IRM in Government

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IRM in Government

• Carl Birks
• CIS 450 Presentation
• Fall 2003

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Questions well examine

• What is IRM?
• What is democracy?
• What is the role of information in a democracy?
• What do governments do?
• How are governments using IRM now?
• What are the best practices?
• Whats the future for IRM in Government?

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What is Information Resource Management?

• Recognizes value of information as asset
• Interaction of people, content, and technology
• Getting the right content to the right person at
  the right time

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History of IRM

• Federal Reports Act of 1946
• Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980
• Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
• IRM term coined by Senator Fred Thompson of
  Commission on Federal Paperwork
• most used in US federal governmental IS
  department context

(Paperwork Reduction Act Reauthorization and
Government Information Management Issues,
Relyea, 2000)
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Democracy

• Democracy
• Requires informed citizenry
• Requires that citizens care that system works and
  actively participate in process
• Effective and efficient government increases
  citizen goodwill and sustains a healthy and
  robust democracy

(A Strategic Perspective of Electronic
Democracy, Watson and Mundy, 2001)
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Information in a Democracy

• creates trust
• Is the mechanism for ensuring politicians serve
  the electorate

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What do governments do?

• Services toward building a civil society
• Varies by level
• International
• National
• State
• Local

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E-Democracy

• Concept of Government that depends on IT to
  achieve basic missions
• Considers long-term impact of applications on
  citizens and government itself

(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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E-Democracy - Elements

• E-government
• informs citizens about their representatives and
  how they can be contacted, enables access to
  online information and online payment
  transactions
• E-politics
• Use of IT to improve effectiveness of political
  decision making
• Builds citizen awareness of the how and why of
  political decision making and facilitates process
  participation

(A Strategic Perspective of Electronic
Democracy, Watson and Mundy, 2001)
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E-Democracy Goals and Framework

• Goal deploy IT to improve effectiveness and
  efficiency of democracy
• New phenomenon means citizens will have to learn
  how to use it.
• Framework for adoption
• Know what
• Know how
• Know why
• Care why

(A Strategic Perspective of Electronic
Democracy, Watson and Mundy, 2001)
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E-Democracy E-Politics

• E-Politics (effectiveness side)
• Political decision making becomes increasingly
  transparent
• Requires moving beyond open government (Freedom
  of Information and Open Meeting laws) to open
  politics (exposing the process by which laws are
  created)

(A Strategic Perspective of Electronic
Democracy, Watson and Mundy, 2001)
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E-Democracy E-Government

• E-Government (efficiency side)
• Increases timeliness and convenience of
  citizen/govt interactions and reduces their cost
• Example web-enabled property tax payments
  decreased per transaction cost from 5 to 0.22

(A Strategic Perspective of Electronic
Democracy, Watson and Mundy, 2001)
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E-Government

• Application of IT to government services
• Allows access to government information and
  services 24/7
• Provides potential for government to
  fundamentally restructure its operations

(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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E-Democracy Adoption

• 3 phases based on framework
• Initiation (know what)
• Infusion (know how and know why)
• Customization (care why)

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E-Democracy Phase 1 Initiation

• Critical initial goals
• Provide citizens with single point of access to
  government info (e.g. portal)
• Helps citizens navigate myriad agencies
• Example ezgov based on zip code
• Web-enable government payments
• 3 trillion/year changes hands
• Potential for 110 billion savings each year
• Reduces visits, wait time, travel

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Electronic Democracy Phase 2 Infusion

• Innovation is widely embraced
• Organization often restructures to accommodate
  the innovation

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Electronic Democracy Phase 3 Customization

• Citizens will increasingly expect government to
  offer level of tailoring they get from private
  sector
• Implements one to one relationship between
  citizen and government
• Enables citizens to
• have personal profile of financial interactions
  with government
• focus on personally critical issues

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E-Government and E-Politics Applications

• Three Categories
• Access to information
• Transaction services
• Citizen participation

(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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Access to Information

• Most common e-government application
• Governments produce huge amounts of information,
  electronic access expanding
• Example FedStats provides access to statistics
  of more than 100 federal agencies
• Library of Congress
• IRS
• SSA
• National Park Service

(FedStats Gateway to Federal Statistics, Dippo,
2003)(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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Transaction Services

• Taxes 39.5 million electronic fed. tax filings
  in 2001 (up 30 from previous year)
• Passports, Drivers Licenses
• Patents, Permits

(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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Transactions Customized Workflow Management

• Includes tasks and dependencies
• Used in e-commerce to automate business processes
• Allows on-the-fly workflow generation for
  customization depending on specific rules

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Transactions Customized Geospatial Workflows

• GIS associates location dependent data with
  specific rules and regulations (e.g. zoning,
  business development, building)
• Ideal for delivery of e-government services (e.g.
  land use planning)
• Generated on the fly from a rule base
• Changes to rules automatically reflected in newly
  generated workflows
• (Customized Geospatial Workflows for
  E-Government Services, Holowczak, 2001)

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Citizen Participation

• E-mails to government officials
• Rule making participation (public comments/issues
  debates)
• High-profile application E-voting
• Unclear how information flow changes between
  citizens and government may affect processes
  (e.g. will more direct flows diminish influence
  of opinion leaders and media on public process?)

