Dr. Theresa Pardo
Deputy Director, Center for Government Technology
Dr. Theresa Pardo
Specialty
• Information technology innovation in the public sector
• Electronic records management
• Interagency and intergovernmental information sharing and integration• Information technology business case planning and development
Brief Bio
Theresa is Deputy Director of the Center for Technology in Government located at the University at Albany. She is also an Associate Research Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the University at Albany and an affiliate faculty member in Informatics. She is one of the developers of UAlbany's top ranked Government Information Strategy and Management curriculum. Theresa has written extensively on a number of topics related to IT innovation in government including cross-boundary information sharing, trust and knowledge sharing, and preservation of government records in digital form. She has received research funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Library of Congress, among others.
Theresa is co-chair of the North American Digital Government Working Group and serves on various editorial and advisory boards including Government Information Quarterly, the International Advisory Board for Mobile Technologies for the United Nations, the Financial Market Regulation Program at the University at Albany, and the Expert Working Group for the EUReGov project. She is currently an elected member of the board of the Digital Government Society of North America. Theresa is also serving as program co-chair for the International Conference on Electronic Governance (ICEGOV)to be held this year in Cairo and she co-chairs the Emerging Topics Mini-Track for the Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences. She was recently appointed as a senior adviser to the Informatization Research Institution, State Information Center, P.R. China. Theresa holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University at Albany, State University of New York.
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1. Can you briefly tell us about the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany?
The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany (UAlbany) is a university wide applied research center that works with government to develop well-informed information strategies that foster innovation and enhance the quality and coordination of public services. We carry out this mission through applied research and partnership projects that address the policy, management, and technology dimensions of information use in the public sector. CTG’s research interests and expertise are focused on government problems or issues that are complex, cross-boundary, and multi-dimensional. Current thematic focus areas are inter-organizational information sharing and integration, international digital government research, digital preservation, and IT-enabled innovation and value generation in the public sector.
2. What are your main responsibilities at the Center?
My responsibilities at the Center range from engaging with practitioners to identify the key challenges to innovative uses of technology in government organizations to working with fellow academics to explore key questions about the interactions between the social and technical processes that play out when government organizations engage with innovative practices and technologies. More specifically, I am responsible for the project portfolio of the Center working with a team of senior program managers to ensure the work conducted in these projects is of high quality and relevant to both practitioners and researchers. This involves building partnerships with government practitioners as well as with academic colleagues. This partnership building process involves for example, participating in advisory boards within government and actively engaging with the challenges facing government and working actively in the professional associations serving both communities. In terms of the partnerships with academic colleagues, I play a lead role in bringing the work of the Center to academic audiences through publications in journals and through academic conferences as well as in presentations and invited lectures. As Deputy Director I play a role both in setting the direction of the Center in terms of the themes and issues around which we organize our work and in securing the resources necessary to do that work.
3. Can you please tell us about the CTG’s focus areas for the next decade?
CTG’s top priority for the next several years is to maintain and solidify our leadership position in digital government research and practice. The four themes of inter-organizational information sharing and integration, international digital government research, digital preservation, and IT-enabled innovation and value generation in the public sector will continue to drive our research agenda and our relationships with funders, sponsors, and partners. In addition to this research strategy, our existing business model is essential to continued success. This model rests on mixed and dynamic funding sources, actively managed human and capital resources, and multi-year financial and program planning. Within this context, our major goals for the next two years are to:
• Continue to support the core strategies of the NYS Chief Information Officer Council and state and local agencies through applied research projects that address key New York State needs and lead to additional externally funded research projects.
• Extend our research in cross-boundary information sharing and integration to new sponsors (such as the United Nations and Department of Homeland Security), to the local government level in New York State and elsewhere, and to new focus areas (such as immigration and border control).
• Emphasize the production of scholarly publications from all of our research areas, including mining the enormous quantity of qualitative case data that has been amassed over the past 15 years.
• Extend our work on digital preservation of government information through continued work with the Library of Congress and state and national partners.
• Extend our work in public return on investment, building on current international research efforts, to have greater impact on government decision makers.
• Continue implementation of our four-year, $1.5 million international digital government community building grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), including an international reconnaissance study, establishment and evaluation of international working groups, and design, implementation and evaluation of an annual digital government research institute for doctoral students.
