Data and its challenges on the path to end-to-end digitization in public administration - Contributions from three projects of the openDVA working group

Abstract

The implementation of the right to digital access (OZG) in Germany stops at the office door focusing only on the needs of citizens. It does not cover any internal administrative processes and leaves out various stakeholders. For true end-to-end digitization, we need detailed, interoperable descriptions that can be exploited by all interested parties, including small to medium enterprises, decision-makers on all levels, individual administrative staff members, and future citizen developers. They all need a big picture and details on legal regulations, existing standards, and specific requirements. We aim to create such a knowledge base and demonstrate this using a first end-to-end digitized public service. Analyzing structured and unstructured data, for example, in the form of the text of a law addressing a public service, we derive a formal definition of the underlying process and necessary decisions. We enhance this with semantic annotation and link it to available standards. This forms the basis for innovative, new services like a platform for citizen developers to easily create and change fully digitized public services or educational modules that are automatically kept in sync with current developments.