Digital Government

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in government reflects the growth in the use of AI in the economy and in society generally. It is being driven, on the one side, by technical advances in a number of areas such as machine learning, neural nets and deep learning and, on the other, by economic forces as many governments continue to try to provide more services with fewer resources. AI offers enormous potential to boost efficiency and improve decision-making by processing large amounts of data and information that can help to, for example, identify welfare beneficiaries, combat fraud, and not only deliver better public services but reduce the cost of delivering personalized and customized services to citizens. However, along with benefits, AI may pose risks to individuals, organizations, and society as a whole. For example, machines are not accountable and there are opaque and proprietary software tools working outside the scope of meaningful scrutiny and accountability (the so-called “black boxes”) already being used to make decisions that can have fundamental effects on the lives of ordinary citizens. While many government agencies identify AI as a priority, the successful diffusion of this innovation has not been realized on a large scale.

The focus of this minitrack will be on both current uses and potential uses of AI in government. We invite contributions on adoption and implementation of AI in public organizations, benefits and risks, as well as on the control, regulation, and governance of this technology. While we envisage papers in this minitrack being on the use of AI primarily in public administration, we will also welcome papers in areas and on topics within the wider public sector, including policing and health (although we will not consider papers related to AI in national security and the military).  We welcome submissions with diverse views and methodologies. The goal of this minitrack is to promote critical discussion on the current status and future trajectory AI in government.

Among the dimensions of AI in government that might be addressed are:

• The implementation of AI as a public management task
• The ethics and risk governance of AI and algorithms in public management implementation
• Linking AI implementation, evaluation and the political agenda
• The behavioral impacts of AI – e.g. on motivation, trust, etc.
• Comparative studies across different public service fields
• The role of organizational and/or institutional factors in the implementation of AI
• Ensuring the legitimacy of AI implementation
• Transparency and accountability of algorithm use
• The tensions between the legitimacy of algorithmic decisions used in frontline service delivery and the discretion of street-level bureaucrats when employing, assessing or overriding automated decisions
• Governance of AI
• Determinants of AI adoption
• Challenges of AI implementation
• AI and digital government design

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Dapeng Liu (Primary Contact)
Baylor University
dapeng_liu@baylor.edu

Mila Gascó-Hernández
Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany – SUNY
mgasco@albany.edu

Lemuria Carter
University of Sydney
Lemuria.Carter@sydney.edu.au

The cybersecurity aspects of government and critical infrastructures have become a hot topic for countries all across the globe. Information Technology has become pervasive in all aspects of our lives. The minitrack examines aspects associated with the security of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) used by governments and critical infrastructures and explores ways that IT can enhance the ability of governments to ensure the safety and security of its citizens.  Of especial interest are systems such as industrial control systems, SCADA, and process control networks which control infrastructures that include electricity (Smartgrid), pipelines, chemical plants, manufacturing, traffic control and more.

Governments have also embraced IT to interface with citizens in a more efficient manner. Security issues have risen to the forefront as a result of data disclosures and identity theft incidents discussed in mainstream media. Other issues include intellectual property theft and criminal acts involving computers. Recently, the issue of cybersecurity information sharing has also risen in importance and much has been written and debated on this subject.

This mintrack explores research into pressing issues surrounding the intersection of cybersecurity and government spheres of influence. Whether technical or policy, from information sharing to new analytical methods of detection of insider threats, this minitrack casts a wide net to bring cross disciplinary thinking to problems with far-reaching implications.

This is a wide focus minitrack, if your research involves security associated with IT or OT, and has a government component, then this is its home. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Systems for governments to respond to security events
• Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
• Cyber physical systems security
• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and control systems
• Election Security
• Cybersecurity issues during a crisis such as a pandemic
• Information assurance and trusted Computing
• Information sharing
• Information security economics
• Information warfare
• Incident response
• New threats, including insider and nation states
• Digital forensics
• Privacy and freedom of information
• Security management
• Laws and regulation of IT security
• Security concerns of new technologies
• Cybersecurity in government disaster recovery and business continuity
• Case reports related to security experiences within government

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Keith  Harrison (Primary Contact)
University of Texas at San Antonio
keith.harrison@utsa.edu

