Review of Interoperability Practices for Enterprise Information System (EIS) in Public Sector

Abstract

Interoperable information system is crucial to enable an organization to provide good services to users. It can give a high impact and good return to government agencies, particularly in terms of efficiency in managing information system as well as making it time and cost effective. However, the implementation and work processes involving the interoperability of the public sector information system are still under focused. The major issues identified are concerning on difficulties in the implementation of integration between legacy systems or new systems; Recurring transactions or transactions in various systems, especially those involving legacy systems or new systems; Differences in database platforms; Difficulty in implementing the system redesign process; and no standard use of meta data, data model and complete database schema that can be used as reference. They hinder the implementation of good governance and contribute to ineffective decision-making process in the public sector. Hence, a more detailed and comprehensive study should be carried out to identify the critical success factors that contribute to the interoperability of the enterprise information system in the public sector. The method of the study is qualitative. The instruments for data collection include document analysis. The finding reveals that interoperability factors and elements can be classified according to the levels of interoperability i.e. (i) Organization; (ii) Technical; and (iii) Semantics. They can then be used as the basis for the development of reference for developing comprehensive guidelines based on the success factors and elements outlined. It is hoped that these factors could contribute to the development of enterprise information systems in the public sector which emphasizes the concept of interoperability.