Ebook: Electronic Government and Electronic Participation

Under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.5 (Information Systems in Public Administration) or IFIP WG 8.5 for short, the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart conference 2016 presented itself as a high-caliber five-track conference and a doctoral colloquium dedicated to research and practice on electronic government and electronic participation.

Scholars from around the world have used this premier academic forum for over fifteen years, which has given it a worldwide reputation as one of the top two conferences in the research domains of electronic, open, and smart government, policy, and electronic participation.

This conference of five partially intersecting tracks presents advances in the socio-technological domain of the public sphere demonstrating cutting-edge concepts, methods, and styles of investigation by multiple disciplines.

The Call for Papers attracted over one hundred thirty-five submissions of completed research papers, work-in-progress papers on ongoing research (including doctoral papers), project and case descriptions as well as four workshop and panel proposals. Papers in the Joint Proceedings of IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 comprise accepted submissions of all categories and all tracks with the exception of twenty-four papers from the General EGOV track, the Open/Big Data Track, and the Smart Gov Track, which were published in Springer LNCS vol. 9820, and fourteen papers from the General ePart Track and the Policy Modeling and Policy Informatics Tracks, which were published in Springer LNCS vol. 9821.

As in the previous years and per recommendation of the Paper Awards Committee under the lead of the honorable Professor Olivier Glassey of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 Conference Organizing Committee again granted outstanding paper awards in three distinct categories:

• The most interdisciplinary and innovative research contribution

• The most compelling critical research reflection

• The most promising practical concept

The winners in each category were announced in the award ceremony at the conference dinner, which has always been a highlight of each dual IFIP EGOV-ePart conference.

The dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 conference was jointly hosted in Guimarães, Portugal by University of Minho (UMinho) and United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV). Established in 1973, UMinho operates on three campuses, one in Braga, and two in Guimarães, educating approximately 19,500 students by an academic staff of 1,300 located in eight schools, three institutes and several cultural and specialized units. It is one of the largest public universities in Portugal and a significant actor in the development of the Minho region in the north of Portugal. UNU-EGOV is a newly established UN organization focused on research, policy and leadership education in the area of Digital Government, located in Guimarães and hosted by UMinho. The organization of the dual conference was partly supported by the project “SmartEGOV: Harnessing EGOV for Smart Governance”, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037, funded by FEDER in the context of Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.

Although ample traces of Celtic and Roman presence and settlements were found in the area, Guimarães became notable as the center of early nation building for Portugal in the late 11^th century, when it became the seat of the Count of Portugal. In 1128, the Battle of São Mamede was fought near the town, which resulted in the independence of the Northern Portuguese territories around Coimbra and Guimarães, which later extended further South to form the independent nation of Portugal. Today, Guimarães has a population of about 160,000. While it has developed into an important center of textile and shoe industries along with metal mechanics, the city has maintained its charming historical center and romantic medieval aura. It was a great pleasure to hold the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 conference at this special place.

Many people make large events like this conference happen. We thank the over one-hundred members of the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 Program Committee and dozens of additional reviewers for their great efforts in reviewing the submitted papers. Delfina Sá Soares of the Department of Information Systems at the UMinho and Tomasz Janowski of the UNU-EGOV and their respective teams in Guimarães, Portugal, were major contributors who helped organize the dual conference and manage zillions of details locally. We would also like to thank the University of Washington organizing team members Kelle M Rose and Daniel R Wilson for their great support and administrative management of the review process and the compilation of the proceedings.

September 2016,

The dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 Lead Coorganizers

Hans Jochen Scholl (2016 Lead organizer)

Olivier Glassey (Chair, Awards Committee)

Marijn Janssen (Lead, General E-Government Track)

Bram Klievink (Lead, Open Government & Open/Big Data Track)

Ida Lindgren (Lead, PhD Colloquium)

Peter Parycek (Lead, Smart Governance/Government/Cities Track)

Efthimios Tambouris (Lead, General eParticipation Track)

Maria A. Wimmer (Lead, Policy Modeling/Policy Informatics Track)

Tomasz Janowski, (Co-host, UNU-EGOV, Portugal)

Delfina Sá Soares, (Co-host, University of Minho, Portugal)

Along with co-chairs Yannis Charalabidis, Mila Gascó, Ramon Gil-Garcia, Panos Panagiotopoulos, Theresa Pardo, Øystein Sæbø, and Anneke Zuiderwijk

The ubiquity of mobile devices has led to the provisioning of mobile e-administration services in many countries and it possesses the potential to introduce new practices of e-participation specifically. Applying case study methodology, this paper identifies iCitizen, Buycott and USHAHIDI as practical examples for m-participation offers and compares them in regards to features, influence in the policy cycle, and usability. The lessons learnt highlight that m-participation should be a part of a wider strategy that includes offline and other media channels, that it utilises mobile features such as location-based services and Social Media integration to enhance efficacy of participation, and to make the offer focused on the user experience rather than a singular topic.

