Jusletter IT

An efficient provision of government services demands integration of the subjacent processes and data. Eschewing a past characterized by the loose collection of single architectured services, today e-government strives for closely integrated and orchestrated services that enable transactions within and across organizational boundaries. However, due to organizational autonomy, lack of political will and legal foundations, the degree of integration might vary across different public agencies.¹ The requirements of such services are reflected in infrastructure prerequisites that compose a significant portion of today’s national e-government programs and strategies.² The infrastructure establishes a foundation for e-government execution. Above that, services are figuratively plugged in and benefit from the available core capabilities (cf. Ross, Weill, & Robertson, 2006). Management and further development of this foundation are crucial for the success of e-government and are tightly related to its advanced maturity. Standards, specifications and good practices are relevant components of such a foundation which are in turn an important element for the interoperability of the previously described services.

According to the draft European Interoperability Framework (EIF) (2008, p. 52), aspecification is defined as a document which details the required characteristics of a product or a service including the corresponding methods and procedures. A standard however, is a specification approved by a recognized standardizing body for repeated or continuous application.Good practices documents in a less formal way a sustainable solution or method that has been deployed in e-government practice. Good practices and specification might be a preliminary stage of a standard. The distinction between standards, specifications, and good practices reflects varying degrees of quality based on the underlying principles and procedures. Furthermore, they are a relevant part of codified, public available knowledge within e-government communities. In practice however, the terminology is ambiguous and differs slightly among the corresponding organizations. Much more important is that the function of standards, specifications and good practices is not merely restricted to the technical but encompasses semantic, organizational, and legal levels as well as the political context (cf. EIF, 2008, p. 32). As a necessary condition, these five levels – technical, semantic, organizational, legal, and political – must be addressed for interoperability.³

The purpose of this brief paper is to outline (1) standard-setting organizations and (2) the current challenges facing standardization in e-government. The findings are based on a pilot study (Kuehn, 2009), additional semi-structured interviews within the Swiss e-government standardization community and an extended document analysis, covering the situations in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the EU selectively. The findings primarily apply to the situation in Switzerland; however, they might be employed analogously to Austria and Germany.

The setting of standards – their conceptualization and development – and of formal specifications is a time consuming process that requires the contribution of different stakeholders. E-government standardization typically takes place in a militia system, aiming for a consensus-based agreement on standards and specifications. Standards and specifications are very expensive products and their underlying principles and procedures are complex.⁴ Thus, maturity in standardization involves a continuous balancing act between formalism and pragmatism of those principles and procedures. In addition to the expensive standardization, a major challenge lies in the broad, consistent application of standards. To date, there exists no legal or cross-organizational authority to impose specific standards across different governmental levels. Exceptions do exist however, where standards are imposed across the Swiss Federal Administration⁵ and where they find their ways into statutory ordinance⁶ . In addition to business needs and legal requirements, quality and accessibility of standards seem to be the driving force behind usage.

Standard-setting is pursued in organizations that have appropriate resources and legitimacy. Table 1 gives an overview of standard-setting organizations in e-government categorized by nations/international governmental organizations (IGO). In practice, these organizations not only issue standards but often deliver specifications and publish good practice examples. The Offices of the CIOs at the federal level – which are not considered here as a standard-setting organization even though they exert considerable influence, i.e. in terms of resources – are involved in related activities, and develop overall strategies, architectures, concepts and specifications. Often, a personnel overlap among public administrations and standardization organizations leads to strong networking and an exchange of knowledge within an e-government community. On the European level the IDABC (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens) program (http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/ ) and platforms such as ePractice.eu (www.epractice.eu ) and SEMIC.EU (www.semic.eu/ ) enable the exchange of knowledge and experience on standards and standardization. The latter offers a participatory approach for the development of semantic interoperability standards. It is worth noting that the national standard-setting bodies (i.e. DIN, ÖNORM, SNV) hardly play a role in e-government standardization. An exception is DIN that published in 2007 a technical report on business process management in public administration (cf.www.nia.din.de , DIN report 158). These findings are in line with the ICT Standards Consortia survey⁷ by CEN/ISSS which states that key standardization activity in ICT was carried out by industry consortia (such as OASIS, W3C) rather than in formal or national standards organizations.

The challenges of integrated, networked e-government services are reflected in standardization efforts. Standard-setting organizations are increasingly confronted with requests for standards in more mature, complex fields within a shorter development time frame («standard-setting as bottle-neck»). Senior experts in short supply are already burdened with demands for their time. Standardization in e-government demands a new way of thinking. Table 2 briefly summarizes four essential issues in current e-government standardization. The specific degrees of these issues might vary in practice. Besides the task of standard-setting, these organizations also issue specification and good practices, and further constitute a platform for networking, knowledge exchange, and informal project coordination; in short, a significant community of practice for e-government. Addressing the four general issues will also benefit those functions beyond standardization.

Andersen, Per, Evaluation of Ten Standard Setting Organizations with Regard to Open Standards, IDC, Copenhagen (2008).
European Interoperability Framework (EIF), Draft document as a basis for EIF 2.0, European Commission (2008).
Kuehn, Andreas, Standards im E-Government – Schlussbericht zur eCH-Pilotstudie, Verein eCH, Bern (2009).
Kuehn, Andreas; Spichiger, Andreas; Riedl, Reinhard, Interoperabilität und Standards im E-Government, in: Schweighofer (Hrsg.), Semantisches Web und Soziales Web im Recht, Tagungsband des 12. Internationalen Rechtsinformatik Symposions IRIS 2009, OCG, Wien (2009).
Ross, Jeanne, W.; Weill, Peter; Robertson, David C., Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts (2006).

Competence Centre for Public Management and E-Government, Bern University of Applied Sciences
Morgartenstrasse 2a, P.O. Box 305
3000 Bern 22, CH
{andreas.kuehn/andreas.spichiger/reinhard.riedl}@bfh.ch;www.e-government.bfh.ch