Track 1. Social Media and Government

Chairs: Andrea Kavanaugh, Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, and Ignacio Criado

Governments and constituents have been using social media and associated affordances to broadcast information, promote perspectives and policies, share ideas, and to garner (or sometimes disrupt) support for collective action. For this year’s theme “Intelligent Government for the Intelligent Information Society” we especially welcome papers related to machine learning, big data, and related analytics that can support smart government practice and design for civic engagement.

The more routine use of social media has created new challenges for all users, including continuous changes in technology and platforms, bigger and more complex data, regulations and policies, and government’s capacity to capture and accommodate more diverse perspectives and feedback. With the more pervasive use of social media by governments and constituents also comes the expectation that government will respond rapidly and meaningfully to posts, comments, likes, images. Being responsive may require news skills (technical, legal, social) in house or outsourced. Analysis of communication behavior, messages, systems and institutions, should help to increase our knowledge and understanding of the ways that these media are affecting collective problem solving and public policy development and service delivery.

This track addresses a range of similar or related research questions, topics and practices regarding social media, and the analysis of content, metrics, case studies or theoretical models to advance this area of research. We welcome research and practice papers on such new topics as fake news, ethics, e-profiling from a governance perspective, and links between citizen and government use of social media and big data.

 

Track 2:  Organizational Factors, Adoption Issues and Digital Government Impacts

Chairs:  Jing Zhang,  Lei Zheng, Chris Hinnant

To build intelligent government and intelligent society, public organizations employ advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) to facilitate communication and transactions with many stakeholders such as residents, private sector businesses, non-profit organizations, and other government agencies. The adoption and implementation of new ICTs by public organizations is influenced by organizational factors such as the availability of resources (i.e. funding, infrastructure, technological knowledge, and personnel), leadership, trust, stakeholder involvement, organization’s structure and culture, as well as inter-organizational dynamics if the initiative cut across multiple organizations. Similarly, the adoption of ICTs in government and society has generated important impacts on the organizational processes, effectiveness, and innovativeness of public organizations, as well as the smartness of the government and the society. In this context, this track solicits research that examines the organizational factors that influence the adoption and implementation, and impact of new and emerging innovative technologies such as smart governance, artificial intelligence, open data, social media, citizen-centric technologies, and other novel technologies that rely on open and large data sets. Furthermore, this track seeks research on the adoption of innovative policies or practices that seek to facilitate the strategic use of various ICTs by public organizations.

 

Track 3: Smart Cities: Intelligent Innovation and Transformation

Chairs: Leonidas Anthopoulos, Wookjoon Sung, Soon Ae Chun

Data and technologies drive cities to innovate and transform not only the economic productions and activities, but also citizen expectations in terms of information, services, governance participation.  The cities around the globe are adopting cutting edge technologies in their attempts to enhance their efficiency, their competitiveness and the local quality of life. Industry 4.0 technologies, IoT, AI, 5G-readiness and big open data are only some of the key infrastructure that cities deploy, while digital skills and extensive collaboration among the city stakeholders are key-elements that are being utilized for the digital transformation and for the smart governance of the local digital ecosystem.

This track invites research and practices in smart cities that describes smart cities development strategies, policy models, citizen engagement, and technology innovations. Topics include but not limited to industry 4.0 technologies for smart cities, mobility, energy, health, education, public safety, structures, natural environment, and business, as well as related issues of cybersecurity and privacy, community-based infrastructure resilience, urban informatics and governance. Specific interest areas include smart governance and smart city governance, smart city infrastructure and standards, applications and collaborations based on the “internet of things”; Smart sensors; Big data analytics; The Civic Technology Movement, and Intercity and intergovernmental collaborations; International cooperation and the spread of smart cities; Machine learning, AI, Blockchain and Robotics for cities and governments.

 

Track 4: Ethical Approaches to Intelligent Government: Strategies and Implementation

Chairs: Robert J. Domanski, Teresa M. Harrison, Evgeny Styrin

As digital government evolves in the direction of intelligent government, computationally “intelligent” systems are rapidly being integrated into numerous facets of public policy and management. These technologies – including artificial intelligence, machine learning, facial recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics – have the potential to yield great benefits, but pose substantial challenges to privacy, autonomy, governance, equity, and fairness.  In this track, we invite scholarly papers that explore the ethics of computational strategies in digital and intelligent government.  The track’s objectives are to 1) identify real-world examples/cases of real or potential ethical problems, 2) seek to place such cases in the context of existing ethical frameworks for analysis, 3) create actionable recommendations for researchers, professional developers, and digital government practitioners, and finally, 4) institutionalize recommendations in digital government research and practice.

