Special Issue on “One-Stop Government”, Fall 2007

Special Issue on “One-Stop Government”, Fall 2007

In the context of Public Administration reforms that are taking place in many countries, the notion of one-stop government is becoming increasingly important. One-stop government suggests that citizens and businesses can access integrated public services that match their exact needs and circumstances with minimum interaction through their preferred channels. One-stop government also suggests that the customer is able to access atomic or integrated public services through a single point even if these services are actually provided by different departments or authorities. In practice however this integration of public services faces a number of challenges, including political, legal, cultural, organisational, semantic and technical ones.

This special issue aims to focus on the wider interdisciplinary character of e-government and especially one-stop government and to report relevant research and experiences from operational case studies.

More specifically, original unpublished research articles and case studies are sought covering various disciplines pertinent to one-stop government and relevant cross-domain research. The focus of the special issue shall be on research papers, case studies, experience reports and impact/efficiency assessments based on operational findings from one-stop government implementations with considerable impact and learning potential.

Subject Coverage

1. Research papers on one-stop government

   Contributions are sought on a set of themes that include, but are not exclusively limited to, the following topics:

   • Cultural, social and political issues of one-stop government
   • Organisational and legal issues of one-stop government
   • Semantic and technical aspects of one-stop government
   • Life-event and business episode modeling in one-stop government
   • G2G one-stop government strategy and implementation
   • Methodologies for one-stop government implementation
   • Impact of one-stop government on efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency
   • Reengineering government administration processes via one-stop government
   • One-stop government in regional/local governments
   • Knowledge management in the public sector for creating one-stop services
   • Management of one-stop government implementations
   • Adoption of the one-stop paradigm in e-democracy and e-participation implementations
2. Operational, one-stop government cases with considerable impact. For each case, the following information should be provided:
   • Description of case
   • Problem addressed and solution achieved
   • Policy context and strategy
   • One-stop government aspects of the solution
   • Evaluation of effectiveness and impact assessment
   • Results and lessons learnt

Notes for Intending Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

All papers are refereed through a double blind process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the IJEG Submission of Papers web-page.

All papers must be submitted online through the IJEG On-line Submissions System. If you experience any problems submitting your paper online, please contact submissions@inderscience.com, describing the exact problem you experience. Please include in your email the title of the Journal.

Important Dates

Deadline for paper submission: June 30, 2007
Notification of acceptance / rejection: September 10, 2007
Final (camera-ready) papers submission: October 20, 2007

The special issue will be published in Fall 2007.

IJEG Editor-in-Chief

Prof. Panagiotis Georgiadis
University of Athens, E-Government Laboratory

IJEG Executive Editor

Prof. Dimitris Gouscos
University of Athens, Department of Communication and Media Studies

Guest Editors

Dr. Efthimios Tambouris
Informatics and Telematics Institute, Centre of Research and Technology Hellas (ITI-CERTH), Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: tambouris@uom.gr

Prof. Konstantinos Tarabanis
University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: kat@uom.gr

http://www.inderscience.com/ijeg

IT: Parliament to switch to GNU/Linux and Open Office

The IT department of the Italian Parliament this Wednesday presented plans for the migration of all of its two hundred servers and more than 3500 desktop PCs to GNU/Linux and Open Office. The switch will be carried out gradually, starting this September and will take about two years.

The move is estimated by some to save about three million euro per year.

The Parliament had earlier this year voted in favour of a proposal to use only open source software. The plan was submitted by Pietro Folena MP for the Italian Communist Party.

The Italian parliament (Camera dei deputati) will be using Novell Suse Linux for both desktops and servers. It currently uses Windows on the desktop and runs Novell Netware on many of its servers. "Our experience with Novell should make the migration relatively simple", comments Folena.

The adoption of an open source system will help to save three million euro each year, the Italian daily 'La Repubblica' writes, citing another Member of the Italian Parliament. According to the newspaper, the total licence costs of a PC are 900 euro a year.

Folena could not confirm these numbers. He does expect the switch to GNU/Linux will make PCs some 90 per cheaper per year and foresees even bigger savings for the servers. "These savings are important, but the primary motive for this decision is to gain freedom. Freedom from a single technology, freedom from a single software owner and a single contractor, freedom to develop our own applications and freedom from viruses."

The migration of the Italian parliament makes it the second and also the largest in Europe. The French parliament last year decided to move 1145 PCs, including those used by the 577 French MPs, over to GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu, starting this summer.

