Information Polity 14 (2009) 1–10 1

DOI 10.3233/IP-2009-0176
IOS Press

Government information sharing and

integration: Combining the social and the
technical

J. Ramon Gil-Garciaa , Soon Ae Chunb and Marijn Janssenc

a Centro de Investigaci ón y Docencia Econ ómicas (CIDE), Mexico
b College of Staten Island, City University of New York, USA
c Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

1. Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICT’s) have the potential greatly to transform how
government works and how it relates to citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders. One such transfor-
mative capability of ICT’s is to facilitate government information sharing and integration in a networked
environment. Integrating government information has raised important concerns about citizens’ privacy
and the possibility of government to exercise greater surveillance on citizens. However, the need to share
government information and to interoperate between diverse information systems has been highlighted,
not least after events such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters, and by the fragmented nature of policy
making and service provisioning revealed following those events that contributed to the administrative
burden for citizens and businesses. The ability to share information across organizational boundaries is
a pre-requisite for efficient processing of citizen services and for effective decision making by multiple
collaborative environments.
Government information sharing offers a real opportunity to share databases and make decisions
based on more complete information [12]. It also offers important benefits such as increased produc-
tivity, improved decision making, lower administrative burden (information is already held somewhere
in government and not duplicated), better enforcement (greater information availability), higher in-
formation quality (resulting in fewer mistakes), and integrated services [4,6,13,19,34,43]. However,
inter-organizational information sharing and integration is a complex and difficult task facing a myriad
of political, organizational, legal and technical challenges including lack of political support, lack of
financial resources, citizens’ privacy and confidentiality concerns, and poor technical skills, among oth-
ers [22,36,37]. This special issue contributes to a practical and theoretical conversation about government
information sharing and integration as a socio-technical phenomenon by presenting multiple theoretical
perspectives, disciplinary approaches, and practical applications.
Scholars from different theoretical traditions propose that in order to realize the most important benefits
from the use of ICT’s in government, agencies should integrate their information across organizational

1570-1255/09/$17.00  2009 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved
2 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical

boundaries [6,10,12,13,21]. Information integration could be understood as “the forming of a large

unit of organizational entities, temporary or permanent, for the purpose of merging processes or sharing
information” [44]. More generally, an information sharing initiative involves building interoperable
systems, instituting formal standards, and changing business processes to allow organizations to share
data and information with many other organizations [6,14,21]. Some government information integra-
tion initiatives focus on a specific problem, others focus on building systemic capacity for long term
organizational activities [21].
Conceptualizing government information sharing and integration should be a first step in understanding
the complexity and socio-technical nature of this phenomenon. Some studies define information sharing
and integration emphasizing important technical elements such as interoperability, data standards, and
specific technology applications [26,29,42]. Others highlight the social and organizational aspects
of interorganizational collaboration and information sharing. They pay attention to elements such as
collaboration, trust building, knowledge sharing or citizens’ privacy [11,15,33,36,46]. Gil-Garcia et
al. [23] propose that interorganizational information integration (III) is a complex phenomenon with
both social and technical aspects. They suggest that the socio-technical nature of this phenomenon
could be better appreciated by understanding four interrelated, but distinct elements of government
information sharing and integration ranging from social to technical: (1) trusted social networks, (2)
shared information, (3) integrated data, and (4) interoperable technical Infrastructure. Trusted social
networks refer to networks of social actors involved in III initiatives who know each other and trust each
other. Shared information is the exchange and sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge in the form of
formal documents, informal talks, e-mail messages, faxes, etc. Integrated data implies the integration of
data at the level of data element standards and/or industry/community data standards (e.g. XML). Finally,
interoperable technical infrastructure is represented by systems that can communicate with each other at
the hardware/operating system level. Therefore, in order to have a more comprehensive understanding
of government information sharing and integration, it is necessary to use multiple disciplinary lenses and
analyze both social and technical aspects.
Accordingly, this special issue is intended to illustrate clearly the social and technical nature of
government information sharing and integration, with papers that present innovative research, solutions,
and practices in this topic from social sciences and computer sciences perspectives. We have selected
some of the best papers from the Ninth Annual Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2008)
and invited authors to revise and refine their papers for this special issue. With the spirit of dialogue
between social sciences and computer sciences that characterizes this conference and the e-government
field as a whole, some of the research papers emphasize the technical aspects and applications, and the
others highlight the social determinants and implications, addressing government information sharing
and integration in a comprehensive manner.
This article opens the special issue and is organized in five sections, including the foregoing intro-
duction. Section two briefly describes some of the benefits that have been identified from government
information sharing and integration. Section three presents some of the challenges to government infor-
mation sharing and integration. This section also highlights strategies that have been used by government
agencies to overcome some of the challenges. Section four extends our understanding of government
information sharing and integration to the Web 2.0 era and emphasizes some of the new applications
and contexts. Finally, section five summarizes the papers included in this special issue and highlights
their objectives, findings, and implications in the context of the theme of the special issue: government
information sharing and integration.
 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical 3