Greg White 
University of Texas at San Antonio
greg.white@utsa.edu

Arthur Conklin
University of Houston
waconklin@uh.edu

This minitrack aims to provide an opportunity and an open forum for discussion of different technological, socio-political, institutional, legal, and organisational strategies that inform the design, implementation, and management of digital reforms of the public sector. Specifically, this track seeks papers that discuss theories and/or present cases useful to better understand how different digital government policies and/or strategies can lead to successful digital government deployments, or, on the other hand, how different factors may lead to failure of such projects. Papers which examine or discuss external or contextual factors that affect or influence digital government, such as the political state; organizational culture; institutional factors or normative arrangements are also invited. By digital government action, we mean both macro-level institutional design and micro-level collaboration and competition between diverse stakeholders.

Contributions to literature cover different areas and topics. New and emerging technologies, not to mention new thinking about public administration and government itself, often demand new ways of thinking and innovative approaches to frame these deployments. In the post-pandemic recovery, these new demands become increasingly important. Digital technologies provide in fact new opportunities and challenges for adaptive and agile governance, yet they have also impacted the way by which public administration’s processes and activities are structured and executed. Papers which address these challenges are particularly welcomed this year.

In addition, the minitrack welcomes contributions exploring the issues associated with the design, implementation, and management of policies and strategies that change the nature of the interactions between government and citizens, private sector organizations, and NGOs. Moreover, papers that discuss the political, institutional, and organisational implication of the deployment of emerging and disruptive technologies are particularly welcomed.

We invite papers on the following topics, but not limited to:

• Best practices for design, implementation, and management of digital innovation in the public sector.
• Cases of digital government platforms design, implementation, and management
• Design, implementation, and management of Interoperability policies: legal, organizational, semantic, and technical layers
• Design, implementation, and management of ICT for development strategies
• Design, implementation, and management of ICT related outsourcing and insourcing in the public sector
• Design, implementation, and management of digital strategies
• Design, implementation, and management of digital transformation in policymaking
• Design, implementation, and management of E-Procurement policies and strategies
• Design, implementation, and management of ICT mediated co-creation and co-production
• Design, implementation, and management of ICT transparency, and accountability
• Design, implementation, and management of National and global digital strategies to respond to a pandemic
• Design, implementation, and management of privacy and data protection policies and strategies
• Digital by default and its implications
• E-Participation and E-democracy policies and strategies
• ICT for efficiency and effectiveness in government action
• Legal and judicial transformations associated with ICTs deployments
• Lessons for digital policy from the pandemic of 2019-2023.
• Public health versus privacy concerns
• Public policy issues in digital government
• Quantitative and qualitative analyse of the impact of digital government policies and strategies
• Socio-political, institutional, organisational, and ethical impacts of disruptive technologies
• Strategies to design, implement, and manage innovative technologies

We are looking for high-quality conference papers that adopt a wide range of approaches on content, case studies, or practical and theoretical models to advance the knowledge related to the design, implementation, and management of strategies and policies in the digital government context. The papers submitted to this minitrack must be new and unpublished.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Francesco Gualdi (Primary Contact)
London School of Economics and Political Science
f.gualdi@lse.ac.uk

Antonio Cordella
London School of Economics and Political Science
a.cordella@lse.ac.uk

Liudmila Zavolokina
University of Zurich
zavolokina@ifi.uzh.ch

Frank Bannister 
Trinity College, Dublin
Frank.Bannister@tcd.ie

Digital government, initially referred to as electronic government, has evolved tremendously both as a multi-disciplinary academic field of study and in practice over the last few decades. The Digital Government Reference Library contains more than 17,000 peer-reviewed publications. This multi-, cross- and even inter-disciplinary study domain benefits from researchers and practitioners from diverse fields, including but not limited to public administration, information systems, information science, and political science. As the domain matures, there is a need to further elaborate on and contribute to new theoretical approaches and models with a potential to frame studies in the field. To this end, several key questions emerge:

• Given the applied nature of digital government, what can be the role of theories?
• What are the fundamental theoretical contributions to or from the digital government discipline, if any?
• Does the field have any foundational theoretic frameworks? Given its multi-, cross- and even inter-disciplinary nature, does the field need to develop its own set of theories and in that case which and how?
• What is the appropriate balance of theory and practice in this domain of study? What are the reference disciplines for digital government, if any?
• Does digital government have, or shall digital government have, a “home” (anchor) discipline?
• Is digital government (can, or shall, it evolve into) its own discipline?
• What relevance does the digital government body of knowledge have to practice?
• What are the roles of values and norms in the development of Digital Government Theories?
• How locally contextualised processes affect development and application of Digital Government theories?

