Anna Sołtysik‐Piorunkiewicz and Janina Banasikowska
the automotive industry, manufacturing, processing of orders, mainly thanks to the development of Internet technologies, mobile devices for supporting communication services using mobile applications and wireless network‐based technologies, as well as agent technologies and in‐built systems.
One of the areas where the conception of ubiquitous systems can be used is e‐Administration and provision of e‐services as part of an intelligent ubiquitous system for supporting e‐services. However, the prerequisite for building such a system and using ubiquitous systems in the area of e‐Administration is the introduction of system interoperability standards.
2. Interoperability of ubiquitous systems in e‐administration
According to the European Interoperability Framework for electronic administration services, interoperability means „ the ability of information and communication technology( ICT) systems and of the business processes they support to exchange data and to enable the sharing of information and knowledge”( Weiser 1993a). This shows that it is important to ensure interoperability at the level of a particular state and in a broader context.
Ensuring interoperability as defined above is an important problem in ensuring the development of electronic administration. An important role is played by the issues of managing business processes and an important stage of the process of implementation of public e‐services is reorganization of administrative processes.
The document of paramount importance for interoperability in the European Union is European Interoperability Framework EIF. In June 2002, during the Seville summit, the representatives of the EU member‐state governments adopted the document „ eEurope Action Plan 2005” which obliged the member states to prepare interoperability framework to deliver pan‐European e‐Government services to citizens and businesses. European Interoperability Framework is addressed to the persons in charge of the e‐Government projects in the Member states and institutions of the European Union. During the conference on e‐ Government in Como in July 2003, the assumptions of the European Interoperability Framework were recognized as the key element of the development of e‐Administration services in Europe. In 2004, the European Commission published the first version of the European Interoperability Framework which recommended that EU states’ governments create National Interoperability Framework in line with EIF so as to enable interoperability at the community level. The conception of implementing such an interoperability is presented in Figure 1.
Source: own work based on( Olszak and Bielewicz 2007) Figure 1: European structure of interoperability for pan‐European e‐Government services Interoperability is assessed at three levels:
• Technological level, which comprises elements of a communication and information infrastructure, such as communication links, computer platforms along with operating systems, standard software and tools in the form of database management systems, software for application development, etc. From the
482