Possible topics include but not limited to: Responsible uses of AI, machine learning, facial recognition, robotic process automation, and related technologies as strategies in government contexts;  Ethical guidelines for digital government practice and research; Ethical challenges posed by enumeration, one-stop, and other government IT programs; Creating a culture of ethics in digital governance; Assessing data for fitness in use; Issues in integrating data sets; Impacts of AI, IT, and other computing strategies on citizens’ experience of government; Values in digital government practice and research; Conflict resolution in public intelligent systems practices and implementation.

 

Track 5:  Beyond Bureaucracy: Progressing Governance through Disruptive Innovation

Chairs: Alois Paulin, Adeyinka Adewale, Zach Bastick

The “Beyond Bureaucracy” track aims to outline and discuss challenges along the boundaries of society, technology, and governance, which reach beyond established e-governance and e-democracy research paths and priorities. Where well-established research ambitions in fields such as e-government, e-governance, or e-democracy focus on providing and/or studying technology that supports the work and mission of government agencies and governmental or political agents, “Beyond Bureaucracy” addresses the question on how technology can empower citizens and the conceptual sovereign-body to actively control (rather than passively observe) public-domain agencies and -agents. The Beyond Bureaucracy track aims to outline the pending technological (design science) challenges, promotes the economic potentials of new technological ecosystems, discusses ethical implications of existing and potential future models of public governance, and serves as a platform for pro/contra deliberations on Beyond Bureaucracy thought and knowledge.

 

Track 6: Open Government Data – Maturity and Sustainability

Chairs: Tobias Siebenlist, Christine Meschede

Maturity and sustainability promote each other. An Intelligent Information Society benefits from Intelligent Government and vice versa. Open Government Data and its usage to create information and knowledge is a viable factor for an intelligent Information Society. As thus it builds a foundation for transparency and participation and a foundation for the creation of information services for citizens. In the area of analysis of open data sets, artificial intelligence, which requires reliable data to function, can be used to make predictions about future developments and usage patterns. The importance of these factors and their different manifestations is increasing as more and more open data sets are published, new portals are set up, services and applications are developed based on or with regard to the data sets, and existing solutions are maturing. The diversity of both factors facilitates a broad range of aspects that can be covered within this track. Another perspective is the usage of Open Government Data for sustainable development. The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, which consist of 17 specific goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Open Government Data can be used to measure the progress of achieving the goals on different administrative levels and to create value added services related to the SDGs. In particular, by providing open data, it is also possible to calculate the progress of the SDG objectives at urban and municipal level.

 

Track 7: Artificial Intelligence for Innovating Smart and Open Governments

Chairs: Sehl Mellouli, Adegboyega Ojo, Marijn Janssen

Artificial intelligence (AI) represents a new research trend for Governments which has the potential to affect every aspect of government. It brings new techniques and tools such as: machine learning, natural language processing, or robotics and that can be applied in different domains for example transport, healthcare, security, or energy.  AI innovation is already transforming the way governments operate, make decisions, and deliver public services. For this, we should take steps to ensure this is done in a more effective and transparent way that reassures citizens that these systems will produce fair outcomes, as well as higher quality services.  Governments are not only looking at the applications of AI but also at the impacts that AI can on different levels of governments including both the front-office and the back-office.  The purpose of this track is to investigate how AI can be used in all aspects of governments and how it will result in a smarter and open government. The track will also examine fundamental changes in practice and new research on approaches and mechanisms necessary for fostering AI innovation and implementation by governments for a greater transparency, accountability, service delivery, and citizen’s trust.  The topics of this track are, but not limited to:  AI adoption and acceptance in governments, AI for improving policy making and participation, Legal issues related to AI, AI and data in governments, AI and security in governments, Openness, transparency and accountability of algorithms, AI impacts on IT teams in governments, AI maturity models for governments, Bots for governments.

