Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Mode of access: Internet.

Information value/burden assessment : a report of the Commission on Federal Paperwork.

Mode of access: Internet.

A final report of the California State Assembly Statewide Information Policy Committee.

"March 1970."

Freedom of information case list.

Mode of access: Internet.

Information brokers and the use of budgetary and financial information by politicians: the case of Portugal

This paper analyses the intermediary role of the technical bodies that support the use of budgetary and financial information by central government politicians in Portugal. The main findings show that information brokers are playing a central role in preparing this information in a credible, simple and understandable way. However, even if not intentionally, the information they present can be biased. Politicians need to be aware that the information brokers they rely on may not be giving them ‘neutral’ information.

Submission to Victorian Parliamentary Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure

In the networked information driven world that we now inhabit the ability to access and reuse information, data and culture is a key ingredient to social, economic and cultural innovation. As government holds enormous amounts of publicly funded material that can be released to the public without breaching the law it should move to implement policies that will allow better access to and reuse of that information, knowledge and culture. The Queensland Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) Project4 is one of the first projects in the world to systemically approach this issue and should be consulted as a best practice model.

Kaleidoscopes and contradictions : the legitimacy of social media for public relations

If the current discourses of progress are to be believed, the new or social media promise a kaleidoscope of opportunity for connecting and informing citizens. This is by allegedly revitalizing the fading legitimacy and practice of institutions and providing an agent for social interaction. However, as social media adoption has increased, it has revealed a wealth of contradictions both of its own making and reproduction of past action. This has created a crisis for traditional media as well as for public relations. For example, social media such as WikiLeaks have bypassed official channels about government information. In other cases, social media such as Facebook and Twitter informed BBC coverage of the Rio Olympics. Although old media are unlikely to go away, social media have had an impact with several large familybased media companies collapsing or being reintegrated into the new paradigm. To use Walter Lippman’s analogy of the phantom public, the social media contradictorily serve to both disparate the phantom in part and reinforce it...

Quality assessment of service bundles for governmental one-stop portals : a literature review

Service bundles, in the context of e-government, are used to group services together that relate to a certain citizen need. These bundles can then be presented on a governmental one-stop portal to structure the available service offerings according to citizen expectations. In order to ensure that citizens utilise the one-stop portal and comprised service bundles for future transactions, the quality of these service bundles needs to be managed and maximised accordingly. Consequently, models and tools that focus on assessing service bundle quality play an important role, when it comes to increasing or retaining usage behaviour of citizens. This study focuses on providing a rigorous and structured literature review of e-government outlets with regards to their coverage of service bundle quality and e-service quality themes. The study contributes to academia and practice by providing a framework that allows structuring and classifying existing studies relevant for the assessment of quality for government portals. Furthermore, this study provides insights into the status quo of quality models that can be used by governments to assess the quality of their service bundles. Directions for future research and limitations of the present study are provided as well.

Electronic Building Passport - Final Report: Project 2 National Energy Efficient Building Project Phase 2

