Public access : two case studies of federal electronic dissemination : report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture, Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives /

"B-239019.1"--P. 1.

Model of access to natural language sources in electronic government

For the actual existence of e-government it is necessary and crucial to provide public information and documentation, making its access simple to citizens. A portion, not necessarily small, of these documents is in an unstructured form and in natural language, and consequently outside of which the current search systems are generally able to cope and effectively handle. Thus, in thesis, it is possible to improve access to these contents using systems that process natural language and create structured information, particularly if supported in semantics. In order to put this thesis to test, this work was developed in three major phases: (1) design of a conceptual model integrating the creation of structured information and making it available to various actors, in line with the vision of e-government 2.0; (2) definition and development of a prototype instantiating the key modules of this conceptual model, including ontology based information extraction supported by examples of relevant information, knowledge management and access based on natural language; (3) assessment of the usability and acceptability of querying information as made possible by the prototype - and in consequence of the conceptual model - by users in a realistic scenario, that included comparison with existing forms of access. In addition to this evaluation, at another level more related to technology assessment and not to the model, evaluations were made on the performance of the subsystem responsible for information extraction. The evaluation results show that the proposed model was perceived as more effective and useful than the alternatives. Associated with the performance of the prototype to extract information from documents, comparable to the state of the art, results demonstrate the feasibility and advantages, with current technology, of using natural language processing and integration of semantic information to improve access to unstructured contents in natural language. The conceptual model and the prototype demonstrator intend to contribute to the future existence of more sophisticated search systems that are also more suitable for e-government. To have transparency in governance, active citizenship, greater agility in the interaction with the public administration, among others, it is necessary that citizens and businesses have quick and easy access to official information, even if it was originally created in natural language.

Electronic Government Interoperability: Identifying the Barriers for Frameworks Adoption

Interoperability is a crucial issue for electronic government due to the need of agencies' information systems to be totally integrated and able to exchange data in a seamless way. A way to achieve it is by establishing a government interoperability framework (GIF). However, this is a difficult task to be carried out due not only to technological issues but also to other aspects. This research is expected to contribute to the identification of the barriers to the adoption of interoperability standards for electronic government. The article presents the preliminary findings from a case study of the Brazilian Government framework (e-PING), based on the analyses of documents and face-to-face interviews. It points out some aspects that may influence the establishment of these standards, becoming barriers to their adoption.

CATEGORIZATION OF BRAZILIAN INTERNET USERS AND ITS IMPACTS ON THE USE OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT SERVICES

This paper aims to categorize Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of their online activities and to assess the propensity of these Internet users´ groups to use electronic government (e-gov) services. The Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach was adopted as the theoretical framework for its consideration of people’s freedom to decide on their use of available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-gov services. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to perform data analysis from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of ICT Household Survey. The results showed that Internet users belonging to the advanced and intermediate use groups were more likely to use e-gov services than those who belong to the sporadic use group. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the Internet user group of intermediate use presented a higher tendency to use e-gov services than the Internet user group of advanced use. This tendency is possibly related to the extensive use of interactive and collaborative activities of leisure and entertainment performed by this type of user. The findings of this research may be useful in guiding public policies for the dissemination and provision of electronic government services in Brazil.

Caribbean policy response to the information age: a review of government information and communications technology policy and services in selected Caribbean countries

Includes bibliography

DOD TEMPEST protection : better evaluations needed to determine required countermeasures : report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture, Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives /

"B-222962"--p.1.

El nuevo impulso a la reutilización del RD 1495/2011

Presentació que es centra en les dades obertes, les lleis d'aplicació i els Reals Decrets relacionats amb l' accés i la reutilització de la informació administrativa. En concret es refereix al RD 1495/2011 que ofereix una eina per a la dinamització de l'accés i la reutilització comercial de la documentació administrativa

Transparência das informações públicas nos portais das instituições federais de educação profissional da região sul do Brasil

Considering the need of communication between public management and society and its citizens, in a way which is more effective and transparent, the aim of this research was to analyze the transparency of public information presented by the managers of the portals of southern Brazil’s Federal Institutes. It is a qualitative and quantitative research, applied as its purpose, and exploratory as its aim. In order to explain the issue from the theoretical frameworks published, it will be used as a procedure the bibliographic research and the further study field research in the six southern Brazil’s Federal Institutes. Therefore, the theoretical framework approaches aspects about public transparency, concepts of information and communication in the public sector, and it presents measurement indexes of public transparency. The data collection with the Institutes sought to measure – in the portals – the level of transparency of the information presented by the managers, applying a search tool which provided the transparency index of eleven categories of the researched items, besides verifying the presence of the required items by Access to Information Law. In the sequence, it sought to verify the Institutes managers’ perception of the aspects which composes the proposed theme, for the purpose of observing how the process of communication between public agencies and the citizen is happening. The main results obtained emphasize, in a general way, a low level of public information propagation, with a lower average of propagation to the information about social, environmental and economic responsibility, and a greater average to the information related to the institution’s general data – from its management structure to its ordinance. It was also observed that no institution which was researched fully comply with the demands of the Access of Information Law. The results about the manager perceptio demonstrate a tendency in publishing the produced information, however, elements such disorganization of information in the portals, lack of standardization of the virtual structure and type of language to use, and lack of procedures of popular participation and interaction in the portals are determiners to bring problems in the access and in the communication with the public. Besides, the short time of institutions’ creation and the short time of the managers assuming their functions must be considered as a reflex of the found results. Therewith, the present study highlighted the importance of Public Transparency theme and it reached a positive result to a scientific and social contribution.

JUSTEIS: JISC Usage Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services Final report 2003/2004 Cycle Five

Urquhart, C., Spink, S., Thomas, R., Yeoman, A., Durbin, J., Turner, J., Fenton, R. & Armstrong, C. (2004). JUSTEIS: JISC Usage Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services Final report 2003/2004 Cycle Five. Aberystwyth: Department of Information Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth. Sponsorship: JISC