• Initiate a research and practice partnership with academic and government partners in China, building on relationships established this year under the auspices of NSF.
4. Can you tell us more about the “Building a Sustainable International Digital Government Research Community” one of the projects that is under progress at CTG?
The goal of this four-year effort is to create a framework for a sustainable global community of practice among digital government researchers and research sponsors. Funded by the US National Science Foundation Digital Government Research Program, the project includes an international reconnaissance study describing the current status of digital government research, an annual research institute, a framework for several international working groups, and travel support for US investigators and doctoral students to participate actively in international conferences and workshops. The project will run from late 2005 through 2009.
5. What do you think is the biggest achievement of the “Building a Sustainable International Digital Government Research Community” project?
So far, the three international working groups are showing great promise as incubators for new international research, as well as long-lasting international relationships among digital government scholars. About 85 junior and senior faculty and graduate students from more than a dozen countries and many academic disciplines are involved in these groups. They are working on e-participation and enhanced democracy, information-intensive economic and community issues that span the countries of North America, and use of geo-informatics to detect and analyze “hot spots” such as the emergence of diseases and political crises. By the time the project is over we expect to see several journal articles and special issues, at least two books, a set of case studies, a prototype system for hot spot analysis, and several successful grant proposals to keep the work going.
6. As you have rightly said “Information is one of the most valuable resources of government and Information sharing allows government managers to work at the same time, with the same information integrated from multiple disparate sources.” Can you provide an example where government agencies have championed the art of information sharing?
Information is one of the most valuable resources of government. Governments are finding, however, that the information needed to plan, make decisions, and act is often held outside their own organizations, collected for widely different purposes and maintained in disparate formats. This is why governments are increasingly turning to interoperability as a strategy for maximizing the value of information. Interoperability allows government managers to work at the same time, with the same information integrated from multiple disparate sources. It has the potential to support the transformation of organizational structures and communication channels among multiple agencies working in different locations.
The growing support for interoperability as a infrastructure investment transcends political partisanship and crosses multiple policy areas. It crosses continents, oceans, political ideologies and institutions. This support stems from an increased understanding of the potential public value of more effective interoperability. Interoperability capabilities, when available, allow information to be used in new ways to meet the priorities of government; to track the spread of disease across regions, to pay health benefits to workers who live and work in different countries, and to monitor air quality in border regions. The following case vignettes are provided to illustrate how interoperability has contributed to government transformation in the areas of services improvement, efficient and effective operations of government, and the development of stable and vital economies.
Increasing the legitimacy of government through transparency and efficiency. Financial management systems are key links in the flow of revenues to the government and the flow of expenditures and services back to the public. Improving financial management, therefore, has the potential to produce significant returns in terms of both greater internal efficiencies and enhanced value to the public. These were the goals of the Austrian Federal Budgeting and Bookkeeping System project initiated in 1997 by the Minister of Finance and supported by the Chancellor. The goal of the project was an interoperable federal government budget and bookkeeping processes. By 2005, one of the results of the interoperability initiative was that the Ministry of Finance successfully consolidated 85 bookkeeping units across the federal government into one federally owned, but privately operated, agency. These improvements reduce the burden of financial support on the public—taxes, fees, etc.—and can ease the burden of compliance with rules and policies. Better financial information can make government budgets and expenditures more transparent, and thus more legitimate and acceptable to the public.
Increasing the value of government to citizens through enhanced services. Canada’s Service New Brunswick (SNB) is well-known internationally for its expertise in providing multi-channel single window citizen access to government services, as well as for developing and maintaining geographic information databases. SNB's award-winning approach provides one-stop-shopping for different government services on behalf of provincial and municipal government agencies. It also provides a linkage to the Canadian Federal Government in a joined-up government model. As a crown corporation operating outside of, but in partnership with Canadian governments, SNB was to create new models for sharing resources and managing programs.
Transforming government through modernized, integrated, and world-class practices. The Merkava Project in the Government of Israel restructured the financial, logistics, and human resource components of government-wide administration into an interoperable system. An interoperability framework was used as way to implement a much more standardized and modernized government operation and an enhanced management infrastructure on which to build improved services.
Interoperability as a priority is also gaining support as a consequence of new understanding of the cost to society when interoperable systems are not in place. This new understanding has realized through the examinations of several national and international crises that required governments to coordinate and work together both within and across governmental boundaries and with civil society and the private sector.
