4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Implementation strategies for the e-government standard framework are building a technologically superior framework, building support system for improvement of the standard framework and gradual application and promotion of the standard framework. The e-government standard framework has a following history of implementing several steps.
1) As a first step, MOSPA built a Technologically Superior Framework. 7 types of development framework used by local enterprises both large and small, were researched and analyzed; common standard development functions needed for software development were then defined. The functions that were defined were standardized to raise productivity of software development. Also, 219 common components (log in, bulletin board, user management, etc) were identified by analyzing development functions used in e-government services implemented from 2004 to 2007, in order to build a technologically superior development platform that is reusable and competitive in the market. Open source software was chosen for development and runtime environment for system implementation to prevent technology dependency on platform of a particular company. In order to verify quality (functionability, reliability, usability, etc.) of open source software to be used, software evaluation process mode l(ISO14598) and more practical software evaluation process (PECA) were used to comprehensively test and analyze globally used public software, and 45 types of open source software were selected.
The 45 types of open source software selected were continuously combined organically into the development and runtime environment for developing systems that would not be dependent on a particular platform of a company with proven reliability. As result of such efforts, a technologically superior e-government framework was born. (Refer to the enclosed implementation plan for detailed content of development)
2) The second stage was to build the Support System for Improving the Standard Framework. In order for the standard framework to become a success, services such as continuous function improvements, support for deployment and training were identified and decided to be provided through a dedicated full-time organization. To achieve this goal, the Standard Framework Center was established at the National Information Society Agency (NIA) and it offers R&D, technical support and free training courses on the framework. Moreover, standard specifications and source code for the e-government standard framework was released through the standard framework portal (www.egovframe.go.kr) to allow anyone to access and use it. The portal offers introduction to the e-government standard framework, technical manuals, Q&A, various training material and more. As part of the strategy to promote self-sustaining development of the standard framework, 「Standard Framework Open Community」 was established with voluntary participation from diverse outside developers. The open community was used to resolve issues arising from the use of the standard framework, share technical know-how and ultimately, added functional improvements and new functions to the framework.
3) The third stage was gradual Implementation of the Standard Framework and Promoting Implementation. The standard framework was applied to several projects in 2009 to verify its stability and identify success cases. During this process, in order to promote application of the framework in the private sector, large contractors of this pilot project were encouraged to apply the framework to their own projects. From 2010, application of the framework was expanded to new and follow-up projects from all public informatization projects. A guide for replacement and co-existence of the standard framework was distributed to promote stability in operating the framework. Together with gradual deployment, the Standard Framework Center responsible for promoting the framework provided support services such as consulting, technical support and verification, to organizations that wished to implement the framework. In order to train experienced developers, regular training courses were developed and offered free of charge to SME developers.
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5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The e-government standard framework has been developed over the past 6 years with the participation an array of stakeholders such as government agencies, research institutes, private IT companies, developers, and more. These stakeholders played pivotal roles in developing the e-Government Standard Framework into self-sustaining software in all the stages from planning, developing, support to dissemination.
1) Planning and Development :
MOSPA proposed and planned the standardization of development framework. During the planning process, internally, opinions were gathered from various agencies that implemented e-government services as reference and externally, outside opinion and advice were gathered through standardization associations. Also, MOSPA made use of 11 IT companies that possessed technical know-how on development framework to develop the standard framework for 6 years.
2) Dedicated Supports for the Standard Framework: Because the e-government standard framework contains diverse technologies for developing information system, it requires constant R&D as well as technical support and training. The Standard Framework Center was established in 2010 at NIA, Korea’s informatization specialized organization. The Standard Framework Center is composed of experts from NIA and developers that participated in developing the standard framework and conducts R&D on the framework. Also, based on expertise and R&D know-how, the Center provides technical support to government organizations using the standard framework and technical training to private IT developers that wish to learn about the framework.