The overall purpose of this mini-track is to explore the role of theory development in the field of digital government. We welcome submissions with diverse views on the role of theory development in digital government to promote critical discussion of the current status and new theoretical trajectories of the discipline. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Fundamental Digital Government Theories
• Digital Government Theory Development
• The Role of Theory Development and Theory Integration in Digital Government
• The Status of the Digital Government Domain (discipline, or not?)
• Comparative government approaches in Digital Government
• Digital Government and Theories on Democracy and Inclusion
• Digital Government Research Methodologies
• Digital Government Reference Disciplines, if any
• Multi-disciplinary studies in digital government
• Inter-disciplinary studies in digital government
• Normative theoretical approaches to digital government

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Elin Wihlborg (Primary Contact)
University of Linköping
elin.wihlborg@liu.se

Magdalena Roszczyńska-Kurasińska
Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw
m.roszczynska@uw.edu.pl

Peter André Busch
Univeristy of Agder
peter.a.busch@uia.no

Information is among the key life-supporting essentials in a disaster response, as well as water and basic foods which are vital to sustain lives. Above all, the recent pandemics, environmental changes, geopolitical tensions have shown how information (about contamination, about root causes, about trust, about stocks, about science and progress) could be at the heart of the crisis management. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has, and will continue to profoundly change, disaster management in years to come. This, coupled with the impressive recent advances in artificial intelligence, offers huge potential for better management of crisis situations. Data and information management also guides us to build a disaster-resilient community which can adapt the society to those unexpected events. These issues should be tackled at each level of the governance (international, national, regional, local, etc.), and with regards to all relevant dimensions (social, technological, interoperability, agility, etc.).

We invite papers that deal with any aspect of the analysis, design, development, deployment, implementation, integration, operation, use or evaluation of ICT for crisis management, and resilient communities, especially in the perspective of discussing the roles of government and governance structures. Papers may address any phase in the disaster management cycle: prevention and mitigation; preparedness; alert; response; recovery; and post disaster. We also support innovative and break-through visions regarding these topics.

• Government’s disaster preparedness – disaster management plan, business continuity plan
• Role, evolution and perspectives of governance structures for better crisis management
• Crisis management for all stages – preparation, prevention, response and recovery
• Early warning systems and situational awareness among key stakeholders
• Social media and Citizen/Volunteers engagement to disaster responses
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) based content management, disaster mapping and Crisis informatics
• Real-time data analysis for government’s decision making
• Vertical management of information (from very local to the highest governmental level)
• International disaster response collaborations including government organizations
• Disaster communications with government organizations
• Disaster data recovery regarding public information
• Functional and technological expectations for crisis management inside governmental organizations
• Government’s role in resilient communities
• Human Centered Sensing for collaboration and communication
• Privacy, security and ethical issues in crisis and emergency management
• Pattern recognition, triage and prioritization of assistance
• Case studies; theory and practice
• Advances in crisis management methods and practice
• Security and safety models for emergency management systems
• eHealth for disasters and emergencies
• Drones for disaster response and management and Disaster robotics
• Computational simulation of crisis situations
• Mobile ad–hoc networks for emergencies
• Ground security / homeland security
• Antifragility of systems and territories
• Decision making in uncertain and unstable environments
• Standardization and interoperability issues in disaster management from an eGov perspective
• Resilience of socio–technic systems, critical infrastructure and network of infrastructures
• Emerging paradigms for disaster management
• Disinformation, misinformation, and fake news in (social) media and institutions

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Frederick Benaben (Primary Contact)
IMT Mines Albi
frederick.benaben@mines-albi.fr

Julie Dugdale
Grenoble Alps University
Julie.Dugdale@imag.fr

Elsa Negre
Paris-Dauphine University
elsa.negre@dauphine.fr

Mihoko Sakurai
International University of Japan
msakurai@glocom.ac.jp

Governments at all levels continue to promote, grow, and augment their digital engagement with the citizens that they serve. Through social media, mobile applications, online services, and other forms of digital services, governments are increasingly expecting that individuals will interact with them through a range of digital media and technologies. This includes public policy-making (e.g., governance), government operations (e.g. emergency management), citizen engagement (e.g. transparency), and government services (e.g., information provision).

