The role of interoperability in eGovernment applications: An investigation of obstacles and implementation decisions

The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding on the role of interoperability in eGovernment applications. The focus of interest is on eGovernment applications involving more than one agency or heterogeneous technical infrastructures. The main research objective is to reveal contemporary, interoperability-related, obstacles and implementation decisions and trends in eGovernment applications. To fulfil this objective we started by identifying patterns of interoperability problems. We thereafter constructed a number of interoperability models that can be used to overcome the identified interoperability problems. We finally surveyed more than 100 European eGovernment applications where interoperability has a significant role. This enabled us to identify the current interoperability obstacles and the use of the interoperability models as well as to discuss discrepancies between researchers praise and practitioners' approaches. Practitioners may use the results as guidance when developing their own applications, while researchers can further extend these results.