IMPROVING ACCESS TO THE INFORMATION AND SERVICES OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS
A REPORT BY THE WORKING GROUP ON GOVERNMENT INFORMATION NAVIGATION. JULY 1997
Foreword
Executive Summary
Recommendations
1. Introduction
2. Background
3. Browse Services
4. Search Services
5. Messaging Services
6. Transaction Services
7. Other Issues
The Working Group on Government Information Navigation was one of a series of Commonwealth/State groups which were convened to examine and report on issues affecting electronic service delivery by Australian federal, state and local governments.
The members of the Working Group were:
Warwick Cathro, National Library of Australia (convenor)
Barry Borham, New South Wales Dept. of Public Works and Services
Ted Budas, South Australian Dept. of Information Technology Services
Adrian Cunningham, National Library of Australia
Jeremy Gregson, Australian Government Publishing Service
Ben Healy, Dept. of Industry, Science and Tourism
Renato Iannella, Distributed Systems Technology Centre
Barbara Laffan, Queensland Dept. of the Premier and Cabinet
Julie Murphy, Commonwealth Services Delivery Agency
Carole Palmer, Office of Government Information Technology
Phillip Steven, Dept. of Industry, Science and Tourism
Catriona Vigor, Dept. of Workplace Relations and Small Business
Terry Wright, Multimedia Victoria
The report was considered by the Electronic Services Delivery Reference Group at its meeting in Brisbane on 31 July 1997.
Australian governments are using online technologies to re-engineer and improve their delivery of information and transaction services. As the delivery of these services to business and the community occurs at all three levels of government, there is a need establish a collaborative and cross-jurisdictional framework for such services.
The Online Council has endorsed a client oriented 'single window' approach to electronic service delivery using the Internet as a primary vehicle. The Electronic Services Delivery Reference Group of the Government Technology and Telecommunications Conference (GTTC) formed the Working Group on Government Information Navigation to make recommendations for the development of this approach.
The key measures proposed by the Group include:
· establishment and development of a high quality Australian Governments' Entry Point;
· examination of mechanisms to maximise the cross-jurisdictional integration of online government transaction services;
· improvement of messaging facilities by all Commonwealth, State and local government agencies; and
· definition and implementation of common standards for online information and transaction services.
The proposed Australian Governments' Entry Point would support improved browse and search access to government information through a variety of approaches, including structure-of-government, subject and client group approaches. Full realisation of these improvements will occur if government agencies implement supporting practices such as the use of standard metadata for description of their information resources, use of standard protocols for the creation and maintenance of their in-house directories, and establishment of facilities to receive and promptly respond to correspondence by electronic mail.
The delivery and improvement of government services through online technologies involves more than information services. It also includes the transaction of business with governments such as the submission of taxation returns, small business registrations, payments of fines, licence applications, registrations of patents and trade marks, and Electoral Office variations.
Because citizens and businesses need to interact with more than one jurisdiction to satisfy their service needs, it would be of great benefit if online services were interoperable across jurisdictions. It is recommended that the Working Group on Government Information Navigation should monitor and foster the development of standards and best practices in this field, and to ensure their integrated adoption and implementation across governments.
In the past few years there have been very rapid developments in online information and service provision through digital telecommunications networks such as the Internet. Australian governments are responding to these changes by re-engineering and improving the delivery of information and transaction services. As the delivery of these services to business and the community occurs at all three levels of government, there is a need to undertake these improvements in a collaborative way. We need to establish a cross-jurisdictional framework for government electronic services which minimises duplication of effort and which maximises the quality of customer services.
At its meeting on 7 March, the Online Council endorsed a client oriented 'single window' approach to electronic service delivery using the Internet as a primary vehicle for the provision of information and services. The Electronic Services Delivery Reference Group of the Government Technology and Telecommunications Conference (GTTC) formed a Working Group on Government Information Navigation to make recommendations for the development of this approach. This report and its recommendations represent the results of the initial deliberations of this Group.
This report proposes some key measures to improve the framework for access to the online information and transaction services of Australia's governments. The key measures are:
· establishment and development of a high quality Entry Point for access to information held by all Australian Governments;
· examination of mechanisms to maximise the cross-jurisdictional integration of online government transaction services;
· improvement of messaging facilities by all Commonwealth, State and local government agencies; and
· definition and implementation of common standards for online information and transaction services.