 

Track 8:  Governance of Technologies and Data in Social Innovations

Chairs: Loni Hagen, Iryna Susha, Efthimios Tambouris

We have recently observed various social innovations that cross traditional business boundaries or extend beyond social practices through technologies and data. For example, Uber experimented with a courier service that delivered luggage on-demand in some cities like New York. Civic hackathons emerged as a viable solution for problem-solving in local governments in several U.S. cities, such as Las Vegas and St. Louis. Several big data or computational modeling projects have been initiated on the globe. While they are innovative and promising, critical problems surrounding algorithms, data, and intelligent machines have not been examined thoroughly or discussed in scientific or policy communities. These advancements often have outpaced the way they need to be governed and what policy frameworks must be in place for their desired use. Governments tend to respond to these developments reactively and struggle to find the right balance between regulation (or encouragement) and innovation. This track calls for papers that address the governance and policy issues of, or frameworks for, technologies and data that are associated with various social innovations. We welcome empirical and conceptual studies that define the social innovation of the author’s interest in a specific context clearly and provide solid analysis, evidence, and discussion of policy issues or implications for government decision-making.

 

Track 9: Artificial Intelligence Challenges and Implications for Public Management and Policy

Chairs: Michael Ahn, Yu-Che Chen, Albert Meijer

“Artificial Intelligence Challenges and Implications for Public Management and Policy” and Algorithm-based decision-making are expected to dramatically transform our government into a new and intelligent form of institutional arrangement. For this track, the development and the key attributes of the emerging AI technologies and their implications are best contextualized in the broader history of public administration. In that context, AI technologies as an instrument of decision-making could transform or replace/complement traditional government bureaucracy. Moreover, this track seeks to elucidate the meaning as well as policy and management implications in the evolution of digital government. For instance, this track aims to examine the key attributes of AI technologies that distinguish them from other Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their impacts on government data collection, decision making, and policy implementation. In addition, this track invites insights into the identification of the key challenges to government brought by AI and their potential policy solutions. This track welcomes research papers as well as management and case study papers that address any of its focal areas.

 

Track 10:  Data-driven Society: Balancing Prosperity and Security

Chairs: Hun-Yeong Kwon, Ki-Yeong Min, Michael Reiterer

Today’s society is largely driven by data. In the global market the capacity to use data has become a power force. Governments of many countries have already recognized the value of data and are competing against each other to gain the upper hand. However, it is also true that data has been the major cause of privacy breaches, as it is so easy to process information easily and quickly using data.  Of equal consequence, concerns over security in information systems, services and networks that contain and transmit such data need to be addressed. Uncertainty arising from the complexities of a data-driven society is bringing new challenges and threats not only to ordinary citizens but also to governments.  In this sense, this track is seeking to solicit theoretical research papers and case studies on law and policies on data and personal information protection, privacy, information security, cyber security, etc. This track will address these issues from a multi-disciplinary perspective such as legal, policy, ethics, politics, public administration, computer engineering. Topics include, but are not limited to: Data Policy, Evidence Based Policy, Personal Information Protection, Privacy, Information Security, Cyber Security, Security Policies, Public Sector Efforts for Data Society, Data Industry Challenges by Private Companies, Artificial Intelligence, Legal Informatics etc.

 

Track 11: Development and Measurement of Intelligent Government Index

Chairs:  Choong-sik Chung,  Dongwook Kim

Various types of E-government related index including UN Digital Government Development Index, E-participation Index, and Smart City index have been developed and utilized in the corporate and industrial sectors. The development of these indexes has been based on electronic services and their scope of application, and it facilitates to measure the performance and levels of advancement in different digital government projects and to conduct comparative scoring of governments. On the other hand, the development of an intelligentization index that covers the entire scope of making governments intelligent, which includes indicators such as the use of IoT, Cloud computing, Big-data analytics and AI utilization, has not been actively discussed and implemented yet.

This track aims to address two important issues that can be applied to both public and private sector. First, this track intends to address the conceptual frameworks of intelligent governments that go beyond existing E-government digitalizations and other related indices. Second, this track aims to discuss and develop the key indicators that comprise an index, and the issue of measurability associated with key indicators. Topics include, but are not limited to, development of E-government, E-Participation and smart city related indexes, intelligentization and competitiveness index, development of digitalization index in central or local government, service or process intelligentization index, conceptual frameworks and validations of the intelligentization index, AI utilization index in government, measurement methods and reliability issues of evaluation methods.

 

Track 12: Open Data  for Sustainable Development Goals

Chairs: Kyung Ryul Park, Carla Bonina

Open data have been recognized as a key component of digital intelligence governance. However, the benefits of emerging digital technologies and data revolution are found to be unevenly distributed, diverse socio-political issues including digital inequalities, lack of citizen engagement, information capability, and data and statistical literacy need to be addressed.