As governments closed their physical locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital services and resources were the primary, if not only, means through which individuals could engage with their governments. As governments have emerged from the pandemic, some have pursued hybrid work strategies, which can continue to limit access to physical government resources and services. The pandemic, and the post-pandemic environment, has highlighted the disparities that various populations, particularly marginalized groups, and governments face in achieving a vision of digital government for all.

As governments promote digital pathways for service and resource provision, as well as engagement, it is critical for governments to ensure that all citizens are able to realize their needs through inclusive design, availability, and ability. Digital divides remain, however – from access to sufficient technologies (e.g., broadband, devices, costs), the ability to use technologies, and the design of digital government services. This minitrack focuses on digital inclusion within digital government services. The minitrack includes, but is not limited to:

• Impacts of the COVID–19 on the ability of marginalized groups to engage with digital government
  
• The development of inclusive digital government
  
• Longitudinal analyses of inclusion in digital government
  
• The role of digital literacy in use/non–use of online government services
• The use of digital government by immigrant, migrant, and displaced populations
  
• The use of digital government by indigenous populations
  
• The use of digital government by low–literacy populations
  
• The role of socio–economic status on the use of digital government
  
• Accessibility of digital government for people with perceptual, motor, or cognitive disabilities
  
• The role of government in the development of international technical standards for digital accessibility
  
• The role of community–based organizations (e.g., public libraries, non– government organizations) in fostering digital inclusion
  
• Development and/or implementation of statutes, regulations or policies related to digital inclusion
  
• Trends in case law related to digital inclusion
  
• Trends in comparative or international law related to digital inclusion
  
• The relationship between trust of institutions and use of digital government by diverse populations
  
• How digital–based voting impacts involvement of citizens in elections
  
• LGBTQ+ interactions with digital government
  
• Usability evaluation methods for testing digital government services with diverse user populations
  
• Research methods for understanding why diverse individuals avoid using digital government
  
• Inclusive design methods to involve diverse populations in the actual development of digital government

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

John Bertot (Primary Contact)
University of Maryland College Park
jbertot@umd.edu

Jonathan Lazar
University of Maryland College Park
jlazar@umd.edu

Simone Barbosa
PUC-Rio
simone@inf.puc-rio.br

David Duenas-Cid
Gdańsk University of Technology
david.duenas.cid@pg.edu.pl

The Digital Government Emerging Topics Mini-Track provides a home for incubating new topics and emergent technologies in Digital Government research. Digital Government as an academic field is evolving towards the Next Generation Digital Government; new directions of research and practice are emerging while others are becoming accepted as foundational. These developments take place at the crossroads of different academic disciplines and in close connection to the practices in governments around the globe. However, the foundations of the field could still be identified more explicitly and rigorously. This mini-track invites papers positioned in relation to the foundations of Digital Government contributing to the evolution of the field, to clarifications and conceptualisations, or to addressing novel issues, innovative trends, and emerging technologies.

Submissions must speak specifically to the emerging nature of a technology or a specific topic and how the research presented builds new understanding by relating the research to the central developments in the field of Digital Government. Topics and research areas include but are not limited to:

• Emergent technologies and Digital Government
  
• Digital transformation and agile government practices
  
• Digital identity ecosystems in Digital Government
  
• Digital Twins and other computational models in Government decision–making
  
• Metaverse in Digital Government
• Design Science in Digital Government
  
• Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) in Digital Government: applications, legislation, benefits and risks
  
• Internet of Things (IoT) in the public sector: applications, regulation, social impact, security and data analytics
  
