Towards an e-Government semantic interoperability assessment framework

Interoperability is considered a key enabler for integrated public service provisioning. Moreover, a lot of experts claim that interoperability is a prerequisite for the reengineering of the organizational procedures in order to improve service provisioning to citizens and businesses. In order to improve eGovernment interoperability we have first to assess it. In this environment, assessing interoperability of eGovernment information systems and public organisations is becoming increasingly important. Interoperability is a multilateral issue that incorporate technical, semantic, managerial, social, economic and legal aspects. According to the European Interoperability Framework interoperability domain can be analysed to four layers, namely technical, semantic, organisational and legal. In this paper we focus on semantic interoperability. Our research objectives are twofold: (a) to identify key factors of semantic interoperability (b) to identify benefits of and challenges for promoting semantic interoperability. Frameworks and models developed by the European Commission to promote semantic interoperability across the EU member states, or even beyond them, are used as benchmarks.