[LINK] Govs Gear Up for "Challenging" 2.0

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Govs Gear Up for "Challenging" 2.0
While e-government revolved around putting citizen services on the Web. 
Gov 2.0 steps citizen interaction up a notch
Sue Bushell
CIO
http://www.cio.com.au/index.php/id;1056549982;fp;4;fpid;21
31 July, 2008 16:43:39

Governments around the world are moving to replace e-government with Gov 
2.0, but many challenges remain, according to market research firm 
Government Insights, (GI) an IDC company.

GI cites a range of evidence of early adoption, including the US 
government's consolidated portal, Govgab, the topical blog posted by its 
General Services Administration and the 27 US states that are actively 
working with Web 2.0. It points out the Canadian government is using 
Second Life for recruiting purposes; Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand 
are, like Australia, using blogs, officially and unofficially; and 
social networks have sprung up in the United Kingdom designed to goad 
local governments to fix problems.

GI points out that while e-government revolved around putting citizen 
services on the Web. Gov 2.0 steps citizen interaction up a level by 
allowing assessment, sharing and interaction with information to create 
new opportunities and to allow agencies to deliver more holistic 
services to citizens.

That, it says, poses a number of challenges threatening to impede that 
Web 2.0 future, not least that of trying to integrate the new 
technologies of Web 2.0 with existing technologies. And it says other 
difficulties arise because while the huge number of older government 
workers resist adoption, their younger counterparts are clamouring for 
the technologies.

Governments in countries that are bilingual, such as Canada, also face 
questions about the language government workers should be blogging in, 
while participation rates in blogs and wikis tend to be extremely low, 
raising questions about the representativeness of the views represented. 
Governments also raised concerns about the transparency of wikis and 
blogs, their impact on decision making and the expectations they raise.

The report comes as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body that 
sets international technical standards for the web, announces the 
creation of an eGovernment Interest Group (eGov IG) to explore how best 
to use the Web to improve participation and access to government.

The consortium says access to information by all citizens is at the 
heart of the effort, the group's chair told the UK's E-government 
Bulletin this month.

The Bulletin says the group will provide a forum to support researchers, 
developers, solution providers, and users of government Web services. It 
will work towards production of a set of 'interest group notes' 
including examples of best practice, guidelines and information on new 
technologies and future developments.

The consortium says it has created three task forces to produce the 
notes, focusing on use of open standards; transparency and 
participation; and seamless integration of data.

The group will be open to the public and the consortium is encouraging 
practitioners and people interested in e-government especially 
encouraged to take part: www.w3.org

The eGov IG is co-chaired by Jose Alonso with Kevin Novak of the 
American Institute of Architects, and held its first meeting by 
teleconference on 25 June. The group is scheduled to run until May 2009, 
when it should publish the final version of its notes.

Jose Alonso, W3C fellow and chair of the new interest group, told the 
Bulletin wider use of open standards by government will help preserve 
people's rights of access to public data. "Following interoperable, open 
Web standards helps ensure access to information by people with diverse 
capabilities, using a broad range of devices, and helps ensure that "the 
people's data" will remain available long into the future," he said.

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au