IRM in Government

1. IRM in Government Carl Birks CIS 450 Presentation Fall 2003

2. Questions we’ll examine • What is IRM? • What is democracy? • What is the role of information in a democracy? • What do governments do? • How are governments using IRM now? • What are the best practices? • What’s the future for IRM in Government?

3. What is Information Resource Management? • Recognizes value of information as asset • Interaction of people, content, and technology • Getting the right content to the right person at the right time

4. History of IRM: • Federal Reports Act of 1946 • Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 • Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 • IRM: term coined by Senator Fred Thompson of Commission on Federal Paperwork • most used in US federal governmental IS department context (“Paperwork Reduction Act Reauthorization and Government Information Management Issues”, Relyea, 2000)

5. Democracy • Democracy • Requires informed citizenry • Requires that citizens care that system works and actively participate in process • Effective and efficient government increases citizen goodwill and sustains a healthy and robust democracy (“A Strategic Perspective of Electronic Democracy”, Watson and Mundy, 2001)

6. Information in a Democracy • creates trust • Is the mechanism for ensuring politicians serve the electorate

7. What do governments do? • Services toward building a civil society • Varies by level: • International • National • State • Local

8. E-Democracy • Concept of Government that depends on IT to achieve basic missions • Considers long-term impact of applications on citizens and government itself (“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

9. E-Democracy - Elements • E-government: • informs citizens about their representatives and how they can be contacted, enables access to online information and online payment transactions • E-politics • Use of IT to improve effectiveness of political decision making • Builds citizen awareness of the how and why of political decision making and facilitates process participation (“A Strategic Perspective of Electronic Democracy”, Watson and Mundy, 2001)

10. E-Democracy– Goals and Framework • Goal: deploy IT to improve effectiveness and efficiency of democracy • New phenomenon: means citizens will have to learn how to use it. • Framework for adoption: • Know what • Know how • Know why • Care why (“A Strategic Perspective of Electronic Democracy”, Watson and Mundy, 2001)

11. E-Democracy – E-Politics • E-Politics (effectiveness side): • Political decision making becomes increasingly transparent • Requires moving beyond open government (Freedom of Information and Open Meeting laws) to open politics (exposing the process by which laws are created) (“A Strategic Perspective of Electronic Democracy”, Watson and Mundy, 2001)

12. E-Democracy – E-Government • E-Government (efficiency side): • Increases timeliness and convenience of citizen/govt interactions and reduces their cost • Example: web-enabled property tax payments decreased per transaction cost from $5 to $0.22 (“A Strategic Perspective of Electronic Democracy”, Watson and Mundy, 2001)

13. E-Government • Application of IT to government services • Allows access to government information and services 24/7 • Provides potential for government to fundamentally restructure its operations (“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

14. E-Democracy – Adoption • 3 phases based on framework • Initiation (know what) • Infusion (know how and know why) • Customization (care why)

15. E-Democracy – Phase 1: Initiation • Critical initial goals: • Provide citizens with single point of access to government info (e.g. portal) • Helps citizens navigate myriad agencies • Example: ezgov based on zip code • Web-enable government payments • $3 trillion/year changes hands • < .5 % of payments web-enabled • Potential for $110 billion savings each year • Reduces visits, wait time, travel

16. Electronic Democracy –Phase 2: Infusion • Innovation is widely embraced • Organization often restructures to accommodate the innovation

17. Electronic Democracy –Phase 3: Customization • Citizens will increasingly expect government to offer level of tailoring they get from private sector • Implements one to one relationship between citizen and government • Enables citizens to: • have personal profile of financial interactions with government • focus on personally critical issues

18. E-Government and E-Politics Applications • Three Categories: • Access to information • Transaction services • Citizen participation (“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

19. Access to Information • Most common e-government application • Governments produce huge amounts of information, electronic access expanding • Example: FedStats provides access to statistics of more than 100 federal agencies • Library of Congress • IRS • SSA • National Park Service (“FedStats: Gateway to Federal Statistics, Dippo, 2003)(“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

