Building e-Government Services over Spatial Data Infrastructures

Abstract

According to [1], eGovernment is defined as the use of information and communication technology in public administrations combined with an organizational change and new skills in order to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support to public policies. eGovernment has been defined as a priority in the eEurope 2005 Action Plan. However, many barriers and obstacles need to be overcome and sizeable investments are needed. Change processes in organization and culture are slow: it can take several years until the combined investment in information and communication technology, organization and skills deliver the full benefits. Strong political leadership and commitment is needed, guided by a long-term vision on the contribution of the public sector to Europe in the knowledge society. Forward thinking and innovation should be accompanied with concrete deliverables and results in the shorter term. The eGovernment initiative puts pressure on authorities to provide services online and accessible to the citizen. In turn, this necessitates improved information sharing between departments and joint working with other agencies and administration levels. As it is mentioned in [2], the most common eGovernment application is clearly oriented to provide citizens with access to information.

The basic technology of this work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through the project TIC2003-09365-C02-01 from the National Plan for Scientific Research, Development and Technology Innovation.