From E-Gov to Connected Governance: the Role of Cloud Computing, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 Semantic Technologies

Wait List

Integration: the "Killer App" of the Semantic Web, Dr. Joseph Rockmore, Cyladian Technology Consulting

Atlas for Lotus Connections: Unlock the power of your social network! Steve Katz, IBM Portal, Web 2.0 & Collaboration Specialist

Semantic Web for Enterprise Architecture, Dean Allemang – Chief Scientist, TopQuadrant.

Data Sources

1.  Using semantic search to synthesize fragmented sources of information:

Federal agency websites frequently have very rich information around topics relating to their missions that, while posted to the web site, is very difficult to find, let alone to search across the site.  Semantic search that interrelates findings across a bureau or an agency to make public information more accessible and able to be linked with other information would be a great help. 

For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service, is a rich site with a lot of information available. There are numerous fact sheets about biodiversity, species, and endangered ones. Also, there are glossaries. In addition, FWS contemplates making information available about state and regional conservation plans. If aggregated, contextualized, organized semantically, and made both searchable and accessible via application program interface (API), then body of information, would become more valuable both to analysts and planners, and to the general public.

Any issue of interest has an ecosystem of stakeholders and interested parties. Multiple agencies may provide different slices of information, and have mission responsibilities that intersect, and sometimes overlap. In the case of FWS, other agencies do have missions that intersect. For example, USGS has fact sheets about environments and other topics that relate to habitats; NOAA has information about fisheries and marine mammals, plus its own glossaries; EPA has factsheets and other information about threats to environments. Each of the 50 states produces a conservation plan covering local environmental, habitat, species, threats, conservation actions, etc., which it manages through its own organizational apparatus, with information posted to its web sites. Terminology used to organize and discuss common issues varies across jurisdictions. In addition to Federal and State governments, there exists a broad network of organizational entities concerned with conservation issues -- pro and con. They too, produce information of interest. Also, there is a scientific community. And the general public is interested in these issues.

So, the challenge is to discover, harvest, link together, interpret, and communicate this body of information in useful ways. A limitation today is that with Google, or Egov (Vivisimo clustering), does not understand natural language processing, does not understand semantics embedded in structured and unstructured information,  and does not have the capability to map relationships between concepts across diverse sources of information and data. The goal of transparency requires semantic methods to link, synthesize, and communicate meaningful results.

2. Using semantic search to tease apart massive documents so that people can deal with parts of it more easily.

Federal agencies often produce massive reports relating to their missions that are overwhelming and intimidating for readers. An example, EPA has a Report on the Environment. First, sources of this information come from 23 different agencies. Second, the organization of the report is focused around 87 indicators of environmental quality. Each of these is, in effect, its own "fact sheet". Often, people are interested in one or a few of these topics, but not all, and would like to investigate these and dig further into what is happening here. So, the opportunity would be to be use semantic technologies to deconstruct or separate out contents by concepts to allow people to more easily access information of interest, and related information from the contributing agencies and other sites/sources. The indicator data are available in spreadhseets (see bottom of Wiki Page). The speadsheets for the 2008 Annual Statistical Abstract are availlable for use at Semantic Community.net.The speadsheets for the 2009 Annual Statistical Abstract are also availlable for use at Semantic Community.net.

DOI Bureaus:

Bureau of Reclamation:   http://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/presskit/factsheet/factsheet.cfm
Minerals Management Service:  
National Park Service:   www.nps.gov/plants/alien/factmain.htm   ; also  http://www.nps.gov/aboutus/parksindex.htm   ; also,  
Office of Surface Mining:  
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:   http://www.fws.gov/species/
U.S. Geological Survey:   http://water.usgs.gov/wid/indexlist.html  also,   http://water.usgs.gov/wid/index-state.html