The North American Digital Government Working Group (NADGWG) was formed in early 2007 by researchers and practitioners from a variety of institutions and disciplines in Canada, the United States and Mexico to advance electronic government research across geographic and political boundaries in the region. The working group members are developing a comparative and transnational research agenda targeted at questions about intergovernmental digital government initiatives in North America. This group was formed with the support of the National Science Foundation Digital Government Research Program and the home institutions of the members.

Working group members are focused on building understanding of the social and technical capabilities necessary to tackle these important public policy problems both within countries and when those countries work together on these problems. The group seeks to better understand the role of technology plays in the ability of individual nations to respond to public problems and in the ability of nations to work together in response to transnational problems. The focus on Canada, Mexico, and the United States allows the researchers to look at topics that are germane to North America as a whole. The group is exploring current models of collaboration and cooperation being employed across the geographic, jurisdictional and political boundaries of North America; attending to the unique characteristics of both developed and developing countries and presidential and parliamentary systems.

As the governments of the world evolve toward a more global perspective on the social, political, and economic issues facing our nations it is critical that research efforts are sensitive to and respond to this evolution as well. New requirements for cross-boundary collaboration driven by a global view demand new understanding about how individual nations respond to public problems and about how nations work together in response to transnational problems. New forms of government enabled by technologies made possible through new models of cooperation and collaboration must be explored and tested. As researchers, we must also create new models and strategies for working together across geographic and political boundaries, focusing on the efforts of government as they seek to work in this new way. This working group will explore new models of collaboration required by the global nature of government problems as well as the role of technology in facilitating these inter-organizational initiatives. The activities of this working group include the development and pursuit of a research agenda that attends to comparative questions about intergovernmental and transnational digital government initiatives in North America.

Although the three countries of North America are very different in many aspects (providing good variation), they have important similarities in government and federal systems. Project leaders in the three countries appreciate the importance of intergovernmental relationships for the success of many digital government initiatives. In addition, the three countries are closely related and interdependent in several political, economic, and social issues. Therefore, the results may also have important policy implications for each of the three countries and North America as a whole. Finally, the inclusion of a developing country, a country with a highly developed presidential – system, and one with a highly developed parliamentarian – system allows the results to be relevant to many countries specifically as well as many regions around the world.

Group co-chairs are Dr. Theresa A. Pardo from the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY and Dr. Luis F. Luna-Reyes from the Universidad de las Americas, Mexico. The working group includes members from three countries: Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Eleven institutions are represented by the group.

Together, the Working Group members are producing a series of deliverables for academics and practitioners, including reports, papers, cases or methodological notes among others. The products under development include resources for practitioners throughout North America and beyond as they work both within and across boundaries to enhance capability within multi-jurisdictional policy domains. Due to the diversity present in the three North American countries, this Working Group is able to develop lessons not only for the region, but also for developing and developed countries facing similar policy issues around the world. As such, the value of the research can be extended beyond the North America to other regions of the world facing similar sets of challenges.

In addition to the research value, the working group members are gaining useful insights into the process of creating an international research community; exploring the role of technology to support collaboration among geographically dispersed researchers, developing strategies for creating research proposals that are relevant to funding organizations in multiple countries, and responding to the multiple research traditions and practitioner priorities in identifying priorities.

During the first two years of activities, the group members have shared their expertise and interests in four face-to-face meetings in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Several intellectual products emerged from these initial interactions including the identification of two topical research sub-groups, the design of work plans for carrying out joint exploration of research questions and the creation of strategies for group formation, communication and sustainability. The sections below provide more detail on each of these meetings.

May 2007 Meeting, Philadelphia, PA

The first meeting of the North American Digital Government Working Group took place in Philadelphia in May of 2007, and was attended fifteen participants of the working group from Canada, Mexico and the United States. The meeting focused on group formation activities including exploring strategies for ensuring the sustainability of the group, setting a research agenda, and potential products. The brainstorming sessions led to numerous ideas and themes for research from border and immigration issues to economic and trade issues to e-government leadership to create digital cities and smart regions in border areas. Two initial subgroups were formed one to explore Border Region Information Sharing, and another to explore Full Information Product Pricing Strategies to promote international commerce and regional development.