2. Benefits of government information sharing and integration

The benefits realized from information integration might differ from organization to organization and
according to the characteristics of specific projects. For instance, organizations that have implemented
information integration solutions have reported significant benefits that support the IT/IS evaluation
process [27]. Information sharing also reduces the paperwork burden on the citizen, streamlines work
processes, and enriches the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policy [34]. Themistocleous
and Irani [45] analyzed and explained the benefits that derive from the use of information sharing and
integration technologies such as Enterprise Architecture Infrastructure (EAI) and classified them into
five categories.
1. Organizational (e.g. results in more organized business processes);
2. Managerial (e.g. achieves return on investment);
3. Strategic (e.g. increases collaboration among partners);
4. Technical (e.g. achieves data, objects, and process integration); and
5. Operational (e.g. reduces cost).
Similarly, Dawes [12] classifies these benefits into three categories: technical, organizational, and
political. Technical benefits refer to potential positive results related to the processing and managing
of information such as reduced duplication of data collection, processing, and storage, as well as the
creation of formal standards or shared technical infrastructure [1,6,12]. Organizational benefits refer to
positive results for the organization as a whole such as better coordination, improved decision making
processes, and reduced costs [2,6,7,13,20,30,32,35,43,48]. Finally, political benefits refer to the impact
on the political image and policy goals of the organization leading the information sharing and integration
effort. Some examples include more comprehensive public information, improved service delivery, and
increased public accountability [2,7,12,18,31].

3. Challenges to government information sharing and integration

Traditional governmental structures have organized the capture, use, and management of informa-
tion along agency lines. Overcoming these deeply entrenched program and information “silos” is the
particular challenge agencies face as they pursue the benefits of integrated information. Anderson and
Dawes [2] characterize information as the primary input to, and product of, government activity. They
identify collecting, housing, protecting and using information as fundamental responsibilities of the pub-
lic sector [2]. Information sharing is key to government’s ability to work effectively across organizational
boundaries. Overcoming the challenges to information integration requires managers and policy-makers
from multiple organizations and levels of government to come together to create new capabilities to share
information across boundaries [41].
The main barriers to government information sharing and integration could be divided in technical, or-
ganizational, political, and legal categories [22]. Some examples of technical barriers are incompatibility
of hardware and software [6,8,9,13] as well as data and data base issues and structures [1,3,47]. Among
organizational barriers there are misaligned organizational missions, diversity in organizational cultures
and philosophies, conflicting organizational priorities, lack of funding, limited access to implementation
models, and aggressive timeframes for the implementation [5,6,8,17,20,39,47,49]. Finally, political and
legal barriers refer to elements such as lack of executive and legislative support; restrictive laws and
4 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical

Table 1
Integration barriers and potential strategies
Integration strategy Integration barriers addressed
Retain Autonomy of the Involved Agencies Turf and Resistance to Change
Environmental and Institutional Complexity
Establish and Exercise a Governance Structure Organizational Diversity and Multiple Goals
IT and Data Incompatibility
Secure Strategic Partnerships Environmental and Institutional Complexity
IT and Data Incompatibility
Sharing of IT-resources Environmental and Institutional Complexity
Scarce Resources
IT and Data Incompatibility
Build on Long-Range and Comprehensive Planning IT and Data Incompatibility
Environmental and Institutional Complexity
Turf and Resistance to Change
Build Understanding of the Business Process Organizational Diversity and Multiple Goals
Environmental and Institutional Complexity
Secure Adequate Financial Resources IT and Data Incompatibility
Turf and Resistance to Change
Obtain and Nurture Executive Leadership and Legislative Support Turf and Resistance to Change
Environmental and Institutional Complexity
Source: Adapted from Gil-Garcia et al. [21].

