| On CAMSS | On Process | On Business Need Criteria | On Standardisation Criteria | On Market Criteria |
1. On CAMSS 1.0b0
10 September 2009
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Editor:
IDABC / Directorate-General Informatics / European Commission
Contributors:
Members of the CAMSS expert group. See acknowledgements.
© European Communities, 2009. Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. Printed in Belgium
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. This copyright applies to the CAMSS Vocabulary Specification and accompanying documentation in PDF.
Abstract
This documentation describes the CAMSS, Common Assessment Method for Standards and Specifications.
Status of This Document
CAMSS has been evolving gradually since its creation in 2007. This is work in progress and the document will be subject to change. New terms may be added at any time, and consequently this specification is an evolving work. The extent of change is communicated by the change of version. A change in the first number notifies a major semantic change, in the second number a minor semantic change, the character is a for alpha and b for beta and finally the last number is just a syntactic change, Major Semantic.Minor Semantic (a|b) Syntactic.
This CAMSS documentation is produced as part of the CAMSS project, to provide authoritative documentation of the contents, status and purpose. The author welcomes comments on this document, preferably via e-mail to per-olav.gramstad@ec.europa.eu. Further work is also needed on the explanatory text in this document and on the CAMSS website; progress towards this will be measured in the version number of future revisions to the CAMSS documentation.
Context
The CAMSS – Common Assessment Method for Standards and Specifications - project is an initiative of the European Communities' IDABC programme (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens), implemented by the European Commission. Taking advantage of the opportunities offered by Information and Communication Technology, IDABC encourages and supports the delivery of cross-border European Public Services, as well as enhances collaboration between European public administrations. For the CAMSS project, the European Commission collaborates closely with the European Union Member States.
While public administrations have specific characteristics at the political, legal, and organisational levels, semantic and technical interoperability is based mostly on formalised specifications [see footnote].
Within the context of the elaboration of their National Interoperability Frameworks, Member States are currently organising the assessment of formal specifications, in order to establish their National recommendations. Deciding which formal specifications to recommend often calls for a resource intensive and time consuming assessment.
Therefore, CAMSS aims to improve awareness, knowledge sharing and transparency, around the assessment of formal specifications in eGovernment, contributing also to the efficiency of European government organisations thanks to the re-use of analysis' results from other European government organisations.
CAMSS has been elaborated by collecting and analysing best practices established in Member States. The context of assessing formal specifications for European Public Services is multi-stakeholder; the method reflects the ecosystem linked to this activity. The main stakeholder groups involved are the Public Service itself - with its business need and requirements - the implementers of the requirements, and the providers of the tools and products needed to implement these requirements – "the market" , as well as the organisations in charge of the standardisation.
[Footnote: Formal specifications are either standards in the sense of EU Technical Standards and Regulation Directive 98/34, or specifications made available by industry consortia or other standardisation fora, and formalised in the sense that there exists a publicly visible process by which the specifications are produced, and that the specifications in question are therefore more than mere “de-facto” arrangements.]
What is CAMSS?
CAMSS provides a practice for a balanced issue analysis in a multi-stakeholder environment, within the above context. The CAMSS focuses on bringing transparency and structure to this analysis.
CAMSS defines a method which includes:
- a comprehensive and structured description of characteristics of formal specifications: the CAMSS criteria
- a description of how the retrieval of information and the exchange of knowledge can be organised: the CAMSS process.
CAMSS provides a method for assessing formal specifications, enabling sharing and re-use. The CAMSS method as such provides all elements to come to a decision regarding the choice of a formal specification, as it is used within a certain context (problem to solve as well as political and strategic considerations, ...)which implies priorities. CAMSS is primarily a guide for selecting and assessing formal specifications for an eGovernment project. CAMSS can also be useful as a tool when building an architecture, or as a reference for explaining choices of formal specifications in terms of needs and requirements.
CAMSS Criteria
The aim of CAMSS is to analyse and assess formal specifications in the scope of eGovernment. However, the proposed criteria are not limited to addressing the business need and requirements of an eGovernment project (suitability and potential of a formal specification). Other criteria allow to address notions of effectiveness, efficiency and fairness.
The criteria figure as a list of qualitative aspects of a formal specification to be taken into account, rather than a quantitative evaluation. Each CAMSS user defines the significance and prioritisation of each of the criteria according to his own needs and priorities. Moreover, all criteria do not apply to all formal specifications; this depends on the formal specification itself, as well as the specific context of use.
Business Need criteria
A first series of criteria reflects the needs of the first main stakeholder group - the Public Service. As “it must be possible to draw up the technical specifications in terms of functional performance and requirements [Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts]”, this group of criteria aims at assessing to which extent the requirements can be met by a formal specification. A precise definition of the business needs and of the context is a pre-requisite to this first part of the analysis (as described in the CAMSS process).
Standardisation criteria
The organisation or body responsible of establishing, approving and maintaining the standard or specification operates in a specific manner, which may have impact on the consequences of choosing a formal specification. The context within which standardisation is done has an impact on how implementations of the formal specification can be developed and/or used.
Market criteria
A third series of criteria analyses how the formal specifications are supported in the market place.
CAMSS Process
The CAMSS process governs the exchange of information among the stakeholder groups during the three steps of an analysis of a formal specification:
1. definition of the requirements according to the business need and establishment of the list of formal specifications to be analysed;
2. application of the criteria to analyse the formal specifications on the list;
3. dissemination of the analysis results.
The CAMSS process includes the exchange of analysis results among Member States. Re-usability of analysis results depends on the generic aspect (ie: context independent) of the criteria applied. At the end of the 3 steps, the user applies weighting to the analysis results in order to acheive his assessment.
In order to ensure transparency and knowledge exchange, the CAMSS process includes interaction with the different stakeholder groups through consultation. This leads to:
- consultation with the Public Administration, and peer expertise ("Public Administration Consultation");
- consultation with the standardisation bodies ("Standardisation Consultation");
- consultation with the market players ("Market Consultation").
Depending on the step of the CAMSS process, part or all of consultations are included in each step.
CAMSS Status
The status of the CAMSS project mid 2009 is the following:
During 2008, Phase 1 of the project produced a proposal for a CAMSS. This proposal for a CAMSS focused principally on defining assessment criteria, based on Member States best practices and agreement among Member State experts. Following a presentation on CAMSS Info Day (28 May 2008) and public consultation during summer 2008, the Proposal for a CAMSS received positive and constructive comments from industry, standardisation bodies and public administrations.
Phase 2, initiated beginning 2009, aims at executing pilot assessments based on the CAMSS proposed end of Phase 1. Through lessons learned, Phase 2 further shapes the CAMSS by updating the CAMSS criteria and defining the CAMSS process. Phase 1 produced criteria with different levels of detail, some are very precise (standardisation criteria), others are needing further defining. A first pilot was run during spring 2009, which provides a "proof-of-concept" by answering a business need with low complexity and narrow scope. A second pilot will be launched early autumn.
At this stage, among considerations of the Member States today, is to work together on a common agenda for assessments, based on a coordination of their actual and planned ones, and on common business needs.