The National Energy Efficient Building Project (NEEBP) Phase One report, published in December 2014, investigated “process issues and systemic failures” in the administration of the energy performance requirements in the National Construction Code. It found that most stakeholders believed that under-compliance with these requirements is widespread across Australia, with similar issues being reported in all states and territories. The report found that many different factors were contributing to this outcome and, as a result, many recommendations were offered that together would be expected to remedy the systemic issues reported. To follow up on this Phase 1 report, three additional projects were commissioned as part of Phase 2 of the overall NEEBP project. This Report deals with the development and piloting of an Electronic Building Passport (EBP) tool – a project undertaken jointly by pitt&sherry and a team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) led by Dr Wendy Miller. The other Phase 2 projects cover audits of Class 1 buildings and issues relating to building alterations and additions. The passport concept aims to provide all stakeholders with (controlled) access to the key documentation and information that they need to verify the energy performance of buildings. This trial project deals with residential buildings but in principle could apply to any building type. Nine councils were recruited to help develop and test a pilot electronic building passport tool. The participation of these councils – across all states – enabled an assessment of the extent to which these councils are currently utilising documentation; to track the compliance of residential buildings with the energy performance requirements in the National Construction Code (NCC). Overall we found that none of the participating councils are currently compiling all of the energy performance-related documentation that would demonstrate code compliance. The key reasons for this include: a major lack of clarity on precisely what documentation should be collected; cost and budget pressures; low public/stakeholder demand for the documentation; and a pragmatic judgement that non-compliance with any regulated documentation requirements represents a relatively low risk for them. Some councils reported producing documentation, such as certificates of final completion, only on demand, for example. Only three of the nine council participants reported regularly conducting compliance assessments or audits utilising this documentation and/or inspections. Overall we formed the view that documentation and information tracking processes operating within the building standards and compliance system are not working to assure compliance with the Code’s energy performance requirements. In other words the Code, and its implementation under state and territory regulatory processes, is falling short as a ‘quality assurance’ system for consumers. As a result it is likely that the new housing stock is under-performing relative to policy expectations, consuming unnecessary amounts of energy, imposing unnecessarily high energy bills on occupants, and generating unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, Councils noted that the demand for documentation relating to building energy performance was low. All the participant councils in the EBP pilot agreed that documentation and information processes need to work more effectively if the potential regulatory and market drivers towards energy efficient homes are to be harnessed. These findings are fully consistent with the Phase 1 NEEBP report. It was also agreed that an EBP system could potentially play an important role in improving documentation and information processes. However, only one of the participant councils indicated that they might adopt such a system on a voluntary basis. The majority felt that such a system would only be taken up if it were: - A nationally agreed system, imposed as a mandatory requirement under state or national regulation; - Capable of being used by multiple parties including councils, private certifiers, building regulators, builders and energy assessors in particular; and - Fully integrated into their existing document management systems, or at least seamlessly compatible rather than a separate, unlinked tool. Further, we note that the value of an EBP in capturing statistical information relating to the energy performance of buildings would be much greater if an EBP were adopted on a nationally consistent basis. Councils were clear that a key impediment to the take up of an EBP system is that they are facing very considerable budget and staffing challenges. They report that they are often unable to meet all community demands from the resources available to them. Therefore they are unlikely to provide resources to support the roll out of an EBP system on a voluntary basis. Overall, we conclude from this pilot that the public good would be well served if the Australian, state and territory governments continued to develop and implement an Electronic Building Passport system in a cost-efficient and effective manner. This development should occur with detailed input from building regulators, the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), councils and private certifiers in the first instance. This report provides a suite of recommendations (Section 7.2) designed to advance the development and guide the implementation of a national EBP system.

O Congresso Nacional e a atividade de inteligência : a função de fiscalização em perspectiva histórica

Traça um panorama histórico da ação fiscalizadora do Congresso Nacional em relação à atividade de inteligência nacional, mais precisamente da Agência Brasileira de Inteligência – ABIN, órgão estatal responsável por essa atividade, na salvaguarda dos conhecimentos sigilosos do Estado, haja vista ser o Congresso Nacional, o órgão responsável pela fiscalização externa da rede e seus componentes. Identificar as vulnerabilidades existentes, principalmente no que tange aos recursos humanos, capital mais precioso desse processo, mas que, pela ganância, vaidade e cobiça, se torna o elo mais vulnerável. A Atividade de Inteligência dentre todas as áreas de controle democrático é a mais arriscada, haja vista a sua importância para o progresso e desenvolvimento de uma Nação. É uma atividade que se desenvolve diuturnamente buscando minimizar as desconfianças de todos os órgãos e organizações estatais envolvidos no processo. A salvaguarda dos documentos e de informações governamentais sigilosas é primordial para a segurança do Estado. A institucionalização da Atividade de Inteligência no Brasil, a partir de 1927, trouxe ao país uma situação antes exercida apenas no âmbito militar. Com leis, decretos, portarias e denominações várias do órgão nacional responsável, são desenvolvidas as ações de coordenação do fluxo de informações necessárias às decisões governamentais. A pesquisa foi realizada com base em fontes históricas e documentais, ressaltando o papel do Congresso Nacional na sua função de fiscalização das políticas de inteligência.

基于领域本体的政府信息检索系统的设计与实现

政府信息检索系统作为政府信息公开平台的重要组成部分，对于用户从大量信息中准确查找所需信息起到关键作用，然而现有政府信息检索系统存在两个主要问题：一是系统采用的基于关键词匹配的检索技术忽视了对于用户检索条件的语义的理解，缺乏对于文档实质内涵的准确描述；二是由于对政府信息领域知识的缺乏，用户不能很好地提出符合自己检索需求的检索条件。这两个问题导致检索结果远远不能满足用户的要求。 本体是“概念模型的明确的规范说明”，它提供明确定义的词汇表，描述概念和概念之间的关系，被当作某个领域内不同主体之间进行交流的一种语义基础。它被广泛的应用于信息检索，特别是基于知识的检索中，能显著提高检索系统的查全率和查准率。 本文提出了构建政府信息领域本体并将其应用于政府信息检索系统的方案。首先，研究了现有的领域本体构建方法；在分析了政府信息领域的特点，考察了该领域可用资源的基础上，提出了基于政务主题词表的政府信息领域本体的构建方法。该方法充分利用了《综合电子政务主题词表》中已有的主题词和关系，保证了本体概念添加的完备性和科学性，减少了对领域专家的依赖，提高了构建效率。 设计和实现了基于领域本体的政府信息检索系统。该系统以领域本体为核心，对检索条件进行了扩展，既解决了检索词同政府信息中的公文用词存在差异的问题，又进一步明确了用户的检索需求；对政府信息文档进行了语义标注，提高了检索匹配时的准确度。同时，系统将与检索条件相关的领域概念反馈给用户，便于用户了解领域知识，进一步优化检索条件，获得更全更准的检索结果。

