E-Government Services Composition Using Multi-faceted Metadata Classification Structures

The connectivity generated by the Internet is opening new opportunities in service delivery since administrations are forming online alliances in order to deliver integrated value-adding services. However, due to lack of a step-by-step method for identification and further processing of services, the development of such composite e-Government services is usually ad-hoc. In this paper, we demonstrate how a systematic service composition can be accomplished: with the help of the proposed Service Description Worksheet, the e-Government Services can now be classified, searched for and composed into larger groups. This goal-driven approach can be used to understand the needs of different organizations and to depict the various functional characteristics of the cooperative processes in a declarative manner, suitable for prototyping projects in the public sector. Applying this method in the context of the Greek e-Government Services Framework, various services have been analysed, populating the worksheet database and leading to corresponding process models.