 

December 2007 Meeting, Cholula, Mexico

Members came together at the Universidad de las Americas for three days in November 2007 to continue the working group activities launched during the first meeting. The opening day of the working group meeting involved a set of discussions organized around group formation activities, as well as in the subgroups formed during the first meeting. The design of the second day provided an opportunity to spend a full-day with government officials from a variety of ministries of the Mexican Federal Government and other organizations involved in digital government in Mexico. The morning session consisted of a series of panel presentations on Digital Government, Information Society, and Innovation in Mexico. Following the panels, the working group members met in small groups with the panelists to discuss key areas of common interest and to explore future collaboration efforts.

May 2008 Meeting, Montreal, Quebec

The North American Digital Government Working Group held its third meeting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Sunday May 18th, 2008. The meeting was scheduled to coincide with dg.o 2008. Fourteen members of the working group were in attendance. The meeting was held on Sunday around an abbreviated agenda of topics of importance to the full working group. The agenda included working group business including a discussion of the group’s web site, a proposal for an edited book, the research agenda setting activities, and the planning for the fourth working group meeting to be held in November in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

The meeting started with an open discussion of general lessons learned and challenges facing subgroup efforts. These include funding, translation of research protocols, grant applications, and other related documents and the human subjects process. The role of the institutional review board and its relationship with international comparative work was discussed and generally agreed to be problematic. After discussion the working groups decided to put the edited book effort on hold and to focus on the research agenda development efforts. A team was formed to focus on the research agenda setting activities. In addition, subgroups reported on the activity to date. These reports inc luded grnat proposals, conference papers, and research activity. The members leading the planning for the fourth meeting of the working group shared the status of plans for that meeting and invited feedback on and participation in those efforts.

In addition to holding the third meeting at dg.o 2008, the working group activities were well-represented at the conference with three posters , a panel session organized by three members of the working group based on ideas generated at the second working group meeting in Cholula, Mexico, as well as participation in a panel on the three international working groups organized by the PIs of the DGI project.

November 2008 Meeting, Université Laval, Québec City, Quebec

The North American Digital Government Working Group held its fourth meeting at Université Laval in Québec City, Quebec, Canada from November 20-22, 2008. Fourteen members of the working group met together in the facilities of the Institute of Information Technology and Society, Université Laval; all three countries were well-represented at the meeting. The three day meeting focused on refining the Working Group’s overall Research Agenda, moving forward the research activities of each of the Working Group sub-groups, and exploring key issues of interest with invited guests. The first day of the Working Group meeting opened with a welcome from Dr. Diane Poulin, the Chair of the Institute of Information Technology and Society. Following Dr. Poulin’s remarks, members provided activity updates since the last meeting for both the overall Working Group and the two sub-groups; Border States Information Sharing, and Full Information Product Pricing Strategies. The members reviewed the various grants received so far and discussed strategies for seeking additional funding to continue the work of the Group. In addition, items published since the last meeting were acknowledged and continuing publication plans were outlined and agreed upon including a continued presence at conferences such as the International Digital Government Research Conference and the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). The later part of the day provided opportunity for the sub-groups to work on their respective research initiatives.

The second day of the Working Group meeting opened with a welcome from Ms. Jacqueline Dubé, Présidente-directrice générale, Centre francophone d'informatisation des organizations (CEFRIO) and featured presentations from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation as well as a number of officials of the Quebec Provincial government including the Ministry of Government Service and the Ministry of Agriculture. Each presented on current issues and initiatives in their organizations. After the presentations, which included a brief overview of the Working Group, the members engaged in round table discussions with the guests exploring areas of common interest and to identify opportunities for collaboration. Discussion topics included overall digital government strategy as well as structural arrangements for and challenges in managing information technology at an enterprise level; information sharing and governance issues related to organic product traceability; and information sharing and collaboration in environmental protection at border regions.