Much progress has been made by individual Australian governments in the online provision of government information over the World Wide Web. Many agencies at all three levels of government have created Web sites, and steps have been taken to provide online entry points for government information in particular jurisdictions. Entry points now exist for the Commonwealth Government, each State Government, and for local governments in the form of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) web site. These entry points generally provide cross-agency access to information produced within particular jurisdictions by means of browsable displays and in some cases through search facilities.
While these developments represent a useful advance in the provision of Australian government information to Australian residents and to interested foreigners, there is considerable room for improvement in online government information facilities. In the Commonwealth sphere, for instance, the recently finalised report of the Information Management Steering Committee (IMSC) has made a variety of recommendations aimed at improving the management of and access to Commonwealth government information. These recommendations have been based on the principles of visibility, accessibility and interoperability.
In this context, visibility implies that agencies have a responsibility to actively make their information resources known. Accessibility implies that this information can easily be discovered by appropriate users and the community. Interoperability implies that government information can be readily transferred, subject to privacy considerations, between government agencies and to the community through a variety of interfaces.
Once government information has been made available in electronic form by agencies, one way of further improving visibility and accessibility is through the establishment of a single Web access point to all Australian government information - local, State and Commonwealth. The National Library currently maintains a provisional version of such a site at http://www.nla.gov.au/oz/gov/.
The existence of such an Entry Point will:
· relieve agencies of the burden of maintaining pointers to other Australian government sites;
· support information needs which relate to more than one jurisdiction;
· given appropriate search facilities, allow members of the public to search for information and services across jurisdictions;
· allow people who are relatively unfamiliar with the complex Australian federal system to locate the information or services that they require; and
· allow overseas-based clients to receive a holistic picture of Australian government information and services.
Such an Entry Point will have no content of its own apart from pointers to information held at other sites.
On 24 March 1997, the Prime Minister launched the More Time for Business package. This package includes establishment of a comprehensive National Business Information Service which will provide business licensing and regulatory information across all three levels of government, including relevant information for small business, such as employer obligations and taxation guides, from a single entry point by June 1998. A budget of $21.8 million has been allocated to this project over four years from 1997-98. A Taskforce has also been established to advise Government later this year on the business case and implementation strategy for this Single Entry Point for business. The development of an Australian Governments' Entry Point would need to draw on the work of this Taskforce.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Services framework
The cross-jurisdictional framework for government electronic services involves the following four service areas:
· browse services;
· search services;
· messaging services; and
· transaction services.
Browse services allow people to access information by selecting pointers from lists which are grouped in an ordered way. Examples are: an alphabetic list of government agencies, a list of state or local government entry points, and a list of new information arranged by date. Information navigation facilities which may be provided through browse services include those set out below.
3.1 About the Australian system of government
This facility would point to information about the Australian federal system of government, Australia's Constitutions, Parliaments and the Westminster system in general, Cabinets and Ministries and the electoral systems of the various jurisdictions.
3.2 Hierarchical view of the Australian government system
This facility would point to hierarchical views of individual governments maintained at individual jurisdictional Web entry points. For example, somebody who selects the pointer for Victoria would be taken straight to the Victorian government entry point. All state and territory governments have now established their own entry points. However, many local governments are yet to establish Web sites. To allow navigation between the various government sites, it is desirable that all individual government entry points and agency web sites provide links from their pages back to the Australian Governments' Entry Point.
3.3 'Subject' Entry Points
This option would maintain pointers to government sites based on broad subject headings such as agriculture, business, education, environment, health, law, tourism, etc. Invoking individual options would then take the user to progressively more specific subject options and thence to the information sources themselves. There will also be many cases where 'pre-packaged' high-level entry points combining information and links from many agencies and some or all jurisdictions will be desirable. There are a number of subject entry points which already do this, such as Education Network Australia (EdNA), Australian National Geoscience Information System (@ngis) and Environmental Resources Information Network (ERIN).
3.4 Client Group Entry Points
Closely related to and overlapping with the above is a client group or "community of interest" approach. This approach allows clients in particular categories to select appropriate online information or service pathways. Some examples of client groups include private industry, new and small businesses, investors, visitors to Australia, researchers, government, and community organisations. The Canadian Intergov Web site provides a useful model for the provision of client group entry points. In the field of business there exist useful models in the form of the US Business Adviser and the Canadian Strategis business services. In Australia the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism is developing a Commonwealth Government Single Entry Point for business which will offer a single online process to handle business registration, licensing and reporting requirements in addition to providing a comprehensive business information service.
