Bridging the IT/Process Divide in Public Administrations by Simple Semantic Interoperability Artefacts

Semantic interoperability is an objective that has been addressed in many research projects and publications in the past by the development or presentation of new artefacts (approaches, ontologies, tools, etc.). Mostly, different aspects of semantic interoperability have been addressed, which distinguished these artefacts from each other. But on the other hand, all these artefacts have one characteristic in common: they are big, complex, complicated, not easy to understand for people who are not familiar with the concepts and technology of the Semantic Web, and (sometimes) not easy to integrate into legacy systems. But this is crucial in the context of public administration, because there are small-and medium-sized public authorities, e.g., municipalities with limited resources, as well as big and advanced public authorities with a sufficient amount of resources, but existing information systems that cannot be replaced easily, e.g., because they are customized to local needs. In this work in progress paper the question is posed, how the technology regarding the facilitation of semantic interoperability can be simplified, so that these concepts and technology are first of all more understandable to employees and second easier to implement in small-and medium-sized public authorities like municipalities. A deliberation on this question promises the possibility, that the barriers for using these concepts and technology in municipality can be reduced and, that the municipalities can take advantage of these concepts and technology. Some ideas how this question can be approached are outlined in this poster paper.