E-governance through Semantic web
Anamika Rana, Amit Prakash Singh
University School of Information Technology
GGS Indraprastha University, Delhi – 110 403
anamica.rana@gmail.com, aps.ipu@gmail.com
Abstract— In Many countries the government
organizations have a very distributed structure.
Different organizations that are organized at different
levels provide different services to the citizens. The
level of a government's service is one main factor that
can affect its international competitive power.
Several developing countries are realizing the role of
ICT (Information & Communication Technology)
can play in the governance sector and are putting into
practice innovative e-governance models that may be
technologically simple but are drastically changing
the way information is distributed in the society. This
paper depicts a model of e-governance. The main
objective is to implement e-governance in an easy
and cost effective way to suit with existing ICT
infrastructure to provide better information and
service delivery of government to the people. The
complexity of government-to-constituent interactions
needs to be analyzed comprehensively.
Keywords: Information & Communication
Technology, G2C (Government to Citizen), G2B
(Government to Business), G2G (Government to
Government)
Introduction
E-governance may be defined as the performance of
the governance via the electronic medium. In order to
facilitate an efficient, speedy and transparent process
of disseminating information to the public, and other
agencies and for performing government
administration, ICT explore the possible way for
implementation. It includes the publishing of policy
and program related information to transact with
citizens. e-governance is the public sector’s use of
information and communication technologies with
the aim of improving service delivery, encouraging
citizen participation in the decision-making process
and making government more accountable,
transparent and effective. e-governance is generally
considered as a wider concept than e-government,
since it can bring about a change in the way how
citizens relate to governments and to each other
through electronic medium. e-governance can bring
forth new concepts of citizenship, both in terms of
citizen needs and responsibilities. Its objective is to
engage, enable and empower the citizen. In simple
terms Electronic Governance can be defined [4] as
giving citizens the choice of when and where they
access government information and services. While
e-governance entails the processes used to provide
services to the public, e-government is the tool to
accomplish e-governance.
Objective
With the sole mission of bringing public
administration closer to the common people thus
offering efficient and effective services, e-
governance is evolved with the following objectives.
• To ensure greater transparency, efficiency,
objectivity, accountability and speed that can
help tackle most of the problems of the
government by providing efficient services to the
public.
• To provide responsive and transparent
services to the citizens of the state.
• To provide cost effective service and at the
same time improving the quality of service.
• To provide a single window for government
services at different level.
• To improve Government processes so that
openness, accountability, accuracy, speed of
operations, effectiveness and efficiency may be
achieved.
• To provide IT enabling the government
functions – something similar to back-office
automation.
• To provide Web-enabling the government
functions so that the citizens will have a direct
access.
Typically, this would mean web-enabled
applications, but e-governance would also provide to
automated applications for the government sector,
which helps in achieving SMART governance which
some define as:
• Speed
• Moral
• Accountable/Accurate
• Responsive and
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 • Transparent Governance
Need of e-governance
Government cannot exist or function in isolation. For
a government to operate effectively, a government-
community-citizen infrastructure should be in place.
This would result in a secure and meaningful
information flow between the government and
citizens of a nation. A close-knit infrastructure would
yield two fold benefits, which would save time and
money for all concerned:
• Citizens can enjoy faster, effective and
timely government services. This would also
evolve a culture of self-service wherein citizens
can help themselves wherever and whenever
required.
• Government can become more
integrated into the community itself. Also
government can focus its resources where they
are needed the most.
Also, mankind has taken a big leap with the advent of
Information Technology and Information highways.
Both information technology and information
highways are here to stay and impact our lives in the
years to come. So, government has take into account
these facts and gears itself to create Simple Moral
Accountable Responsive Transparent governance.
Governments across developing nations worldwide
have more challenges and responsibilities to bring
their nations at par with the developed nations. To
face such challenges, government can bring in e-
governance reforms. e-governance offers a new way
forward, helping improve government processes,
connect citizens, and build interactions with and
within civil society. e-governance provides three
basic change potentials for good governance for
development:
• Automation: replacing current human-executed
processes, which involve accepting, storing,
processing, outputting or transmitting
information. For example, the automation of
existing clerical functions.
• Informatisation: supporting current human-
executed information processes. For example,
supporting current processes of decision-making,
communication, and decision implementation.
• Transformation: supporting new human-
executed information processes. For example,
creating new methods of public service delivery.
These change potentials, in turn, can bring five main
benefits to governance for development:
• Governance that is cheaper: producing the
same outputs at lower cost.
• Governance that does more: producing
more outputs at the same total cost.
• Governance that is quicker: producing the
same outputs at the same total cost in less time.
• Governance that works better: producing
the same outputs at the same total cost in the
same time, but to a higher quality standard.
• Governance that is innovative: producing
new outputs.
When governments, citizens, and private sector
partners redefine and reengage their roles, better
government—better governance—will be the result.