regulations (e.g. civil service regulations); and, for example, the requirement to assure citizens’ privacy
and confidentiality [8,18,20,24,25,28,38,48].
Based on case studies of local and state government initiatives, Gil-Garcia et al. [21] identify five
key barriers and propose eight strategies to deal with the barriers to government information sharing
and integration. Table 1 shows some of the barriers to information sharing and integration as well as
strategies to deal with them. It is clear that many barriers at the technology, organizational and policy
level need to be bridged.
On the other hand, various technology solutions have been proposed and implemented to overcome
some of these challenges/barriers to information sharing and integration. They include: standards-based
metadata models, XML-based data exchange models, ontology, Enterprise Architecture, Interopera-
ble Infrastructures, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), WorkFlow Management systems (WFM),
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web services, among others. For example, the Federal Geo-
graphic Data Committee (FGDC) developed geospatial metadata standards to promote the coordinated
development, use, sharing, and dissemination of geospatial data (http://www.fgdc.gov/). The National
Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is a XML-based information exchange framework among different
levels of governments and private partners, designed to develop, disseminate and support enterprise-wide
information exchange standards and processes that can enable jurisdictions to effectively share critical
information in justice, emergency situations, and homeland security, as well as to support the day-to-
day operations of agencies throughout the nation (www.niem.gov). For process integration, de-facto
standards such as OASIS SOA reference architecture 1 are available for supporting inter-organizational
process and service modeling and interoperability over heterogeneous hardware and software in large
distributed environments. Also the Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS) is the
middleware infrastructure solution that enables commercial and government incident management tech-
nologies to share information and support decisions for the National Response Framework and National

1
Reference Architecture for Service Oriented Architecture Version 1.0, http://docs.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/soa-ra/v1.0/soa-ra-
pr-01.pdf.
 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical 5

Incident Management to prevent, protect, respond, and recover from natural, technological, and terrorist
events [40].
Even with these enabling technologies and with some successes in national level sharing and integra-
tions of government information, the local, state, and regional level implementations are lagging behind.
In addition, there are different modes of information sharing fueled by the new emergent technology
developments in the context of the Web 2.0 or the Semantic Web. The information sharing and integration
research goes beyond the sharing among government organizations, but sharing the government infor-
mation with citizens and the public as active participants in various public issues. This new environment
introduces a new set of challenges in the government information sharing and integration.

4. Government information sharing in the Web 2.0 era and beyond

In Web 2.0, content can be created collaboratively by website users using wikis, blogs, and forums,
and content can be generated and composed through “mash-ups” from various information sources, and
through web feeds (such as, Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds). In addition,
the collaboration tools such as Web conferencing, chat-rooms and one on one chats facilitate virtual
meetings and virtual groups. The social networking tools and annotation tools are also part of the Web
2.0 tools, where the same interest groups can share not only the traditional documents, but also their
personal and social information as well as their interests and opinions.
In the Web 2.0 era, government information is increasingly collected and shared through active
participation of citizens and businesses. Vast amounts of information become publicly available and can
be enriched and used by both public and private stakeholders. The public and business participation
has been a new paradigm of information sharing that contributes to new government information system
design as well as collaborative policy design. For instance, Wiki tools are used for creating user
documents jointly by developers and users. The Wiki tools are also employed as a policy making
platform, where the policy development involved not only collaborative writing of the contents of the
policy but also expressing the reasoning behind developing policy with open dialogs among participants.
Chat tools are used to facilitate and monitor government operations. These Web 2.0 collaborative tools,
thus, can potentially promote transparency and might result in quicker and informed decision making in
governments, allow citizens and government communities to voice and share opinions and open dialogs,
and help governments to receive immediate feedback on new ideas and new collaborative projects.
However, similar to more traditional information sharing initiatives, there are many barriers in adopting
the new wave Web 2.0 tools in government. First, a cultural change is needed in the government
workforce, because it could be difficult for them to adapt to the openness that these collaborative tools
provide. There should be clear demonstration of these tools as solutions to existing problems. Second, in
the open and informal environment provided by Web 2.0 tools, the sensitive and classified information can
be shared inadvertently and intentionally. Security and privacy issues have to be analyzed and solutions
should be implemented. The challenge is much greater in open environments than in the traditional
Web where most of resource owners can implement access control mechanisms for individual access
requests. In Web 2.0, individual users are connected to multiple virtual groups, and address whole group
(audience) at a given interaction. Thus the damage of leaking sensitive information could be more severe
than in the regular Web. In addition, with the help of Web 2.0 tools such as mashups, the data stored in
the government site can flow into a Web application through Web application software, and composed
in a way that can leak the privacy of individuals. Furthermore, such efforts can result in a significant
information overload, which could be (mis)used as a lobbying instrument for certain stakeholder groups
and result in mistrust. As such it concerns typical problems involving social and technical aspects.
6 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical

Specific issues addressed in the papers included in this special issue
Specific issue
How are information sharing net-
works for public safety formed?
What should governments do with
the public data they collect, and
what is the implication of data
ownership for a government?
Are governments sensitive to ac-
cessibility for disability groups
when creating information sys-
tems and networks?
How can government facilitate cit-
izens’ participation in information
design and sharing?
How can government protect cit-
izens’ privacy in an open net-
worked society?
How can governments design bet-
ter business processes?
What is the role of regional coor-
dination in sharing information for
rapid response?
How to share geospatial data
among municipal governments?
Table 2
Authors Country Emphasis
Christine B. Williams, Jane Fe- United States Social Science Approaches
dorowicz, Steve Sawyer, Mar-
tin Dias, Dax Jacobson, Michael
Tyworth, and Sonia Vilvovksy
Albert Meijer and Marcel The Netherlands Social Science Approaches
Thaens
Paul Baker, Jarice Hanson and United States Social Science Approaches
William N. Myhill
Alan Borning, Batya Friedman, United States Computer Science Approaches
Janet L. Davis, Brian T. Gill,
Peter H. Kahn, Travis Kriplean,
and Peyina Lin
Janice Warner and Soon Ae United States Computer Science Approaches
Chun
Hafedh Chourabi, Sehl Mel- Canada Computer Science Approaches
louli, and Faouzi Bouslama
Donna Canestraro, Theresa A. United States Case Study
Pardo, Anna Raup-Kounovsky,
and Dennis Taratus
Francisco Artigas, Dom Ele- United States Case Study
fante, and Alex Marti

5. Papers in this special issue

This special issue features papers from the Ninth International Conference on Digital Government
Research (dg.o2008) held in Montr éal, Canada, May 18–21, 2008. This issue focuses on several
challenges in government information sharing and integration dealing with policy issues, organizational
and political factors, practical application solutions, and best practices presented in case studies. It deals
with the changing nature and role of information sources and sharing and integration capabilities for
changing government relationships with businesses and citizens. Together, the papers in this special
issue cover a broad range of topics related to government information sharing and integration from very
different and complementary perspectives. Individually, they explore particular issues and applications
with either a social science or a computer science emphasis. The special issue includes six research
articles, two case studies, and two book reviews. Table 2 presents the specific issues addressed by each
of the papers.
Christine B. Williams and her colleagues focus on explanations for the formation of public safety
networks (PSNs) and for their design, use, governance, and success. The authors present the rational
choice and institutional theoretical perspectives on PSN formation based on technical tools. Their
analyses suggest that rational choice and institutional perspectives are useful for generating insights
about PSNs and, by extension, about other types of interorganizational collaborations focusing on
information-sharing and the use of information and communication technologies.
In their article, Albert Meijer and Marcel Thaens explore the information strategies open to the
Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management in the Netherlands. This agency gathers
traffic information and sells information to intermediaries for creating fee-based useful services for
 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical 7