3) Promotion and Dissemination: From its distributing in 2009, the Framework keeps improving every year through indirect efforts of stakeholders such as 9,000 developers from the open community. Having implemented the framework in diverse e-government services, it was possible to include software development functions demanded by users including government agencies, IT companies and developers. In addition, development functions demanded by government agencies with specialized administrative services such as defense, national tax and customs were also added.
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6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Through the will and leadership of MOSPA, the budget necessary for implementation and operation of the e-government standard framework was secured, and the base for support as well as private & public cooperative governance system for nationwide promotion was established.
1) MOSPA Secured funds through e-Government support projects run by the Government . The e-government standard framework started out as part of e-government support project in 2007 from the demand of its need by MOSPA. Beginning with Information Strategy Planning (ISP) in 2007, a total of 18.5 bil. KRW (1.7 million dollars) was spent over a period 6 years until completion. The MOSPA invests budget of 1 bil. KRW(943 thousand dollars) each year to maintain the framework and support its dissemination and implementation in developing countries. Normally, 15~18 bil. KRW(1.4~1.7 million dollars) is needed to develop such development framework in the private sector. Considering that private companies pay out 3~4 bil. KRW(2.8~3.8 million dollars) each year for maintenance, the Korean government is showing higher efficiency with lower budget.
2) Autonomous technology improvement supported sustainability based on Private & Public Cooperation and Securing Human Resource. Because of the demand for high level technology, this project started off with participation from 11 large•medium•small enterprises and cooperation by the government to secure all needed technical expertise in the development platform. Diverse development framework from the private sector and open software base development framework were benchmarked. In order to secure and foster experienced human resource, open community for standard framework was launched(Aug., 2010) and 18 private sector leaders in development are carrying out various activities; the community provides the venue for over 9,000 developers to freely interact and improve the functions of the standard framework.
3) Centralized Standard Framework Governance System was created. NIA established the Standard Framework Center in Oct. 2010 made up of 16 people, 8 from NIA and 8 from the private sector. The Center provides consulting, technical support, training and more, on development lifecycle (planning→implementation→operation) of information system. As result, it was possible to monitor and check implementation and operation progress of information systems based on the standard framework and provides the result as feedback for improvement, enabling continuous upgrade of the standard framework.
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7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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e-Government implementation and operation platform was built through private•public cooperation and information systems are being implemented nationwide based on identical development platform. The following are some our most successful outputs.
1) Single Open Standard Platform Promoted Nationwide to realize a whole of Government: Since its launch in 2009, 421 e-government systems (1.1 billion dollars in size) have been implemented and applied to 77.1% of government work services. Of these projects, 184 (556 million dollars) were for central government, 159 (466 million dollars) for public institutions, and 75 (93.9 million dollars) for local government. The framework has been designated and being used as common standard for development and operation for various information systems used by central government and other public institutions, not limited to specific system from certain agencies. In fact, this platform recorded over 300,000 downloads, the highest for local open source software; its use is beginning to spread to the private sector such as Uengine(commercial), Meritz Securities(financial), Lotte Home Shopping(retail), Hyundai AutoEver(automobile), etc. It can also be applied to foreign government systems; MOUs with various countries such Vietnam and Mexico have been concluded. Currently, it is being applied as implementation and operation platform for 11 informatization projects in 7 different countries. Recently in Mexico, this platform is being implemented nationwide and Standard Framework Center (http://egovframe.cinvestav.mx/) is in operation to transfer the Korean e-government standard framework for Mexican projects.
2) Strengthening Capacity and Raising Competitiveness of SMEs: From 2009, free training courses to SME developers are being provided; technical training for SME developers (completed by 2,498 developers) and framework dissemination seminars (participation by 6,169 persons) have strengthened capacity of SMEs. 7,663 developers from the private sector are strengthening their development capacity as well as exchanging technology and information through the open community. And redundant R&D cost is being reduced for informatization projects by over 150 SMEs. Based on cost reduction and strengthened capacity, from 419 e-government systems (1.1 billion dollars in size) implemented based on the standard framework, SMEs have won 75% of these projects, increasing their participation.
