icegov2012 proceedings

Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications
(ATHENA) comprises of five levels i.e. performed, modeled,
integrated, interoperable, and optimizing. ATHENA intended to
assess the interoperability in enterprise domain using EIMM. The
model specifically focuses on both organizational as well
technical aspects of interoperability in enterprise domain [3, 18].
Though the maturity models are developed by different individual
researchers [9, 46], national [11], and international [22, 34]
organizations; none of these models or frameworks discuss
measures to assess the organizational aspects of interoperability.
The stages, levels, and layers are sequentially numbered without
any further guideline about the measurements method or the
measures themselves. Literature reviews of interoperability
maturity models and frameworks suggests that the maturity of
technical interoperability is somewhat achievable due the
established standards and policies, but the aspects of
organizational interoperability e.g. policies, business processes,
financial, and governance are important and need to be addresses
carefully. In other words, some of the organizational aspects are
often described as the barrier of interoperability adoption and
implementation [1, 12, 41].
3. MEASUREMENT APPROACH
Literature review of maturity models and frameworks discussed in
Section 2 gives insight about the importance of organizational
aspects of interoperability, but does not provide sufficient
guideline to measure organizational interoperability. The maturity
models describe interoperability levels in a linear fashion, whereas
these levels are implemented on top of each other in practice.
Although some authors [e.g. 50] argue that the successful
implementation of technical, syntactical, and semantic
interoperability is necessary for organizational interoperability,
whereas others [e.g. 28, 32] suggest that both organizational as
well technical interoperability can be implemented on top of each
other. This paper proposes a two layered measurement instrument
where each layer can be implemented on top of each other.
Organization Layer
• Policy
• Enterprise architecture
• Business process
• Judicial
• Governance
• Economical
Technical Layer
• Syntactic
• Semantic
• Physical infrastructure
Figure 1 Interoperability Measurement Instrument.
Proposed measurement instrument as shown in Figure 1 is based
on the methodology of architecture layers of interoperability by
[28], whereas the selection of layers based on the socio-technical
design approach. Bostrom and Heinen [6] argue that the success
of the organizations depend socio-technical system (STS), where
social system represents people and structure and technical system
218
represents technology and tasks. Measurement aspects of the
technical and organizational interoperability as shown in Figure 1
are derived based on the literature review interoperability maturity
models and frameworks. Janssen and Scholl [28] describe that the
settlements should be reached among various involved partners to
avoid unwanted situations regarding the quality, compatibility,
and extent of information collaboration and interoperation. The
arrows shown in the Figure 1 from top to bottom and bottom to
top of each layer shows that implementation of interoperability
layers is non-linear, which means that each layer can be
implemented independent of each other. Hence, the
interoperability measurement aspects of each layer are relative,
but can be measured independently.
The explanation of technical sub-layers is already clear and well
defined by many organizations as well as individual authors [e.g.
22-23, 28, 32, 49], whereas the organizational interoperability and
the measurement aspects of its sub-layers are hardly discussed in
literature. Therefore, this paper briefly discusses the measurement
aspects of organizational layer and derives the adequate
measuring and benchmarking constructs for each sub-layer.
3.1 Organizational Layer
Organizational factors (e.g. technology adaption, economic
constraints, openness, and back-office cooperation) and
organizational issues (e.g. collaboration, business process, and
coordination) that impact the performance of information systems
are used to describe interoperability [14, 16-17]. Organizational
layer places the foundation for functional infrastructure of public
organizations for collaboration, exchange, and sharing of
information. Table 1 gives short description of each organizational
sub-layer as depicted in Figure1. Interoperability sub-layers
explained in Table 1 are sparsely described in literature, but there
is hardly any discussion about the measures to assess them.
Tolk, Turnitsa et al. [47] describe that the pragmatic
interoperability can reflect the maximum maturity if the
information sharing by the sender as well receiver is translucent,
clear, and truthfully interpretable. Policy sub-layer analyzes the
maturity of organizational aspects and helps to avoid the adverse
effects by identify the limitations. This layer also envisages
personal, environmental, standardization, and policy aspects to
distinguish the types of communication, and embraces the
information exchange intention of sender [28, 39].
For the public organizations aiming to facilitate citizens and
businesses with seamless service delivery, the enterprise
architecture can perform the essential role and provide guidance to
address organizational issues [19]. Enterprise architecture of a
public organization provides systematic understanding of basic
elements describing existing and anticipated environment [5].
Thus, enterprise architecture is useful to measure the basic
information about organizational elements. Tough enterprise
architecture encapsulates majority of organizational aspects, we
only focus on interoperability related measures. Thus, the sublayer
enterprise architecture is used to measure the basic
information about human resource and formal communication.
Interoperability in public organizations aims to improve the
service provision by advancing the business processes and
procedures for citizens, business, employees [32]. The business
process sub-layer in this context measures the processes and
procedures alignment, whereas the processes and procedures for
information exchange and sharing between the collaborating and
interoperating information systems are often reflected by the