citizens. The agency wanted to release the information and provide value-added services through its own
website, but a court ruling prohibited this. The very existence of the government is at risk and it suggests
other strategies that may be a viable option in view of the consequences for effectiveness, efficiency, and
legitimacy.
In their study, Paul Baker and colleagues undertake a survey and comparative analysis of a sample of
48 municipalities to ascertain the degree of accessibility to, or sensitivity to (in the case of systems under
development) municipal wireless networks. It questions whether external policy instruments, such as a
Department of Justice compliance program – Project Civic Access (PCA), can impact the accessibility
of these networks. Results of this research indicate that the existence of external accessibility policy
mechanisms such as PCA can be positively associated with some sensitivity towards disadvantaged
populations. However, they also found that there is a general lack of awareness or even recognition of
individuals with disabilities as a group and government agencies are not necessarily going beyond the
specific scope of the agreement.
Alan Borning and colleagues investigate laying the foundations for public participation in information
design and sharing in advance of wide-scale public deployment, with the goal of having interaction
designs ready when the system is put into such use. Using the theory and methods of Value Sensitive
Design, the authors address three design goals toward public participation and value advocacy, and
provide evidence that each of them was achieved: (1) enabling indirect stakeholders to become direct
stakeholders (i.e. enabling more people to interact directly with UrbanSim in useful ways); (2) developing
a participatory process by which these stakeholders can help guide the development of the system itself;
and (3) enabling participating organizations to engage in value advocacy while at the same time enhancing
overall system legitimation.
In their paper, Janice Warner and Soon Ae Chun address citizen’s privacy issues when sharing gov-
ernment information through third party mashup services. In a mash-up, a third party mashup Web
application providers mix and compose content using the individual citizen’s data from the government
agencies and from other sources through Web services. Since the data is public data not necessarily
provided through an electronic interaction, individual citizens are not necessarily engaged directly to
express fine-grained privacy policies on how data can be used. They provide a Privacy protection Model
for mashup services, using a mashup related multi-dimensional privacy protection space which includes
parameters to specify mashup providers, mashup-specific operators, and mashup purposes. A citizen
privacy network is proposed where citizens can publish their individual privacy policies that can be
applied to the use of their data that can be consulted by government data providers.
Hafedh Chourabi and colleagues present a new business process modeling approach that is based
on Business Process Mapping (BPMapping) and the UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology (UMM).
The BPMapping provides an overall view of the business processes showing their inputs, outputs and
interdependencies. The details of these business processes are described using UMM and different
levels of decomposition. Each level provides diagrams and forms to describe the business and functional
requirements and information exchanged and sharing between process partners. The approach is applied
to the modeling of the Integrated Records Management (IRM) process of the Quebec Government. The
results show that the proposed approach identifies, models, and documents business processes according
to international norms and standards while providing an overall structural and dynamic view of the
government business process.
In their case study, Donna Canestraro and colleagues report the experiences of the New York State
Department of Public Service as it explores the concept of regional telecommunications incident response
in New York. Its success on the information sharing through regional coordination lies in linking
8 J.R. Gil-Garcia et al. / Government information sharing and integration: Combining the social and the technical

together organizations or groups within close proximity to one another to pursue similar interests, goals,
or mandates, which contribute to increased levels of trust. Regional coordination requires leveraging
currently held resources in innovative and potentially more efficient ways, as well as the establishment
of new business processes, communication flows, and a system of governance that satisfies the needs
of all stakeholders. In addition, trust, collaboration, and timely cross-boundary information sharing all
play a pivotal role in this new model.
The case study reported by Francisco Artigas and colleagues describes a five year effort by a regional
government agency to serve geographic knowledge to 14 towns in the region by sharing resources
and infrastructure through a centralized Geographical Information System (GIS). This information
sharing efforts required funding, specialized staff, software licenses and equipment, affording municipal
governments not to invest on separate resources for interactive maps conveying the spatial arrangement
of municipal infrastructure, administrative boundaries and fundamental demographics of each town in
maps and tables that show proximity, elevations and distances that would otherwise be impractical to
describe using words alone. Other support for local governments achieved by this information sharing
network includes variance notifications, zoning and land use inventories and updates and emergency
management information including Right to Know records (RTK) that inform first responders about
stored hazardous materials in industrial facilities.
The book reviews published here further affirm the interdisciplinary nature of e-government as a
research field and as a practical application field, as this issue has shown for the more specific government
information sharing and integration phenomenon.
As a whole, this special issue presents insights about how different perspectives, social and technical,
complement each other and present a more comprehensive representation of government information
sharing and integration as a phenomenon. We think that this socio-technical view helps us to understand
better the complexity of cross-boundary collaboration, information sharing, integrated data structures,
and interoperability and we hope readers find this comprehensive and integrated approach both interesting
and useful.

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