Knowledge presentation model for e-service semantic

interoperability in Slovenian public administration

Domen Cukjati
Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana
domen.cukjati@fu.uni-lj.si

1 Purpose, goal and thesis

Main purpose of this PhD dissertation is to improve overview about data,
procedures, services and life-events in Slovenian public administration. This will be
achieved by unified description of data, procedures, services and life-events.
Furthermore, such description will enable e-service semantic interoperability and
active Slovenian governmental portal.

Final goal of this PhD dissertation is development of executable knowledge

presentation model of Slovenian public administration knowledge. Second part of the
goal is to examine the model on some cases of life-event modeling.

So, I will develop formal knowledge presentation model, which will be

conceptualization of the knowledge from the field of life events and Slovenian public
administration services. It will be constructed as ontology and implemented as
executable computer software.

Then I will examine the knowledge presentation model usability by construction of

some life-event models. I will compare life-event modeling by comparative analysis,
where two different techniques for modeling will be used. One of techniques will be
classic one, where information analytics have to analyze services from the beginning
and the second one will be proposed one, which will include also previously
developed knowledge presentation model.

Main dissertation thesis says that knowledge presentation model simplifies life-
event modeling. It will be examined through previously mentioned activities.

There are also some working theses, which support the main one:
• Public administration services and life events can be satisfactory described by
a final set of concepts and relations.
• Conceptual model can be constructed as ontology and implemented as
executable computer software.
• Implemented ontology simplifies life-events modeling.

Main dissertation contributions to the science are analysis and description of

possible accessions to knowledge presentation in the public administration field,
description of chosen or developed accession and finally, examination of developed
accession executability and usability. Contributions are in the knowledge

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presentation field, business process modeling field and in the field of information
communication technology usage in the public administration.

2 State-of-the-art, problem, solution

State-of-the-art: E-government development is going on for some time in the world
and also in Slovenia. Now it is at the stage, where government wants to offer as
many as possible services through the internet. But it turned out that the task is not
as simple as it looked at the beginning in spite of the fact that all needed components
are known and accessible. The topic is very interesting and important for
governments which can be seen from the number of R&D projects financed by the
EU or national budgets.

The research in the field resulted in initial development and implementations of

government portals based on the life-event and one-stop-government concepts. But
they are not very often used and it turned out that they do not offer life-event solving
from one point because they do not offer execution or even they do not identify all
services that are needed for life-event solving. Usually portals provide links to public
authorities that are responsible for individual services. For this reason life-event
oriented portals are nothing more than providers of information about public services.
Sometimes they indeed provide solving of life events, but in those cases life events
are simplified to cover most usual users and they do not cover all possible users and
their specific circumstances. This deficiency can lead to users’ frustration and
reluctance. Another disadvantage of nowadays portals is also the fact that they are
passive, because they offer only fixed hierarchy of public administration spheres of
activities and life events, which is not sufficient because many life-events belongs to
more spheres of activities. All these disadvantages lead to skepticism about
usefulness of such portals and users do not use them or even avoid them1.

Organizing services into life events helps the user at life-event identification.
Furthermore, implementation of active portal would enable services solving through
one point considering all user's circumstances. One of major requirements for this is
semantic interoperability of public administration e-services. Semantic operability is
reached by standardization of knowledge description techniques for describing
services, all specific cases within the services, for the service important documents
and data which are needed within the service execution.

Problem: In Slovenia there is no central repository for the knowledge about public
administration services, which leads to service analyses redundancy, public money
dissipation, data redundancy and inconsistency at least. This is because services are
anew analyzed every time informatization of new life event with belonging services is
taking place.

Solution: Central knowledge presentation model for the knowledge about public
administration services and life events would overcome previously mentioned

• 1
Prime Minister Tony Blair has never looked at DirectGov website, he admits.
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2432

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problems and result in many advantages. One of them is e-services semantic
interoperability which would enable one point life-event solving and second one is
reduction of development efforts and costs.

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3 Working progress
Life event
The term life-event refers to a set of public administration services that a citizen
needs at a certain point in his/her life or in situations such as marriage, child birth and
retirement. The hardest part of modeling a life-event is constructing its formal
description which would enable a straightforward identification of a citizen with a
specific life-event, determine which public administration services and processes are
necessary for its handling, as well as determine which additional life-events of a
citizen could influence its handling. Designing a formal life-event model is thus a
complicated process that requires a detailed knowledge of procedural implementation
of all the specific public administration services entailed by a life-event.

Typology of portals and life-event models

Different life-event models can provide different amount of e-service data and thus
they can enable different portal types. Life-event models from the first two levels on
the Figure 1 (identification and specification) can enable only passive portals.
Passive portals provide some text information about life events and public
administration services but are not able to tailor the set of services to user’s specific
circumstances and needs. They rather provide users with links to relevant legal acts
and/or FAQs. Life-event models from the second two levels (interactive and
transaction) on the other hand enable active portals. Active portals perform active
dialogue with users in order to identify their specific circumstances and needs and
actively guide users through the set of necessary public administration services.

Front office view

1 – identification level
life-
Passive
portal 2 – specification level
static list of services and

Active
conditions 3 – interactive level
portal
active guide through
services and documents
Back office view

4 – transaction level

Figure 1: Taxonomy of portals and life-event models (Source: Todorovski, 2006)

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Table 1: Marriage life event example
Passive portal
• Minors should browse through
documents and find out which
public authority should issue a
marriage permission,
• Foreign citizens should find out
the list of necessary information
and documents supporting the
marriage application themselves,
• Usually such information will end
up in a portal FAQ.
Active portal
• One (or both) of the partners is a
foreign citizen,
• One (or both) of the partners is a
minor,
• Parties are relatives,
• Parties with special needs (deaf
and dumb),
• or an arbitrary combinations
thereof.

identification specification level

level PUBLIC

issued by
AUTHORITY

provided
by

LIFE EVENT composed of / PUBLIC requires /

a part of related to DOCUMENT
(LE) SERVICE
circumstance-
circumstance-

dependent
dependent

CIRCUMSTANCE

interactive level

Figure 2: The relations between building blocks of life-event models at the first three
levels of abstractions. (Source: Todorovski, 2006)

4 References

• Todorovski L., Leben A., Kunstelj M., Cukjati D., Vintar M.: Methodology for
Building Models of Life Events for Active Portals. In Wimmer M. A. et all (Eds.):
Communication proceedings of 5th International Conference, EGOV 06, Springer-
Verlag 2006
• book: GOMEZ-PEREZ A., FERNANDEZ-LOPEZ M., CORCHO O. Ontological
Engineering with examples from the areas of Knowledge Management, e-
commerce and the Semantic Web.1st ed. 2004. 2nd printing, 2004, XII, 403 p.,
ISBN: 1-85233-551-3
• book: SOWA F. J.: Knowledge Representation: Logical, Philosophical and
Computational Foundations. Pacific Grove, California,Brooks/Cole, 2000, 594 str.
• BERČIČ B., VINTAR M.. Simple life-events ontology in SU(M)O-KIF. V
Proceedings of the Third International Conference EGOV 2004. LNCS 3035,
2002, Springer, str. 112-119.

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