On 06 June 2023, the IMTs team held its first webinar, ‘Interoperability in Practice: From Zero to Hero’. This event focused on providing basic knowledge about the Interoperability Maturity Tools (IMTs), as well as testimonials of real-world use cases from the hosted keynote speaker, while a panel discussion took place with multinational and multidisciplinary representatives from across the EU.
The summary and key takeaways that stemmed from the webinar are listed below.
Summary
Interoperability through the lens of the Digital Europe Programme
- IMTs are nested in the broader EU Digital Policy activities, IMTs are part of the Interoperable Europe public initiative of the Digital Europe programme, (former ISA2 programme) developing digital solutions that enable public administrations, businesses and citizens in Europe to benefit from interoperable cross-border and cross-sector public services.
Introduction to IMTs
- The advantages for public administrations that use the IMTs include free support and advice from the IMTs team with additional good practices used from other digital public services.
- IMTs are online self-assessment tools which allow public administrations to evaluate the interoperability maturity of their digital public services and cover all interoperability aspects across the full spectrum of interoperability layers (Legal, Organisational, Semantic, Technical) in line with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF).
- IMTs can assess the interoperability maturity from the following perspectives: IMAPS for behavioural interoperability, SIQAT for structural interoperability and GIQAT for governance interoperability.
- Additionally, IMTs provide the opportunity to view and monitor a service’s compliance with the New European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and can be used to assess the interoperability of a public service at all government tiers.
IMTs Testimonials
- Prof. Yiannis Charalabidis, as the webinar’s keynote speaker, presented testimonials of two real-world use cases from the Electronic Governance of Social Security (IDIKA) SA and the General Directorate of Fisheries.
- In his presentation, Prof. Yiannis Charalabidis gave details on the assessments made using the IMAPS survey and also shared the assessments findings at service and system level to drive discussion and key points learned.
IMTs in Practice
- IMTs are powered by a user-friendly interface with interactive features and are hosted on the EU Survey Platform.
Key takeaways
- The EU Agenda for Interoperability has matured and reached the point where it becomes ideal for European digital public services to explore the benefits of using IMTs. IMTs are part of the Interoperable Europe public initiative of the Digital Europe programme, (former ISA2 programme).
- IMTs are built from the ground-up as user friendly tools, taking into account the depth of interoperability issues.
- The online suite of IMTs solutions provides complete coverage of all main interoperability aspects in accordance with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA), at the behavioural, structural and governance interoperability.
- The IMTs provide a comprehensive set of recommendations, especially when used by field experts with in-depth knowledge.
- Further considerations might indicatively include:
- The translation in additional EU languages,
- Further tailoring of the questionnaires based on end-user feedback,
- Extraction of valuable statistical conclusions for the various service areas through an increasing number of assessments that will serve as benchmark for the maturity level of the EU digital public services.
- It has been acknowledged that IMTs are still heavily dependent on the human factor and subjectivity, as well as on the availability of detailed documentation around each digital public service.
Presentation
Download below the webinar presentation that includes the Q&A too.
The presentation of Prof. Yiannis Charalabidis can be found here.
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We look forward to seeing you to our upcoming webinar!