NSF PR 99-33 - April 29, 1999
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Information Technologies Promise to Make Government
More Efficient and Responsive
Enormous and wide-ranging research
challenges remain
The "digital revolution" has equipped New York City
police officers with access to precinct-by-precinct
information on crime. Advanced technologies allow
the state of Texas to use "neural nets" to detect
patterns of potential fraud in Medicaid data. The
Internal Revenue Service's "e-file" and "Telefile"
permit taxpayers to file returns electronically, using
only a telephone or a modem.
The potential for information technologies to make
governments at all levels more efficient and more
responsive to citizens already has been demonstrated.
But enormous research challenges in a host of fields
-- from telecommunications to political science -
must still be met if the lessons of small-scale "digital
government" projects are to be more widely applied,
according to a new report funded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF), titled "Some Assembly Required:
Building a Digital Government for the 21st Century."
"We can already see the transformational potential
of digital communications and other advanced technologies
in relatively rare government applications,' said
Sharon S. Dawes, director of the Center for Technology
in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany, State
University of New York and the report's lead author.
She added that "advanced computing and communications
make programs like these technically feasible, but
alone they are insufficient for achieving the kinds
of services that the public demands and deserves."
Lawrence E. Brandt, who oversees the new Digital Government
Program in NSF's Computer and Information Sciences
and Engineering (CISE) directorate, said the report
provides a perspective on the kinds of research that
will need to be carried out to harness digital technologies
to serve the complex web of federal, state and local
government agencies, public-private partnerships,
and private-sector companies that serve citizens.
The report reflects the advice of dozens of researchers
in the fields of information, social, behavioral,
and computer science who attended a CTG workshop last
fall. "This was an interesting mix of consumers and
creators of these technologies," Brandt noted. The
diversity of disciplines reflects the complex nature
of the problems that will have to be overcome to make
government databases operate together to be useful
to a broad range of users, which is only one challenge
of creating an effective "digital government." Such
undertakings require expertise in fields as different
as the mathematics of database management and the
psychology computerinterface design.
As part of its Information Technology for the 21st
Century (IT2) Initiative, the Clinton Administration
has asked Congress to allow NSF to spend $146 million
in fiscal 2000 to conduct fundamental technology research.
Some fraction of that money would be spent on multidisciplinary
research in areas such as digital government. The
six major recommendations contained in the report,
Brandt said, will help NSF to devise criteria for
judging which proposals have high research merit and
are most likely to help improve the efficiency and
responsiveness of governments from local city halls
to Washington D.C.
For more information, see: http://www.ctg.albany.edu
and http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1999/nsf99103/nsf99103.txt
Attachment: List of participants
of the organizing committee that produced the report
List of the report's recommendations
Attachment
Recommendations of "Some Assembly Required: Building
a Digital Government"
The report urges NSF to:
- support research at all levels of government
and between the public and private sectors;
- investigate issues of governance and democratic
processes in the digital age;
- develop methods that address service integration
and environmental complexity;
- seek innovative funding models for Digital Government
initiatives;
- link research and practice to unite academic
and government innovations projects;
- include government program managers in the research
selection process through a practitioner advisory
group and roles on review panels.
Organizing Committee for "Some Assembly Required:
Building a Digital Government"
Sharon S. Dawes, committee chair
Director, Center for Technology in Government
University at Albany, SUNY
Phone: (518) 442-3892 Fax: (518) 442-3886
E-mail: sdawes@ctg.albany.edu
Tora Bikson, senior scientist
Rand Corporation, Behavioral Sciences Department
Phone: (310) 393-0411 x 7227 Fax: (310)393-4818
E-mail: tora@rand.org
Peter A. Bloniarz, research director
Center for Technology in Government
University at Albany, SUNY
Phone: (518) 442-3892 Fax: 518)442-3886
E-mail: pbloniarz@ctg.albany. edu
Lawrence Brandt, program manager for digital
government
National Science Foundation
Division of Advanced Scientific Computing
Phone: (703) 306-1981 Fax: (703) 306-0589
E-mail: lbrandt@nsf.gov
Angela Coppola
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
Phone: (703) 281-8015
E-mail: angela@ucia.gov
Patricia D. Fletcher
Department of Information Systems
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Phone: (410) 455-3154 Fax: (410) 455-1073
E-mail: fletcher@research.umbc. edu
Robert E. Greeves, principal
The Council for Excellence in Government
Phone: (703) 938-3150 Fax: (703) 938-9126
E-mail: greeves@tmn.com
John L. King
Dept. Information & Computer Science
University of California at Irvine
Phone: (714) 856-6388 Fax: (714) 856-4056
E-mail: king@ics.uci.edu
Timothy Loewenstein, chair
Board of Supervisors Buffalo County, Nebraska
Chair, NACO Telecom Subcommittee
Phone: (308) 865-4736 Fax: (308) 233-0000
E-mail: tstein@kearney.net
Jerry Mechling, program director
Strategic Computing & Telecommunications
JFK School of Government Harvard University
Phone: (617) 495-3036 Fax: (617) 496-1722
E-mail: jerry_mechling)fs)ksg@ksg.harvard.edu
Alvin Pesachowitz, chief information officer
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Phone: (202) 260-4600 Fax: (202) 260-0835
E-mail: pesachowitz.al@epamail.epa.gov
Carolyn Purcell, executive director
Texas Department of Information Resources
Phone: (512) 475-4720 Fax: (512) 475-4759
E-mail: carolyn.purcell@dir.state.tx.us
James Ruda
Local government advocate
Dudley, Mass.
Phone: (508) 943-0111 Fax: (508) 949-7626
E-mail: jruda@aol.com
Jerry Sheehan, education and outreach coordinator
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Phone: (217) 244-6012 Fax: (217) 244-1987
E-mail: jsheehan@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Greg Woods, deputy director
National Partnership for Reinventing Government
Phone: (202) 632-0150, x 121 Fax: (202) 632-0390
E-mail: greg.woods@npr.gov
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