GAT: ACTS Telework Chain
Draft Guideline GAT-G1:

Telework: Interoperability Guidelines

Guideline GAT-G1a:

First-Time Interoperability across "Extranets"*:
Developing European Competence and Confidence

*Important note:

1. Narrowly, meaning a variation of "Intranet" (Internet technologies used internal-to-an organisation), but with external users allowed access to company information and services on some kind of mutually agreed but usually restricted basis;
2. More broadly, meaning the use of the Open Internet by an organisation or an individual to reach other Internet users for some business-like purpose, typically by establishing a website, promoting the website and inducing Internet users to interact online in some way with the organisation.

Contents List

• Executive Summary
• Objectives and Intended Audiences
• Discussion and Recommendations
1. Introduction: "first time" connections on the Internet and the World Wide Web
2. Extranets: the key to profitable growth in the global networked economy
3. Issues
4. Success criteria for first-time interoperability
5. Causes of failure
6. Baseline best practice
7. Developing market-based best practice
8. European considerations
9. RTD considerations
10. Recommendations
• Roadmap: Building Europe's Competence and Confidence - to be developed following initial endorsement process.
• Open Issues

• Annex A: State of the Art
• Annex B: Glossary

While Intranets assume some commonality of purposes and platforms across participants, Extranets can make no such assumptions. This leads to significant but often hidden issues of interoperability, which are as much to do with market awareness and understanding, coupled with management and operator decisions, as with technical barriers. Failures of interoperability lead to lost business opportunities in the case of enterprises, lost work or social opportunities in the case of citizens, and sub-optimal performance of public services, with associated cost over-runs.

Success in implementing and using Extranets calls for skills and know-how that are in very short supply in Europe, which is at a disadvantage compared with the United States, where there is a much larger critical mass of users, suppliers and advisers. Relevant market data, particularly about user characteristics, behaviours and expectations, are also much more readily available in the largely monocultural market of the USA than in the culturally fragmented European market. Other leading trade areas, particularly Japan, are accelerating their adoption of networked economy methods much faster than Europe.

Urgent action is needed to raise European awareness of Interoperability issues across Extranets, to improve access to relevant information and competence, and to devise and disseminate best practice approaches and guides. 

1. Introduction: "first time" connections on the Internet and the World Wide Web

• "first time" success in establishing "new connections" across the Internet with prospective new customers and business partners; and
• routine success in "transient connections" across the Internet with "one off" or occasional customers, suppliers etc.

For citizens, "new connections" means new work opportunities, connecting online to potential employers and effectively marketing online one's experience and competence. It also opens the door to new kinds of work opportunities - for example in the rise of self-employment, participation in telework or telecentre networks, portfolio working, virtual enterprise s etc. It can also mean access to work opportunities "at a distance" for those in areas of high unemployment and low economic activity.

For both enterprises and citizens, each "new connection" means communicating for the first time with another organisation or person, with whom there has been no prior relationship, and therefore no prior agreement between the parties about matters such as communications protocols, message formats and contents, etc.

The "open Internet" enables data networking between people and organisations without any prior mutual agreement or even any prior contact. Widespread adoption of Internet protocols means that any user anywhere can have a high degree of confidence that basic data communications can be established with any other user. All that is needed is an address for the other user. The World Wide Web enables individuals and enterprises to establish an online presence at global level; by establishing a website any user can present information about themselves in a form that is accessible by any other user, again without any prior knowledge of the other party.

For all users, successful "transient connections" are essential to achieving desired results first time and avoiding the adverse cost, productivity and relationship impacts of failed or unsatisfactory connections.

Use of these technologies is transforming patterns of relationships across the whole spectrum of social and economic activities. But for every success there are failures and disappointments. There is an urgent need to enhance European competence and confidence in the new technologies by raising the success rate for "first time" and "transient" connections.

In the remainder of this Guideline the term "new connections" is used for brevity.

2. Extranets: the key to profitable growth in the global networked economy

• Intranets - where a particular set of users works together for common purposes and can therefore adopt commonly agreed ways of using the Internet technologies; and
• Extranets - where a person or an organisation sets out to connect with other Internet users but with no commonly agreed approach other than that each user is connected to and can use the Open Internet

Considerable attention is already being paid to Intranets, with a proliferation of consultancy reports, suppliers marketing appropriate added value products and services, conferences, workshops and seminars etc. Mature supply channels and organisational infrastructures already exist that can add Intranet capability to an existing base of in-house systems and networks. Extranets are more novel, with no experience base. Although there is widespread promotional activity and media hype, especially surrounding the World Wide Web, there is relatively little attention to the details and nuances of how to develop Extranets that will cost-effectively meet well-defined purposes.

3. Issues

Success in Extranetworking depends on many factors. This guideline focuses on interoperability across Extranets. Interoperability is the basic building block without which satisfactory online working cannot occur. Problems with interoperability inhibit all aspects of online working. In particular they inhibit early success for enterprises in establishing an online presence, and early success for individuals in becoming effectively connected to the global networked economy.