(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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Spice Break
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E-Rule Making

• Official public comments received and made part
  of public record
• Example Dept of Agriculture National Organic
  Program (1997)
• Incoming comments sorted, digitized, auto-indexed
  and posted in online docket room
• Electronic accessibility of comments and related
  materials
• offset manual processing costs for individual
  FOIA requests
• Increased public perception of transparency and
  legitimacy of process

(Prospects for Improving the Regulatory Process
using E-Rulemaking, Fountain, 2003)
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E-Democracy by level of Government

• Different levels of government
• International
• National
• State
• Local
• Functions and technology use vary at each level

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IRM in National Government USA

• Government Performance and Results Act (1993)
• Clinger-Cohen Act (1996)
• Problems intended to address
• High turnover of CIOs/IT staff
• Lack of flexibility
• Lack of cross-agency cooperation
• Traditional separation of telecommunications and
  data processing

(Local Governments and IRM Policy Emerging from
Practice, Fletcher, 1997)
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IRM in National Government USA

• Set policies and procedures for IRM in Federal
  Government (top-down approach)
• OMB based oversight of agency IT functions ( OMB
  Circular A-130)

(Local Governments and IRM Policy Emerging from
Practice, Fletcher, 1997)
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IRM in National Government USA

• Cross Agency Cooperation
• Problems
• Generally info not shared across agencies
• Citizens required to provide redundant info to
  different agencies
• Complex processes to match each person and
  situation with appropriate government services

(Understanding New Models of Collaboration for
Delivering Government Services, Dawes
Prefontaine, 2003)
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IRM in National Government USA

• Cross Agency Collaboration
• Rests on understood but often tacit working
  philosophy
• Relationships are evolving and dynamic
• Raise issues of data ownership
• Needs an institutional framework
• Technology choices affect participation and
  results (nature, cost and cost distribution)

(Understanding New Models of Collaboration for
Delivering Government Services, Dawes
Prefontaine, 2003)
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IRM in National Government USA

• Cross Agency Application Example
• Coplink Connect
• Provides one-stop access point for data to
  alleviate police officers information and
  cognitive overload
• Supports consolidated access to all major
  databases

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IRM in National Government USA

• NSF Digital Government Program
• Helps agencies adopt and adapt basic research to
  practical problems of government work
• Has stimulated RD in e-government applications

(A Personal History of the NSF Digital
Government Program, Ciment, 2003)
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NSF Digital Government Application areas

• Law enforcement
• Judicial administration
• Governance
• Regulation and policy-making
• Housing
• Environment
• Land use management
• Education and training
• Access to community libraries
• Emergency management

(A Personal History of the NSF Digital
Government Program, Ciment, 2003)
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IRM in National Government USA

• TIA
• part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects
  Agency's Information Awareness Office
• Seeks to track individuals through collecting as
  much information about them as possible and using
  computer algorithms and human analysis to detect
  potential activity
• Seeks revolutionary technology for ultra-large
  all-source information repositories a virtual,
  centralized, grand database

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IRM in National Government - USA

• TIA, cont.
• Aims to develop data-mining and knowledge
  discovery tools to find patterns and associations
• Seeks development of biometric technology to
  enable the identification and tracking of
  individuals
• One TIA project aims to positively identify
  people from a distance through technologies such
  as face recognition or gait recognition

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Spice Break
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IRM in National Government EU

• eEurope initiative
• includes online government as a priority
• EU goal
• greater transparency and participation in
  government to strengthen democracy

(Digital Government, Marchionini, 2003)
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IRM in National Government EU

• EC Migration to Open Source Guidelines
• Builds on growing use in Europe
• Standards focused provide practical and
  detailed recommendations on how to migrate to
  Open Source Software (OSS)-based office
  applications, calendaring, e-mail and other
  standard applications
• Collaborative developed with guidance from
  public sector IT experts from Denmark, Finland,
  Italy, Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain,
  Sweden, and Turkey

(Center for Digital Government,
2003)http//www.centerdigitalgov.com/internationa
l/story.php?docid74723
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Bottom up v. Top Down

• Bottom up
• Lets effective solutions be implemented and only
  expanded as they succeed
• Smaller projects
• Easier to design and deploy
• Easier to fund
• Less catastrophic if they fail

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Bottom Up v. Top Down

• Top down
• Less flexible
• Has its place in setting standards
• Larger projects
• Harder to design and deploy
• Harder to fund
• More catastrophic if the fail

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IRM in State Government

• Closer to constituents
• Mixture of top-down and bottom up approaches
• Open source experimentation/migration
• Legislators need to demonstrate cost-cutting and
  a balanced budget
• IT bureaucracy need solutions they can deploy
  with little effort and fit seamlessly

(Linux Access in State and Local Government,
Adelstein, 2003)
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Bottom up Open Source Revolution?