A related approach to providing information and services to individuals is through the development of 'Life Event' sites. These sites provide information and support transactions which are needed when (for example) moving house, having a child, starting a business, and getting a divorce. This approach is discussed in more detail under Transaction Services in section 6.
3.5 Alphabetical list of agency and service names
This facility would give users access either to individual agency web sites or, in the absence of such sites, basic information on the operations and functions of individual agencies. This would be a cross-government list which would assist members of the public who know the name of a particular agency, but who do not know the jurisdiction in which the agency operates. It is assumed that all state and territory entry points will have their own alphabetic lists.
3.6 What's Hot and What's New
The What's Hot facility would give access to information resources in current demand because of their topical interest, such as the Northern Territory Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, or the High Court Wik judgment. The What's New option would give access to significant information resources made available during (say) the last month. Because the identification of topical and significant information will require awareness and judgment, it would be virtually impossible to generate these lists automatically.
Search services allow people to access information by entering keywords or phrases which can be matched by a search engine against indexes built by harvesting information resources. These indexes may cover all web sites, or be limited to a single site or group of sites.
4.1 Current popular search engines
Most current popular search engines rely on the harvesting of text words from the HTML pages of World Wide Web sites. Whilst allowing a considerable amount of relevant information to be discovered, these search engines can have unsatisfactory results for a number of reasons:
· relevant information can be missed because sites contain types of resource in addition to HTML text (e.g. images, databases, PDF documents);
· the search engines do not harvest every page on a site, but often only the top two or three hierarchical levels, thus missing significant documents which, on larger and more complex sites, may be located in lower levels of the hierarchy;
· search engines, especially the more comprehensive ones, may index sites on an infrequent basis and may therefore not contain the most current data; and
· irrelevant information can be retrieved because the search engine has no means (or very few means) of distinguishing between important and incidental words in the document text.
Although it is possible with some of these search engines (e.g. Alta Vista, Anzwers) to limit searching to a particular domain such as "gov.au" and thus retrieve only Australian Government information, such a search is likely to miss relevant information. Continuing dependence on these search engines for the discovery of Australian government information is not therefore recommended. To ensure the retrieval of all relevant information and to limit the amount of irrelevant information retrieved, two approaches are recommended:
· the development of a "whole of government" search capability, and
· the use of metadata for the indexing of government information.
4.2 Whole of government search capability
Some of the shortcomings listed above, and in particular those related to currency and comprehensiveness, can be addressed by establishing a search capability for Australian government sites.
The Information Management Steering Committee established a Technical Group in early 1996 to examine the issues associated with search access to government sites. In July 1996 this group issued a report entitled Architecture for access to government information (http://www.adfa.oz.au/DOD/imsc/imsctg/imsctg1a.htm.
A key issue dealt with in the Technical Group report was that of search architectures. Essentially the choice is between a single central search engine which harvests the metadata and/or text words from all of the sites in the domain, or a distributed architecture in which the search engine at the Entry Point operates in cooperation with search engines at the local sites. The Technical Group report commended the distributed approach, but it is recognised that this model may have to be implemented over the medium term, with a central search engine providing an appropriate model for the short term.
4.3 Use of metadata
Another major issue discussed in the Technical Group report was that of metadata standards. The use of metadata has been proposed as a means of improving the precision of searching for Internet resources by explicitly encoding the fact that certain words are key subject terms, the name of the author, and so on.. In addition, metadata can be used to describe resources other than HTML text, thus enabling them to be retrieved by a search.
In the case of HTML pages, the metadata can be embedded within the document (using the HTML META tag) but a more satisfactory and flexible approach is for each agency to create its own metadata repository or database, linked to its various web resources. This data may then be either searched in a distributed system or gathered for merging into a central database for searching.
During the last year, considerable progress has been made with the development of the 'Dublin Core' metadata element set (). This standard is being promoted as a generic metadata standard for use by libraries, archives, government and other publishers of online information. At present, the standard is a set of semantic elements to describe basic document like objects. The standards for the syntax of Dublin Core metadata are still under development and therefore subject to change, as new syntax standards are being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Nevertheless, it is recommended that the Dublin Core be adopted as the base standard for the creation of metadata by government agencies.
Because of the basic nature of the Dublin Core element set, many creators of metadata will require extensions beyond the Dublin Core element set to support searching on specialised data elements, or will wish to use their own specialised sets (e.g. ANZLIC for geospatial data). In these cases, agencies should register the extensions, or provide support for mapping their own sets to Dublin Core.
