication measures associated with interfaces that would enable third parties to operate portal sites that interact with government services on behalf of citizens and businesses, permitting third parties to use software that directly connects their own information systems with government services. Areas of innovation and continuing technical challenge extend well beyond the more visible information and transaction portals.
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From page 38... ...
Complementing more traditional electronic data interchange technology for interactions between government and larger businesses and organizations, a number of systems for online procurement and grant or contract processing have been rolled out. Finally, there are challenges associated with increasing intragovernment information management and collaboration and with performing such functions across levels of government.
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From page 39... ...
Examples include these: · Distributed-processing technologies that support scaling up to very large numbers of users; · Approaches to facilitating data interchange, including mediator and wrapper techniques (which allow legacy systems to be integrated into newer systems) and the Web-inspired XML standard for describing data; · Capabilities for remote service invocation across the network, which are currently being developed and standardized; · Safe mobile code capabilities, which enable code to be downloaded and run on end-user computing platforms; · Database/transaction capabilities, most notably the development of reliable, large-scale relational databases (and more recent object extensions)
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From page 40... ...
These efforts are at varying levels of maturity, with the more advanced featuring national e-government portals designed to offer a single point of access to both information resources and transactions.l4 As these pressures result in more services being deployed, conflicting demands will arise for increased reliability; for anywhere, anytime, anydevice access; for accuracy and timeliness of information; and for privacy and security of confidential information (these trade-offs are discussed in Chapter 2, "Special Considerations in E-Government". Finally, interest in e-government is also driven by the desire to increase efficiency in government.
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From page 41... ...
For example, the FY 1999 Department of Defense Authorization Act requires DOD to establish a defensewide electronic system for ordering supplies and materials, and the Electronic Benefit Transfer Interoperability and Portability Act of 2000 (P.L.
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From page 42... ...
The Access America initiative, in part an outgrowth of NPR activities, included several instances of cross-agency collaboration and resulted in the establishment of several targeted portals aimed at particular population segments. Executive branch policy making with respect to e-government has included a presidential memorandum that called on federal agencies to, among other things, make available online by the end of 2000 the forms associated with the top 500 government services.
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Available online at |
From page 44... ...
Partner agencies are expected to contribute resources to the collaborative efforts, with the expectation that the program's funding will increasingly leverage additional resources from participating agencies.24 Launched in 1998, the Digital Government program has issued grants totaling roughly $30 million to fund more than two dozen research projects and a number of planning grants and exploratory workshops. Funded proposals involve more than 30 federal departments and agencies, some 60 universities and nonprofit organizations, and a handful of commercial firms, and have attracted more than $4 million in matching support from the participating government agencies.25 Stimulated in part by the availability of federal and state research support, several university-based research centers examining e-government issues have been established.
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