Trends in Electronic Government Managing Distributed Knowledge Maria Wimmer and Roland Traunmüller Institute of Applied Computer Science University of Linz, Austria {mw,

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller2 Contents l Visions of Government l Considering distributed knowledge l Telecooperation l Exemplifying distributed knowledge l Analysing distributed knowledge in administrative processes l Managing distributed knowledge in e- Government

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller3 Visions of e-Government (1) l Business, administration and jurisdiction in cyberspace »comprehensive guiding vision like e-commerce »integrated view on public administration »supported with telecooperation l Realisation on different levels »information providing »direct online communication facilities »online transactions

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller4 Visions of e-Government (2) l Equal access facilities for every citizen to authorities, knowledge and information »via internet and modern telecommunication »citizens do their administrative process from home or public one-stop service centres »support for cross-border operations »guaranteeing the necessary level of security, authenticity and privacy l Direct participation in e-democracy »Empowerment of the citizens

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller5 Rethinking Governmental Work l Redesigning citizen access structures, processes, co-operation and knowledge management l Shift from old established structures and traditional administration towards modern government »Integration of advanced technology »Overcoming current functional and organisational boundaries »Independent from the spatial distribution of agencies and individual agents

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller6 Distributed knowledge in e-Government (1) l Knowledge is the most important capital in public administration »Information and knowledge are the chief raw material and main product of administrative processes, jurisdiction and governance l e-Government as a socio-technical system »interrelated network of knowledge stakeholders such as humans, machine agents, and artefacts like norms, laws, formal procedures, social and cultural practices, etc. l Clear interpretation and understanding of laws and norms are crucial

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller7 Distributed knowledge in e-Government (2) l Internet portal providing quasi ”knowledge on demand” to citizens and business partners »big part of domain knowledge formerly possessed by authority’s internal members and IT infrastructure is shifted to the e-Government system and to external interaction partners such as citizens or business partners »distributed databases, workflow, groupware, etc. serve as mediation tools to make knowledge available from anywhere at any time l Citizens and collaborators within authorities need to be aware of this change

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller8 Knowledge types in e- Government l knowledge about legislative administration »constitution, rights, laws,... l knowledge about society »case specific »general knowledge about the environment l knowledge of public administration about itself »purpose, statistics and other internal knowledge l knowledge concerning people »needs and expectations »(correct or incorrect) behaviour of the nation‘s members »impacts and consequences of executive administration and jurisdiction

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller9 Distributed knowledge: theoretical considerations l Knowledge in a broad sense: the whole content of human brain »skills, expertise, intuition of people, administrative work procedures and structures, experiences and lessons learnt »knowledge about people and society, events, objects and documents, relationships, etc. l Knowledge in a narrow sense: knowledge and information in context and relationships »know-how and expertise to complete work and to solve problems »goal-oriented and purpose-directed »domain knowledge

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller10 constitution culture politics etc. Environment administrator citizen Management etc. Liveware norms, laws procedures practices, etc. Software equipment tools manuals etc. Hardware Administrative processes in the view of the SHEL Model

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller11 l Knowledge distributed in people and artefacts »human cognition is not a property of individuals, but of a system of individuals and mediating artefacts – cognitive artefacts are internal and external to human mind –norms, tools and representations »human mental processing of symbolic information is strongly bounded to external representations –writing, printing, computers l Distributed Cognition supports in »understanding how humans work, operate, and interact with cognitive artefacts »whole administrative system as the unit of analysis Distributed Cognition view

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller12 Telecooperation as a basic technical means l Comprehensive support for computer- mediated co-operation »Human work is at the centre »Procedural and collaborative work converge facilitating the collaboration and management of shared processes, resources and documents »Allow non procedural work such as reassigning work, overriding missing approvals, seeking amendments of incomplete work etc. l (Tele-)co-operation spans communication, co- ordination and collaboration implying management of distributed knowledge

