The Democratic Information Architecture: Government as Nexus

Angela NewellDissertation Defense

LBJ School of Public AffairsThe University of Texas at Austin

May 19, 2011

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Architecture of Defense• Basic Constructs• The Motivation for Mapping• Key Questions• Democratic Innovation (In theory)• Laying Down the Law: The Legal Structure of New

Technology• Of Starfish and Spiders: The Architecture of

Interaction• Ideas That Scale: The New Technology Value

Construct• The Nexus

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Information Government

Information government (i-government) deals largely with

understanding the flows of information within, to, and from

government.

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E-government to I-government

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• E-Government– Transactional– One-way information

flow– Business

management– Government defined– Command and

Control– Proprietary– G2C, C2G, C2C

• I-Government– Collaborative– Multi-path

information flow– Knowledge

management– User defined– Networks– Open standards– We

E-Government vs. I-Government

I-Government Tools

• Wikis: Congresspedia, Intellopedia, and Diplopedia

• Open Data

• Data Programming Interfaces

• Ideation Tools

• Multimedia Interfaces

• Blogs

• Social Networking

• Second Life Government World

• Data Mirrors6

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The Motivation for Mapping

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Key Questions

• Are we shifting from e-government to i-government? If so, what is the nature of that shift?

• What is the return on investment, if any, in shifting form e-government to i-government?

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Democratic Innovation

• Systems versus Structure• Command and Control (Weber)• Technology Enactment (Fountain)• From E-government to I-government– Transaction to Interaction– Collaborative Democracy– New Partners– Government as Convener

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Refining the Lens

• E-government to I-government– Legal Infrastructure– Architecture

• Value Construct– Information Quality– Customer Service– The Value Conversation

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Laying Down the LawE-government I-government

E-government Act of 2002 Open Government Directive 2009

The President and Congress Obama

The business of government Transparency, participation, collaboration

MANAGEMENT REFORM Management reform

Silos New Partners

Participation Collaboration

New Technology New technologies

Efficiency, effectiveness Innovation

Strategery

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The Technologies

• Transaction– Enterprise Architecture

• Interaction– Transparency– Participation– Collaboration

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The Enterprise

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Transparency

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Participation

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Collaboration

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The Law Laid Down

• Legal structures for e-government and i-government differ significantly– Implementation– Evaluation– Budget

• Champion required• Sustainability

• Two new concepts– Collaborative democracy– Government as platform for innovation

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Of Starfish and Spiders

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Decoding the Map• Blue: for links (the A coding tag) to external web pages• Red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD coding tags) that allow for

inputs• Green: for the DIV coding tag that separates major pages

within a web site• Violet: for image (the IMG coding tag) pages within a website• Yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and

OPTION coding tags)• Orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and

BLOCKQUOTE coding tags)• Black: the HTML tag, the root node• Gray: all other coding tags

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Transaction

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Mapping Transaction

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Interaction

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Mapping Interaction

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Architectural Differences

• Clear architectural differences exist between transactional and interactive systems – Larger– More linking activity– More spread out– More varied nodes and pages

• New Architectural Problems– Small worlds– Collapsing links

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Ideas that Scale

• An assessment of information quality

• A quantitative evaluation of the customer service value as related to use of interactive Internet technologies

• A content analysis of the value conversation

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Ideas that Scale: Information Quality

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IdeaScale

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Difference in Difference Model

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Ideas that Scale

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The Value Conversation

Agencies identify new technology as: 1) Cost reduction mechanism2) Genitor of increased participation3) Mechanism for time reduction in completing tasks4) Promoter of collaboration, or 5) Instrument in agency value creation and

perpetuation

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Primary Beneficiary of New Technology Products

1) The public2) Partner agencies3) Project participants4) Themselves

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Value Construct???

• Information is evaluated for quality, but the meaning is unclear– Usability– Data trails

• Ideas do scale, customer service value does exist

• There is a value conversation, but no consistent value or audience for value

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Key Question Insights

• Legally different and distinct• Architecturally different and distinct• No discernable value construct, but some

discernable value• Open data• Collaborative democracy• Government as innovation platform

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The Nexus

Government Backbone

Rib OrganizationsConnective

Entities

Government Backbone

Rib OrganizationsConnective

Entities

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Policy Vision

To develop new information and knowledge management practices within government

To develop new governance practices

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Policy Recommendations• Government as knowledge broker

• De-couple open government and new technology

• Bi-lateral support with new legislation

• Develop value constructs

• Develop outreach and culling practices

• Develop new vocabulary around organizational structure, role as knowledge broker and convener

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Literature Contributions

•The idea of an emerging organizational form

•A comprehensive assessment of open government and the technologies associated with open government

•Data, data, data

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The Path Forward

• Interactive Communities• Open Data• International Comparison• Value Construct