Folena: "This migration will be a very important case study and will present us with best practises, relevant for all public offices."

Library

The 630 Italian MPs may decide for themselves to also run GNU/Linux on their laptops. These are not included in the plans presented Wednesday, explains Folena, as these laptops are private property.

As part of the plan, the public library of the parliament will offer its visitors several Open Source desktop PCs for use.

© European Communities 2007
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
The views expressed are not an official position of the European Commission.
Disclaimer

Further information:

• Pietri Folena's blog
• News item (in Italian)
  

Latest open source news
Open source news - July 2007
Open source news - Italy
Open source news - Deployments and Migrations

The University of Colorado - Leeds Business School

Dual Degree Options
MBA/MS Telecommunications

To support the University’s mission of advancing knowledge across disciplines, and in recognition that business education and training has relevance to many academic fields, the Leeds School of Business and the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program endorse a dual degree program in which both a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Telecommunications awarded those students who satisfy the requirements outlined below. An MBA degree in combination with the MS degree in Telecommunications will provide you with a set of business tools to complement your technology skills and expand your career options. The dual MBA/MS offers you the opportunity to earn both degrees together in less time than if the degrees were earned sequentially.

Description of Curriculum
A student who enrolls first in the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program will take only telecom courses during his or her first year. During the second year, that student will enroll full-time at the Leeds School of Business and take only MBA courses. Dual degree students will take electives from both programs during the final
year of the program.

Required telecommunications courses:
• TLEN 5310 Telecommunication Systems and TLEN 5330 Data Communications 1.
• TLEN 5010 Telecommunications Finance 1.
• A total of 12 credit hours of technology courses (including 5310 and 5330).
• A total of 6 credit hours of economics or business courses (including 5010).
• At least 3 credit hours of policy and law courses.
• At least 3 credit hours of programming courses unless waived by advisor (typically waived for expert
programmers).
• At least two credit hours of TLEN 5600 Telecommunications Seminar.
• Either TLEN 5700 Capstone Seminar 1 and TLEN 5832 Capstone Seminar 2 or a research methods
course (typically TLEN 5700 Capstone Seminar 1) and TLEN 6950 Master's Thesis.
• For an update list of courses see http://itp.colorado.edu/DegreesCertificates/MSrequirements.htm.

Required MBA first-year curriculum: (30 credits)
• Quantitative Methods
• Organizational Behavior
• Managerial Economics I and II
• Marketing Management
• Corporate Finance
• Financial Accounting
• Business and Society
• Operations Management
• Professional Skills
• Two business or telecom electives Remaining MBA requirements to be taken during the 2nd and/or 3rd years:
1)Career Development
2)Corporate Strategy
3)Business electives to complete a total of 43 MBA hours
If a dual degree student starts his or her first year in the business school, the above two steps are reversed.

Graduation Requirements
1. Dual degree students in telecom will be required to complete 43 hours of MBA coursework and 36 hours (thesis vs. capstone) of telecom coursework for a total of 79 hours of coursework.
2. Both degrees must be awarded simultaneously.
3. Dual degree students must maintain the academic and ethical standards required of both schools. Students in good standing in one school, but not the other, may be allowed to continue in the school in which they are in good standing.
4. Students who do not complete the dual degree program requirements (i.e., who withdraw for any reason from one of the two programs) will be required to meet the full requirements of the remaining program in which they are enrolled.

For more information contact:
Megan Marquez
Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program
itp@colorado.edu
(303) 492-8475
Anne Sandoe
Director of MBA Programs
Leeds School of Business
anne.sandoe@colorado.edu
(303) 492-1832
MBA Admissions Process

Students must apply to and meet the application requirements for each program separately. Dual degree students may start either program first; however, in the first year of the dual degree program, courses are taken in one of the two units exclusively, and in the second year, courses are taken in the other unit exclusively.

Please note: If you are already enrolled in the graduate program in Telecommunications and plan to apply for this dual degree opportunity, you will need to start your preparations during your first year of graduate study.
• Prepare for and take the GMAT, which is required for admission to the MBA program
• Complete the on-line application at http://leeds.colorado.edu/mba. This will include:
o Responses to several essay questions
o A professional resume
• Submit three professional (not academic) recommendations. These may be submitted as part of the on-line application process or may be sent to us directly in sealed envelopes signed across the seal by the recommender.

[source:The University of Colorado - Leeds Business School]