From Ruralinclusion

Why is Service Modelling important?

One of the most significant aims of the European Union (EU) is the reduction of the administrative burdens imposed to businesses by Public Administration. In 2007, the European Commission presented an Action Programme aimed at reducing administrative burdens in the EU by 25% by 2012. Although the specific programme is reffered only to the administrative burdens arising from legislation, it is also widely deemed that the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the realization of electronic Government (eGovernment) could also contribute to the reduction of administrative burdens.

The improvement of public service provision quality is one of the most significant eGovernment promises. However, this quality is not only related to the execution stage of a public service but also to the informative one. The former refers to all the specific actions required to be performed in order the final outcome to be produced while the latter to all the actions that a citizen needs to undertake to obtain all essential information in order to be capable of executing a specific service. This information can specify whether or not a citizen is eligible to execute a service, the specific instance of a service that a citizen should execute, the necessary input for the service to be executed etc. Traditionally this was done either by reading the relevant laws, by consulting the public servants or by hiring an expert such as a lawyer or an accountant.

What is the Rural Inclusion approach to Service Modelling?

The Rural Inclusion project aims at reducing administrative burdens that Public Administration imposes to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) by providing personalized information regarding the execution of public services pertaining to rural SMEs. In this context, Service Modelling refers to the modelling of the informative stage of a public service as a process that represents a dialogue between citizens/SMEs and Public Administration. The aim of the dialogue is to guide a citizen/SME through a number of questions and to specify citizen/SME's profile so that to enable personalized public service information provision.

One of the most significant tasks within Rural Inclusion is the development of such a methodology for the documentation and modelling of public services. Hence, a core objective is to develop and validate the methodology for documenting and analysing public services. The aim of the Public Service Modeling (PSM) Methodology followed within Rural Inclusion is to describe a public service according to a standardized manner that will facilitate the complete and in depth understanding of the service and will enable the development of complex value-added processes and applications such as processes that provide personalized (customized) information to the societal entities (i.e. citizens and businesses).

Check out the detailed step-by-step guide on how to model and deploy a service over the Rural Inclusion platfom .