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller13 Example 1: Interface towards the citizen l Civic information and information about public services »simple "where-to-go" information »detailed information regarding public service eligibility, civic rights and duties »support for citizens participating in planning processes and consumer information »general everyday information l Search and access information, communication and operations l Transaction and negotiation facilities

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller14 Example 2: Administrative processes l Workflow systems and collaborative capabilities l Procedural and non procedural work l Knowledge distributed in »individuals, groups, procedures, norms, work-practices, and technical artefacts such as internal and external information repositories l Proper task of the administrator is not the logic but to interpret the law for a given case »Necessity to clear ambiguities of norms or establish consistent interpretations, that are at least persistent for a given administrative field

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller15 Example 3: Policy formulation and implementation l Multiple processes of negotiation l Theory of „policy networks“ »beyond the classical triangle of: parliamentarians - administrators - field representatives l Divergence of interests and positions l Meetings to negotiate policies l Many supporting functions required »scheduling of negotiation procedures, meetings and implied sub-activities »support for communication and agenda setting »comments on information »spotting experts »documenting processes and products

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller16 Analysing distributed knowledge in administrative processes (1) l Different levels of considering administrative work »meta-level: integrated concept of governance and administrative processes »process level: re-engineering processes for e- Government »interaction level: re-distribution of knowledge to different knowledge bearer »data and information level: implementation of required information systems and data bases

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller17 Analysing distributed knowledge in administrative processes (2) l Identify relevant knowledge sources and a representative set of participating users l Combine several analysis methods »observations, video- and audio recordings, ethnography, interviews, story-telling, think-aloud »Thorough integration of workplace analysis, task analysis and scenario-based design l Establish a holistic framework »illustrating the complex interdependencies between the technical subsystems, the work organisation and the requirements of the administrative environment

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller18 Scenario usage l Scenarios are narrative descriptions of event and action sequences for processes in specific situations and contexts, where »people and machine agents co-operate »social and formal practices are applied »implicit knowledge is used l Additional scenarios with critical situations l Powerful communication tool between users and designers

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller19 Targets of scenario usage l From work analysis to evaluation of requirements and mock-ups or prototypes l Integration of different knowledge concepts »human actors, mediating artefacts and information objects l Demonstrating interrelationships and interaction issues in an informal way

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller20 E-Government and Distributed Knowledge l Managing Distributed Knowledge will not realised and facilitated only by teleco- operation and a shared database »Continuous and situated elaboration and maintenance of the required knowledge through the participants of the common information space is necessary »Involving individual participants and cognitive artefacts »A shift from a technology oriented paradigm to an activity oriented paradigm is required, where administrative processes and system resources represent the unit of analysis

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller21 Managing Distributed Knowledge in e-Government l Treating an organisation‘s information and knowledge as ”living” and active, rather than simply as a passive collection of records in huge data warehouses and repositories l Computer mediated tools support in keeping information accessible and relevant within and over the borders of an organisation

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller22 Adequate technical support l Tools like electronic document management systems l Collaborative tools such as Lotus Notes l Argumentation systems such as Issue- Based Information Systems (IBIS) l Knowledge based techniques l Further complex support tools for ordering and retrieval such as indexing, categorising, semantic correspondences, definition of hyper-structures, fuzzy retrieval, case based search etc.

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller23 Supporting different types of knowledge conversions

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller24 l Integration of new organisational routines, practices and tools to facilitate the adaptation of administrative processes to changing requirements and evolution, which have been acquired on a day-to-day basis of problem solving F Need for a methodological concept that goes far beyond technical functionality »to adequately re-distribute knowledge among the resources involved in a given administrative process »to support the distribution of new knowledge emerging in an open and dynamic e-Government Challenges for an institution-wide organisational learning process (1)

2000/9/6: DEXA Workshop on e- Government Wimmer / Traunmüller25 Challenges for an institution-wide organisational learning process (2) l Promoting the understanding of reflection, interpretation and communication on process-related knowledge thereby increasing individual and organisational adaptability and accelerating ”learning from experience” in networked organisations F Integration of situated organisational learning and return of experience should result in an enhanced quality of work for all participants in e-Government