• Cross–border Digital Government / Interoperable Digital Government
  
• Business Process Management (BPM) and Rapid Process Automation (RPA) in Digital Government
  
• Ethics of Digital Government from theoretical and practical views, privacy concerns, and the right to know
• Participatory approaches in government such as co–production and crowdsourcing
  
• Impact of social media platforms, “Fake news” and “alternate facts” in democracies
  
• Potential threats from technology–enabled government and ways to be protected
  
• Legal implications towards Next Generation Digital Government
  
• Digital Government skills and competences
  
• Data sharing within the Public Sector, and beyond, including Private Sector and Civil Society
  
• The conceptual and practice–based boundaries and foundations of the field of Digital Government
  
• Other topics as appropriate to the purposes of the mini–trac

The papers submitted to this minitrack must be new and unpublished. We welcome papers from different settings and sectors in digital government and look more for innovative and creative analyses than best practices. We will also consider strong conceptual and empirical analysis (both qualitative and quantitative) rather than descriptive cases or opinion pieces.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Andriana Prentza (Primary Contact)
University of Piraeus
aprentza@unipi.gr

J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany – SUNY
jgil-garcia@ctg.albany.edu

Maria Wimmer
University of Koblenz
wimmer@uni-koblenz.de

A smart and connected community can be conceptualized as one that synergistically integrates intelligent technologies with the natural and built environments, including infrastructure, to improve the social, economic, and environmental well-being of those who live, work, or travel within it. Building on the notion of community informatics, smart communities can be seen as enabling and empowering citizens and supporting the individual and communal quests for well-being.

The concept of smart cities and communities is characterized by its multidimensional and multifaceted aspect that goes beyond the mere use of technology and infrastructure. Although technology is a necessary condition to become smart, it is not the only aspect that defines smart cities and communities. Novel studies are indicating that emerging technologies have a huge influence on social life, catalyzing new needs of citizens and transforming the way they are addressed, influencing people’s ability to exercise their “right to the city/community” and impacting on social sustainability on several levels. City administration and community management, information integration, data quality, privacy and security, institutional arrangements, and citizen participation are therefore some of the issues that need greater attention to make a community smarter today and in the near future.

This mini track aims at exploring these issues, paying particular attention to the challenges of smart cities and smart communities as well as to the impact of these initiatives, to understand how new technologies can shape the social sustainability, the livability of local communities, and the wellbeing of its residents. It also focuses on the orchestrated interplay and balance of smart governance practices, smart public administration, smart communities, smart resources, and talent leverage in urban, rural, and regional spaces, facilitated by novel uses of ICT and other technologies.

Areas of focus and interest to this minitrack include, but are not limited, to:

• Taxonomies of smart cities and communities
• Smart governance as the foundation to creating smart urban and regional spaces (elements, prerequisites, and principles of smart governance)
  
• Smart cities and smart government (focal areas, current practices, cases, and potential pitfalls)
  
• Smart partnerships (triple/quadruple/quintuple helix, public-private partnerships, and citizen participation)
  
• The impact of digital transformation on the change of citizens’ role in the city
  
• Smart cities, communities and regions (cases, rankings, comparisons, and critical success factors)
  
• Benefits of the impact of emerging technologies on citizens and local communities
  
• Collective intelligence for smart cities and communities
  
• Emerging technologies in smart cities and communities (artificial intelligence, big data, open data, open government, social media and networks, digital twins, chatbots, etc.)
  
• Smart governance in cities and communities in the age of the emerging technologies
  
• Management of smart cities and communities
  
• Outcomes of smart cities and communities
  
• The role of digital technologies in both increasing community livability and improving social sustainability and inequalities
  
• Smart services
  
• Urban-rural gaps in smart communities
  
• Resilience and sustainability capacities in smart cities and communities
  
• Innovative solutions for smart cities and communities
  
• Building knowledge societies for smart cities and communities
  
• Smart cities and communities and their contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Gabriela Viale Pereira (Primary Contact)
University for Continuing Education Krems
gabriela.viale-pereira@donau-uni.ac.at

Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar
University of Granada
manuelp@ugr.es

Anna Domaradzka-Widla
Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies
University of Warsaw
anna.domaradzka@uw.edu.p