The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Digital Government Program supports experimentation and research to improve government's information-based services and operations. In late 1998, 67 researchers and government practitioners convened in a workshop, organized by CTG and funded by NSF, to discuss ways government practitioners and academic researchers can collaborate to produce innovative and effective information-based government services.

The workshop focused particularly on the environment in which government information services are developed. It recognized that government programs and service delivery mechanisms are developed in a complex multi-layered federal-state-local system in which many organizations play significant and different roles. It also emphasized that development efforts must deal with interactions among the political, organizational, technological, cultural, and human factors that shape the implementation environment.

The workshop report, Some Assembly Required: Designing a Digital Government for the 21st Century, emphasized how targeted research efforts could not only uncover new knowledge, but could also be of pragmatic use in government. The workshop recommended eight focus areas for applied research (including security, service delivery, networked organizational forms, and decision making). It further recommended ways to introduce these pressing government needs to the research agendas of both the social and information sciences.

The workshop recommended eight practical government needs that should be focus areas for future Digital Government research. These include:

• National Science Foundation

• Peter Bloniarz, Research Director
• Sharon Dawes, Director
• Kristine Kelly, Research Associate

Dr. Sharon Dawes, Chair

Dr. Tora Bikson, Senior Scientist

Dr. Peter Bloniarz, Research Director

Mr. Larry Brandt

Ms. Angela Coppola

Dr. Patricia D. Fletcher, Associate Professor

Mr. Robert E. Greeves, Principal

Dr. John L. King, Professor

Mr. Timothy Loewenstein, Chair, Board of Supervisors

Dr. Jerry Mechling, Program Director

Mr. Alvin Pesachowitz, Chief Information Officer

Ms. Carolyn Purcell, Executive Director

Mr. James Ruda

Mr. Jerry Sheehan, Education & Outreach Coordinator

Mr. Greg Woods, Deputy Director

• Kim Viborg Andersen, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
• Yigal Arens, University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute
• Bennett Bertenthal, National Science Foundation
• Tora Bikson, Rand Corporation
• Peter Bloniarz, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY
• Larry Brandt, National Science Foundation
• James C. Collard, City of O'Fallon, Missouri
• Eileen L. Collins, National Science Foundation
• Noshir Contractor, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Angela Coppola, Central Intelligence Agency
• Sharon Dawes, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY
• Marshall DeBerry, U.S. Department of Justice
• Ernie Dornfeld, City of Seattle
• William Dutton, University of Southern California
• Jon Eisenberg, National Research Council
• Douglas Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute
• Amy Finley, SDSC NPACI
• Patricia D. Fletcher, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Michael Fraser, National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration
• Robert E. Greeves, The Council for Excellence in Government
• Gerard Glaser, National Science Foundation
• Jane Griffith, National Academy of Science
• Amarnath Gupta, San Diego Supercomputer Center
• Stephen H. Holden, Internal Revenue Service
• Ajit Kambil, New York University
• John L. King, University of California at Irvine
• Andrew Kline, State of Alaska, Telecommunications
• Kenneth Kraemer, University of California at Irvine
• Ramayya Krishnan, Carnegie Mellon University
• David Landsbergen, Ohio State University
• Klaus Lenk, University of Oldenburg, Germany
• Timothy Loewenstein, Buffalo County, Nebraska
• Winifred Lyday, National Association of Counties
• Worthy N. Martin, University of Virginia
• Terrence Maxwell, NYS Forum for Information Resource Management
• Philip G. McGuire, NYC Police Department
• Jerry Mechling, Strategic Computing & Telecommunications, Harvard University
• John J. Moeller, Federal Geographic Data Committee
• J.D. Nyhart, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Barbara O'Keefe, University of Michigan
• John O'Looney, Carl Vincent Institute of Government
• James P. Peak, Intelink Management Office
• Cindy Peck, Texas Health and Human Services Commission
• Thomas Prudhomme, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois
• Carolyn Purcell, Texas Department of Information Resources
• Raghu Ramakrishnan, University of Wisconsin
• Ann Redelfs, SDSC, NPACI
• Priscilla Regan, George Mason University
• Nicolau Reinhard, Universidade de Sao Paulo-Brasil
• Mary Reynolds, Illinois Lieutenant Governor's Office
• Daniel Robey, Georgia State University
• James Ruda, Dudley, Massachusetts Local Government
• Ronald Seymour, Washington State, Department of Health
• Denise Shaw, US Environmental Protection Agency
• Jerry Sheehan, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
• J. Timothy Sprehe, Sprehe Information Management Associates
• Eswaran Subrahmanian, Carnegie Mellon University
• Gilles Trempe, CEFRIO, Quebec
• Lisa Westerback, U.S. Department of Commerce
• Jory Wolf, City of Santa Monica
• Maria Zemankova, National Science Foundation

This project was supported in part by a $83,193 grant from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 99-181.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) program on Digital Government supports experimentation and research to improve the information-based services that government provides to citizens or uses internally to carry out its mission. These services are often developed in the multi-layered federal-state-local system of program administration and service delivery. They involve complex interactions among the political, organizational, technological, cultural, and human factors that shape the implementation environment.

The objective of this workshop was to identify and develop research themes and projects that focus on these important factors affecting the use of advanced information technology in government. Workshop participants adopted a "program-centric" view of the information content and processing needs of major government functions, with special attention to the needs of program managers. The workshop was funded by NSF and organized by the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany, SUNY.

The invitation-only workshop was held October 5 - 6, 1998. During the two-day event, distinguished representatives from federal, state and local government agencies interacted with leading social, information, and computer scientists and representatives from private industry and nonprofit foundations. Activities and discussions focused on finding common interests and concerns as the basis for multidisciplinary research projects that could be proposed for funding under the Digital Government initiative.

Following the workshop, a report was presented to the National Science Foundation that:

• proposed criteria for investing in research activities that will have the greatest positive impact on government programs, services, and customers;
• identified issues, opportunities, and themes for cross-disciplinary research to foster the creation, adoption, and diffusion of innovative and effective government IT applications;
• recommended criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the research program; and
• recommended ways to build mutually beneficial links between researchers and the information services and government management communities.

The digital government program at NSF funded this project and many others concerned with the effective use of information technology in the public sector.

This is the virtual home of the NSF Digital Government Research program, operated on behalf of NSF and digital government grantees by the Digital Government Research Center at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute.

Center for Technology in Government
University at Albany, SUNY
187 Wolf Road, Suite 301
Albany, NY 12205
(518) 442-3892 (phone)
(518) 442-3886 (fax)