Seamless, Ctzen-Orented Servce Delvery As Figure 7 shows, the network of eGovSMs will include all the known eGovSM domains.
Each eGovSM has not to know about all the other domains, it is sufficient that each domain is known for at least another one. When an eGovSM is set up, it has to subscribe to (at least) another one in order to become part of the network.
This way each e-government service domain can be considered as a virtual organization in the grid (Foster, Kesselman, & Tuecke, 2001) domain. A Virtual Organization is defined as a dynamic set of individuals or institutions defined around a set of resource-sharing rules and conditions which share resources in a coordinated, secure, and flexible manner (Joseph
& Fellenstein, 2004). Entities of an eGovSM domain (public administrations and private service providers) share information and services with the e-government service marketplace of that domain according to the sharing rules defined in such a domain (which can be differ- ent from domain to domain). The other domains have neither direct knowledge nor access to these resources and information. They only know about and can refer to the eGovSM of that domain. The concept of network of eGovSM seems to suitable represent an interagency cooperation at European level (see Figure 7), where each country has its own eGovSM platform which with the other service providers (governmental agencies and private busi- nesses) forms the eGovSM domain of such a country. EGovSMs of different countries are part of the whole network and thus collaborate in order to provide pan-European seamless services. Citizens, by interacting only with one of the eGovSM of the network (see Figure 7), can access all the services offered by the whole network. This concept scales at a national level as well. For instance, different regions of the same country can implement their own eGovSM system. In this case each eGovSM domain contains agencies at local and regional levels, has its own, specific sharing rules, and collaborates with the other regional-level eGovSM domains in order to provide seamless services at the national level.
Mugelln, Pettenat, & Abou Khaled
• The citizen must be 18 years old or over
• The citizen must exhibit an identity card or a passport
• The citizen must hold “moral requirements” (e.g., not to be a criminal, etc.)
• The citizen must provide a medical report (including an eyesight report)
• The citizen must pay the appropriate fees
• The citizen must provide two passport-type photographs
The traditional procedure for the delivery of such service requires the citizen to move to the postal office to pay the fees, to the hospital for medical check-up, the photos, and eventually to the Department of Motor Vehicle with all the previously collected documents and infor- mation and apply for obtaining a document (“Foglio Bianco”) that allows the candidate to drive while waiting for the delivery of the Provisional Driving License. Once moral require- ments are checked and confirmed the Provisional Driving License is issued and delivered to the citizen (which has to move to the Department of Motor Vehicle again). The eGovSM allows easing the whole procedure by reducing interaction between citizen and agencies and providing this service as a unique transaction to the citizen. Case handling, decision, and delivery of the requested service are completely treated by eGovSM via the Web by
Figure 8. Provisional driving licence delivery: Sequence diagram
Seamless, Ctzen-Orented Servce Delvery integrating participating agencies (hospital, postal office, department of motor vehicle, and so on). The citizen wishing to apply for a Provisional Driving License accesses the eGovSM via the portal and applies for the service (see Figure 8). The request is handled by the eGovSM that, as a first step, retrieves the document (“Process Descriptor”) describing the entire process of Provisional Driving License from a dedicated registry. This document describes in a machine-readable way tasks and requirements that have to be executed and satisfied in order to deliver the service (for instance, verifying whether the applying citizen is 18 years old and over or holds moral requirements).
By following the instructions contained in the Process Descriptor, eGovSM checks whether the citizen is of age, whether the citizen has done the medical examination and payed the fees and, if this is not the case, eGovSM stops the process and informs the citizen about requirements that have not been satisfied or missing information.
Public administrations involved in the process of service delivery are located by processing the information contained in the citizen identifier (for instance, the “birthplace” informa- tion contained in the identifier tells the system the origin region of the citizen and allows focusing information search on specific governmental agencies). Once all requirements are satisfied and required tasks performed the eGovSM system provides the Department of Motor Vehicle with the logic document, that is, an electronic version of the final document to be delivered (meanwhile the citizen is informed by the eGovSM about the progress of the request). The Department of Motor Vehicle has to check the validity of the document, inform the eGovSM about it, and issue the final document to the citizen.
Analysis of Benefits of eGovSM .Seamless.Service.Delivery
A shared and seamless service delivery has a major impact on e-government evolution process and several types of interconnected benefits can be identified. More specifically the impact of the concept of e-government service marketplace can be analyzed and evaluated according to three different perspectives:
• The social perspective
• The economical perspective
• The technical perspective
In fact, the use of information and communication technologies in public administration in order to improve service delivery process has tangible and intangible benefits from the social, economic, and technical points of view (Figure 9).
Mugelln, Pettenat, & Abou Khaled