This study describes how we used a prototype e-participation platform as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth motivation and engagement strategies. This is a novel way of considering digital cultural probes which can contribute to the better creation of e-participation platforms. This probe has been conducted as part of the research project STEP which aims at creating an e-participation platform to engage young European Citizens in environmental decision making. Our probe technique has given an insight into the environmental issues concerning young people across Europe as well as possible strategies for encouraging participation. How the e-participation platform can be utilised to support youth engagement through opportunities for social interaction and leadership is discussed. This study leads to a better understanding of how young people can co-operate with each other to provide collective intelligence and how this knowledge could contribute to effective e-participation of young people.

In this paper, we present a case study of the mobile app and ecosystem Trafpoint. Trafpoint is a system for registering when and where people travel by public transport, using gamification in an attempt to convince more people to travel in environmentally friendly ways. We argue that the Trafpoint app is a good example of what we call “implicit participation”, where user-generated data from volunteers generate valuable input for the political decision-making process. With the growth of sensors, smartphones being ubiquitous, and the growing interest in the Internet of Things, this form of participation has the potential to become very valuable for decision-makers in the coming years.

E-participation is becoming an increasingly important factor in the development of mutually beneficial relations between the state and society. In order to meet the needs of both sides, this development must be accurately measured and effectively controlled and for this we need to select and apply the most appropriate metrics and methods for measuring e-participation results, impacts and created values. This paper presents the results of the comparison of techniques currently used to assess different aspects of e-participation performance and impacts. The paper also proposes a new method of assessment and suggests a way to select the proper e-participation assessment methodology. The authors applied T. Paronson's AGIL paradigm to identifying the social functions and values that are prerequisites for any society to be able to persist and evolve over time. The research results show that the majority of approaches were focused on technology and policy frameworks existence and use, as well as on different interpretations of social impacts. This study revealed the lack of economic impacts interpretation and measurement tools for decision-making evaluation. The authors detected the necessity of additional indicators needed to measure the e-participation progress and prepare recommendations for its' sustainable development. Proposed conclusions can be useful for selecting the most appropriate e-participation assessment methodology and detection of measures missing to obtain a rigorous assessment in the specific country context.

Concerns over a decline in social capital have been noted resulting from reduced civic and political engagement; recently however, the impact of Web 2.0 has been proposed as a revolutionary force to redress this deficit enabling greater participation by citizens and reinvigorating civic society. eParticipation is an increasingly important area of study to evaluate the promise of social media technologies to engage citizens in the democratic decision making process. This paper responds to the challenge by introducing the public administration paradigm of Public Value to eParticipation research in order to conceptualize and evaluate key issues of value, power, democratic participation and the quality of the decision process. This study introduces Sense of Community (SOC) to the eParticipation research field and highlights the important mediating effects of (SOC) to critical Public Value outcomes. Through the Public Value lens, the quality of the decision making process is reflected in the legitimacy of the public policy mandate; for eParticipation this means looking for ways to improve the quality of the decision making process. The aim of this research is to create a new measure of SOC for eParticipation that is based on Public Value theory.

Austria has seen some efforts in e-participation initiatives during the last years. However, a single platform comprising many e-participation levels and activities for a broader target group is so far missing. In the project ePartizipation researchers and practitioners worked on a platform demonstrator that integrates multiple online identification methods and offers activities on different levels of e-participation. This paper describes the conceptualisation of the platform and the inherent design principles, the first project results, in particular related to strategies aiming at enhancing inclusion and privacy, and the experiences from the project team.

Public managers at all levels of government are increasingly facing a great diversity of technological changes, from the arrival and rapid adoption of social media to the emergence and growing popularity of mobile phones and related technologies. Many times, they need to make decisions regarding the implementation of mobile government without the necessary knowledge and tools. Based on a review of recent literature and a set of group and individual interviews, this paper proposes a preliminary multidimensional framework to assess an agency's readiness for mobile government. The variables included in the framework are categorized into three main dimensions: (1) Technical, (2) Organizational, and (3) Workforce Environments. The paper also shows how these dimensions have been integrated into the prototype of a tool called Mobile-Readiness Assessment, which public managers could use to better understand mobile technologies and help them ask the right questions and collect appropriate data before starting a mobile government project.

