Toward a cooperative architecture for delivering government services. I

In 2002, the Italian government proposed its "The Government's Guidelines for the Development of the Information Society". These guidelines are part of an action plan to make Italy a leader in the digital age (http://www.mininnovazione.it/ita/news/linneguida.shtml). The document outlines the modernization of the public and private sectors through the widespread use of new information and communication technologies. The goal is to boost the country's competitiveness by accelerating the spread of an online economy. Developing such an information society would also improve the quality of life and give all citizens equal opportunities. The plan supports widespread use of information technology in the entire modernization process and for all public administrations of PAs (government agencies) in Italy. The plan involves a project to secure the cooperation of some central PAs. The project called Repository for Agents in Economics (RAE), this project seeks to reduce enterprises' burden in performing required bureaucratic functions. In the course of developing this federated system, the RAE project had to provide interfaces among the various PAs as well as provide an interface for user interaction. Part 2 of this article describes the framework that RAE developed for providing these interfaces.