An e-governance model
The three main target groups that can be
distinguished in e-governance concepts are
government, citizens and businesses. The most
common interactions in e-governance, G2C, G2B and
G2G, are presented schematically in Figure1 below:
Figure 1
Gartner, an international consultancy firm, has
formulated a four-phase e-governance model. This
can serve as a reference for governments to position
where a project fits in the overall evolution of an e-
governance strategy. Most governments start by
delivering online information, but public demand and
internal efficiency soon require more complex
services. Of course this takes effect gradually; some
services will be online earlier than others. In some
cases the public demand is the driving force, in other
cases, cost saving aspects for the government are
leading. According to Gartner, e-governance will
mature according to the following four phases:
1. Information  Presence
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2. Interaction  Intake processes
3. Transaction  Complete transactions
4. Transformation Integration & change
The model does not imply that all institutions have to
go through all phases and all at the same time. On the
contrary, in the Western world, government
institutions are in phase 1, 2 or 3.
Figure 2 : e-governance Maturity Model (Gartner,
2000) [3]
The differences can be huge: the tax department can
be in phase three, while the department of public
works is starting phase one. It all depends on where
the benefits are highest.
In the first phase, e-governance means providing the
relevant information to the public through web (G2B,
G2C). The format of the early government websites
is similar to that of a brochure or leaflet. The value to
the public is that government information is publicly
accessible; processes are described and become more
transparent, which improves democracy and service.
Internally (G2G) the government can also
disseminate static information with electronic means,
such as the Internet.
In the second phase, the interaction between
government and the public (G2C & G2B) is
stimulated with various applications. People can ask
questions via e-mail, use search engines, and
download forms and documents. These services help
the user to save time. In fact the complete intake of
applications can be done online 24 hours per day.
Normally this would only have been possible at a
counter during opening hours. Internally (G2G)
government organizations use LANs, intranets and e-
mail to communicate and exchange data.
In phase three, the complexity of the technology is
increasing, but customer (G2C & G2B) value is also
higher. Complete transactions can be done without
going to an office. Examples of online services are
filing income tax, filing property tax,
extending/renewal of licenses, visa and passports and
online voting. Phase three is made complex because
of security and personalization issues. E.g. digital
(electronic) signatures will be necessary to enable
legal transfer of services. On the business side, the
government is starting with e-procurement
applications. In this phase, internal (G2G) processes
have to be redesigned to provide good service.
Government needs new laws and legislation to enable
paperless transactions.
In the fourth phase, when all information systems
are integrated and the public can get G2C & G2B
services at one (virtual) counter. One single point of
contact for all services is the ultimate goal. The
complex aspect in reaching this goal is mainly on the
internal side, e.g. the necessity to drastically change
culture, processes and responsibilities within the
government institution (G2G). Government
employees in different departments have to work
together in a smooth and seamless way. In this phase
cost savings, efficiency and customer satisfaction are
reaching highest possible levels.
Semantic Web and information management
Semantic Web started out with a document oriented
approach; the basic idea was to make Web pages
identifiable as informational resources and to
annotate them with semantic markup. For systems
developers, mastering the different kinds of Semantic
Web technologies is already quite a challenge, and
new technologies will continue to appear in short
cycles; so it remains a constant battle to stay
reasonably up-to-date. But still, this is not enough:
the semantic markup requires also a computer
supported strategy for generating the markup, i.e. any
markup tool must relate to some computer readable
representation of what concepts (terms, relations)
should be used for achieving the markup. This is the
most important link to the conceptual modeling of the
application domain, and it has become state-of-the-art
to employ ontologies for this purpose.
Ontology-based approaches seek to define common
domain terminologies. For ages, the term “ontology”
has been used in singular mode, relating to a long
tradition of philosophical discourse on metaphysics.
With the beginning of the construction of artificial
(virtual) worlds, research within Artificial
Intelligence has focused on exploring and producing
“ontologies”, each of these applying to selected
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domains. The most frequently quoted definition of
ontology is provided by Gruber “An ontology is a
specification of a conceptualization.” While this
sounds much as conceptual modeling, the
metaphysical background is still somewhat relevant:
“The subject of ontology is the study of the
categories of things that exist or may exist in some
domain. The product of such a study, called an
ontology, is a catalog of the types of things that are
assumed to exist in a domain of interest D from the
perspective of a person who uses a language L for the
purpose of talking about D.” Therefore, ontologies
are means for communication. But successful support
is possible only when the concepts included and their
relations are agreed on by the users and/or a group of
experts, in relation to what the purpose of the
communication is.
The degree of formalization may differ significantly
which has consequences for the options of
automation. Basically, it is important to distinguish
between
• Informal ontology: may be specified by a
catalog of types that are either undefined or
defined only by statements in a natural language,
and
• Formal ontology: specified by a collection
of names for concept and relation types
organized in a partial ordering by the type-
subtype relation.
The degree of formalization usually corresponds with
the complexity of the conceptual modeling: a simple
keyword catalogue can be quite helpful and is easy to
implement, while e.g. thesauri and topic maps need
far more support for construction and use. To
represent ontologies as knowledge objects on their
own there are several languages available.
Meanwhile there are a number of methods and tools
for ontology construction, as well as a various
options on how to employ ontologies in systems
development and how to construct “ontology-driven”
information systems.