On the final day, Working Group members continued their research agenda discussions by breaking into small groups and exploring key transnational and comparative questions as well as creating a presentation framework for the agenda. The members also developed a plan for completion of the agenda including an outreach strategy. Several administrative discussions were held including coordinating interdependencies among the two sub groups and the development of a Working Group web page. Planning for the next round of Working Group meetings was completed with plans for a meeting at the International Digital Government Research Conference, dg.o 2009, in Puebla, Mexico and a full Working Group Meeting in Albany, NY in October of 2009. The Working Group meeting ended with an informative (and brisk) walking tour of Old Quebec, one of the oldest cities in North America and since 1985, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Support for the meeting was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation who funded travel for members of the working group from U.S. institutions, by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), who funded the travel for members of the working group from Mexican institutions, by the Minister of International Affairs of the Québec government, who paid for some group activities, and by the Institut Technologies de l'information et Sociétés of Université Laval, that provided meeting facilities and support.

Two topical sub-groups were formed during the kickoff meeting held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May of 2007. These two groups are continuing to meet using online collaborative tools and teleconferences as well as during the full workgroup meetings and specialized separate meetings. The Border Region subgroup is examining the issues and challenges facing government organizations in the border regions of North America in terms of information sharing and interoperability. The Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP) subgroup is investigating the roles of government policy, trust and information and communication technologies in the promotion of emerging distribution networks of goods such as organic and fair trade as well as its impact in promoting economic development in the NAFTA trading region.

This sub-group is working to understand the information sharing and interoperability issues and challenges faced by governmental agencies in the border regions of Canada, Mexico, and the United States who are engaging in transnational business processes and collaborative cross-border initiatives.

With the advance of globalization, transnational issues around border areas become increasingly significant. Topics like national security, public health, cross-border workers, environmental protection, as well as natural disaster response are all related to borders. Solving these problems involve cross-border information sharing and interoperation.

Globalization priorities are driving many countries to work together in new ways. New partnerships are being formed around common economic and social issues as well as shared challenges. Border regions, in particular, represent an important and unique context for transnational government collaboration. Current efforts to create transnational processes in the European Union and in North America that facilitate benefits management for cross-border workers are examples of these new modes of operation. However, efforts to collaborate within national border regions face unique challenges such as diverging national, as well as state, provincial, and local agendas, different legislation and regulation systems for providing services, accessing, and sharing both citizen and government information, cultural differences (e.g. language barriers, resistance to technological innovation), and technological problems related to the integration of the deployed systems.

In recent years, increasing research attention has been paid to information sharing across multiple government agencies found to be central to these problem solving strategies; in particular the role information and communication technologies (e.g. the Internet) [1]. This research regularly emphasizes that the effectiveness of inter-organizational information exchanges depends on the interplay of several technology and non-technology related factors—e.g. quality of the organizational and technological structures that support information sharing, policy environment, level of jurisdictional authority to promote integration and interoperation among agencies, among others [2-6].

However, despite the significant advances in knowledge about this phenomenon within the context of a single country, we still know little about the factors underlying inter-governmental collaboration across borders, in general, and even less about the borders of the three countries of North America. The shortage of research studying information sharing in the transnational context has also been discussed in a recent report released by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG). This study reports that research on transnational efforts in e-government comprises only 4% of the total research in e-government [7]. Findings also suggest that existing studies have been mostly conducted by European Union States [8, 9]. Research is this domain overall is clearly scarce and an analysis of the interactions of political, economic and cultural contexts and the information needs of cross-border interoperable systems is fully missing.

The initial product of the sub-group effort will be a description of the current information sharing environment found in three initial case studies from the US-Mexican and US-Canadian borders. The theoretical questions which emerged from the preliminary analysis of the literature are being used to frame the creation of three case studies and joint grant proposals. The Border State Sub-group first agreed to conduct a literature review to identify previous relevant research and theoretical foundations. By June 2008, a grant proposal entitled Collaboration, Information Sharing, and Interoperability at the North American Borders has been submitted to Programa Interinstitucional de Estudios sobre la Región de América del Norte (Inter-institutional Program for North American Regional Studies).

