Co-Directors: Yigal Arens USC / Information Sciences Institute Judith Klavans Columbia University

2 Digital Government is Here! An increasing quantity and variety of information is available in digital form Government agencies already collect much digital information Government is a holder and provider of often unique data and services Access to information/services by industry and citizen-users must be facilitated, while limiting cost and risk

3 Well – Not Quite... Expectations are very high due to the pervasiveness of Web/Internet information technology Government IT/IS is behind best practices Legacy, stovepipe systems designed for trusted staff Failed very large modernization efforts A disconnect exists between the research community and government IS

4 DGRC’s Purpose Make Digital Government Happen! Advance information systems research Bring the benefits of cutting edge IS research to government systems Help educate government and the community Work with the NSF’s DG Program

5 Why a Center? Direction Coordination Visibility Sustainability

6 DGRC Technical Goals Conduct and support research in key areas of information systems Develop standards/interfaces Develop infrastructure Build pilot systems Collaborate closely with government information providers and users

7 The Magazine of Digital Government Research DGRC Educational Efforts NSF-sponsored DG workshop and conferences (2000, 2001, 2002) Expanded PI workshop, now conferences Collaboration workspace In the process of being expanded Newsletter:

8 Time Today DGRC Development Plans Seeding by CU and ISI ~$1M/yr initially from DG Program ~$3M/yr funding with incorporation of additional or separately funded efforts ~$5M/yr total will provide for significant impact on government systems Expand government applications as funding develops

9 DGRC Composition So far, primarily computer scientists User interfaces, information integration, databases, natural language processing, information security, data mining, … Recently also: Human factors Our plans: Social sciences

10 Our Approach to IS Developm’t Managed technology transfer: Solving the legacy information system problem:

11 Info System Legacy Move from “Hardwired” Legacy Systems To Wrapped Access to External Systems Info System Models & Spec’s Wrapper Legacy Wrapper Legacy Wrapper New Solving the Legacy IS Problem

12 Operating System Independent Middleware Mediators Wrappers Legacy System Integration into New Information Systems

13 Major Research Thrusts Terminology/ontology Information integration Human-computer interaction In-memory data analysis Soon: Collaboration Multi-lingual access Usability

14 Current DGRC Research Support specific applications Access to/interpretation of statistical data Web site integration Central problems attacked: Proliferation of terminology Difficulty requesting and interpreting data Need to integrate data from autonomous sources

15 Our Experience So Far Problem nicely defined in proposal, based on discussions with agencies Access multiple sources from 4 agencies Support querying over the Web But access directly to data turned out to be impossible! Only already public data could be used The queryable space is very sparse When dealing with Government, politics are cannot be ignored

16 Consequences for Research Significant shifting of emphasis, to: Extraction of information from public sources: Web sites, PDF files, text Special subproblems: Ontology browsing, ontology merging, understanding PDF, … Support for existing “reports” In-memory data manipulation and analysis We were lucky to have had broad experience and a wide array of talent to draw on We’ve been set back by political missteps

17 For More Information Visit Read newsletter Ask for report of last year’s dg.o2000 digital government workshop Request report of this year’s dg.o2001 when it comes out