3) Fostering and Building Open Innovation Ecosystem by Autonomous Participation: Members of the open community is rising steeply every year, from 1,000 members in 2010 to 7,000 members in 2013. Technology and information are being shared, but more importantly, open innovation development model is establishing itself and will bring about autonomous development for function improvements.
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8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The Standard Framework Center is taking lead in gathering opinion from central•local government, public institutions and the private sector; all information gathered is evaluated and analyzed with result reflected back into projects. Also, to facilitate and promote expedient monitoring and evaluation, various activities have been incorporated into performance evaluation system for e-government support projects run by the government for more comprehensive management.
1) The Standard Framework Center performs comprehensive monitoring and evaluation. Because the standard framework is open source software that can be downloaded and used by anyone, its use and performance is not easy to measure on a nationwide scale. To effectively deal with this issue, the Standard Framework Center is operating the following system.
- Monitor and evaluate level of satisfaction of the people
- Carry out developer training satisfaction survey
- Provide performance feedback through best practice presentations and gather opinion
Through the standard framework portal, comprehensive satisfaction level of the general population is being surveyed; by analyzing this survey, exact needs and requirements of users are being identified to improve services. Also, surveys are being done after technical training provided to the main users of the framework, the developers; requirements demanded by actual users are being reflected into the framework. From 2011, NIA is holding presentation for best practice for applying standard framework to projects and sharing implementation strategies and study cases to everyone from the public sector, private enterprises and research institutions. Best practices shared with over 500 participants every year has alleviated anxiety over implementing the standard framework for reluctant organizations and shaped consensus for the need and effectiveness of the framework in strengthening competitiveness of SMEs. In fact, there has been much demand for continuous and stable support organization for diverse and systematic technical support and more training opportunities.
2) Our Government monitors and evaluates through e-Government Support Project Run. This project was planned and implemented as part of e-Government Support Project run by the government; as such, monitoring and evaluation are being performed through performance evaluation system of the e-Government Support Project. Four indicators from the standard framework, ①appropriateness of project management ②user satisfaction ③number of usage ④number of projects using the standard framework, are checked. Comprehensive monitoring and evaluation have been carried out since 2010 and performance has surpassed target objective every year.
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9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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To standardize the development framework, the main obstacles were to gain consensus and agreement between stakeholders such as government agencies, public institutions and IT enterprises was needed.
1) At the beginning, MOSPA faced difficulties in implementation from disagreement between Stakeholders. The diverse array of stakeholders with conflicting interests brought complications in implementing this project.
- Supplier group that develop e-government system
- User group that use e-government system
- Contractor of this project
- User group that use the result of this project
Large enterprises feared losing market monopoly and SMEs feared that the development framework would only benefit large enterprises and market would shrink for SMEs. For public institutions, there was concern over insufficient support for government sponsored standard framework since most open source software have no ownership causing difficulties in timely technical support and training. Client of this project, MOSPA, had doubts over impact and ROI of this project, while developers who would use this framework did not regard highly technical superiority and market competitiveness of this platform.
2) Open Innovation Strategy Implemented to overcome concerns of stakeholders. An open innovation strategy was prepared and systematically implemented in order to effectively overcome obstacles cause by various stakeholders. First, know-how was shared and project co-implemented by 11 large·medium·small enterprises, the direct stakeholders, thereby securing independence of technology. Second, by opening the multi-year development process to the outside and gathering opinion from over 500 stakeholders, concerns harbored by the market were resolved. Third, license of the framework was opened to all; free training and technology transfer was provided to SMEs. Lastly, open community and the Standard Framework Center were established so that enterprises could build an open ecosystem for sustained win-win partnership and cooperation.
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