Digital Government: An IT Research Perspective

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Digital GovernmentAn IT Research Perspective

• Bill Scherlis
• CMU School of Computer Science
• dg.o
• May 17, 2000
• Los Angeles

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The NRC Digital Government Study

• Workshops on leading DG applications
• 1. Crisis management
• 2. Federal statistics

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The NRC Digital Government Study

• Synthesis Study(in progress)

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National Research CouncilDG Committee Committee
on Computing and Communications Research to
Enable Better Use of Information Technology in
Government

• William L Scherlis, CMU, Chair
• W Bruce Croft, U Mass Amherst
• David DeWitt, U Wisconsin Madison
• Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research
• William Eddy, CMU
• Eve Gruntfest, U Colorado Colo Springs

• David Kehrlein, State of CAOffice of Emergency
  Services
• Sallie Keller-McNulty, Los Alamos
• Michael R Nelson, IBM
• Clifford Neuman, USC/ISI
• Staff
• Jon Eisenberg, CSTB study director
• Marjory Blumenthal, CSTB director

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The Workshops

• Crisis Management
• Federal Statistics
• IT role
• Constraints on IT innovation in these areas
• Examples of promising emerging technologies
• Research opportunities motivated by the
  application
• Means to enhance the impact of the research

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Crisis Management

• Context
• Phases
• Planning
• Preparedness/mitigation
• Response
• Recovery
• Players
• FEMA, other Feds
• State, Local
• NGOs
• Business
• Citizens
• Diversity
• Data inputs
• Databases
• Applications

• Challenges
• Multiple interdependent organizations
• Federal, state, local, NGOs, business, citizens,
  etc.
• Wide variation in access to IT resources
• 1000s of organizations potentially involved
• Command and control organization structure
• Needs differ by phase
• Preparation for rapid response
• People under stress

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CM Research Opportunities

• Specific Tech./Systems
• Sensor deployment in new network infrastructure
• Tailored warnings to cell phone internet users
  (extensions of reverse 911)
• Multilingual translator
• Firefighters assistant
• Wearable GIS system for USAR
• Instant Bureaucracy

• Research areas
• Info integration of unstructured, multimedia
  data
• Capture, management, and analysis of incident
  information
• Network infrastructure robustness surge
  capacity
• Data availability (e.g., replication and caching)
• Modeling simulation ease of use, use of
  real-time data, model integration
• Implications of e-commerce benefits and
  challenges in crises

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CM Workshop Perspectives on IT Innovation

• Interactions
• CM operational community focused primarily on
  short-term, integrated solutions using existing
  technology
• Technology transition challenges How to turn
  research ideas into products and services that
  can be acquired?
• Realistic end-user testing essential
• Role of 3rd-party brokers

• Management Challenges
• Limited awareness of IT opportunities
• Limited resources
• Obsolete IT base
• IT investment focused on normal operations, not
  crises
• Limited risk dollars for experimentation with
  new concepts
• Investment focused on delivering relief funds

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Federal Statistics

• Context
• 70 agencies
• Collect. Process/Analyze. Disseminate
• Cohesive community and culture
• Diverse products
• Census, unemployment, CPI, travel, health, ...
• Diverse uses
• Policy input Economics, Crime, Health, Energy,
  Transportation, Education, Agriculture, etc.
• Funds allocation to states and local
• Representation Congressional, legislative
  districts

• Challenges
• Highly diverse users
• Government, Business, Researchers, Public
• Distributed system, virtual integration
• Confidentiality and access
• Timeliness
• Maintaining process integrity
• Substantial legacy base

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FS Research Opportunities

• HCI
• Especially for general public
• Database systems
• Especially to enhance statistical capabilities
• Data mining
• New data sources
• Metadata
• Information integration
• Joint querying
• Database linking analysis

• Limiting disclosure
• Especially in new areas geospatial data,
  multimedia
• Overall framework
• Trustworthiness
• Research access to microdata
• Process integrity
• Survey Instruments
• Ease of authoring, ease of use
• Better on-the-fly QC
• New modes of interaction
• Modality effects

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FS Workshop Perspectives on IT Innovation

• Short-term and long-term issues
• Limited connections with research community
• Collaboration mechanisms important
• Innovate but maintain high degree of integrity
  and trustworthiness

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CM and FS Considerations

• Culture clash
• IT researchers ?? Gvt domain specialists
• IT research ?? SI / vendors acquisition
• Operating point
• Mission focus ?? IT research rationale
• Find the middle zone
• IT-enabled solutions to hard, long-term federal
  problems
• Investment
• Research community
• Leverage
• The right problems.
• The right level of generality.
• Innovation in acquisition

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DG Context

• How services are delivered
• E-business in mainstream
• E-government
• Expectations and literacy
• Experimentation with new capabilities, roles
• Information and transaction portals
• 3rd party players
• Bottom-up and top-down initiative
• Impact on IT development
• Private-sector leadership
• Government leadership

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Synthesis

• NRC report forthcoming
• Committee analysis
• Findings and recommendations
• Scope
• Government IT practices
• E-government
• Government differentiators
• Technical challenges
• Research opportunities IT base special
  challenges
• Government and IT innovation
• Managing innovation in delivery of services
• Roles of IT research community, government,
  industry

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Synthesis Issues

• Government IT practice
• Government on Internet time Exploitation of
  E-business technologies
• Extent and nature of special government
  challenges
• Usage requirements
• Technical requirements
• IT development practice
• Service integration and user focus
• Technical areas for DG
• Basic research
• Long-term mission needs

• Government IT innovation
• Government role in IT research
• IT research management
• Management strategy
• Organic research capability
• IT experimentation and innovation
• Incentives

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For More Information

• Copies of CM and FS workshop reports available
  here
• Full text of reports online at www.cstb.org
• Stay tuned for synthesis report