基于政务主题词表的政府信息本体构建及应用

为了构建政府信息领域本体,将其应用于政府信息检索系统中,提高系统的查全率和查准率,提出了利用现有术语丰富的政务主题词表构建政府信息领域本体的方法。该方法以政府信息这个核心概念和其属性为中心,将政务主题词表中的主题词和词间关系有序的转化到本体中,并在此基础上进一步挖掘了领域业务相关的关系,丰富了本体蕴涵的知识。进而将本体应用于政府信息检索系统中,改善了原系统的检索效果,同时也验证了该本体构建方法的有效性。

政务信息资源共享交换平台设计与应用

经过多年的信息化建设，北京市电子政务水平得到了极大的提升，在配备了完善的IT基础设施的同时，也开发了许多应用系统；市政府下属各个区县的信息中心及部门也基本建成了政府门户网站和基于自身业务需要的应用系统，并且积累了大量政务信息资源，北京市的电子政务正在从最初的政府上网阶段全面向电子政务应用阶段推进。随着应用的广泛深入，不同政府部门之间的交互日益增多，政务信息资源在政府部门之间共享的要求越来越迫切，但是目前的电子政务架构显然难以满足政务信息资源在政府部门之间实现互联互通的需求。为此，北京市提出了建设政务信息资源共享交换平台的要求，为政务信息资源的共享交换提供一个场所，在资源提供部门提供资源和资源需求部门获取资源之间起到桥梁和纽带的作用。本文对共享交换平台涉及的技术进行了讨论，提出了共享交换平台的一种设计和实现方案，并且对该方案在北京市西城区政务信息资源共享交换平台建设中的实施效果进行了分析。首先，文章对共享交换平台建设过程中涉及的技术以及这些技术在电子政务中的应用进行了介绍，包括元数据与目录服务相关技术、数据仓库与数据挖掘技术、数据抽取、转换与加载（ETL）技术、商务智能与政务智能技术等。对各种技术目前的应用状况与平台需求的不一致性进行了分析，提出了需要完善和改进的要求。其次，文章提出了一种政务信息资源共享交换平台的设计方案，并对其中关键部分进行了详细的分析。针对北京市电子政务的需求，我们提出了以目录管理、数据交换和统计分析为基础的平台设计方案：通过目录管理系统，资源提供部门上传本部门可以提供的资源信息，资源需求部门可以了解到平台的共享资源以及获取资源的渠道；利用数据交换系统，将各部门内部的数据交换到平台的共享数据库中，真正实现政务信息资源在不同部门之间的共享；对于经过处理进入平台的大量准确、一致的资源，政府领导可以通过统计分析系统进行统计，获取各种统计图表，为领导更好的决策提供依据。该方案综合考虑了共享交换平台用户多方面的需求，借鉴了学术上、技术上已有成果，并进行了改进，具有较好的研究价值和实用价值。最后，论文以北京市西城区政务信息资源共享交换平台的设计开发为例，介绍如何将本文提出的平台设计方案应用到实践中，并对实际应用效果进行了分析。结果表明，该方案较好地满足了西城区电子政务的需求，取得了良好的实施效果。

Gestor de contenidos del geoportal de la IDE del Calbildo Insular de la Palma

Dos de los problemas más comunes presentes en las Administraciones que gestionan Información Territorial a través de una IDE, son la dificultad de que los técnicos para gestionar y actualizar la información, y la dependencia tecnológica de terceros. Parte del problema de la actualización y gestión de la información lo hemos solucionado con el desarrollo de un Gestor de Contenidos del Geoportal y de los servicios WMS, que se liberará como software libre. El Gestor funciona a través de una navegador web estándar donde el usuario, tras validarse, accede a la configuración y publicación de servicios que le permite entre otras: crear nuevos WMS, gestionar los WMS existentes, gestionar las capas del Geoportal, generar leyendas, gestionar usuarios, etc. De este modo, un usuario no técnico y sin conocimientos avanzados de geomática puede publicar capas como servicios WMS sin dificultad