National Interoperability Framework Observatory

Acronym of the case:

NIFO

Web address of the case:

http://www.epractice.eu/cases/nifo

Country of the case:

Albania , Austria , Belgium , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , Cyprus , Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , FYR of Macedonia , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Iceland , Ireland , Italy , Latvia , Liechtenstein , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , Montenegro , Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Serbia , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , Turkey , United Kingdom

City/region:

European

Posting Date:

11 June 2010

Last Edited Date:

29 June 2010

Author:

Aldo Laudi

interoperability | national interoperability framework | NIFO

Type of initiative

Project or service

Case Abstract

The objective of the National Interoperability Frameworks Observatory (NIFO) is to provide an observatory of nationalÂ interoperability frameworks (i.e. government interoperability frameworks)Â based on an analytical model allowing a comparison of different aspects of these frameworks. This tool will enhance experience and knowledge sharing in this area, improve the awareness of NIF and speed up NIF development in Europe.

The creation of the NIFO is an accompanying activity to two other important IDABC projects: development of the European Interoperability Framework v2.0 and revision of the Architecture Guidelines. The combined overall goal of these three activities is to identify, support and promote the development and establishment of European public services and the underlying interoperable telematic networks. These IDABC projects also contribute to supporting the Member States and the Community in the implementation, within their respective area of competence, of Community policies and activities, achieving substantial benefits for public administrations, business and citizens.

In practice, the NIFO will be an online tool for observing and comparing a number of aspects of interoperability frameworks such as governance structures, web services repositories or message semantics etc.

The scope of national interoperability frameworks is within the jurisdictions for which they are developed. However, within the Single European Market national administrations must be ready to work together, over the boundaries of individual countries, to cater for public services delivered to the European citizens and businesses.

Therefore, it is important that the national interoperability frameworks are aligned in addressing various aspects of achieving interoperability. Furthermore, the second version of the European Interoperability FrameworkÂ will take into account the national interoperability frameworks and related activities that today either already exist in the Member States or are being prepared. This requires a commonly agreed approach for delivering enhanced public value via interoperable electronic public services.

The NIFO is a project that completes the picture of other IDABC programme activities aiming at identifying, supporting and promoting the development and establishment of European public services and the underlying interoperable telematic networks. These activities also contribute to supporting the Member States and the Community in the implementation, within their respective area of competence, of Community policies and activities, achieving substantial benefits for public administrations, business and citizens.

The NIFO project aims at setting up the National Interoperability Frameworks Observatory in 2009 and has these objectives:

To carry out a comparative analysis, not a benchmark, of the national interoperability frameworks (NIFs) based on an analytical model and methodology in order to gain a structural snapshot of the various NIFs,

To propose a set of recommendations tackling the possible incompatibilities of NIFs in order to avoid proliferation of potential barriers to interoperability;

To raise awareness about NIFs by setting up the NIFO and presenting them in the NIFO in order to help further development of the NIFs.

Description of the case

Domain

eGovernment

Topic

Interoperability

Sector

Social Services

Start date - End date

May 2008 (Ongoing)

Date operational

June 2010

Target Users

Administrative

Target Users Description

National Experts - in the Member States that are tasked with the development of their National Interoperability Framework. NIFO provides guidance for their work and concrete examples for the further development of their NIF. Specific interoperability materials that can be used as an (best-practice) example and re-used in the local context.

National Policy Officials - in the Member State that are tasked to develop policies on the area of e-Government and interoperability. NIFO acts as an input to decision processes in national developments and national policy officials may require an objective overview of the European situation and the position of their member state in the spectrum of development of the NIFs.

European Commission - policy-makers that require insight in the current state of the NIF into the various countries in order to develop European wide policies. As a consequence of the mission of the ISA program, the European Commission needs an overview of the status of the developments in the European countries.

Non-European Public Administrations - Many administrations or governmental institutions in global perspective are interested in the development of interoperability. Specifically the appropriate offices in the USA and Australia may have the requirement to continuously track on the status of other public administrations.

ICT Industry - organisations that are involved in the realization of e-Government
solutions like Service Integrators and software vendors. Driven by long lead times of solutions, commercial enterprises may have the requirement to have insight into the status of NIF developments across Europe.