The research questions of interest to this sub-group include:

Q1. What region specific characteristics such as culture, policy environment, and language, are challenging the transnational inter-governmental information sharing found in the cases?

Q2. What mechanisms are being used to deal with these challenges?

Q3. What techniques are being used to integrate work processes of the agencies involved in cross-border collaboration and information sharing cases?

Q4. What information technologies are being adopted to facilitate the exchange of information across borders?

The NAFTA trading agreement contains important side agreements designed to insure that manufacturing and trade in the North American trading region observes fair wage practices and minimizes the environmental impact of manufacturing practices that support North American trade. The North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) are two tri-lateral agreements set up by the NAFTA accords to monitor and promote such fair labor and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. The purpose of this research project is to explore a set of government-sponsored product labeling and information policies that may have the potential to significantly expand the share of fair wage and environmentally friendly products traded within the NAFTA region. We propose that the market share for such products can mirror the recent rapid expansion in “organic” food products that followed the development and implementation of organic food labeling and packaging standards led by the US Department of Agriculture and similar agencies in Canada and Mexico such as the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture (Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación). We propose to explore fair labor and environmental friendly labeling using an innovative design that focuses on one product—coffee grown in Mexico but roasted, brewed, and consumer in Canada and the United States—and exploits the existence of two prototype information systems linked to a coffee market simulator that can capture supply chain pricing dynamics. The project culminates with a series of white papers designed to demonstrate the feasibility of such policies to government officials in all three NAFTA partner countries.

Most products consumed within the NAFTA trading zone are produced and distributed through cost-effective distribution networks that typically do not reveal certain types of information to end consumers. However, a growing number of consumers and producers are increasingly paying attention to information about where, when, how, and by who our goods are produced. In all these cases, producers strive to attach non-price information, thereby adding value, to their products. We are calling such networks of relationships among consumers, producers, and distributors “Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP) Networks”. FIPP production and distribution networks are important because they can sustain networks of small producers, enable SME creation in rural or under-developed areas, and in general fuel region-wide economic development [1]. Typically FIPP production and distribution occurs with fewer negative externalities such as adverse environmental impact. FIPP production and distribution also fosters the creation of social capital. Most importantly, because FIPP practices can fuel economic development, they can increase the cash value of exports from producer to consumer nations (or market segments within a nation) [2]. However, FIPP benefits to producers vary on particular contexts [3]. Moreover, some analysts pose important questions about the real benefits or the long-term sustainability of FIPP networks [2, 4, 5].

The research questions include:

Q1. What are the characteristics of successful FIPP networks?

Q2. How to use information and communication technology (ICT) to support FIPP distribution networks?

Q3. How can government policy and investment in ICT promote FIPP distribution networks?

Q4. Which are key factors determining levels of success in FIPP Networks?

To answer these questions, the subgroup members conducted 5 exploratory case studies in various countries. In-case and cross-case analysis and modeling are carried out and the results are presented in conferences and academic journals. In addition, practical guidance is also developed based on initial case exploration and literature review.

After the initial stage, the research team plans to build a prototype whose foundations would be a mix of two existing systems: CARTV’s Directory of Québec Certified Organic Products and Bilumi’s database of user ratings about the social performance of players active in industries like the chocolate industry. These two existing systems hold complementary data that is collected through different means. CARTV’s Directory contains information that, by law, Québécois businesses (through authorized certifiers) must gather and provide the Québécois government to sell their food products under an organic label. Bilumi’s database contains information that’s obtained through crowdsourcing mechanisms, that is, by normal, unconnected Internet users concerned with the social performance of the firms that produce the food we eat or products we buy. A project proposal is currently under development.

