RE: types of use cases? -- Re: regrets for today's meeting

Hi Jose,

 

I'm asking because I believe this shows also another issue for the Group: what kind of use cases do we want? 

Real and implemented solutions or also ideas that could address some eGov issues?

This is a very good point that needs clarification. I wasn't sure either. Taking for granted that the purpose of the group is to identify possible areas where standardization could be triggered at a latter stage, I would agree that existing practices seem to be more mature for this purpose if compared to "ideas". Nevertheless, I wouldn't close the door altogether to ideas that may seem interesting and with a strong potential. I understand that you share this view too.

 

Have any of those been implemented and deployed by a government already?

a) The idea about using SIOC for linking political discussion on the web has not been tested on a real environment so far. We envision of a SIOC-politics extension to capture extra domain semantics. But this needs work... So, with the (already) success of SIOC we could expect a situation where SIOC extensions cover data integration needs in different domains, in a similar way we may identify a direction of using FOAF extensions for particular areas (e.g. [1], [2]).

 

b) The idea about using a common model for describing in a generic way public services comes both from research (e.g. [3],[4]) and practice (e.g. [5]) and is currently being tested in Cyprus. We work in a central government project to document >100 public services using a common public service model. The descriptions are to be used for a central governmental call center and later by multiple other projects (e.g. web portal, process documentation and re-engineering, etc). We are at the stage of collecting descriptions for the services and have a software platform in place to support the documentation process. Results and lessons-learnt are expected early-mid 2009. 

What we advocate here is basically the need for such a common model and the value we could have if we could agree at the W3C level for such a reference conceptual (and not technical) model. Following a similar "onion" approach to SIOC and FOAF the model could be developed around a generic service model core and then domain-specific specializations could form "onion rings" adding domain semantics. There are already existing generic service models and many models proposed by researchers and governments that could be taken into consideration and provide the input for such an in-depth discussion, which of course is out of scope for this IG. 

 

As we recently discussed several times on "web basics" even basic things  

like persistence are not being correctly implemented or government  

don't provide any data in reusable open formats although they have  

been around for quite some time already.

I agree. On the other hand, leaving space for more domain-specific standardization challenges/opportunities is also important. For the generic "web basics" standards W3C can surely try to advertise and promote the day-to-day usage of standards by governments. Nice use cases from governments already using standards in meaningful ways could make the message clearer and increase visibility. At the same time, I think it makes sense for W3C to try to identify areas where domain-specific standards could bring more value to the government business.

 

Best regards,

Vassilios

 

[1] http://ramonantonio.net/doac/  

[2] http://epeyman.googlepages.com/covoc.html 

[3] www.semantic-gov.org <http://www.semantic-gov.org/> 

[4] http://www.springerlink.com/content/ghx1agtk3bq1n9pc/ 

[5] Office of e-Envoy UK, e-Services Development Framework Primer v1.0b. 2002

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jose M. Alonso [mailto:josema@w3.org] 
Sent: 18 October 2008 20:23
To: Peristeras, Vassilios
Cc: John Sheridan; Kevin Novak; public-egov-ig@w3.org
Subject: types of use cases? -- Re: regrets for today's meeting

 

Hi Vassilios,

 

[+Group, this needs discussion]

 

I added your two ideas to the wiki so we could discuss at the F2F.

 

Anyway, I believe these are a bit different from what we have  

discussed so far. Have any of those been implemented and deployed by a  

government already?

 

I'm asking because I believe this shows also another issue for the  

Group: what kind of use cases do we want? Real and implemented  

solutions or also ideas that could address some eGov issues?

 

We might want both, but I have a slight preference for the former. As  

we recently discussed several times on "web basics" even basic things  

like persistence are not being correctly implemented or government  

don't provide any data in reusable open formats although they have  

been around for quite some time already.

 

Would love to hear the opinion of the Group so we could focus the F2F  

discussion even better.

 

Thanks much again for sending those!

Jose.

 

 

El 15/10/2008, a las 13:53, Peristeras, Vassilios escribió:

> John,

> 

> Thanks for your message.

> 

> I have two areas in my mind.

> 

> a) The first could be actually related to an existing W3C  

> submission, namely SIOC (Semantically Interlinked On-line  

> Communities) which is an attempt to create a simple ontology for  

> linking the blog sphere and web-based discussions. Recently adopted  

> by Yahoo [1]. This may fit to "Transparency and Participation" and  

> more specifically to

> Engage: Using the web to interact with citizens and businesses, 1.  

> Government to citizen - e.g. blogs by ministers and officials, or,  

> publishing consultation documents as wikis or with a "comment on  

> this" facilities.

> 

> b) The second could be linked with a common specification for  

> describing public services. The approach is similar to SIOC: a  

> simple and easy to be used ontology which could give unifying  

> semantics (annotations) to service descriptions based on different  

> perspectives by service providers. We already have an RDFa based  

> prototype on this that uses an (eGov) extension of SA-REST as the  

> annotation vocabulary.

> I think this fits to both Provide: Using the web to deliver public  

> services and Enable: Using the web as a platform to deliver data for  

> re-use

> 

> 

> Simplicity and clear value of the approach is key for future  

> community/governmental adoption thus the use cases will try to  

> highlight on these.

> 

> Please let me know if you find these ideas relevant.

> 

> Best regards,

> Vassilios

> 

> [1] http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/smguide/SIOC.html

> [2] http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Use_Cases

> 

>