National Interoperability Frameworks (NIFs) have been established during the last years as the governmental policy cornerstones for deploying joined-up information systems and providing one-stop services to citizens and businesses all over the world. In order to meet the rising expectations of their stakeholders, to cope with technological evolutions in the future internet era, and to achieve efficient resolution of the evolving interoperability problems, NIF’s developers face new challenges: The scope of the frameworks needs to be extended, including service composition and discovery, development and management of semantic elements, certification mechanisms and authentication standards. Moreover, a shift from a paper-based specification towards a repository of services, data schemas, process models and standards is needed, in order to serve the ever-changing requirements of governments under transformation. Going beyond an analysis of relevant frameworks at an international level, this chapter illustrates the best practices and the future directions for NIF’s, proposing an infrastructure that can meet the demands for modelling, storing, managing and transforming vast numbers of service descriptions, XML hierarchies, as well as specific technical, semantic, organisational and legal interoperability standards.
Towards a Trustworthy Service Marketplace for the Future Internet