From Software-Based To Knowledge-Based Policy Implementation and Compliance

Abstract

Law-making is inextricably bound up with the developments of e-government. Yet translating legislation into administrative processes and services has been extremely complex, taking a long time and involving many manual tasks. This problem is further complicated by the increasing amount of legislation and the frequent changes of legislation. Recent technology innovations enable a shift from implementation and maintenance of e-government services by software configuration and engineering towards implementation and maintenance based on knowledge representation. Despite the many benefits such as faster, cheaper and easier implementation, adoption has been limited. In this paper we describe these developments and compare software-based with knowledge-based implementation and maintenance. Based on a case study, we identify success factors and challenges from moving towards knowledge-based implementation and maintenance in the aspects of motivation, architecture, technique, expertise and finance.