Missed opportunities for collaboration. A post-tsunami lessons learned report released by the Government of Indonesia and the United Nations noted the many missed opportunities for coordinated response among national and international responders. The consequence of this was a myriad of coordination problems resulting in each responder providing what they could based on an internal setting of priorities rather than a shared understanding of needs.
Weak systems for processing and using information. The 2004 bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report presented a sobering characterization of the U.S. public sector’s current ability to leverage information. It emphasized that a weak system for processing and using information is stymieing the U.S. government’s ability in leveraging the vast amount of information it has access to.
These insights and experiences together and the growing concerns about global health crises has pushed interoperability and transparency to the center of the debate about preparation for the next pandemic.
Incalculable human misery. At a November 2007 meeting of the World Health Organization interoperability and transparency were identified as “essential” to the efforts of the member countries to “increase country capacity in surveillance, early detection, diagnosis and reporting of cases – both animal and human.” The cost of not being prepared to share information, to coordinate our responses, and to work together, is well understood, “If we are unprepared the next pandemic will cause incalculable human misery.”
From a global perspective and a local perspective we know the future presents many challenges. The president of an association of U.S. local government health officials, speaking before U. S. State Legislators in early 2004, testified that “while we can't predict future challenges, we know they will be there. We know they will be difficult, surprising in complexity, and growing in frequency and severity.” He emphasized that the infrastructure of local public health units needs to be further strengthened to meet the increasing challenges and emerging public health responsibilities in our communities. Information must be shared in new ways, systems must work together at new levels.
7. Do you think the private sector should be involved in the implementation of the e-government project?
Participation in any project should be functionally driven. Private sector involvement is often driven by the need to fill capability gaps in government, in other cases the private sector is engaged with government in creating innovative new partnership approaches to providing government services. From a capability perspective, if the capability necessary to successfully complete a project is not found within the organization or organizations involved in the effort, then choices must be made. One choice involves changing the project to meet the capabilities within the organizations involved, another is looking elsewhere for the necessary resources; in some cases contracting for those resources, in others building partnerships based on mutual interest and perceived value. Many successful technology based initiatives in government involving the private sector have been designed to leverage unique resources of particular firms. The success of these projects should not be interpreted to mean that private sector involvement will guarantee success. Context matters in all cases, and questions about who should participate are best answered in terms of purpose, context and capability.
8. What are some of the best Public Private Partnership (PPP) practices in the United States?
Public private partnerships are understood in many different ways. In order to understand what some of the “best” are it is important to understand the various ways individuals and organizations use the phrase. In May 2006 the Corporate Leadership Council of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released a briefing to assist government leaders in thinking about public private partnership. The document entitled Keys to Collaboration: Building Effective Public-Private Partnerships can be found at http://www.nascio.org/publications/documents/NASCIO-Keys%20to%20Collabor.... The report addresses just this question and puts forward as a foundation for discussion some of the ways government agencies use the phrase “public private partnerships.” They note that the United Stated Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration defines public-private partnerships as “contractual agreements formed between a public agency and private sector entity that allow for greater private sector participation in the delivery of transportation projects” http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ppp/defined.htm#1. They contrast this use with that of the Canadian council for Public-Private Partnerships which focuses less on contractual arrangements and more on cooperative ventures, “a cooperative venture between the public and private sectors, built on the expertise of each partner, that best meets clearly define public needs through the appropriate allocation of resources, risks and rewards.” (see www.pppcouncil.ca/aboutppp.htm)
Specific definitions aside, the best PPP practices are those that are organized, as noted above in the discussion of the private sector involvement in implementation of information technology innovation projects, based on function. The answer “it depends” while not satisfying, is accurate. An innovation that works in one context, such as a major city or a small town in the United States or China, is not likely to work everywhere. PPPs that work in one context may not work in another. PPPs may be the answer always in one community, and never the answer in another. The challenge to government leaders and their colleagues in the private sector is to find those places where PPPs deliver the most value to citizens and provide the return necessary for the private sector to fully participate.
