eGovernment at W3C
improving access to government through better use of the Web

W3C launches today a new forum for governments, citizens, researchers, and other stakeholders to investigate how best to use Web technology for good governance and citizen participation. "Open Standards, and in particular Semantic Web Standards, can help lower the cost of government, make it easier for independent agencies to work together, and increase flexibility in the face of change," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. W3C invites participation in the new eGovernment Interest Group, which
is open to the public. The group will identify best practices and guidelines in this area, document where current technology does not adequately address stakeholder needs, and suggest improvements via the standards process. Read the W3C eGovernment FAQ and press release, and learn more about the W3C eGovernment Activity.

W3C Advisory Committee Representatives have just received a Proposal to create a new eGovernment Activity. This proposal includes a draft charter for the eGovernment Interest Group.

As part of ensuring that the community is aware of proposed work at W3C, this draft charter is public during the Advisory Committee review period. W3C invites public comments through 19 May 2008 on the proposed charter. Please send comments to public-new-work-comments@w3.org, which has a public archive.

Other than comments sent in formal responses by W3C Advisory Committee Representatives, W3C cannot guarantee a response to comments. If you work for a W3C Member, please coordinate your comments with your Advisory Committee Representative. For example, you may wish to make public comments via that list and have your Advisory Committee Representative refer to it from his or her formal review comments.

If you should have any questions or need further information, you can also contact me directly.

W3C invites WWW2008 conference attendees to discuss pressing Web issues at the W3C Track in Beijing, China, on 23-24 April. W3C track will present nearly 25 topics, including current eGovernment efforts at W3C at the Integrating the Web in Society session on 24 April. More details are available on the W3C Track page.

Position papers are due 20 April for the W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development on 2-3 June 2008 in São Paulo, Brazil. W3C thanks Workshop hosts NIC.br (Network Information Center), CGI.br Internet Steering Committee, and Institute CONIP. The goal of the Workshop is to understand specific challenges of using mobile phones and Web technologies to deliver services to underprivileged populations of Developing Countries. The Workshop scope includes: analysis of using mobile phones in development projects; strengths and weaknesses of SMS technology v. mobile Web v. voice technology; the challenges of integrating information and Communication Technologies in rural communities, challenges and opportunity of integrating mobile phones in eGovernment projects (mGovernment), and more. Read about W3C Workshops.

W3C has published a Workshop Report: eGovernment and the Web Workshop: "Toward More Transparent Government". Participants discussed ways to facilitate the deployment of Web standards across government sites and how to shape the ongoing research agenda in the development of Web technology and public policy in order to realize the potential of the Web for access to and use of government information. Held 18-19 June (press release), in Washington D.C., USA, the Workshop was jointly organized by W3C and WSRI.

The European Commission recently published the proceedings of the 4th EU Ministerial eGovernment Conference. As mentioned in the previous news item W3C keynoted at that event. The document provides an interesting summary of the event and highlights W3C participation as follows:

Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Director of W3C (not in attendance), stressed in his keynote address the importance of transparency and openness for the future of eGovernment. With reference to the latter, government departments are said to have an obligation to be open to others, including . Public sector openness also implies that standard formats should be adopted when publishing information on the web. This would help ease accessibility and use of data, thus the web can be a valuable tool, but only if there is quality of content. On the other hand, transparency is a delicate issue that could be ruined if misused; privacy is therefore essential and source data should ideally be traceable and trusted.

Jose Manuel Alonso, eGovernment Lead at W3C/CTIC, emphasised the importance of the Internet as the main delivery channel for service delivery; as a consequence, web technology has a crucial role to play in government and citizen (G2B) relationships. Current efforts are therefore being made to make the best use of technologies and keep eGovernment simple. Open web standards help foster innovation and competition, and increase citizen and market trust as a result of the transparency of the process. Data integration and interoperability, together with transparency and privacy, have been further tackled in the intervention. From basic interoperability through semantic interoperability, the more sophisticated level of data integration allows for mixed data coming from different sources. Nonetheless, transparency and privacy can be guaranteed only if data are used for the purpose for which they were collected. Citizens can trust government only if they feel that privacy and security are guaranteed.

We make available today the video keynote that Tim Berners-Lee recorded for the 4th EU Ministerial Conference that took place in Lisbon on 19-21 September 2007. The video length is 15 minutes and it's available in small size and large size. There are also available the video transcript and a set of accompanying slides that was used as a summary of the video content by José M. Alonso to complement the keynote.

The video is encoded is Ogg Theora format. If you have problems watching it, we have some help available. The conference organizers also made the video available at YouTube.

The World Bank, in partnership with other organizations, organized a Global Dialogue on mGovernment, an in-person and online event that took place in late November 2007. As part of their special coverage Stephane Boyera and José M. Alonso (W3C) were interviewed and shared their thoughts on eGovernment, Mobile Web and Developing Countries. The interview is available online.