WWW/Internet - Portal do Software Público Brasileiro

ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADISWEB 2.0: INTRODUCTION INTO E-GOVERNMENTAPPLICATIONSFrancesco De Angelis, Roberto Gagliardi, Alberto Polzonetti and Barbara Re1 School of Science and Technology University of Camerino ItalyABSTRACTUnder the name of web 2.0, a new wave of web-based applications has emerged and has recently found successful takeupin different domains. These applications rely on the concept of the user as a producer or co-producer. Web 2.0technologies also provide new ways to improve public governance. Involvement and active online participation ofcitizens, businesses, interest groups and employees of public, private and non-profit organizations becomes possible in aneasy and unconventional way. Web2.0 entails various kinds of activities for citizens: political participation, communitybuilding and opinion forming, advising of other citizens, providing service ratings, assisting in monitoring and lawenforcement, acting as producer of government information and services, etc. Also staff of agencies may use these newsocial media for cross-agency interaction and collaboration, good practice exchange and knowledge management. Thiscontribution provides a reflection of web 2.0 introduction into e-government applications.KEYWORDSe-government, Web 2.01. INTRODUCTIONUnder the name of Web 2.0, a new wave of web-based applications has emerged and has found successfultake-up. Web 2.0 means a paradigm shift, i.e. understanding the Internet “… as platform, spanning allconnected devices. Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of thatplatform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it,consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their owndata and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an ‘architectureof participation’, and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences” [9]. Theterm is closely associated with Tim O'Reilly because of the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004(http://www.web2con.com/web2con/ ) Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, itdoes not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the wayssoftware developers and end-users use the Web. Whether Web 2.0 is qualitatively different from prior webtechnologies has been challenged by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, who called the term a"piece of jargon"[14] — precisely because he specifically intended the Web to embody these values in thefirst place.Web 2.0 also provides a recently emerging but important way to improve public governance. Socialmedia can be used in government-related activities. Through web 2.0 technologies and the respectiveparadigm shift from citizens as consumers to citizens as co-producer, influence can be largely exerted ondemocratic deliberation and participation in policy making. Likewise, the principles of public governance –transparency, efficiency/effectiveness, responsiveness, forward vision, rule of law - stressed by the OECD([10], p. 58) can be supported and implemented in a better way.In the following sections the discussion starts sketching the basics: so the demands of e-participation andthe diverse possibilities the Web 2.0 is offering. Then the influence of Web 2.0 on Public Governance istreated in three aspects: the citizen side; the administration side; the special case of Less DevelopedCountries.382