The e-government maturity model has dissimilar stages that range from basic to advance online interaction competence. E-government's portals use the stages to determine maturity. The aim of this paper is to evaluate e-government maturity models through a comprehensive review of related literature by identifying and mapping cohesions across the models. Apparently, the paper picks seventeen different e-government maturity models and makes contrasts and comparisons using a qualitative meta-synthesis method. Ideally, the paper draws two key results namely presence, communication and integration are main stages involved in all the maturity models and the level of interaction and complexity are found in all models

Information system design and implementation are key factors for electronic participatory processes and procedures. How information systems are designed does not only affect the procedures but also influences the trust building between organizers, operators and participants. In addition, the implementation often has to adhere to legal standards. In this paper, we aim to investigate current practice of data use in online participations. In particular, a qualitative analysis is conducted and 18 online participations are investigated on their data use, i.e. use of participant information, cookies and web analytics. The results show that most projects require and request data during site visits (e.g., IP address, browser type) and for active participation (e.g., name, email). The real benefit, however, for the use of web analytics is often unclear. Furthermore, often proprietary solutions for web analytics are used, even tough open source solutions (i.e. that store data locally) exist. For future projects, it is recommended to not only define but also keep privacy policies updated (according to the used technology) and to specify the purpose and goals of using web analytics.

While governments and researchers often focus on the opening of data through open data infrastructures, the adoption and use of open data infrastructures has received less attention, despite the fact that this use should result in the envisioned benefits. This study aims to examine to which extent and by which factors the acceptance and use of open data infrastructures by researchers can be influenced. For this purpose we use an integrated model of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the two-stage Expectation Confirmation Theory of Information Systems continuance (ECT). Our research confirms the hypothesis that Perceived Usefulness (PU), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI) and Trust (T) in the pre-usage stage can be used to predict PU, EE, SI and T in the post-usage stage, which may subsequently influence the acceptance and use of open data infrastructures. Nevertheless, not all of our findings show support for applying the combined UTAUT-ECT model, and the findings suggest that the model needs to be specified and adapted for the domain of open data. We recommend future research to develop models for the acceptance and use of technologies that are more specific to the context of open data.

This paper is related to the H2020 VRE4EIC project (www.vre4eic.eu). The authors would like to thank their colleagues of this project for their input for this paper, although the views expressed are the views of the authors and not necessarily of the project.

A flexible platform supporting the linked data life-cycle has been developed and applied in various use cases in the context of the large scale linked open data project Fusepool P3. Besides the description of the aims and achievements, experiences from publishing and reusing linked data in public sector and business are summarized. It is highlighted that without further help it is difficult for domain experts to estimate the time, effort and necessary skills when trying to transfer the platform to other use cases. Applying a new publishing methodology turned out to be useful in these cases.

This paper investigates the myths and realities of open data at local government (a focused municipality) level. There are many expectations related to open government data (OGD) covering e.g. public transportation, car parks, public committee minutes and air quality measurements and the effects of more open public agencies and commercial possibilities, together with citizen benefits. Expectations are often uncritical and expressed in terms of rationalized myths. The purpose of this paper is to investigate myths and realities in a case study and to present lessons learned from focusing such dimensions in an ongoing and emerging local government OGD initiative. This study confirms previous research on open data myths, challenges and benefits from a local government perspective. The conclusions also illustrate three important findings directed to the existing body of research regarding the importance of alliances of stakeholders in OGD initiatives, aspects of heterogeneous organizations launching open data and reflections on the division of labour between public and private actors when handling different communication channels. Implications for research and practice are also outlined together with limitations and further research.

Evaluating e-government has proven difficult. Reasons include the complex nature of e-government, difficulties in measuring outcomes and impact, and the evolving nature of the phenomenon itself. Practical and effective evaluation methods would be useful to guide the development. To gauge the state of the art in the field, a review of contemporary literature investigated the status of research on e-government evaluation. We found the issues involved to be described by five critical factors: maturity levels, evaluation object, type of indicators, evaluation timing, and stakeholder involvement. The review suggests that there is no best model but rather that e-government evaluation must be situated and take a formative approach to guide the next step. However in doing so there is a need for a clear perspective on where e-government development is going. On this point research is more in agreement, and we provide a model to conceptualize this development.

