How semantic technologies transform e-government domain

Abstract

Purpose – In e-government domain, an efficient semantic interoperability of services is a big challenge. In this context, semantic technologies play a fundamental role in numerous e-government programs. Indeed, these technologies enable enriching the public service description provided by different public administrations with additional semantic information, which allows automatic services processing and information exchange between involved members in comprehensive and interpretable manner, thus facilitating service integration and cooperation. The most frequently used technologies in this area are semantic web services (SWS) technology and ontology. Thus, for modelling efficiently public services, the authors have exploring, studying and analyzing some of e-government researches and projects that applied semantic technologies. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors address how semantic technologies transform the e-government domain through exploring and studying the use of SWS and ontology in numerous researches and projects applying these technologies in this area. Then, the authors have compared them through a set of criteria defined according to e-government requirements such as the SWS modelling approach for describing semantically public services, ontologies for representing governmental specific features (e.g. regulation and organizational structures) and developed portal for supporting user ' s perspectives. Based on this study, the authors have identified the appropriate standards, frameworks, and models for developing the framework. Findings – The authors have developed a framework for public services which enhances existing approaches with additional aspects. Thus, the approach comparing to other works improves the service ontology with a cognitive semantic approach to support the multiple usage contexts and situations of services. This semantic is developed in form of a Sit/Ctx ontology developed based on CSs model represented through conceptual graphs theory. The authors have used this model besides OWL-S, improving thus the level of automation of discovery and composition process of public services, which become more efficient with taken into consideration their interrelations and situations. Originality/value – The approach comparing to other works improves the service ontology with a cognitive semantic approach to support the multiple usage contexts and situations of public services, providing thus the end-users (people and enterprises) a better orientation in discovery process.

Exploring Semantic Interoperability in e-Government Interoperability Frameworks for intra-African collaboration: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Theochari s et al [40] They presented the results of an EU funded digital government project showing how semantic technologies are adding value by improving and revolutionizing digital government. Lamharha r et al [18] They compared five digital government semantic driven projects; OntoGov, TerreGov, DIP, SemanticGov and Access-eGov. They showed how ontologies and Semantic Web Services (SWS) play a fundamental role by enabling the exchange of information, business process and service modeling.…”

“…They are usually developed using formal languages, standards or notations. According to Lamharhar et al [18], representation of digital government, knowledge can be categorized into two groups: metadata and reference data models.…”

“…The fundamental concept of semantic interoperability is that the enhancement of the application processing, integration and performance is achievable through the rich descriptions of information and behavioral models to ensure the correct meaning of the exchanged information between ICT systems [40]. In a digital government context, semantic interoperability would ensure more efficient services because the ICT systems can communicate meaning with each other through a shared digital government knowledge base, a common model or reference standard [18]. It can, therefore, be argued that an unconscious creation of ICT systems in government entities, without consideration of semantic interoperability, creates deeper division and entrenches the silo effect in government.…”

Employing Ontology-Alignment and Locality-Sensitive Hashing to Improve Attribute Interoperability in Federated eID Systems

“…This feature enables information exchange in a human-readable and understandable manner [6]. Ontology-merging and ontology-alignment approaches are used to obtain a common knowledge representation among entities (e.g.…”

“…A semantic similarity measure is defined using UMLS 6 and WordNet 7 to provide a synonymy degree between two concepts in different ontologies, using their context.…”