• Cities and States are adopting
• Houston, Berlin (10k PCs to Linux)
• Rhode Island SOS OSS LAMP portal
• TX Legislation pending OR, CA, OK legislation
  failed (vendor opposition)
• International EU, Israel, Portugal, Columbia,
  Ukraine require OSS SA gives pref. to OSS

(Linux Access in State and Local Government,
Adelstein, 2003)
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OSS Future?

• As more and more public sector OSS projects
  succeed, state and local governments will start
  to notice.
• Government applications sites modeled on
  SchoolForge?
• information, tools and materials to make school
  and all its parts
• http//www.schoolforge.net/

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IRM in Local Government

• Local governments directly affect citizens
• Services
• Roads and bridges maintenance
• Social welfare services
• Libraries
• Parks recreation
• Utilities
• Housing
• Permits and licenses

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IRM in Local Government

• No federal IRM-style policies/standards
• Less strategic planning
• bottom up approach fosters innovation
• Open source experimentation
• Avoids excessive licensing fees
• Fosters an open community mentality that fits
  well with government (Socialism?)

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Local E-Government Best Practices

• Best Practices
• Widely disseminate web site address
• Provide combination of navigation tools (e.g.
  frames or buttons, search engine and site map)
• Provide information by both service offered and
  department
• Include different types of information needed by
  various users (local or linked)

(Local E-Government Services, George, et al,
2001)
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Local E-Government Best Practices.

• Best Practices, continued
• Transaction applications
• Minimal provide applications for download
• Ideal online purchasing and payments
• Parking tickets
• Water/sewer bills
• Property taxes

(Local E-Government Services, George, et al,
2001)
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Local E-gov Development Considerations

• Funding
• Cost of developing, maintaining and upgrading web
  sites
• Potential for cost savings and other efficiencies
  (e.g. improved levels of service at no additional
  staffing cost)
• How to fund (e.g. general funds, user fees,
  volunteers, donations, advertisements

(Local E-Government Services, George, et al,
2001)
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Local E-gov Development Considerations, cont.

• Public access to internet (e.g. digital divide
  issues)
• Security and privacy of personal information and
  government documents (e.g. removing names from
  online property records)

(Local E-Government Services, George, et al,
2001)
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Development and Use of Local E-government

• Four phases recommended
• Developing an internet presence
• Providing interaction between government and
  public by e-mail and information
• Allowing individuals to conduct business with the
  local government
• Re-engineering governments business practices
  because of increased use and functions of
  e-government

(Local E-Government Services A Best Practices
Review, George, et al, 2001)
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KM Application to Government

• Knowledge Management recognizes that technology
  is only one part of effective use of knowledge
• Explicit (technology)
• Tacit (social)
• Recognizes importance of what makes people human
  (w/in larger context)

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The Rosy Future of IRM in Government?

• Best practice adoption
• Non-proprietary open file standards
• Open source software
• Strengthening of democracy through the free flow
  of actionable information

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The Scary Future of IRM in Government?

• I will tell the people what to do.
• -Arnold Schwarzenegger
• You will be assimilated.
• -Borg from Star Trek

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Faces of Information Resource Management in
Government
Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels (October 29, 1897-May 1,
1945) was Adolf Hitler's Propaganda
Minister(Propaganda Ministerium) in Nazi
Germany.
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Faces of Information Management in Government

• John Poindexter is a retired Navy Admiral who
  lost his job as National Security Adviser under
  Ronald Reagan and was convicted of conspiracy,
  lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and
  destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal.
  He now heads the TIA project

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IRM Considerations

• New technological capabilities raise the need to
  apply the eternal verities in new ways
• Values recognized by U.S. founding fathers
  outlined in U.S and other Constitutions globally
• Abuses possible require new application of
  checks and balances, firm values and ethics base
  and policies to reflect them

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Information Knowledge Wisdom

• Who controls the information?
• Who has the knowledge?
• Who applies the wisdom?
• Healthy democracy requires citizens stay informed
  and participate.
• Citizens must apply the human elements of
  knowledge and wisdom to IRM in government.

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Summary and Conclusions

• Information and participation are key to
  democracy
• Transparent, effective and efficient delivery of
  services is essential to democratic government
• Governments will increasingly find IRM principles
  useful and apply them to become more efficient
  and effective
• Citizens must stay informed and participate to
  ensure IRM is applied to create healthy democracy.