In this section, we present preliminary results from five cases:

Tosepan Titataniske (“Together we win”-English Translation):

Tosepan Titataniske is a cooperative of about 1400 small producers from 70 communities in the northern mountains of the State of Puebla in Mexico that produces and exports organic and fair-trade coffee to the US, Japan and Europe. Tosepan is certified as an organic/fair-trade coffee producer by Fair Trade Mexico, Certimex, Ocia International and by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO). The certifying process involves certification of small land owners and establishing production quotas for each of them. Tosepan has a manual traceability system to control individual quotas. ICT have the potential to facilitate certification and traceability of coffee in the network of producers. Moreover, according to Tosepan’s marketing director, Fair-trade exports could benefit by having clearer government standards and regulations, which are much developed for organic products.

Traceability, e-business and Québec’s food exports

More and more, American consumers want to know where the food they buy come from and how and by whom it is made. Some players along the value chain are willing to pay more for products made in a certain way or by a certain type of producer. Also, more information is needed by businesses outside the US to export their goods to the US. This fact presents a major challenge to Québécois food producers who need access to the US market to prosper. Québec has built a powerful traceability system to enable quick identification of problems and prevent the propagation of diseases. But this system only covers certain types of animals (beef, veal and cervid). It cannot track them outside farms and the borders of Québec, and it does not cover other types of food products (e.g. lettuce). Moreover, the system is not popular, because producers don’t see how much value (if any) it adds to their products. Studying the impacts of Québec’s traceability system and how that system could be extended for export and value-adding purposes would bring real benefits to Québécois producers.

Central American Fair Trade Craft Cooperative

The hub of this FIPP network is a women-owned cooperative in Central America producing non-traditional crafts using traditional fabrics for export to Fair Trade outlets in North America and Europe. Each product is hand-signed by the woman who produced it. The women of the cooperative use the proceeds from the sales to pay themselves a living wage and then to provide social services for their children and community including schools, medical clinic, and new business development opportunities. While this organization does use the Internet to manage its order flow and it does have an on-line URL, it does not yet have a well-developed strategy to use ICT to connect to its customer base. The cooperative is a member of Fair Trade Federation (FTF), SERVV, and the Association of Producers for 10,000 Villages. It is skeptical about the future possible role of government intervention to support their business out of a belief that governments help larger organizations, not small producers.

Internet-Enabled Sales of Traceable Foods from Specialty “Heritage” Producers

This case centers of an Internet-enabled network of specialty food producers who market heritage foods directly to consumers. A key feature of their sales approach is an information system that allows consumers to trace and document the source of their food products. Producers in this network sell a wide variety of products (plant and animal) having a “heritage” nature, such as Turkey. The producers are located within the United States and market themselves to a US market. The Internet allows this network of producers to reach out directly to its customers and to provide online food traceability information. There is no government regulation or oversight of this distribution channel above and beyond usual FDA and Department of Agriculture regulations that apply to all food producers in the United States.

County-Based Networks to Support Local Food Markets in Upstate New York

The NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets is working under a Governor’s directive to promote local farmer-to-consumer networks as a way to bolster upstate agriculture. Combining local farm-based energy with a top-down government support, these projects are springing up all around the state of New York and have an ubiquitous, but low presence in the mindset of local consumers. Some local farmers have a more direct approach using direct contracts with consumers in forms of “Community-Supported Agriculture” (CSA). Under these schemes, local consumers actually purchase an annual “share” in the products of a specific farm and in return receive weekly or bi-weekly product shipments during the harvest season. In many regions, farmers sponsor alliances with local restaurants, cooperate in local farmer markets, and work with local food cooperatives. In general, all members of this network are interested in FIPP strategies, increased market share and support prices for local farmers. In general, they do not yet use any sophisticated information systems to support their operations.

