RE: [egov] Future of eGov TC

["Peter F Brown" <peter@pensive.eu>]

Jamie:
I would concur with your suggestion: formally speaking, would you propose to ballot the TC or simply have the BoD endorse the proposal?

In addition, it might be worth examining the feasibility of OASIS and/or sufficiently motivated OASIS members to look at a "communities of interest" type model for the future "eGov interest area" - As an example (and I'm sure other TC members have similar experiences), I follow with interest the (US-based but international) Ontolog Forum: although I'm not able to participate on a regular basis, they a community portal and wiki and regular dial-in and Skype-in conference calls with an invited speaker presenting some issue of interest and lively threads of discussion.

In Europe, a group of us are starting just such an idea but there is absolutely no reason to limit this geographically and - for a wiki at least - ensure that there are public as well as member-only areas for sharing stuff in and about the eGov space...

Regards,

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: James Bryce Clark [mailto:jamie.clark@oasis-open.org] 
Sent: 12 December 2006 18:24
To: Peter F Brown; egov@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: patrick.gannon@oasis-open.org; carol.cosgrove-sacks@oasis-open.org; pim.vandereijk@oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [egov] Future of eGov TC

   Thanks, Peter, for the pointer to that interesting work.
   We are aware of a few other governments doing similar information models, with an eye to sharing and distributed resources.  We will encourage them to cross-post links here.
   Of course, the portal model always is attractive to would-be portal owners ... but seems often to fail, perhaps because the control model is less attractive to others in a multi-stakeholder system.  As in commerce, so in government.
   Personally, I also very much like your organic model of standards
projects:  work being fueled and legitimated by use cases rather than 'synthetic' tasks. Peter, this e-Gov group appears to be a useful nexus for information sharing, and has persistent interest. 
However, it does not seem well served by the short-term, project-management orientation of TC rules.  Our best advice is that e-Gov should be reconstituted as an interest group "section", with its own mailing list and elective membership, but in a status that need not carry additional costs, licensing obligations or deliverable-driven mandates.  As you say, a "Technical Committee" 
always can be formed for IPR reasons if a specific work project organically requires it.  But it seems to me that what we have here is more of a virtuous conversation, and we should treat it accordingly.
    I first mentioned this a few weeks ago and received a few, but generally positive, responses.  If there is no objection, I suggest that we proceed.  Other reactions?  Kind regards  Jamie

~ James Bryce Clark
~ Director of Standards Development, OASIS ~ jamie.clark@oasis-open.org

Peter F Brown wrote:
> Dear all: I had interesting discussions with both Patrick Gannon and 
> Carol Cosgrove-Sacks of OASIS at the Adoption Forum in London the 
> other week. In the course of our talks, the issue of the future of the 
> eGov TC arose once again. I expressed my view that the TC will only 
> work on the basis of organic rather than synthetic developments: in 
> other words: if we attempt to create a piece of work for the sake of 
> demonstrating the usefulness of the committee - say "let's build an 
> eGov upper-level ontology" then I believe we are less likely to 
> succeed than if we identify a current gap in eGov work that the TC 
> might be able to fill and then see what that translates into in terms 
> of practical work.
> 
> In an attempt to do just that, I would like to put to the TC a very 
> first sketch of some work that I started on within the Austrian 
> government and then with the European standards agency, CEN (whose 
> 'eGov Focus Group' I nominally chair) but which hasn't got off the 
> ground * * * the initiative was entitled "eGovernment Resources 
> Network" and attempted to build a model with which public agencies 
> could develop resources sharing capabilities * * * An introduction to 
> the issue can be found at
> www.pensive.eu/uid/0101 and a draft discussion paper at 
> www.pensive.eu/uid/0079.
> 
> These issues have aroused a lot of interest within the European Union 
> but the European Commission has tended to want to protect and extend 
> current initiatives in this space but which tend towards, what I would 
> consider a somewhat dated "give me all your stuff and we'll publish it 
> through a portal" model rather than the "keep your own stuff but make 
> it available in a federated environment" model * * *  Would there be 
> interest in discussing this further and taking these and other 
> recommendations through the TC? * * *