Status: Approved 9 October 2009
eGovernment Interest Group Charter
The mission of the eGovernment Interest Group, part of
the eGovernment Activity, is to
document, advocate, coordinate and communicate best practices, solutions and
approaches to improve the interface between citizens and government through
effective standards-based use of the Web.
Information about joining the Interest
Group is available on the group's participation
page and on the group's home
page.
End date |
31 October 2010 |
Confidentiality |
Proceedings are public |
Initial Chairs |
Kevin Novak (American Institute of
Architects) |
John Sheridan (The [UK] National
Archives) |
Jose M. Alonso (CTIC Foundation) |
Initial Team Contacts (FTE %: 20) |
Sandro Hawke (W3C) |
Usual Meeting Schedule |
Teleconferences: every two weeks |
Face-to-face: up to two per year |
Scope
The eGovernment Interest Group (eGov IG), in its second phase, will focus on
two major topic areas: Open Government Data (OGD), and Education and
Outreach.
- Open Government Data (OGD)
- The eGov IG is encouraged by the increase in electronic government
initiatives, including Data.gov and Recovery.gov in the United States,
and several initiatives in Europe building on the momentum of the European
Directive on the Re-use of Public Sector Information. Publishing data
using open standards can help people efficiently share, combine, and
expose government data. Online availability of government data increases
accountability, contributes valuable information about the world, and
enables governments and countries to function more efficiently. The eGov
IG will serve as the W3C conduit to document, validate and communicate
standards and best practices that relate to the presentation,
availability and interoperability of open government data and data
systems. The IG will identify various scenarios in which government data
is generated and/or compiled, and will develop and recommend models for
OGD management. The eGov IG will work with governments, end users, and
other interested parties to develop best practices and approaches to
successfully publish government data in open formats.
- Education and Outreach
- More government information and services are delivered via the Web
every day, and adherence to Web standards can simplify this delivery. For
example, the application of Web standards can help governments ensure
their websites are accessible and usable. In addition, conformance to Web
standards supports interoperability of data sets via Web-based interfaces
and applications. Reaching out to governments, end users, and other
interested parties to educate them about the best practices and technical
standards that can help them successfully implement all stages of
electronic government. Different governments have varying levels of
sophistication around Web and technology standards and adoption.
Recognizing this, the eGov IG will bridge the gap between technologists
and governments to communicate, in a non-technical way, the business
value of implementing these technical standards and solutions. The eGov
IG will provide Web standards education that is specific to the needs of
eGov stakeholders.
Although these are the focus areas, the Interest Group may identify other
topics important to participants and to the success of the IG. To the extent
that doing so does not detract from work on the focus areas, IG participants
may ask the Chair to create task forces for preliminary study of other topics.
In this way, documentation of use cases and stories may help inform future
eGovernment work at W3C.
Strategies and Goals
The eGov IG will facilitate, educate, communicate and evangelize the
importance of technological solutions to achieve the promise of electronic
government. The eGov IG will encourage practitioners to turn to W3C as an
authoritative source for information about open web standards. This charter
does not include milestones; please refer to the Interest Group home page for
milestone expectations.
Foster good practices for publishing government data
The IG will gather and publish success stories that highlight solutions and
good practices for publishing government data.
Goals
- Collaborate with W3C Groups or other partners to gather and share
validated examples and success stories that encourage open government, open
government data, or data catalog utilities
- Gather and share references, papers, links, and related materials
Build community
The IG will continue to build relationships with government agencies and
other key stakeholders, to educate eGov practitioners and foster collaboration
around open Web standards.
Goals
- Create an eGov-focused W3C website, to communicate W3C best practices to
a broader audience
- Publish regular email updates to subscription email list
- Consult with governments or groups interested in improving online
government services
- Provide a forum for those with specific requirements (e.g., due to
national boundaries or a particular vertical interest) to meet and build
consensus around good practice
- Seek out and participate in partnerships, conferences, and other
opportunities to further the work of the W3C and eGov IG
- Facilitate public workshops and meetings to explore new and emerging
approaches
Publicize results
The IG will publish its findings to illustrate how open web standards and
technological solutions can help us achieve the promise of electronic
government services. The eGov IG recognizes that open government issues are
important to all citizens, even those who may not have broad technical
expertise. To ensure that the eGov IG work is communicated clearly to the
widest possible audience, an Editorial Task Force will be responsible for
ensuring that Group Notes and other publications are clearly written.