Conversations about common themes in each case indicated that a better understanding of FIPP networks has the potential of contributing to the design of policies and technologies to support local and regional economic development. Some of these initial themes to explore are related to network configurations, trust, governance mechanisms, traceability systems, and government policy. This subgroup continues with the comparison of these initial cases through the use of qualitative techniques as well as modeling and simulation. Initial explorations of FIPP systems in Canada, United States and Latin America suggest that several factors play a role to explain differences in the operation of each network. Some of these contributing factors are trust, social capital, governance mechanisms, work processes and Information Technologies (IT). Among them, trust appears to be a recurrent theme in the initial cases explored by the research team. Akerlof´s information asymmetry theory has been identified as an important element to explain FIPP dynamics [6].

Luna-Reyes, L. F., Gil-García, J. R., Pardo, T. A., Zheng, L., & Zhang, J. (2008). Grupo de Investigación sobre Gobierno Digital en América del Norte: Pasos Iniciales en el Desarrollo de una Agenda de Investigación Comparativa y Transnacional. Revista de Administración Pública, 116.

Zheng, L, Zhang, J, Pardo, T.A., &Luna-Reyes, L. F., (2008) North American Digital Government Working Group: Initial Steps in the Development of a Comparative and Transnational Agenda, China E-gov Journal, October, 2008 (in Chinese)

Andersen, D. F., Luna-Reyes, L. F., Whitmore, A., Zhang, J., & Roy, R. (2008). Exploring the Dynamics of Full Information Product Pricing Networks: the Case of Fair Trade Coffee in Mexico. Paper presented at the 2008 International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Athens, Greece, July 20-23, 2008.

Luna-Reyes, L. F., Zhang, J., Roy, R., Andersen, D. F., Andersen, M., Arcelus de Diego, J., & Whitmore, A. (2009). Information Strategies to Support Full Information Product Pricing: the Role of Trust. Paper presented at the HICSS-42, Waikoloa, Hawaii, January 5-8, 2009.

Pardo, T.A., Gil-Garcia, J.R., & Luna-Reyes, L.F. (2008). Collaborative Governance and Cross-Boundary Information Sharing: Envisioning a Networked and IT-Enabled Public Administration. Paper presented at the Minnowbrook III Conference, Lake Placid, NY, September 5-7, 2008.

Navarrete, C., Mellouli, S., Pardo, T. A & Gil-Garcia, J.R. (2009). Information Sharing at National Borders: Extending the Utility of Border Theory. Paper presented at the HICSS-42, Waikoloa, Hawaii, January 5-8, 2009.

The North American Workgroup on Digital Government : Transnational Projects and Processes

Gregg, V. & Dawes, S.S. (2008). Building a Sustainable International Digital Government Research Community. Panel presented at the 9th International Digital Government Research Conference (dg.o 2008), Montréal, Canada.

Gregg, V. & Dawes, S.S. (2007). Building a Sustainable International Digital Government Research Community. Panel presented at the 8th International Digital Government Research Conference (dg.o 2007), Philadelphia, PA.

Navarrete, C., Pardo, T., Gil-Garcil, R.J., Zhang, J., & Luna-Reyes, L.F., North American digital government working group: initial steps in the development of a comparative and transnational agenda. The 9th International Digital Government Research Conference. 2008. p. 395-396

Zheng, L., Pardo, T., Navarrete, C., & Mellouli, S., Information sharing and interoperability at the borders: A Study of North America. The 9th International Digital Government Research Conference. 2008. p. 381-382

Zhang, J., Roy, R., Luna-Reyes, L.F., Dávila, I.L., Andersen, D.F., Cid, G., Bryce, K., DeMarco, T., & Whitmore, A. Exploring Digital Government Initiatives to Expand Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP) Networks in NAFTA. Poster presented at the 9th International Digital Government Research Conference (dg.o 2008), Montréal, Canada.

Gil-Garcia, J.R., Helbig, N., Pardo, T., Luna-Reyes, L.F., Navarette, C. (2007). Working Group on Comparative and Transnacional Digital Government in North America. Poster presented at the 8th International Digital Government Research Conference (dg.o 2007), Philadelphia, PA.

Co-chairs

*Theresa Pardo, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany

*Luis F. Luna-Reyes, Universidad de las Americas, Mexico.

