Open Government: Embracing Open Source Processes for E-Government

1. Understanding the Potential for Open Government: Open Source Processes for E-Government Walt Scacchi Institute for Software Research University of California, Irvine Wscacchi@uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi http://www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi/Presentations/OpenGovt

2. Open Government? • Free/open source software development encourages sharing, examination, reuse, modification, and redistribution • E-Government encourages adoption of E-Commerce/E-Business in government agency operations, functions, business lines • Open government embraces open source and E-government processes, practices, and communities

3. Why Open Government? • Help make government faster, better, cheaper • Empower interested government employees, contractors, and interested citizens to offer help and capture their contributions • Enable creation of public test-beds where existing/new government processes can be demonstrated, manipulated, and refined.

4. Why Open Government? • Make processes of government and democracy Web-enabled and computationally enactable • Codify processes into high-level, user-friendly process models as their “source code” • Avoid coding processes in conventional programming or scripting languages • This makes them opaque to users, and difficult to improve, adapt, or learn

5. Overview • Open processes for system development, use, and evolutionary support • Motivations for open source processes • Government operations and business processes • International Development applications • Military and security applications • Opportunities and conclusions

6. Open source processes • System development • build and release, testing, review/inspection, configuration management, security certification, localization, porting, contribution, development Web site maintenance, etc. • Deployment • business process redesign, organizational transformation, system upgrade, user training, community development and support, etc.

7. Open source processes • Free/open source softwaredoes not embody the processes for how best to develop, deploy, use or sustain them • Deploying free/open source software is often inefficient and sub-optimal • Closed source software development, deployment, use and support is generally no different! • Explicit open source processes could also help closed source systems.

8. Open source process example • Example of an open source process model of a proposal submission process, specified in a Process Markup Language, PML • J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Specifying Process-Oriented Hypertext for Organizational Computing, Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 4(1):39-61, 2001.

9. Complex motivations for open source processes • Closed source processes: opaque or tacit, difficult to improve, subject to patent • Most enterprise processes are operational, not strategic. • Continuous process improvement and organizational learning requires open access to the “source code” of operational processes

10. Closed source process as strategic business assets • Processes offering competitive advantage can be patented, denoting their value as strategic business assets • But very few enterprise processes are source of competitive advantage • Closed/tacit vs. administrative vs. open source enterprise processes

11. A closed source business process example

12. Closed vs. administrative vs. open source processes • Closed: Amazon “one-click” e-purchase • Patented processes inhibits their sharing, reuse, study, modification, and redistribution • Administrative: Java community process • asserts property rights, responsibilities, and administrative authority • legalistic or bureaucratic “policy and procedures” are narrative, not operational => ambiguous interpretation and legal wrangling

13. Java Community Process

14. Administrative process example

15. Continuous process improvement and organizational learning • CPI is easier when processes are open and computationally explicit • OL can be supported just-in-time via process-directed intranets/extranets • PDIs/PDEs enable just-in-time training, process prototyping, performance monitoring and measurement, dynamic repair of process execution breakdowns/failures, and more. • see References for citations and details

16. Government operations and business processes • Example: Procurement and acquisition • Procurement: purchasing MRO supplies • Acquisition: contracting for services • Not simply a matter using electronic forms or extensible markup notations about them • Reengineering enterprise processes is complex and requires processes transformation, integration, commitment, and training • W. Scacchi, Redesigning Contracted Service Procurement for Internet-based Electronic Commerce: A Case Study, Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2(3), 313-334, 2001.

17. Government operations and business processes • Federal Enterprise Architecture process domains are the prime candidates • Financial management • Human relations • Monitoring benefits and public health • Data and statistic development • Criminal investigation • Regulation and legislation development, deployment, and enforcement

18. Open Govt for International Development applications • Promote free/open source enterprise software systems and processes • http://www.gnuenterprise.org for enterprise resource management and E-business framework • Many other office productivity, E-business, and E-commerce systems being developed and deployed as free/open source

19. GNUe enterprise system architecture

20. Open Govt for International Development applications • Free/open source systems and processes are comparatively easy to transfer and deploy into developing nations, once localized • Free/open source systems and processes amenable to co-sourced, cost-shared, multi-lateral development

21. Military and security applications • Most of the military enterprise focuses on operational, logistical, and training processes • Administrative processes are ponderous, procrustean, rather than agile, flexible • Current legacy processes are compliance oriented, rather than improvement oriented

22. DD(X) Overview

23. DD(X) Acquisition Guidelines

24. Acquisition Process-Directed Intranet demonstration More information available in: J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Specifying Process-Oriented Hypertext for Organizational Computing, Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 4(1):39-61, 2001. W. Scacchi, Open Acquisition: Combining Open Source Software Development with System Acquisition, technical report, July 2002.

25. Military and security applications • Homeland security will increasingly become focus of process improvement, streamlining and cost reduction.

26. Open Govt Opportunities • Establish OG Web portals and clearinghouse • Create/share process toolkits, libraries, repositories • Co-sourced development of OG processes • amortize and share OG development costs • Capture and codification of government process domain expertise • Operational OG system and process demo’s • OG prototypes • Exportable processes for democratic government operations

27. Conclusions • Free/open source software systems for government represent a significant opportunity • Seek high-level, user-friendly processes for government operations expressed as open source, computationally enactable processes • Open government embraces and extends open source, while also moving towards flexible, agile democratic government operations

28. References • J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Supporting Software Development in Virtual Enterprises, Journal of Digital Information, 1(4), February 1999. • J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Specifying Process-Oriented Hypertext for Organizational Computing, Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 4(1):39-61, 2001 • W. Scacchi, Redesigning Contracted Service Procurement for Internet-based Electronic Commerce: A Case Study, Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2(3), 313-334, 2001. • W. Scacchi, Open Acquisition: Combining Open Source Software Development with System Acquisition, technical report, July 2002. • W. Scacchi, Open EC/B: A Case Study in Electronic Commerce and Open Source Software Development, technical report, July 2002.

29. References • W. Scacchi and P. Mi, Process Life Cycle Engineering: A Knowledge Based Approach and Environment, Intern. Journal Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance, and Management, 6(1), 83-107, 1997. • W. Scacchi, Understanding the Social, Technological, and Policy Implications of Open Source Software Development position paper presented at the NSF Workshop on Open Source Software, January 2002 (revised August 2002). • W. Scacchi, Understanding the Requirements for Developing Open Source Software Systems,IEE Proceedings--Software, 149(1), 24-39, February 2002.

30. Acknowledgements • The research described in this report is supported by contracts/grants from: • National Science Foundation • #IIS-0083075, #ITR-0205679, #ITR-0205724 and Industry/University Research Cooperative for the CRITO Consortium • Defense Acquisition University • #N487650-27803 • No endorsement implied.