20. Transaction Services • Taxes: 39.5 million electronic fed. tax filings in 2001 (up 30% from previous year) • Passports, Drivers Licenses • Patents, Permits (“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

21. Transactions: Customized Workflow Management • Includes tasks and dependencies • Used in e-commerce to automate business processes • Allows on-the-fly workflow generation for customization depending on specific rules

22. Transactions: Customized Geospatial Workflows • GIS associates location dependent data with specific rules and regulations (e.g. zoning, business development, building) • Ideal for delivery of e-government services (e.g. land use planning) • Generated on the fly from a rule base • Changes to rules automatically reflected in newly generated workflows (“Customized Geospatial Workflows for E-Government Services”, Holowczak, 2001)

23. Citizen Participation • E-mails to government officials • Rule making participation (public comments/issues debates) • High-profile application: E-voting • Unclear how information flow changes between citizens and government may affect processes (e.g. will more direct flows diminish influence of opinion leaders and media on public process?) (“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

24. Spice Break

25. E-Rule Making • Official public comments received and made part of public record • Example: Dept of Agriculture National Organic Program (1997) • Incoming comments sorted, digitized, auto-indexed and posted in online docket room • Electronic accessibility of comments and related materials: • offset manual processing costs for individual FOIA requests • Increased public perception of transparency and legitimacy of process (“Prospects for Improving the Regulatory Process using E-Rulemaking”, Fountain, 2003)

26. E-Democracy by level of Government • Different levels of government: • International • National • State • Local • Functions and technology use vary at each level

27. IRM in National Government – USA • Government Performance and Results Act (1993) • Clinger-Cohen Act (1996) • Problems intended to address: • High turnover of CIOs/IT staff • Lack of flexibility • Lack of cross-agency cooperation • Traditional separation of telecommunications and data processing (“Local Governments and IRM: Policy Emerging from Practice”, Fletcher, 1997)

28. IRM in National Government – USA • Set policies and procedures for IRM in Federal Government (top-down approach) • OMB –based oversight of agency IT functions ( OMB Circular A-130) (“Local Governments and IRM: Policy Emerging from Practice”, Fletcher, 1997)

29. IRM in National Government – USA • Cross Agency Cooperation: • Problems: • Generally info not shared across agencies • Citizens required to provide redundant info to different agencies • Complex processes to match each person and situation with appropriate government services (“Understanding New Models of Collaboration for Delivering Government Services”, Dawes & Prefontaine, 2003)

30. IRM in National Government – USA • Cross Agency Collaboration: • Rests on understood but often tacit working philosophy • Relationships are evolving and dynamic • Raise issues of data ownership • Needs an institutional framework • Technology choices affect participation and results (nature, cost and cost distribution) (“Understanding New Models of Collaboration for Delivering Government Services”, Dawes & Prefontaine, 2003)

31. IRM in National Government – USA • Cross Agency Application Example: • Coplink Connect • Provides one-stop access point for data to alleviate police officers’ information and cognitive overload • Supports consolidated access to all major databases

32. IRM in National Government – USA • NSF Digital Government Program • Helps agencies adopt and adapt basic research to practical problems of government work • Has stimulated R&D in e-government applications (“A Personal History of the NSF Digital Government Program”, Ciment, 2003)

33. NSF Digital Government Application areas: • Law enforcement • Judicial administration • Governance • Regulation and policy-making • Housing • Environment • Land use management • Education and training • Access to community libraries • Emergency management (“A Personal History of the NSF Digital Government Program”, Ciment, 2003)

34. IRM in National Government – USA • TIA: • part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency'sInformation Awareness Office • Seeks to track individuals through collecting as much information about them as possible and using computer algorithms and human analysis to detect potential activity • Seeks “revolutionary technology for ultra-large all-source information repositories”; a “virtual, centralized, grand database”