Scope

Cross-border | National | Pan-European

Status

Operation

Language(s)

English

Policy Context and Legal Framework

The National Interoperability Framework Observatory is an action within the ISA work Programme of the European Commission. It is one of the actions within the programme aimed to improve electronic cooperation among public administrations in EU Member States. Â This programme - known as ISA for "Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations"- takes a very practical approach in supporting administrations across Europe to communicate more easily. It capitalizes on the experience gained since 1999 with the two previous programmes IDA II (Interchange of Data between Administrations)Â and IDABC (Interoperable Delivery of pan-European eGovernment services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens). ISA will run from 2010 to 2015 with a financial envelope of 164 million euros. Â Commission Vice President Siim Kallas, responsible for administrative affairs, audit and anti-fraud, said: "Citizens and businesses rightly expect efficient public service across Europe and that administrations are able to communicate with other government departments throughout Europe Â easily and swiftly. The new ISA programme gives a boost to our long-standing efforts to create a European Union free from electronic barriers at national borders".

ISA will facilitate electronic cross-border and cross-sector interaction between European public administrations, enabling the Â delivery of electronic public services and ensuring the availability of common Â solutions. Agreement on how public administrations should work together is at the heart of the programme and its priorities will be based on a European interoperability strategy, currently being developed by the Commission with the support of Member State administrations.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

Awareness-raising information

Overall Implementation approach

Public administration

Technology choice

Not applicable/not available

Funding source

Public funding EU

Project size

Implementation: Not applicable/not available

Implementation and Management Approach

This initiative is run by the European Commission as a service to EU public Adminsitrations.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

The subject of this project was to carry out a comparative analysis (not a benchmark) of the National Interoperability Frameworks (NIF)based on an analytical model and methodology in order to gain a structural snapshot of the various NIFs.

The main results of this project include:

Detailed analysis of 14 countries using the NIFO Analytical Model;
High-levelanalysis of 20 countries;
New version of Analytical Model that is now populated with 14 countries in total;
Discussion and analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, leading to interesting and valuable conclusions and recommendations;

NIFO is recognised as the aggregated information source for national interoperability - In addition to awareness, NIFOshould be recognized as the prime information source regarding national interoperability. In other words, it should be obvious for targeted stakeholders, if they need specific information in the NIF context, they know where to find the information and recognize the NIFO as an important information- and best practices source. In order to create momentum and continuity, the added value of the NIFO should be clear for all targeted stakeholders. Foreseen benefits (e.g. insight, information sharing, best practices) should be communicated clearly.

NIFO is recognized to stimulate consistency and interoperability between the European public administrations - It is considered important that the national interoperability frameworks are not deviating between each other in addressing various aspects of achieving interoperability. A deviation can result in interoperability difficulties on a European-level in general. For these reasons, interaction and discussion (communication) between national experts is an important driver for maturity and growth of interoperability. Communicating that national interoperability frameworks should be aligned as much as possible with the European Interoperability Framework, is therefore an important communication goal.

Track record of sharing

This action is all about the sharing of information about the NationalÂ Interoperability Initiaves between EU public Administrations.Â

Lessons learnt

The activities linked up with the NIFO objectives have been carried out in two stages:

Stage 1:conception, modeling and demonstration
Stage 2:data collection, data analysis and finalization.

This iterative approach has been chosen from the onset to the first focus on developing a comparative model and applying it to a limited number of countries. This was covered in Stage 1 of the NIFO project, which was executed successfully from December 2008 to April 2009.

Multiple expert group sessions have resulted in a well-structured yet pragmatic Analytical Model that has formed the basis for Stage 2. The focus of Stage 2 of the NIFO has been on covering the remaining countries in scope and analyzing them with the Analytical Model. Stage 2 has been carried out from October 2009 to January 2010.

In this study, 14 countries that have a published NIF have been analysed in detail using the NIFO Analytical Model. The remaining 20 countries have been analysed at a higher level, resulting in a fact sheet per country. The key conclusions after comparative analysis, for each of the three perspectives in the Analytical Model, are:

1) Perspective Context & Principles

Significant progress on interoperability can only be achieved by taking all contextual factors into account;
Communication and creating awareness is a key factor in order to create momentum;
Measurement of interoperability effectiveness is needed in order to demonstrate the added value

2) PerspectiveInteroperability

Mandating interoperability with a legislative framework is difficult but effective;
Organisational interoperability is covered only rarely. Countries tend to emphasize semantic and technical levels of interoperability, which actually are only enablers for organisational interoperability.

3) PerspectiveServicesSupport

Well defined,transparent lifecycle management of the NIF and the creation of a community around the NIF are critical success factors for full NIF maturity and adoption.

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