Members

David Andersen, University at Albany/SUNY, U.S.
Josune Arcelus, Mexico City Government, Mexico
Monique Charbonneau, Centre Francophone d’informatisation des Organizations, Canada
Anthony Cresswell, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, U.S.
Jane E. Fountain, University of Massachusetts Amherst, U.S.
*J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico
Herbert Kubicek, University of Bremen, Germany
Irak López-Dávila, Mexico City Government, Mexico
*Sehl Mellouli, Université de Laval, Canada
*Celene Navarrete, Claremont Graduate University, U.S.
Paul Prevost, Universite de Sherbrooke, Canada
Gabriel Puron Cid, University at Albany/SUNY, U.S.
Jeffrey Roy, Dalhousie University, Canada
Rejean Roy, Centre Francophone d’informatisation des Organizations, Canada
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico
Jochen Scholl, University of Washington, U.S.
Clay Ward, U.S.
Andrew Whitmore, University at Albany/SUNY, U.S.
*Jing Zhang, Clark University, U.S.
*Lei Zheng, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, U.S.

*Management Team

• $75,000: National Science Foundation, Intergovernmental and Inter-organizational Digital Government Initiatives in Multi-Jurisdictional Policy Domains: A Comparative and Transnational Research Agenda from the Cases of Canada, Mexico and the United States, Principal Investigator, Grant Period 2007-2009.

NADGWG is partially supported by the National Science Foundation Digital Government Research Program under Grant No. 37656, noted above, as well as by the home institutions of members in Canada, Mexico, and the United States:

• Université Laval, Centre Francophone d’informatisation des Organizations (CEFRIO)
• Dalhousie University
• Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany/SUNY
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Claremont Graduate University
• Clark University, University of Washington
• Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
• Universidad de las Américas-Puebla
• Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México
• INFOTEC
• Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterey, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon
• University of Bremen

Working Group members have successfully secured support through a variety of additional funding organizations.

Grants:

• $4,000 USD: University at Albany Faculty Research Awards Program (FRAP). The program provides seed funding to support faculty research and other creative endeavors through grants-in-aid. The grant will support activities of the Full Information Product Pricing Networks subgroup, Grant Period 2009-2012.
• $40,000 Mexican Pesos (approximately $3,000 USD): Programa Inter-institucional de Estudios sobre la Región de América del Norte (PIERAN), Collaboration, Information Sharing, and Interoperability at the North American Borders. A small grant to organize a workshop involving researchers from the three countries, Grant Period 2009.
• $130,000 Mexican Pesos (approximately $13,000 USD): Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP): ICT Strategies to promote local and regional development. A grant to conduct field work with coffee producers in Mexico. Project no. 84082, Grant Period 2008-2009.
• $111,650 Mexican Pesos (approximately $9,000 USD): Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT). Working Group Meetings on Intergovernmental and Inter-organizational Digital Government Initiatives in Multi-Jurisdictional Policy Domains: A Comparative and Transnational Research Agenda for North America. Funding to support the travel costs of the Mexican members for meetings held during 2008. Grant No. I0110/127/08, Grant Period 2008

Pending proposals:

• $500,000 Mexican Pesos (approximately $35,000 USD): Programa Inter-institucional de Estudios sobre la Región de América del Norte (PIERAN), Collaboration Information Sharing and Interoperability in North America.
• $740,911 USD: US National Science Foundation, Community-based Data Interoperability Networks (INTEROP), Building Information Sharing Networks to Support Consumer Choice (I-Choose).

Centre Francophone d’informatisation des Organisations (CEFRIO)

Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

Claremont Graduate University

Clark University

INFOTEC

National Center for Digital Government

Universidad de las Américas - Puebla

Université Laval

University of Washington

Building a Sustainable International Digital Government Research Community

Working Group on Online Consultation and Public Policy Making

Working Group on Digital Governance and Hotspot Geoinformatics for Monitoring, Etiology, Early Warning, and Management

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)

Theresa Pardo

Center for Technology in Government

University at Albany/SUNY