As part of their egovernment plans, many countries aim at digitizing their communication with its citizens and the business sector. The effects of e-government depend on particular policy and design decisions. The aim of this paper is to compare the enactment of particular policies in supposedly similar contexts. The comparative case constitutes digital communication between public sector and citizens in the Scandinavian countries. From a grounded approach, we have described the policy, design and effects elements of the three case settings. Our study indicates that apparently similar solutions in comparable contexts may be enacted in rather different ways and have quite different effects. The three countries operate on a scale of coercion from mandatory (Denmark), over nudging (Norway) to voluntary (Sweden).

In the last two decades, governments around the world have been implementing electronic services in order to create a range of public values and meet new demands from a variety of stakeholders. Such activities fall within the scope of the e-Government research field. Developing large-scale information systems has proven to be a challenging task and many initiatives have ended in failure. This paper explores uncertainty in the e-Government context. How is it related to the various actors in the public sector, and how can decision making be adapted here to improve value realization? Using actor-network theory as an analytical lens, the collaboration of five Swedish municipalities in creating common e-services is examined as a case study. The results indicate that factors beyond decision makers' control, such as relations outside of a project, create a high degree of uncertainty. This uncertainty can be reduced by creating durable relations between local and global socio-technical actors. Inscribing values into generic software that has a high grade of interoperability should help to strengthen these networks beyond projects and regional borders.

In an attempt to enhance efficiency, public administrations around the world and in particular in Europe are increasingly relying on information technology (IT) to improve their performance and service delivery. This growing use of IT results in a changed set of competencies demanded from civil servants. In order to find out the concrete competencies that are required for successful implementation of eGovernment initiatives and that, consequently, need to be included in the education of future professionals, a European-wide survey was conducted (n=697). This paper reports on the first results of this study, revealing that there is a strong need for professionals with socio-technical, organizational and managerial competencies.

Over the last two decades, research on adoption and technology acceptance of new information systems by users has provided very valuable insights. Most of this research has focused on the impact on citizens in a bid to measure the improvements in the quality and speed of the services provided. However, there is still a lack of understanding of internal users' reactions to new information systems, and in particular to new e-government systems. In light of this deficit, this research study draws on the Coping Model of User Adaption (CMUA) to examine the adaptation strategies of middle managers in public bodies when new e-government initiatives are implemented in their work place. We report on the preliminary findings of an initial qualitative case study of one such initiative. We believe that studying internal users' adaptation strategies is beneficial because these strategies influence the extent to which benefits arise from new electronic services provided by governments.

ICT-Enabled Social Innovation can help making existing service more efficient and effective, but also produce new services as a result of integration among different policy silos. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can also promote conceptual innovation in the sense of changing the base (empirical and analytical) upon which policy are first designed and later evaluated. Building on extensive literature review and analysis of case studies conducted as part of the research on ICT-Enabled Social Innovation (IESI) conducted by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS), this article discusses, the results of an analysis of three selected case studies, exploring the relationship between different typologies of ICT-enabled social innovation implemented and the broader social protection system in which they are embedded in, contributing to determine if a relationship is identified between the nature and type of ICT-enabled social innovation and the modernization of social policies, considering the broader digital governance space in which they are implemented.

ICT enabled public sector reform and service delivery is actively researched in both classical Public Administration, Information System Management, and eGovernment literature. Multiple studies, research projects, and benchmarking efforts nonetheless highlight gaps in the current literature, not least in the eGovernment maturity models. Research points to a limited understanding of public service delivery technology as well as the role of governance, cross-governmental decision making, and cooperation when introducing ICT solutions and online services to citizens. Summarising the weaknesses, this article develops a qualitative multi-country case study methodology and applies it to Denmark. Initial findings highlight the strength of the Danish cross-governmental and consensus seeking approach to eGovernance. The article concludes with suggestions for an adapted methodology and aspects requiring further research.

A national data infrastructure (NDI) provides data, data-related services and guidelines for the re-use of data as an easily accessible service to citizens as well as public and private organizations. As such, it allows the efficient sharing of data between providers and consumers, supports new business models, and is thus a key enabler for the digital economy, societal collaboration and political processes. The paper relates to an ongoing project, discusses prevailing concepts on (data) infrastructure development and proposes a classification scheme for conceptualizing national data infrastructures in a given context. The discussion in particular focuses on governance issues related to establishing and maintaining a national data infrastructure that goes beyond the focus on open government data.