Multi-channel provisioning of public services - Department of ...

use of e-signatures and electronic identification management. Similar to concept of the citizen-centric
process view is the organization of compound services through eDialog, an initiative from the
Norwegian tax authorities which aim is to maintain a holistic, and user-friendly two-way electronic
dialog between the user and the government. Other identified core processes include: public
procurement, holistic processes for patient care, building permits, reporting of income and tax, and
case handling. The future directions are aligned to that of the European Commission, focusing on core
components supporting electronic identification, providing a common IT-platform, and promoting
citizen-centricity. As of now, Norway’s Altinn (www.altinn.no) provides a single front-end for
transaction based schema delivery. The next generation Altinn, launched in stages between late 2009
and late 2010, will among other support service collaboration and several process owners for crossorganizational
processes presented as one connected process for the users.
4.3 Process modeling and platforms
When it comes to the BPM systems, there are several commercially available frameworks. The Itensil
dynamic process platform (BPMFocus, 2008) is a solution supporting ad-hoc collaborative process
work different from what found in traditional BPM systems, allowing process change on the fly and
version control of individual process instances. Itensil uses a wiki-style framework and AJAX-based
user interfaces, supporting effective workspace redistribution. While the Itensil framework is designed
for ad-hoc knowledge work in smaller teams, the approach is interesting with respect to large-scale
process distribution, innovation and flexibility in government organizations.
Lillehagen and Krogstie (2008) discuss Active Knowledge Modeling and Active Models. Models are
active when they available to the users at run-time and support automatic synchronization of the
execution environment and behavior of the system based on changes to the model made by the user,
the models can further be dynamically extended to fit local contexts. Active knowledge modeling
extends enterprise modeling and focus on the knowledge supporting work through models, methods
and tools. Systems can evolve with corporate knowledge and users build and manage their own work
environment through model-generated workplaces. The work includes an overview of challenges
structured into the following areas: Society and community cooperation, collaborative business
networking, interoperable enterprise cooperation, innovation and holistic design, knowledge and data
representation and workplace regeneration and adaptability.
5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This paper has introduced the concept of citizen-centric process views for e-government services. The
concept is located within the next generation government infrastructure and the application area for
services in the transformational government scenario. It is a (de-) centralized middleware connecting
core components, legacy- and government front office systems for the organization of ongoing and
completed instances of provided services to the citizen. The concept is similar to the one-stop
government and active life-events portals where the citizen has online access to discover services. It
extends on to those concepts by focusing on the monitoring, choreography and knowledge
management aspects of the actual workflow of ongoing service delivery. The citizen-centric process
views create a virtual organization around the citizen and the service provided. In contrast to similar
concepts, it suggests that there is knowledge about the optimal service delivery present in the virtual
organization that is not formalized and therefore preventing the process from being subject to
automated processing or agent based reasoning. This might also be due to the fact that the actual
services provided are physical or emotional services, and that the process view acts as a
documentation and collaboration space for the involved actors. The models used in the process view
can be interactive, and changing the model workflow will affect the actors’ involvement and actual
workflow of the process in question.
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