Ontologies are also regarded as a key to solving
interoperability problems. The standardization of
ontologies used within a network provides a common
frame of reference for cross-organizational
applications. And if such an agreement is not
possible, there is still hope to bridge semantic gaps
through mapping and reconciliation of ontologies.
From the perspective of information management, the
main challenges related to Semantic Web are to
identify the objects which will need semantic
markup, to provide (or generate) the appropriate
markup, and to understand the processes which will
use those objects and the related semantic markups.
However, in systems development projects not only
the life cycle of resources and their markup come into
focus, but also the organizational aspects of
information provision and use as well as the
reasoning behind identifying, organizing and sharing
information. Actually, many authors in the area of
Semantic Web see a strong connection to knowledge
management and believe that those new technologies
will bring a quantum leap. In consequence, most of
the envisioned applications related to Semantic Web
rely on advances in knowledge representation,
intelligent retrieval and facilitation of
communication.
Semantic Web started out with a document oriented
approach; the basic idea was to make Web pages
identifiable as informational resources and to
annotate them with semantic markup. However,
designing and using informational resources is not
only a technical and organizational challenge, it must
also take into account the social aspects of
information. “In fact the concept of a unit of
information is central, not only in the technical
architecture, but in society's concepts of information,
as a document is not only the unit for reference,
retrieval and presentation (typically), but also the unit
of ownership, license to use, payment,
confidentiality, endorsement, etc. so we can’t mess
with it too much.”
E-government approaching the Semantic Web
The domain specific research and real-life projects in
organizations both are only starting to integrate the
diverse technical and organizational issues focused
on information management, knowledge
management and Semantic Web. This applies also to
the field of e-government.
In practice, there are strong efforts in information
management to support also e-government issues,
mainly through defining
metadata standards and interoperability frameworks.
Just recently there is a growing interest in Semantic
Web technologies which are reckoned to be a key to
solve many e-government interoperability problems.
From the administrative point of view, Semantic Web
and ontology-based approaches seem to promise
support for at least the following objectives:
• systematic management of dealing with all
kinds of (electronic) informational resources
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 • support for administrative processes • formalization of governmental business
crossing borders of organizations, systems and processes in an unambiguous structure
infrastructures • better support to front line by allowing one-
• improving service quality: e.g. responding to stop, customer focused and multiple view-point
requests, information retrieval and knowledge access to services and shared information.
management with respect to different actor
perspectives
In all of these, each of the local administrations has Conclusion
its own understanding of the domain (e.g. of the
The term e-governance is of recent origin and has
services to be given to the citizens and other clients)
become the buzzword in all developing countries. In
as well as of the interoperability needs. Domain
fact, it is the use of Information and Communication
specific standardization as well as methods and tools
Technology (ICT) for redesigning the traditional
may certainly help, but they will not unify the
mode of governance, through better coordination and
perspectives and the (professional) language of the
sharing of power among different components of
actors involved. The variety of perspectives and
government; thus taking care of the traditional
interpretations will even increase since Semantic
problems of governance. The lack of information and
Web technologies and the use of ontologies enable
communication infrastructure results in people
the treatment of informational resources on a far
having to waste time and money. Lack of clarity in
more fine grained level: now any bit of information
processes, and corruption and mismanagement in
or any knowledge object could be given an identity
systems and operations, is rampant. In this context,
and assigned attributes (metadata) allowing for more
Information and Communication Technologies
sophisticated applications and services also in e-
(ICTs) can play a significant role in making
government.
information available at a reasonable cost. ICTs
promise to provide innovative solutions to the
Therefore, the main challenge of applying Semantic
problems of poverty and inequality by accelerating
Web technologies for e-government services is how
development and introducing transparency into
to support corporate as well as cooperative
systems and operations. Thus from above discussions
information management (and partly even knowledge
we conclude that a long term and a short-term
management) taking into account the increased
strategy for e-Governance implementation is the need
granularity of informational resources and the
of the hour. For successful implementation
manifold semantic differences in dealing with those
Standards, Infrastructure, Legislations, Strategy all
resources. In the next section we examine a case of
needs to be in place. It also requires establishment of
developing a prototype for an ontology-driven e-
various institutions under the Ministry of Information
government application based on Semantic Web
Technology. It requires a Global Vision and local
technologies in order to learn more about how to
implementation. And above all it requires e-readiness
interrelate systems development with the tasks of
in the minds of citizens and the Government
information and knowledge management related to
employees. For e-Governance to make a tangible
the e-government service provision.
difference to the lives of the millions of un-served
and under-served in our country, the government has
A few of the promising advantages of using Semantic
to switch from a mindset of procurement where
Web Services in e-Governance are,
technology is seen as input to one where it is focused
• reduction of cost and risk on outcomes and services. Therefore, use of
• increase in flexibility technology in government has to be less about
• automated integration, reasoning and ordering PCs and servers but rather what one can do
mediation among heterogeneous data sources with them in terms of making government more
and processes available at distinct government efficient.
levels;
• discovery of new or previously unknown
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www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/reports/report3.pdf(18
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[6] http://www.egovindia.org/
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