35. IRM in National Government - USA • TIA, cont. • Aims to develop data-mining and knowledge discovery tools to find patterns and associations • Seeks development of biometric technology to enable the identification and tracking of individuals • One TIA project aims to positively identify people from a distance through technologies such as face recognition or gait recognition

36. Spice Break

37. IRM in National Government – EU • eEurope initiative: • includes online government as a priority • EU goal: • greater transparency and participation in government to strengthen democracy (“Digital Government”, Marchionini, 2003)

38. IRM in National Government – EU • EC Migration to Open Source Guidelines • Builds on growing use in Europe • Standards focused: “provide practical and detailed recommendations on how to migrate to Open Source Software (OSS)-based office applications, calendaring, e-mail and other standard applications” • Collaborative: developed with guidance from public sector IT experts from Denmark, Finland, Italy, Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey (Center for Digital Government, 2003)http://www.centerdigitalgov.com/international/story.php?docid=74723

39. Bottom up v. Top Down • Bottom up: • Lets effective solutions be implemented and only expanded as they succeed • Smaller projects: • Easier to design and deploy • Easier to fund • Less catastrophic if they fail

40. Bottom Up v. Top Down • Top down: • Less flexible • Has its place in setting standards • Larger projects: • Harder to design and deploy • Harder to fund • More catastrophic if the fail

41. IRM in State Government • Closer to constituents • Mixture of top-down and bottom up approaches • Open source experimentation/migration • Legislators need to demonstrate cost-cutting and a balanced budget • IT bureaucracy need solutions they can deploy with little effort and fit seamlessly (“Linux Access in State and Local Government”, Adelstein, 2003)

42. Bottom up Open Source Revolution? Cities and States are adopting: • Houston, Berlin (10k PCs to Linux) • Rhode Island SOS OSS LAMP portal • TX Legislation pending; OR, CA, OK legislation failed (vendor opposition) • International: EU, Israel, Portugal, Columbia, Ukraine require OSS; SA gives pref. to OSS (“Linux Access in State and Local Government”, Adelstein, 2003)

43. OSS Future? • “As more and more public sector OSS projects succeed, state and local governments will start to notice.” • Government applications sites modeled on SchoolForge? • information, tools and materials to make school and all its parts http://www.schoolforge.net/

44. IRM in Local Government • Local governments directly affect citizens • Services: • Roads and bridges maintenance • Social welfare services • Libraries • Parks & recreation • Utilities • Housing • Permits and licenses

45. IRM in Local Government • No federal IRM-style policies/standards • Less strategic planning • bottom up approach fosters innovation • Open source experimentation • Avoids excessive licensing fees • Fosters an open community mentality that fits well with government (Socialism?)

46. Local E-Government Best Practices • Best Practices: • Widely disseminate web site address • Provide combination of navigation tools (e.g. frames or buttons, search engine and site map) • Provide information by both service offered and department • Include different types of information needed by various users (local or linked) (“Local E-Government Services”, George, et al, 2001)

47. Local E-Government Best Practices. • Best Practices, continued: • Transaction applications: • Minimal: provide applications for download • Ideal: online purchasing and payments: • Parking tickets • Water/sewer bills • Property taxes (“Local E-Government Services”, George, et al, 2001)

48. Local E-gov Development Considerations • Funding: • Cost of developing, maintaining and upgrading web sites • Potential for cost savings and other efficiencies (e.g. improved levels of service at no additional staffing cost) • How to fund (e.g. general funds, user fees, volunteers, donations, advertisements (“Local E-Government Services”, George, et al, 2001)

49. Local E-gov Development Considerations, cont. • Public access to internet (e.g. digital divide issues) • Security and privacy of personal information and government documents (e.g. removing names from online property records) (“Local E-Government Services”, George, et al, 2001)

50. Development and Use of Local E-government • Four phases recommended: • Developing an internet presence • Providing interaction between government and public by e-mail and information • Allowing individuals to conduct business with the local government • Re-engineering government’s business practices because of increased use and functions of e-government (“Local E-Government Services: A Best Practices Review”, George, et al, 2001)