Background

1. The NICTA e-Government Initiative: Delivering Research Impact to Business and GovernmentProfessor Ross JefferyProgram Leader, Empirical Software Engineering

2. Background • National Research Laboratory • Established in 2002 • Currently funded until 2011 • NICTA Staff 409 (359 FTE) + Students, approx 650 total • Five objectives centred on: • Research • Commercialisation • People • Education • Linkages

3. Mission To be an enduring world-class information and communications technology research institute that generates national benefit. Research Objectives: • Focus research efforts toward areas of importance to Australia • Conducting research to the highest standards of excellence • Provide NICTA researchers with world-class research facilities and equipment

4. Locations Research Labs • Brisbane • Sydney ATP • Sydney Kensington • Canberra • Melbourne

5. Research Structure Themes • Embedded Systems • Networked Systems • Making Sense of Data • Managing Complexity Business Areas • Biomedical and Life Sciences • Intelligent Transport Systems • Environmental Management • Mobile Systems and Services • Safety and Security • Software Infrastructure

6. Quadrant Basic Research LIXI Projects Phase I Adaptive Middleware Information Integration Phase II DSTO System Architecture CAMKeS Market EPIC PULSE RESA Effort Estimation Process Engineering Software Infrastructure Research Project Map 4 2 Semantic interoperability 2 1 • LIXI Projects • Process Handbook • Reference Architecture • Process Modelling and Analysis • Industry Ontology 3 4

7. Software Infrastructure Example e-Government (E-Gov) Initiative • e-Government refers to the government's use of information technologies to exchange information and services with: • Citizens (cit-to-gov) • Business (bus-to-gov) • other arms of Government (gov-to-gov)

8. The NICTA e-Government Initiative • This major project brings together: - Government agencies - Industry - Researchers - Educatorsto provide holistic solutions to the challenges that e-Government presents. • Provides research leadership and coordination through a major project of national benefit. • Combines ICT expertise from key discipline areas including: • software engineering, • information systems, • enabling technologies (e.g. knowledge representation, logic, and spatial technologies)

9. The NICTA e-Government Initiative • Established: January 2007 • Focus: Benefit-oriented e-Government for industry and citizens • Customers: - Federal and State agencies and ministries - IT Companies working in the public sector - Communities and community clusters • Staff: - 3 with project focus e-Government - app. 20 over NICTA programs • NICTA Value Proposition: - Wide range of competencies - Neutrality - Standards - Internationality Trials of innovative technologies (software methods and tools) with collaborating government agencies is a key mechanism for realising the benefits of ICT research in the practice of government.

10. NICTA e-Government Focus • Many governments around the world have e-Government initiatives, many of these initiatives focus directly on the points of interaction with citizens and business • Key focus of NICTA’s E-Gov research is upon the processes and systems inside government • Aim is business process improvement inside government through controlled deployment of innovative software, methods and tools

11. e-Government Objectives • Creation of an e-Government Network to provide information flow and collaboration between stakeholders. • Use-inspired research outcomes attained through • Successful outcomes from existing projects • identification and selection of new projects • Industry-wide educational outcomes: • research training • professional development (seminars and short courses) • specialised award courses in e-Government • International linkageswith research institutes in e-Government. • Facilitate the establishment of a National Institute for e-Government Research

12. e-Government: Top-down and bottom-up Identifying e-Government potential in government and industry Developing benefit-oriented and industry-specific e-Government solutions

13. e-Government potential Determination of e-Government Potential Relevance e-Government suitability Productivity and growth Frequency Effort Customer perspective Potential of optimization Financial perspective Room for improvement

14. e-Government Research Areas • IT Infrastructure and Planning: Methods and tools to support strategic planning in areas such as IT capacity planning, the development of SOA's, and integration/interoperability of legacy systems. This work is being applied to large service delivery agencies in federal government. • Business Process Transformation: Methods and tools to manage business processes in government, for both individual agencies and from a whole of government perspective. Specific research topics include frameworks for cross-agency interoperability, and the alignment of government agency business goals with business processes and IT system requirements

