Collaboration to develop system infrastructure

Agency Initiatives - Categories

The Agency Initiatives have been structured around categories, according to which best portrays the relevance of each initiative to achievement of the E-government Strategy:

Category 4: Collaboration to develop system infrastructure

Government initiatives to develop system infrastructure have entailed significant collaboration amongst multiple agencies across government, sometimes also including working together with non-governmental agencies, users, and, occasionally, international colleagues. These initiatives are transformative, in both the way that agencies are working together, and the way that they are delivering the benefits of this collaborative approach to users. The following are examples of this approach:

• GeoNet – a national network of instruments and data centres that monitor natural geophysical activity in New Zealand. Real-time data is collected for rapid response and research into earthquake, volcano, landslide, and tsunami hazards, and the slow deformation that precedes large earthquakes. Hazard information is delivered to the public and other end users via the website.
• CusMod II – a major rebuild of the core system of CusMod (short for Customs Modernisation Programme) that was originally introduced to process arriving and departing passengers, clear import entries, and record export activity. The system has been a critical tool in helping identify risk passengers and goods. The CusMod II database will have the potential for cross-border intelligence, surveillance, and customer-service strategies, with links to other governments and their agencies.
• National Digital Heritage Archive – a storehouse for New Zealand’s culturally significant digital heritage assets, such as websites, CDs, DVDs, images, and digitised copies of printed material. The items will be preserved in their original form, and means will be provided to ensure that in future they can be viewed, listened to, and explored, even if the original technologies become obsolete. A Web Curator Tool has been developed to identify and scope high-value web material for harvesting.
• New Zealand Open Source Virtual Learning Environment (NZOSVLE) – an initiative to establish infrastructure to minimise "financial, organisational, and technological barriers to delivering eLearning across New Zealand’s knowledge economy." A range of projects emerged from this initiative, such as the first large-scale installation of the web-based learning platform, Moodle – which enables educators to create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction with students, and Eduforge – a virtual collaborative environment for sharing ideas, research, and tools within an international educational community.
• All-of-government Authentication Programme – an initiative to enable both people and agencies to establish their identity online. This ensures users can securely transact with government online, knowing they are dealing with an authentic government agency. The scope of the programme includes work on policy, authentication standards, and all-of-government shared services (Government Logon Service, Identity Verification Service, and future services).

Key points

• Collaboration has been required
• Sophisticated technology

Collaboration has been required

GeoNet is a collaborative initiative between the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and GNS Science (Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences). To facilitate research and risk assessment, fundamental data sets jointly sponsored by EQC and the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology are made freely available to the research community. Online forms are used to garner feedback from the community on the effects of noticeable earthquakes and occurrences of landslides, adding to GeoNet’s data collections and contributing to a better understanding of these hazards.

The National Digital Heritage Archive is a major cross-sectoral initiative that convenes an international peer-review group and a cross-government group comprising 27 public sector organisations. The leading national heritage agencies, such as the National Library and Archives New Zealand, are collaborating with other agencies and community organisations in the sector to reduce duplication and bridge gaps in the provision of information and services.

The NZOSVLE initiative involved collaboration among the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and about 20 other New Zealand tertiary education organisations, using the open-source development model to develop software enabling participation in global education communities. The Moodle open-source learning management system was selected and adapted for use in New Zealand. The team has continued to participate in the Moodle development community, in which software programmers from around the world voluntarily work to improve and enhance the system. Through the project, leading open universities in Canada, the UK, and the US are following New Zealand’s example and adopting the Moodle open-source learning management system. Furthermore, Eduforge – another outcome of the NZOSVLE initiative – now hosts over 190 education projects from all over the world, and has helped position New Zealand as an innovative leader in the e-learning field.

The All-of-government Authentication Programme is being developed by the State Services Commission, with input from across government and from international experts. A similarly collaborative approach is reflected in developing all-of-government shared services, such as the proposed Identity Verification Service that will be built and operated by the Department of Internal Affairs with the support of the Department of Labour. The Authentication Programme also participates as a member in every major New Zealand standards body, to ensure consistency with all relevant standards.

Sophisticated technology

GeoNet uses sophisticated web and database technology, including extensive use of free and open-source software, to rapidly deliver hazards information from monitoring instruments to the public (including RSS feeds on recent quakes). It is designed to integrate with many systems to allow the widespread dispersal of information, and allows for other web developers to incorporate GeoNet content on their own websites. Interactive mapping applications show the location of felt earthquakes and geophysical network stations.

The new technology planned for CusMod II will include a significant upgrade of the data warehouse system, and will introduce real-time data mining.

The National Digital Heritage Archive uses a standards-based, commercial software system, designed to be scalable over time as the digital collections grow. It will be replicable in other organisations and is expected to serve as an international model for the implementation of digital archives and preservation management. The Web Curator Tool, jointly developed by the National Library and its international partners, was released as open-source software for the benefit of other organisations building digital collections. This low-cost tool was built with a flexible architecture designed for easy integration and sharing across multiple operating systems.