In addition to Dublin Core, the IMSC Technical Group commended the use, particularly for the description of entire sets of government online resources, of a metadata attribute set based on the United States Government Information Locator (GILS) Core Element Set, and to be called "AUSGILS". The Australian Archives is to convene an AUSGILS Group to review guidelines and promulgate procedures for this attribute set. The GILS Core elements are compatible with Dublin Core and mapping work across the standards has been undertaken by the US government.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Search facilities which may be provided through an Australian Governments' Entry Point include those set out below.
4.4 General search of Australian Government sites
This option would provide a search facility using a standard search engine which would search across the content of the linked web sites for individual Australian governments. It would be desirable for this option to include the facility for limiting a general search to particular jurisdictions, for example Victoria and Commonwealth where a user in Victoria requires information but does not know whether the information would be provided by the State or Commonwealth Government.
4.5 Subject/Function search
This option would direct people to the most appropriate government agency sites which deal with the broad subject or function entered in the search.
At the Commonwealth level, function-based Web access is being developed by the Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) through its online GOLD (Government Online) Directory. In the near future AGPS intends to strengthen the functions searching capabilities of GOLD by incorporating the Australian Archives functions thesaurus and the formal descriptions of agency functions as maintained by the Australian Archives in its RINSE database. The AUSGILS metadata standard, referred to above, would improve functional searching since it should incorporate the application of standard descriptor terms for subjects and functions.
In other jurisdictions there has been uneven progress in establishing functional descriptions. Use of the X.500/LDAP protocols in the mounting and maintenance of functional directories and other directories on individual government web sites and access points, would facilitate cross-site functional searching.
Improved retrieval will also be obtained if there is greater commonality of terminology. It may be feasible for governments and agencies to agree on a cooperatively maintained core set of terms which are then augmented by individual agencies for their own purposes. The Australian Archives has made some progress towards this objective with its government functions thesaurus.
RECOMMENDATION
4.6 Contact names and details
It would be useful for each individual government access point and agency web site to maintain online staff directories using the X.500/LDAP protocols. The Australian Governments' Entry Point site could then provide a search facility across all of these directories. This would provide members of the public with access to the contact details of government officials.
4.7 Recent press releases
It is becoming standard practice for individual government access points and agency web sites to provide access to recent press releases. The Australian Governments' Entry Point site could provide a search facility based on the titles, full text or descriptive metadata for all such press releases, regardless of source agency or jurisdiction.
4.8 Legislation
This search option would provide access to the Acts of all jurisdictions and would also link users to the agencies responsible for the administration of those Acts. Ideally there should also be links from this option to the subject/function option outlined above, in so far as many government agency functions are defined in relevant legislative instruments.
It should be noted here that the AustLII service of the Australian Legal Information Institute (http://www.austlii.edu.au/primary.html) and the SCALE Plus service of the Attorney General's Department already provide online access to Australian legislation from most jurisdictions.
The last five years have seen significant changes in the channels used for messaging services. The preferences of the general public, private and public sector employees, students and other groups are shifting towards the use of electronic mail as a more convenient channel of communication than traditional correspondence or the telephone. Further changes may occur in the medium term future as online services increasingly include audio and video support.
The major issue here for government agencies is not one of web site design, but the arrangement of organisational support for dealing with messages and enquiries. Agencies should review their communication channels and develop strategies for their future development. For example, the provision of 'real time' online assistance is an emerging trend which will need to be monitored and considered by service agencies.
5.1 Email for enquiries and further information
Many people within Australia and overseas already wish to communicate with government, including members of the Parliaments, through electronic mail. At present, the majority of agencies and Parliaments do not provide an email address for electronic enquiries and other correspondence from clients. The contact services of the Australian Governments' Entry Point (see section 4.6 above) should direct the public to such an address. At the very least, agencies should have a single email contact address which can be used to print enquiries and direct them into the existing channels for traditional correspondence. Agencies should be no less responsive in dealing with electronic mail enquiries than they are with traditional forms of correspondence.
RECOMMENDATION
5.2 Email comments and feedback on the Entry Point site
This is a standard option which encourages feedback on the usefulness of the web site itself and which encourages suggestions for improving the site from its clients.
