XML-based Process Representation for e-Government Serviceflows

Abstract

Addressing new public challenges such as the one-stop government and improved service quality, we introduce serviceflow management as a generic concept to coordinate cross-organizational e-government processes. Aiming at a serviceflow management infrastructure for networked service providers we present an XML-based process representation of serviceflows as well as a four layered IT architecture for realizing serviceflow related applications.The research presented is exemplified by the case of citizens applying for postal vote through the web portal of the city state of Hamburg (Germany). The discussion includes how XML-based process representations for egovernment serviceflows enable governmental actors to enter the network age without high investment burdens, but with many options for creating the service-oriented government of the future. 74 E.g. KPMG (2000, 21) states "in the public sector (...) the challenge is to manage customer relationships through a single channel". 7 5 E.g. the "direct citizen information service" of Hamburg, DIBIS, http://dibis.dufa.de

Serviceflow beyond workflow? IT support for managing inter-organizational service processes

“…Although it enables interoperability between heterogeneous systems of different organizations it leaves open how each provider enables the actual system support. This proved to be successful in providing the postal vote application service through www.hamburg.de [17,44].…”

“…Provider organizations involved have to negotiate the entire service process: the kind of service delivery, its IT support, business and contracting considerations etc. Hence, suitable approaches are also required to improve the underlying agreement and contracting processes within the provider network [17].…”

Process ownership challenges in IT-enabled transformation of interorganizational business processes

“…The case has been highlighted from different angles before [63][64][65][66][67]. Here we solely focus on the new challenges of process ownership according to the issues pointed out above.…”

“…All partners involved accepted the concept of serviceflow management [65,66] as suggested by the researchers from univerity. Based on object-oriented, workflow and user-oriented modelling techniques, serviceflow patterns were modeled by identifying sequences of service points, each capturing the specific service tasks and their respective pre-and postconditions from the provider's point of view.…”

Service flow management: caring for the citizen's concern in designing e-government transaction processes

“…Instead, as accountability and flexibility throughout the process are success factors for relationship based services, we introduce serviceflow management (SFM) as a generic concept to compensate for increasing anonymity and to care for the citizen's concern in the redesign of government transaction processes. The concept has been developed especially to meet the requirements of public service domains such as e-government and e-health, but it can also be applied to other service domains such as education or tourism (see [13], [14], [15], [16], [11]). …”