This track focuses on the role and impacts of data revolution and digital intelligence governance in achieving UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). It will investigate new forms of power dynamic and policy challenges that data revolution creates and how extant digital governance theories can be applied to make sense of it. We invite diverse research methodologies including a cross-national analysis, a theory-driven research, as well as in-depth interpretive case study directly related to each seventeen SDGs goals, but are not limited to:

Monitoring and evaluation of SDGs; Global digital governance in SDGs data and indicator; The political economy of open data and power dynamics in digital governance; Critical approach to the concept of open data and the theoretical links between open data, digital governance and sustainable development; How national and international open data policy address the UN Sustainable Development Goals; How academia, media, citizens and civil society organizations to use open data for sustainable development and hold their leaders accountable for their actions;  What are the statistical, technical and information systems challenge in using open data for SDGs; What are the institutional, legal, coordination challenge and cultural resistance in maximizing the benefit of open data in sustainable development.

 

Track 13: Innovation of Public Service Design and Delivery in an Era of Intelligent Government

Chairs: Kwangho Jung and Hyunsub Kum

Government faces an increasing burden and demands for smart digital process, innovative policies and services. Rapid ICT advancements and ICT democratization have created new opportunities for creative solutions for many areas in public and private sectors and enhanced efficiency, reliability, transparency and accountability. To make the innovation work, government faces a multifaceted network that involves network-based collaboration among many stakeholders, including federal government, state governments, private vendors, retail merchants, and citizens who are affected by the innovations, as seen in the U.S. Electronic Benefit Transfers (EBT) system.  Smart governance is required to facilitate the innovative service and policy designs, to implement them effectively across organizational and cultural boundaries, and to manage network efficiency, security, privacy, and equity issues.

This track is to explore (1) how government initiates, implements and adopts public policy and service delivery systems, managing the networked collaborations, (2) what critical factors matter to the diffusion process, (3) how the ICT technologies can be leveraged to innovate the bureaucratic process of the public service; and (4) how the grass-root citizen participations with collective intelligence can create and manage opportunities for innovations. We call for (quasi-) experimental research and various theory-testing case studies that can touch these issues or comparative research to identify differences and similarities of smart governance for public innovation projects across developing and developed countries.

 

Pre-Conference Workshops and Tutorials
Chairs: Wookjoon Sung and Loni Hagen

Dg.o workshops are half- or full-day facilitated discussions. Discussions are typically stimulated by short presentations by workshop participants. Individuals proposing workshops will assume the responsibility of identifying and selecting participants for the workshop and for conducting workshop activities. Dg.o tutorials are half- or full-day presentations or hands-on experiences offering deeper insight into the scientific or government domains, research topics or methods, technologies or field experiences of veteran digital government researchers and practitioners.

 

Panels
Chairs: Kwangho Jung and Taewoo Nam

Panel proposals may address themes or topics related to any of the tracks for the conference. Additionally, we welcome panel proposals that put a spotlight on practice and application. Proposals from practitioners at all levels of government featuring experiences with, perspectives on, and evaluations of digital government practice are encouraged. Individuals interested in submitting panel proposals are invited to consult the panel co-chairs about their ideas prior to developing their submissions. Please send expressions of interest for panel development to Kwangho Jung at kwjung77@gmail.com or kwjung77@snu.ac.kr and Taewoo nam at namtaewoo@gmail.com.

 

Posters and System Demonstrations
Chair: Jisung Yoo

The poster session, held in conjunction with the system demonstrations, allows presenters to discuss research in progress, application projects, or government policies and program initiatives in one-to-one conversations with other participants at the conference.

 

PUBLICATIONS

All accepted management or policy papers, research papers, student papers, panels, posters, and system demonstrations will be published in the printed proceedings and included in the ACM digital library and the DBLP bibliography system. Selected papers will be invited for a journal special issue. There will be several special issues relate to the conferences, including

* Government Information Quarterly (GIQ)

* ACM Digital Government Research and Practice (DGOV)

* Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER)

* Transforming Government: People, Process, Policy (TGPPP)

* International Journal of E-Government Research (IJEGR)

* Information Polity

* International Journal of E-Planning Research

* International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age (IJPADA)

* Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity (JOItmC)

 

BEST PAPER AWARDS

Outstanding achievement awards will be presented in the categories Research papers, Management, Case Study and Policy papers, Posters, and System demonstrations. Papers that reflect the main theme of the conference, Innovations and Transformations in Government, will be preferred. Other selection criteria include the interdisciplinary and innovative nature of the work, its contribution to and balance between theory (rigor) and practice (relevance), the importance and reach of the topic, and the quality of the writing for communicating to a broad audience.