CH: New eGovernment standards

Date: 24 July 2007
Country: Switzerland
Topic: Policy and Strategy, Infrastructure and Interoperability

Two new Swiss eGovernment standards emphasize user-friendliness: eCH-0049 is a topic catalogue for eGovernment portals, while eCH-0014 contains updated technical guidelines for eGovernment applications.

The standards were approved by the experts’ committee of the Swiss eGovernment standards agency eCH after a public hearing.

The topic catalogue structures eGovernment services on offer for the two main target groups, private citizens and business, on the basis of their needs. The aim is to enable them to locate a particular service without having any prior knowledge of how competences are distributed across and within the various public bodies involved.

SAGA.ch V4-0 (eCH-0014) lays down the basic formats and protocols for the electronic exchange of information and the electronic conduct of transactions between public authorities themselves, as well as between authorities and citizens, enterprises and organisations. The standards aim to provide a stable, reliable basic architecture for Swiss eGovernment solutions. SAGA.ch recommends them for use both with Open Document Format (ODF) and Office Open XML.

SAGA.ch (Standards Architectures for eGovernment Applications in Switzerland) is eCH’s basic technical standards guideline. It draws on international standards that have proved their worth in the marketplace. The Swiss federal authorities and a number of cantons have made compliance with SAGA.ch compulsory for public tendering.

Further information:

• eCH
  

© European Communities 2007

eTRUST: e-democracy technologies and the problem of public trust

April 2007 - April 2009

• Anne-Marie Oostveen, OII
• Steve Ward, OII

Many governments have seen a decline in trust in the past decades. One of the dominant governmental strategies to restore public trust is to adopt modern ICTs to strengthen the relationship between government and citizens. The aim of e-democracy tools is to give people more choice about how they can participate and to give them the feeling that their input makes a real difference, eventually resulting in more trust in government. But does this governmental strategy really work? This project focuses on the question 'Does e-democracy increase trust in government, and, if so, under what conditions?'

The current search for technological solutions to the problem of distrust in government seems to be paradoxical because, to increase public trust and confidence, governments will be relying on information and communication systems that themselves require a high level of trust. Information technology is poorly understood by many people, which may reduce their trust in the technology, as well as in governments that use ICTs. Socio-economic variations amongst citizens in terms of age, gender, income, education, geographic location and other characteristics are also expected to influence their level of trust in ICTs. A second question will therefore be examined: 'How does trust or distrust in e-democracy technologies influence the use of these technologies and tools?'

In order to answer the questions, two local and two national e-democracy initiatives will be selected (two in England, two in the Netherlands). These case studies will examine the role of awareness of governments' performance and of distance to government, as these are the behavioural variables following from the theory. Furthermore, there will be an investigation of the contextual factors that influence the use of e-democracy technologies, and the changes in trust in technology and in government. The case studies include interviewing and observations, and two surveys will be conducted among participants (one in the beginning, and one at the end) to allow generalization of the findings.

This research project is financed by a two-year post-doctoral Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship to Anne-Marie Oostveen (funded by the European Commission under its 6th Framework Programme).

[source: Oxford Internet Institute-University of Oxford]

Oxford Internet Institute - Report

The Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, has today released the OxIS Report 2007, the latest report in a series of Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS) that cover the changing landscape of Internet access, use and attitudes in Britain.

Download Report (pdf 6.3mb):
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/oxis/OxIS2007_Report.pdf

OxIS website:
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oxis/

Press release (pdf):
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news/releases/OIIRelease_20070724.pdf

Sponsors:
OxIS benefits from active sponsoring and support from the British Library, Cisco, HEFCE, Ofcom and Talisma.

Oxford Internet Institute
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