10. What is your suggestion towards incorporating ICT into the overall public sector reform strategy?
The vision of ICT as a transformative agent for government is powerful and compelling. We must keep our eyes on the vision, but also, we must pay attention to the complex realities of implementing that vision. Digital government initiatives, of whatever type, are complex mixtures of technological, managerial and policy related challenges. The risk of not understanding and addressing these complexities is costly failure. Technology is not an end in itself; technology delivers value to the public through the opportunities they enable. Value is realized through better coordination of government agency programs and services and through opportunities for information to be shared among, and used by, networks of government, private sector and other key actors to serve the priorities of society and its institutions. Focus on the function of government and understand where technology fits into the strategy.
11. How do you see the role of mobiles in government reaching out to citizens and vice versa? Do you think developing countries need to give more emphasis towards m-Governance?
Governments worldwide are wrestling with the question of the preferred delivery channel for government services. How scarce funds should be invested to best serve citizens in the evolving technology environment is unclear. The infrastructure barriers to using traditional government service delivery channels in developing countries are significant. In this context m-governance seems to be a serious alternative; providing government services to citizens as well as creating new economic and social opportunities for citizens may best be accomplished in these cases through m-governance. Acknowledging the ubiquitous access of mobile devices and leveraging this as a delivery platform for government services is a serious alternative being considered in many developing countries. Again, the statement, context matters. More and more practitioners as well as researchers are asking this question. One such study is helping to inform this discussion through their study which looks at telephonic services as an alternative to traditional egovernment service delivery channels.
In their paper Taking e-government to the bottom of the pyramid: dial-a-gov? presented at ICEGOV 2007 in Macau (http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1328057.1328105&coll=&dl=GUIDE&typ...) Helani Galpaya, Rohan Samarajiva, and Shamistra Soysa, from LIRNEasia, Colombo, Sri Lanka noted that “the model of delivering e-Gov via the Internet has major drawbacks as shown by survey data representing 397 million people at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) in India, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. First, only 49% have even heard of the Internet and only 2.6% have used it.” They point out that by “viewing the telephone as the end-device for e-service delivery, implementers can automate those parts of a government process that can deliver value quickly, through "smaller" (less complicated, therefore less likely to fail) applications. By not seeking to re-engineer entire government departments, these projects face less resistance to change from public-sector employees. Given that over 90% of those at the BOP use phones already, significant use is more likely if the necessary attention is paid to language, design and publicity.”
They too factor in context in considering the role of technology. They point out that an all or nothing strategy is not necessary. They posit that the role of the internet and traditional egovernment service delivery models, in many cases in developing countries accessed through telecenters, may be more appropriate for certain applications, while telephones may be more appropriate for others. “The Internet, accessed at a telecenter, and sophisticated e-Government systems will play a role in providing ‘higher-end’ citizen services, for example submitting a passport application online with an uploaded digital photograph. But at a time when the Internet is barely reaching 10.3 million people at the BOP in these countries, the authors argue that phones are the cheaper, more immediate and ubiquitous tool for Asian governments to inform, transact and interact with almost 400 million of their most needy citizens.” Again, context matters.
12. Any words of wisdom for governments of developing countries
Use idealism to set the direction but realism to make decisions about technology innovation and organizational change. This requires attention to two interdependent tracks; creating the capability for successful innovation and engaging in innovative efforts. To do this you must know about your country, including your government, and use that knowledge combined with expert knowledge about technology and organizations and what makes them work well together, to develop a strategy of ICT innovation that makes sense within the context of your country. Be a critical consumer of technology by having expert knowledge about the capabilities and conditions that exist in your country and prepare yourself with an understanding that ICT innovation does not work the same in all places and at all times. Examine in depth why something did or didn’t work elsewhere and use this information to help you determine the extent to which that particular innovation will work in your situation. For example, if a particular interoperability initiative works in one country, critically examine the policy, management and technology capabilities of that environment and understand the extent to which those capabilities exist or can be created in your country and plan with this knowledge. Investigate the capabilities that existed and how those capabilities made it possible for the technology innovation to be successful. Systematically assess whether your government has the capabilities necessary to be successful in that same way. If not, then focus on building those capabilities through investments in areas such as infrastructure enhancements, workforce developments, and policy frameworks. If so, then consider those innovations from an explicit understanding of how the capabilities in your country will interact with the requirements for success of any particular innovation. Be as clear as possible about what you can do today. Start slow and build from a place of knowledge and awareness of the complex interactions between technology, organizations, innovation, and capability; keep one eye on what is possible today within a given context, given current capabilities, and the other eye on the future.