A Webbased Architecture for Government Databases and Services

1
A Web-based Architecture for Government Databases
and Services

• Athman Bouguettaya1 Ahmed Elmagarmid2
• Brahim Medjahed1 Mourad Ouzzani1
• 1Virginia Tech 2Purdue University
• http//www.nvc.cs.vt.edu/dgov
• http//www.cs.purdue.edu/dgov

2
Outline

• Problem Motivation
• Approach
• Implementation
• Conclusion

3
Digital Government

• Definition
• Civil and political conduct of government using
  information and communication technologies
• IEEE Computer, Feb. 2001
• Goals
• Improve citizen-government interactions
• Bring government back to citizens
• Assist disadvantaged citizens with their special
  needs
• etc.

4
Partner Indiana Family Social Services
Administration (FSSA)

• Mission
• Help low-income families, children at risk for
  healthy development, people with disability,
• Needs
• Help the needy citizens collect the benefits they
  are entitled to
• Make FSSA-related information available to
  citizens and case officers
• Provide a one-stop government-related services
  system

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Getting Help Sample Scenario
Division of Family and Children (DFC)
Single Mother
(1)
Visit the DFC
(4)
(3)
(2)
Visit the child care voucher agency
Register for Food Stamps
Register for Medicaid
Bureau of Child Support
Certified child caretaker
(5)
Find a certified caretaker
Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning (OMPP)
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FSSA Challenges

• Collecting social benefits
• Citizens typically visit several FSSA offices
  that may be in different locations
• Large number of welfare programs
• Access to FSSA-related information
• Large number of disparate databases

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Research Challenges

• Dynamic integration
• Large number of autonomous and heterogeneous
  databases (legacy systems) resident in
  geographically distant locations
• Efficient discovery
• Databases, data, and services (applications)
• Uniform interface
• Present the conglomeration of accessible
  databases as one single World Wide Database (WWD)

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Approach

• Locating databases (data)
• Distributed ontologies
• Locating welfare programs (applications)
• E-services (vocabularies)
• FSSA databases and welfare programs interface
• One single interface Web

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Distributed Ontologies

• Definition
• Meaningful organization of the FSSA-related
  information space
• Databases are grouped together based on common
  areas of interest (e.g., Disabilities ontology)
• Why?
• Accelerate information search in FSSA-related
  information systems
• Allow the sharing of data among government
  agencies in a tractable manner

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Sample Ontologies within FSSA
Visually Impaired
Disabilities
Communication Skills
Job Placement
Blind Registry
Independent Living
Medicaid
Family Participation Day
Food stamps
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Child Support
Families
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Locating Databases Metadata Support

• Distributed metadata repositories
• Each metadata repository contains
• Information about relevant ontologies
• Access information to databases
• Documentation aid to help focus the data search

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Locating Welfare Programs (Applications)
E-services

• Definition
• Well-defined functionality (thru an e-service
  interface)
• Accessible by humans and other e-services
• Advantages
• Allow the abstraction of proprietary applications
  using vocabularies
• Allow the discovery of available e-services
  dynamically

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Government E-Services

• Register Citizen with Bureau of Child
  Support
• Look for Child
• Care taker

E-Service Interface
Internet
Welfare Applications
Child SupportE-Service
Citizen / Case Manager
Backend Systems
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Government E-Services (contd)

• Wrap each FSSA application by an e-service
• Define a government vocabulary using properties
• Topic health, housing,
• Bureau child support ,
• Assistance cash, supportive
• etc.
• Use the vocabulary properties to discover
  e-services

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Architecture
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Enabling Technologies

• Java
• Applet
• JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity)
• Distributed computing platforms
• CORBA - Orbix, OrbixWeb, and VisiBroker (Java)
• EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans)
• RMI (Remote Method Invocation)
• E-service platform HP e-speak
• Database platforms Oracle, Informix, and
  ObjectStore

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Conclusion

• Infrastructure for accessing FSSA-related
  databases and welfare programs
• Ontology-based organization
• E-services thru applications wrapping
• Future work
• Dynamic composition of government e-services
• Agent-based government resource discovery (data
  and e-services)

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Project details

• Project information http//www.nvc.cs.vt.edu/dg
  ov
• http//www.cs.purdue.edu/dgov
• Demo
• http//www.nvc.cs.vt.edu/dgov/demo
• Date and time Tuesday, May 22nd at 700 pm