Interoperability has two aspects: technical interoperability, meaning that the connection works and data can be transferred; and purpose interoperability, meaning data is transferred in a way that satisfies the needs of both parties. Both have to be addressed for success in Extranets.

4. Success criteria for first time interoperability

1. connect with your website or other application readily at any time of their choosing and without the need for special technology or skills
2. download pages and other contents at a speed that is acceptable relative to the value as perceived by the user
3. use the contents readily in the context of the relationship you are trying to create or sustain
4. easily establish alternative connection with you in the event of problems

5. Causes of failure

Common causes of failure include:

• the website design assumes a level of Internet performance better than that available to target users
• content is made available in "current versions" of applications but the target user has earlier versions with inadequate backward compatibility
• inappropriate assumptions are made about target users' technical competence, application experience, or access to applications

6. Baseline best practice

• The only successful connection is one that is "right first time" for the other party you are seeking to connect with;
• The performance of the link and all the elements must be appropriate to the task and purpose as seen by the other party and in the context of the other party's working environment
• Design and practice should reflect minimum expectations of the other party's ability to handle even (supposedly) trivial barriers to interoperability.

interoperability across Extranets is as much about market awareness and managerial choices as it is about technology and technicalities.

7. Developing market-based best practice

1. Understanding the likely systems and networking characteristics of target audiences for which an Extranet is implemented;
2. Adopting Extranet methods, techniques and practices that are optimised to the needs of target audiences; and
3. Understanding and responding to the needs of users who may be either more or less sophisticated than the majority of the target audience concerned.

1. A shortage of reliable data on Internet user characteristics at the level of market sectors and geographic areas;
2. A shortage of experience and expertise in mapping Extranet interoperability characteristics against target audience needs and preferences;
3. Lack of best practice exemplars, models and guidelines;
4. Poor awareness and understanding of practical interoperability issues among managements and technical staffs.

Any proposed solutions must therefore be strongly market-based and dynamic, evolving as the market evolves.

8. European considerations

• The main language for discussing and disseminating Internet practices is English. Although English is widely understood throughout Europe it is for most citizens a second or even a third language. Depending on the purpose, interoperability across the European markets means either supporting multiple languages or ensuring that the English used is readily understandable by non-native speakers.
• For at least some years to come, Europe will present a patchwork of widely different levels of Internet access, performance and pricing, and variable levels of performance from country to country within Europe and across the EU boundary. European interoperability therefore requires special attention to the needs of target audiences that have constrained levels of performance and/or usage constraints based on perceived high connection costs.
• The dominant force in development of Extranet techniques is currently the USA. USA-based enterprises work in a homogeneous home market that comprises more than 50% of the total current global opportunity. From this strong base they can afford to see the fragmented rest-of-world market (including Europe) as offering useful additional opportunity. For a European enterprise the immediate local (national language and culture) market is comparatively very small and for most European enterprises the global market is conducted in a foreign language and is rooted in unfamiliar cultural norms, while the only market already at critical mass (the USA) is one already heavily occupied by its own home participants. Special efforts are therefore need ed to ensure European enterprises fully understand the interoperability requirements and are able to meet them.
• USA dominance also skews the available data on user characteristics, behaviour and expectations, since data collection is mainly USA based, data about non-USA markets is difficult to disaggregate and the methods used to identify non-USA user characteristics are generally superficial. Again the European enterprise starts at a disadvantage.

9. RTD considerations

• facilities that enable user systems connecting for the first time to readily detect each others' technology, application and performance characteristics;
• applications that can "gracefully default" to cope with lower-order or higher-order connectivity and performance and newer or older versions of applications (in the same way that modems adapt their speeds and protocols during initial hand shaking routines)
• conceiving and delivering "content" approaches that allow for a wide range of application and connectivity performance rather than being optimised for a particular level of technologies.
• enhancing the collection, analysis and reporting of user characteristics.

10. Recommendations

• Urgent action should be taken to establish regular collection, analysis and reporting of user characteristics from a European-based Extranet perspective. This can be done by sampling techniques at a relatively low cost but is unlikely to be addressed effectively by market forces alone. The data needs to be collected in a consistent format across Europe.
• There should be support to the development and dissemination of best practice approaches and guides. This can perhaps best be achieved through a networks approach, for example a market-awareness network for Webmasters. An understanding of the issues and best practice should be incorporated in training related to the Information Society, the Global Networked Economy and all aspects of Internet use.
• Promotional programmes (for example "Best of Web" awards, Telework awards etc) should include interoperability best practice as a key criterion for evaluating an online facility or service.
• Consideration should be given to a "usability audit" of public services online, with interoperability for the target user as a key criterion.
• Evidence of good practice and bad practice examples should be collected and dissseminated.

• The low overall relative development, scale and maturity of Internet use in Europe, especially relative to the USA, but also in comparison with other regions, particularly the Pacific Rim economies;
• Extreme variations in Internet use propensity across different European member states;
• Today's limited political awareness within Europe pace of development of the global networked economy, of the extent and impact of the USA lead in establishing it, and the consequences of this for future European economic success and social stability.

State of the Art

Glossary and Supporting References