The delivery and improvement of government services through online technologies is a matter which goes well beyond information services. Having obtained information about government services, members of the public, business and other stakeholders will frequently wish to transact business with government. Examples of online transaction services are taxation returns and payments, small business registrations, payments of fines, licence applications, registrations of patents and trade marks, and Electoral Office variations. Such transaction services may be a logical extension of an information search, the search leading to a form which may be filled out and submitted. A transaction may also be related to particular 'life event' (setting up a business, getting a divorce, travelling overseas, etc).
The development of online government transaction services is in its infancy. There is an absence of recognised technical standards (except for certain security standards such as PKAF) including standards for online data capture, privacy protection and the design of electronic forms and public interfaces. In addition, further developments can be expected in areas such as greater use of expert technology to guide clients through transaction procedures and form completion. An example of this form of technology is the Family Decision Support System, an interactive system being developed by the Commonwealth Services Delivery Agency.
Notable advances in the field of electronic transaction services are being made by the Victorian Government under its 'Victoria 21' strategy. This initiative aims to provide citizens and businesses with 24 hours a day, seven days a week online access to government services by the end of 1997. Another interesting initiative is the 'Austouch' electronic transaction service being developed by the A.C.T. Government. The Single Entry Point project of the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Technology is a major government initiative aimed at providing online transaction services for businesses. It is likely that other jurisdictions and other Commonwealth agencies will rapidly develop similar services.
Because citizens and businesses sometimes need to interact with more than one jurisdiction to satisfy their service needs (for example when a person moves interstate), it would be of great benefit if online services were standardised and interoperable across jurisdictions. Such standards should be open and non-proprietary. It would therefore be useful if all agencies shared information about the standards and methods being used in these projects. For example, it would be useful if the Victorian Government were to keep other governments informed of progress on its Electronic Service Delivery Project, including progress on the development and application of technical and design standards.
Given that transaction services are in the early stages of development, there would be value in maintaining an intergovernmental working group to share information and experience, to monitor and foster the cooperative development of standards and best practices in this field, and to ensure their integrated adoption and implementation across governments. This group, which could take the form of a continuation of the Working Group on Government Information Navigation, could conduct most of its business using email and teleconference and would probably only need to meet face-to-face once every three or four months.
In the future, it should be possible to conduct transaction facilities regardless of where clients may enter the system. For example, if a client logs onto the Web site of a Queensland government agency, but actually needs to conduct transactions through more than one jurisdiction or agency in order to achieve his ends, it should be possible to serve all of the client's needs without him even having to know that he is dealing with a complex bureaucracy 'behind the screen'. The overriding objective is to utilise the potential of integrated electronic service delivery to simplify and improve the process of interacting with government.
RECOMMENDATION
7.1 Other service delivery mechanisms
The framework outlined in this paper is based on the assumption that most electronic service delivery by the government sector will utilise the Internet. There are, however, other electronic service delivery mechanisms that governments may wish to utilise. Examples include multimedia touch phones and interactive audiovisual communications facilities such as IVR (Interactive Voice Response). It is envisaged that in the future it will be necessary to expand the electronic service delivery framework to incorporate these other mechanisms.
7.2 Public/private sector boundaries
In practice it will be difficult and probably undesirable to limit the operation of the proposed integrated framework solely to the public sector. For example privatised government businesses may well need to be incorporated into the framework. While some blurred boundaries are inevitable, there is also a need for a common sense approach to managing the framework in order to ensure that it is kept within manageable proportions.
7.3 Special needs
In delivering online access to government information and services it is important to serve special needs that exist within the community. These include the need for the multilingual provision of information and services and the need to provide services to the sight impaired and people with other disabilities. Government Web sites should endeavour to conform to the AUS Accessibility Standards for Web Design as endorsed by the Anti-Discrimination Board and the Equal Opportunity Tribunal (http://www.agd.nsw.gov.au/ standards.html). In the Commonwealth sphere, the Department of Health and Family Services is acting as a lead agency in monitoring technological developments in this area and in producing guides for agencies on how to improve access by people with disabilities.
RECOMMENDATION
7.4 Active dissemination of information
The provision of information through a web site is essentially a passive activity. Users are required to take the initiative and visit the site. There are, however, technologies such as Marimba Castanet (http://www.marimba.com/) which facilitate the active dissemination or 'pushing' of government information to members of the public who wish to subscribe to select categories of new information, eg media releases for journalists. These facilities need to be considered in any holistic consideration of the automated provision of government information.
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