Goals
- Document and disseminate findings and approaches in issue briefs or other
appropriate venues
- Working with the W3C Communications Team, reach out to the press and
public on a regular basis and provide briefings and access to experts
- Actively participate in related eGov-related initiatives (such us US Open
Government Initiative or the UK Power of Information Task Force)
- Blog about the work and progress of the IG (Chairs)
- Speak at conferences, meetings, events, or symposia
Dependencies
The IG has identified a number of potential collaborators (listed below).
The group will expand this list on its public site as work progresses and the
community grows.
W3C Groups
- Mobile Web For Development
Interest Group (MW4D)
- Deploying eGovernment services to citizens of developing countries is a
major challenge due to the lack of infrastructure and computers. The
current penetration rate of mobile phones makes them the most promising
option for citizen communication with government. Therefore, close
relationships between the eGovernment IG and the MW4D IG are
essential.
- Open Web Education
Alliance Incubator Group
- The mission of the Open Web Education Alliance Incubator Group (OWEA
XG) is to help enhance and standardize the architecture of the World Wide
Web by facilitating the highest quality standards and best practice based
education for future generations of Web professionals.
- Policy Languages Interest
Group (PLING)
- Improving data annotation (for example, by means of a policy language)
in government systems will improve information about the data collected
by governments and will improve transparency. PLING is a forum for W3C
Members and the public to discuss interoperability issues – along with
related requirements and needs – that arise when using a variety of
policy languages. Therefore coordination among both groups is needed.
- Security Activity
- eGovernment services are known to lead to specific security
requirements. Communication about specific government requirements
between W3C groups working on security issues and government entities
will benefit both communities.
- Semantic Web Activity
- Facilities to put machine-understandable data on the Web are quickly
becoming a high priority. Numerous organizations, individuals and
communities including eGovernment advocates have begun to look into the
Semantic Web as the next step towards interoperability and data
integration.
- Social Web
Incubator Group
- The mission of the Social Web Incubator Group is to understand the
systems and technologies that permit the description and identification
of people, groups, organizations, and user-generated content in
extensible and privacy-respecting ways. This is highly relevant for
citizen interaction.
- Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI)
- WAI work has codified Best Practices and Guidelines to achieve
universal access to the Web that have been broadly adopted by governments
throughout the world. WAI could leverage the eGovernment IG activities
and the eGov IG can learn from and build on the success of WAI to achieve
global acceptance.
- Web Services Activity
- Web services provide a standard means of interoperating between
different software applications, running on a variety of platforms and
are characterized by their interoperability and extensibility, as well as
their use of XML for machine-processable descriptions. They can be
combined in a loosely coupled way to achieve complex operations.
Technologies developed by the Web Services Activity are usually found in
the core of the eGovernment architectures and frameworks.
External Groups
To improve collective outreach and support government data
integration and sharing, the eGovernment Interest Group should establish
liaisons with international groups and standards bodies, including but not
limited to:
- CEN
- CEN has established eGovernment related activities in the past such as
the eGovernment
Focus Group and the Workshop
on Discovery of and Access to eGovernment Resources (WS/eGov-Share).
The eGov IG reviewed and commented on
the WS/eGov-Share work. A liaison will be considered if other
eGovernment initiatives start at CEN.
- European Commission
- IDABC Unit; issues
recommendations, develops solutions and provides services that enable
national and European administrations to communicate electronically while
offering modern public services to businesses and citizens in Europe.
- Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
- The OASIS eGovernment Member
Section (eGov MS) serves as a focal point for discussions of
governmental and public administration requirements for e-business
standardization.
- Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD)
- The OECD
E-Government Project explores how governments can best exploit
information and communication technologies (ICTs) to embed good
governance principles and achieve public policy goals.
- Organization of American States
(OAS)
- The OAS objective is to support, facilitate and promote the integral
development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries.
- eGovernment
Unit; implements eGovernment policy, good practice exchange and
innovation in Europe.
- U.S. Global Architecture &
Information Network Initiative (GAIN)
- The Global Architecture & Information Network (GAIN) is an
initiative established by a group of individuals to enable more effective
government, business opportunities, transparent government and job
creation by building on and extending the U.S. leadership success in the
internet combined with open source software and industry standards.
- U.S. Semantic Community
- A community established by a group of individuals for the purpose of
achieving semantic interoperability and semantic data integration focused
on the government sector. Its main purpose is to support its members in
their efforts to make the Semantic Web operational in their agencies.
- The World Bank
- eDevelopment Thematic
Group; promotes the efficient use of ICT in development and World
Bank operations by facilitating knowledge sharing on good practices in
eDevelopment and eGovernment, and an ongoing dialogue amongst a large and
diverse community of practitioners.
- International Council for Information
Technology in Government Administration (ICA)
- ICA promotes the information exchange of knowledge, ideas and
experiences between central government IT authorities on all aspects of
the initiation, development and implementation of computer-based systems
in and by government.
Participation
Participation in
the eGovernment Interest Group is open to the public. Any person interested in
this topic is welcome to join. Individuals who wish to participate as Invited
Experts (i.e., they do not represent a W3C Member) should refer to the policy for approval of Invited
Experts. Invited Experts in this group are not granted access to
Member-only information.
There are no minimum requirements for participation in the eGovernment
Interest Group. Participants are strongly encouraged to attend the bi-weekly
teleconferences and take advantage of frequent opportunities to review and
comment on deliverables from other groups.
Consistent with W3C Process requirements on Task Forces, the Chairs may form
task forces to facilitate management of deliverables. Each task force will have
a public statement of work (including objectives, communication, participation,
and leadership). Task forces may hold meetings and conduct business consistent
with the W3C Process. All task force deliverables are subject to IG
approval.
Communication
The eGov IG will use email discussion, scheduled IRC chats and other tools
to enable broad collaboration and communication within the Group, to address
the most common barriers to effective electronic government.
This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list public-egov-ig@w3.org [archives].
Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face
meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the eGovernment Interest Group home
page.
Decision Policy
As explained in the Process Document
(section 3.3), this group will primarily make decisions through consensus.
On occasion, when the group cannot come to consensus, after due consideration
of different opinions the Chairs should record a decision (possibly after a
formal vote) as well as any objections, and move on.
Patent Disclosures
The eGovernment Interest Group provides an opportunity for interested
parties to share perspectives on the topics addressed by this charter. W3C
reminds Interest Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent
disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of
the W3C Patent Policy.While the Interest Group does not produce
Recommendation-track documents, patent disclosure obligations do apply when
Interest Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from
Working Groups.
For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see
the W3C Patent Policy
Implementation.
About this Charter
The original, June 2008
charter for the W3C eGovernment Interest Group recognized that governments
the world over need assistance and guidance in the use of technology and the
Web to implement the full promise of electronic government.
The work in the first year of the Interest Group focused on
areas of Web Standards Usage, Transparency and Participation, and Seamless Data
Integration. This work was documented in a comprehensive issues paper titled
titled Improving Access
to Government through Better Use of the Web on May 12, 2009. The group is
now actively communicating with the eGovernment community about the results of
its first year of work, and its goals for its second year of work.
This charter for the eGovernment Interest Group has been created according
to section
6.2 of the Process
Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the
provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take
precedence.
Authored by: W3C eGovernment
Interest Group; W3C eGovernment Staff Contact: Sandro Hawke (W3C), José M. Alonso (W3C/CTIC)
Copyright© 2009 W3C® (MIT , ERCIM
, Keio), All Rights
Reserved.
$Date: 2009/10/09 17:29:08 $