Research Areas
eGovernment, Semantic Interoperability, XML Schemas Management
Contact
Today, articulating semantic interoperability in e-Government
remains in question as long as the international standardization
efforts do not reach a consensus on how to semantically annotate
and exchange data formally depicted in ontologies, but merely focus
on the syntactic aspects by publishing sets of XML Schemas.
As one-stop governmental services at national and cross-county
level become an imperative (i.e. due to EU Services Directive
2006/123/EC, i2010 and national strategies), the need for
standardized data definitions, codification of existing
unstructured information and a framework for semantically-enriched
governmental data management and evolution in a unified way
emerges.
In this context, the main objective of the EXELIXIS
Prototype is to enable mutual understanding and instant
exchange of information between governmental entities, which have
never collaborated directly before, through providing policies,
practices and standards on electronic document modelling and rule
formalization and by exploiting state-of-the-art data and rules
management methodologies. Semantic interoperability is viewed under
the prism of standardized components whose complete lifecycle, i.e.
creation, storage, reusability in aggregate data models,
harmonization (from specific country to generic), transformation in
various syntax-dependent formats, evolution and disposal, is
managed with the help of typically defined rules. Based on the
principles of the Model-Driven Architecture, it promotes
syntax-independent data and rules models, but also embraces
syntax-dependent models in XSD, SBVR and JSON. Light-weight
semantic annotations of data models with ontologies, theusauri and
codelists, as well as validation algorithms that check certain
fields, are incorporated in the data models.
In this end, the objectives of this demonstrator are:
- To model, link and standardize data components (CCs, BIEs) and
their supplementary information (QDTs, UDTs, CLs) at a
syntax-independent level
- To design XML Schemas for the standardized data components
- To semantically search for existing data components in the
greek and english language
- To control integrity and validate consistency of standardized
components with the help of business rules
- To graphically depict the relationships between the
components
Business Case
In the area of e-Government, semantic interoperability has to
phase a multi-faceted problem: the number of existing documents
that take part in the service provision from administrations
towards citizens and businesses is usually at the level of several
hundred, the owners of those documents may be different
organizations (ministries, prefectures and municipalities, public
sector organizations) and there is a lack of common fields
standardization and adherence to common definitions, due to the
still non-electronic nature of many public sector services.
Moreover, when services are being made electronic, usually the
existing, diverse documents and forms are just transferred to an
electronic format, resulting into non-interoperable - hence
electronic - artefacts, while when an electronically exchanged
document is somehow re-engineered, its version changes without any
consideration on how the changes can be propagated in a concise
way.
Furthermore, current National Interoperability Frameworks
(NIF's) have issued semantic interoperability assets (i.e. XML
Schemas, Ontologies, Code Lists) or guidelines for their design as
a first step towards semantic interoperability. However, as such
Schema Libraries are populated with more and more XML Schemas, the
need for designing a Semantically-enriched Governmental Data
Management and Evolution Registry that will incorporate advanced
modelling, validating and evolution capabilities comes into the
foreground and will be addressed by the EXELIXIS Prototype.
Interoperability features
From the various types of interoperability, the semantic aspect
is a particularly vexing problem that has arisen due to a
disagreement about the meaning, interpretation, or intended use of
the same or related data. Following the trend that the cornerstone
of government information exchanges is a common understanding of
semantics at a syntax-independent level, the EXELIXIS Prototype
constitutes a demonstrator in the area of semantic
interoperability. It is an easily deployable toolkit based on
state-of-the art standards and open source tools. In this respect,
its functionality is mainly available in a Web interface, yet its
source code can be also provided upon request for educational or
research (non-commercial) purposes.
Language
English
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