As a result of the work on the NZOSVLE initiative, open-source software now underpins much of New Zealand’s national e-learning infrastructure. One of the attractions of the Moodle open-source learning management system, apart from its cost benefits, was its capacity to be modified to meet local and institutional needs. Interoperability standards and the modular, extendable architecture of the open-source framework were important in terms of delivering the desired flexibility and ensuring greater future-proofing in a technology environment that is quickly evolving.

The All-of-government Authentication Programme's uniquely New Zealand authentication solution, built with open standards at its core, is world leading in the way it is designed to protect people's privacy. It separates the "key" that gives users access to an agency's online services from any information that the agency might hold about them. Personal information is not shared between the Government Logon Service and any participating agency, or between agencies using the service.

Implications

These initiatives offer significant benefits to participating agencies and are leading to transformation in service delivery to users. They are also providing the platform for further collaboration between agencies, innovation in the use of technology to meet users' needs, and facilitating joined-up government, with implications for the transformation of government service delivery in future.

GeoNet provides comprehensive coverage of geological hazard events as they occur – essential for developing effective mitigation and response strategies. It collects research data on the processes that cause earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and related effects, and contributes to a better definition of potential geological hazards in New Zealand. This increases the ability of emergency management agencies to plan for the mitigation of hazard impacts, and enables the immediate provision of information to assist in disaster response. GeoNet will provide incentives for international collaboration in research and development related to natural hazard assessment and mitigation, and will develop the scientific and technological skills of New Zealanders. It is also strategically oriented towards the future enhancement of government risk management. Collaboration will occur between EQC, local government agencies, and a wide range of users (such as utility companies and transport operators) to develop a common approach to the uptake of hazards information, and to ensure they have the right information in the right form to be able to make the right decisions.

The next generation of CusMod is expected to see New Zealand become one of the first countries to adopt a new set of standards developed by the World Customs Organisation. These have been designed to ensure that information about imports and exports can be understood and transferred electronically between computer systems in different countries through a "single window". This would be a significant step towards having New Zealand's various border agencies provide a seamless or virtual "single border agency", including the New Zealand Customs Service, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, New Zealand Food Safety Authority, and other agencies. It would allow each agency to continue to focus on its own core activities while using the same primary data and systems.

Significant collaboration will be required to integrate aspects of these agencies’ operations into a single customs clearance point, to make the movement of goods faster and easier. The work will entail some integration and alignment of agencies' information technology systems, which will maximise value from the investment and reduce the risk of duplication of technology. Users will benefit by being able to lodge standardised information and documents at a single entry point to fulfil the import, export, and transit requirements of all border agencies. Goods meant for export in one country and import in another will be able to be cleared in a single electronic transaction. Thus, information collected through a single submission will be able to be reused as needed, resulting in security and facilitation benefits for both government and the trading community, such as improved data quality and efficiency of trade flows.

The National Digital Heritage Archive will contribute to New Zealand’s Digital Content Strategy by preserving the nation's digital memory, and ensuring ongoing access to digital heritage collections in accordance with collection and access policies. Digital heritage collections will be accessible in perpetuity in accordance with relevant legislation and other agreements, while respecting the rights of the producers. Electronic resources will be visible, searchable, and easily accessed. To support this initiative, a new version of the Web Curator Tool is being developed which will offer new user-interface updates, quality-review tools, platforms and databases, and end-user access. The tool will be distributed more widely and incorporate feedback from users, and a new governance group will continue its development.

The NZOSVLE initiative has been an important building block for tertiary educational institutions to achieve enhanced access to e-learning and cultivate a collaborative environment, while serving as a catalyst for quality improvement and innovation. A rural polytechnic, for example, can now afford the same level and quality of infrastructure as a large organisation such as the Open Polytechnic. Furthermore, this work is creating a pool of shareable educational resources. Educational institutions that want to share their resources with the community and with other institutions are doing so using Creative Commons licensing and e-Campus networks. An open-source learning management system such as Moodle enables the tool to fit New Zealand's cultural context, and it should be robust and flexible enough to meet future interoperability, accessibility, and scalability needs. In addition, a formal community structure is being developed to ensure future sustainability, the delivery of hosting and other support services, and cost and benefit sharing across the sector.

The All-of-government Authentication Programme will make it easier for New Zealanders to take advantage of the benefits of transacting electronically with government, while lowering the overall cost to government by building one service for multiple agencies. People will be able to request and submit authoritative information online rather than using paper documents. This will result in quicker and more consistent government services and entitlement decisions, reduced compliance costs for businesses, and lower overall investment and operational costs of multiple authentication systems across government. It is expected that, in future, the networked platform will be able to be developed to provide additional online services with minimal additional cost. These services could include cross-agency sharing of authoritative source data, and value-added services such as authentication of remote access. Over the longer term, this will result in a comprehensive suite of authentication-related services, each run by the most appropriate agency, all using the shared infrastructure and online front end.