Category Archives: Uncategorized

Survey on vocabulary and ontology tools

In the case for “The Brønnøysund Register Centre” we have written a survey on vocabulary and ontology tools, including a methodology for comparing tools.
The report Survey on vocabulary and ontology tools is free to download.
In developing this document we have received input from a plethora of experts and stakeholders in Norway, to give this report greater applicability than just to solve a problem in the case for the Register Centre.

The document also includes a methodology for evaluating and choosing tools for managing and working with vocabularies. We have tested this evaluation methodology to find tools that could meet our five use cases.

And based on the methodology in the document we ended up with 4 tools that we are adapting to meet our use cases, these tools will be demonstrated to the identified stake holders.

Evaluation of Vocabulary and ontology tools
The evaluation of the select tools could be found in the report on “Evaluering av klienter for semantic vokabular”, in Norwegian.

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Terminology lifecycle

There exists many documents and guidelines on terminology and concepts, both generally and specially. Semicolon have collated this documentation and tacit experiences from different departments into a holistic lifecycle process for concepts and terminology work.

The illustration below describes Semicolons suggestion for a lifecycle process for concepts and terms with associated main processes. The process is iterative, since the terms will be in constant flux illustrated in main process #4 (Change management). Public government are mainly the organisation maintaining concept systems on a daily basis, howevere the concept systems are ususally developed in projects. When major revision of the concept systemss are necessary these could be managed in separate projects.

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Figure – Concept system lifecycle

This is a short description of the different processess, a more complete description is in the report (only in Norwegian):

  1. Develop: Develop a representation of the concept systems. Validate and verify its relevance. Ask for stakeholder contributions. A government agency desides implementation of the concept system. The concept system is versioned and published.
  2. Implement: Plan for deployment and practical use. Deploy the concept system on technical-, organisationa- and usage-level, including training.
  3. Governance: Run the concept system on a technical level, maintain it on the organsiational level, realise the benefits.
  4. Change management: Identify changes, recommend changes, analyse and plan for the change. Consider the need to establish a separate project to make the change, or if the governing agency could manage. Implement the changes, govern the new concept systems.
  5. Quality assurance: The concept system must be quality assured during the whole lifecycle.

This process is extensively described by Vibeke Dalberg, Per Myrseth and Jim Yang in the document (in Norwegian): Lifecycle process for development and governance of concept systems, february 2011. Visio concept model.

This lifecycle process are used and evaluated by many of the practical cases in the Semicolon project that are related to concept definitions.

  • Paramedic chain
  • Corporate register
  • Accounting register
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E-collaboration between government entities

E-collaboration projects between government entities are often delayed, have budget overrun or fail to meet the promised benefits.

The half-hearted way of dealing with risks in complex interoperability efforts leaves agencies in a disadvantaged position in terms of realizing the full potential of eGovernment benefits.
The work to be presented is based on a set of eGov cases, technical pilots and methodology development during the past 5 years in the Norwegian public sector.

This image displays a V with Provider and Receiver at the top of each strand of the V. And as we move down the V we see Juridical, Organisational, Semantical communication between each strand before we reach the bottom where we find Technical.
Collaboration triangle.

The “eGov – risk and benefit guide” we have made contains e.g. a checklist combining practical risk management with benefits realization practice incorporating legal, organizational and semantic dimensions.
The contract template developed to handle legal risk has been applied in establishment of new eGov service implementations. The guide has been partially tested and is input to a long awaited public Norwegian best practice in the field of eGovernment interoperability.

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Semicolon II-project in brief

The main goal of the Semicolon II-project is to test and establish methods, tools and performance indicators that can be used as the basis for recommendations and standards for enhancing collaboration across the public sector in Norway.

Better collaboration will lead to relevant, future-oriented and cost-effective services to businesses and citizens.

The project will:

  1. Identify obstacles for collaboration and prescribe strategies and solutions to overcome these.
  2. Develop methods and tools for establishing efficient and effective collaboration, and identify performance indicators to measure the effect of the collaboration.
  3. Use the above-mentioned methods and tools in example projects in the public sector organisations, and measure the effects by means of the performance indicators.
  4. Disseminate results and experiences to the public sector, the ICT-industry and the academia.
  5. Establish an arena for collaboration between public sector organisations, competent businesses and research organisations.

The work will be performed in example projects and address a wide range of topic areas such as organisational issues, semantic issues, legal issues, collaboration platforms etc.

The project partners are presented here.

 

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