15. Example Completed Projects - DSTO • Software architecture knowledge management: • Tool development and implementation (now available for broader application in business and government) • Repository of design knowledge • Future-proof against turnover of key staff • Retain critical IP and system knowledge • Middleware architecture evaluation • Apply NICTA methodology for systems architecture evaluation • Assess performance and other characteristics of defence systems • Transfer capability to DSTO software architecture personnel • Use knowledge management tool to retain design decision history

16. e-tax users Tax office Medicare web services Assessing e-Government Service Architectures • Devise methods and tools for evaluating e-Government service architectures • Devise processes for helping government agencies model and improve end-to-end service delivery • Evaluate end-to-end performance and scalability of Medicare Tax Statement (MTS) service architecture • Multi-layered network queuing model • Result: Confirmation that existing system can accommodate over and above anticipated peak workloads (ie., 31 October, 9pm!)

17. Spatial Information • GIS and Spatial Technologies: Multi-criteria approaches to the analysis of complex issues in environment decision systems have found wide application across business, government and communities around the world. VISTA@NICTA has two projects of analysis of spatial information in collaboration with the ACT Planning and Land Authority (ACTPLA) and the Australian Bureau of Rural Science (BRS). The project incorporates Computer aided Multi-criteria decision support tools to model multiple types of evidences for intelligent environmental query and land planning, and supports a decision making process.

18. Impact of e-Government Research • In Australia there are opportunities for ICT research to make an impact in large projects of national benefit in economic sectors such as: • Water and the environment • Public and private transport systems • Mobile communications • Safety and security • Effective, efficient, robust, transparent, and well managed business processes in government (federal/state/local) are essential for national projects such as these to succeed. • NICTA’s process-focused, software-based research in e-Government complements the NICTA programs and projects delivering hard technologies in the field.

19. Example Delivery Projects (STaR) Intelligent Transport Area Smart Transport and Roads (STaR) Project • research collaboration with Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales (RTA) • traffic sensing and surveillance, • reliable and secure communications over wide area wireless mesh networks, • new algorithms and models for traffic control; and • multimodal user interfaces to streamline control room operations. Impact: • Reduce travel times without building new infrastructure • Improve efficiency of public transport • Improve safety

20. Example Delivery Projects (SAFE) Safety and Security Area Smart Applications for Emergencies (SAFE) Project • The SAFE project focuses on new technologies, systems and services that will provide significant improvements to emergency and disaster response management working with key government agencies. • SAFE involves collaboration with user stakeholders: • in the emergency response community, • industry groups supplying products and services to that community, • NICTA research groups developing technologies which will complement those of the NICTA QRL SAFE team.

21. Example Delivery Projects (SAFE) • The project emerged from the Safeguarding Australia projects in the Queensland laboratory and now operates as a large project using a demonstrator as the mechanism to focus four work packages. • SAFE will save lives and help minimise the economic impact of natural and man-made disasters through world class R&D in Information and Communications Technologies for disaster prediction, response, and recovery co-ordination. Sources of Data and dataprocessing SAFE SENSORS Information processing and human understanding SAFE INFORMATION Modeling and Agents SAFE AGENTS Secure and autonomic networks SAFE NETWORKS

22. Example Delivery Projects (WIN) Environment Management Area Water Information Networks (WIN) Project • Around the world and in Australia around 70% of water is used for agriculture, 20% for industry and 10% for domestic supply. • In agriculture, close to half of the water is wasted. • For domestic use, close to half is wasted and in some cities in Europe this is a lot higher. • UNESCO believes we have enough water – it’s a management issue. • WIN addresses part of this problem by addressing efficiency in agriculture particularly in irrigation systems and finding out where water is in many different environments.

23. Example Delivery Projects (WIN) • The WIN vision is to provide ICT tools to manage water in the most efficient manner in • irrigation systems, • on farms, • surface to ground water, • water balances, • catchments • urban water systems • WIN is setting up test-beds in all these areas. • NICTA has been working closely with partners such as Melbourne Water Research Centre, e-Water CRC, CSIRO, and State Governments

24. Example Delivery Projects (WIN) • The WIN project has been running for about 18 months. • The value proposition for Australia is that some simple ICT infrastructure plus some clever monitoring, and control algorithms that are running on that infrastructure, can release enough water to continue farming at the levels we do now and maintain logical flows in the rivers. The water is there and you can get it by increasing efficiency on farms by a small amount.