Costas Vassilakis, Anya Sotiropoulou, Dimitrios Theotokis, Dimitris Gouscos
Proceedings of the IRMA 2005 conference.

Abstract:
A requirement for electronic government initiatives to succeed is the ability to offer a citizen-centric view of the government model. The most widely adopted paradigm supporting this task is the life event model, which combines basic services offered from multiple public authorities into a single, high-level service that corresponds to an event in a citizen's life. This composition is not always straightforward though, because the constituent services are generally developed in an independent fashion, using incompatible input and output formats; moreover the task of synchronising the documents required and produced by the services is tedious to implement and costly to maintain, since changes to requirements and legislation necessitate continuous updates to this scheme. In this paper, we present a blackboard architecture that can be used to deliver life-event oriented services to the citizens. The blackboard proposed for this architecture is an active one, undertaking the tasks of conversions, where appropriate. The blackboard couples a data flow approach with event-condition-action rules to enable dynamic formulation of life-event services, decentralising their development and maintenance.

Note:This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Costas Vassilakis, George Lepouras, Costantin Halatsis
Journal of Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Elsevier publications, Volume 6 , Issue 1 (January, 2007).

Abstract:
Having realised the benefits resulting from delivering on-line public services in the context of electronic government, administrations strive to extend the spectrum of services offered to citizens and enterprises, as well as to engage multiple communication channels in service delivery, in order to increase the target audience and, consequently, the service effectiveness. Insofar, however, only the web channel has been sufficiently used for service delivery, whereas other channels have not been adequately exploited. One of the main reasons of this lag is the cost incurred for the development and maintenance of multiple versions of an electronic service, each version targeted to a different platform. In this paper, we present an approach and the associated tools for developing and maintaining electronic services that allows the automated production of different versions of the electronic service, each targeted to a specific platform.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Costas Vassilakis, Dimitris Gouscos, Panagiotis Georgiadis
Proceedings of the 2005 ITI 3rd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (IEEE).

Abstract:
eConsultations constitute an effective means to inclusive and informed participation of citizens and society in policy, decision and law formulation processes, and an answer to democratic deficit issues. eConsultation platforms need to support all stages of consultation processes including agenda setting and topics raising, legislation proposal publicity, notification of developments, proposal debate and commentary, collection, analysis and synthesis of views. In this paper we present the design of an open platform assisting policy makers and the civil society in the set-up, enactment, management and federation of inclusive and informed digital consultations. The proposed platform employs semantic techniques, such as semantics, content annotation and summarization to support the consultation processes and provide targeted and digested information to participants, and facilitates tailoring of eConsultation procedures by offering basic eConsultation activities as building blocks, which can be combined according to contextual needs. The platform also enables distinct eConsultation processes to be federated, allowing the exchange of information, which may be subject to different semantic annotations and classifications, according to the rules of each eConsultation process.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

George Lepouras, Costas Vassilakis
Encyclopedia of E-Commerce, E-Government and Mobile Commerce, 2006.

Abstract:
Firms and organizations are increasingly exploiting electronic channels to reach their customers and create new business opportunities. To this end, electronic shops have been developed, either offering products from a single firm or encompassing multiple individual electronic stores, comprising thus electronic shopping malls. Two main concerns for e-commerce are personalization and enhancement of user experience. Personalization addresses the ability to offer content tailored to the preferences of each user or user group. Preferences may be explicitly declared by the user, or derived by the system through inspecting user interaction; if the system dynamically reacts to changes of visitor behavior, it is termed as adaptive. Enhancement of user experience is another major issue in e-commerce, given that 2D-images and texts on the screen are not sufficient to provide information on products aspects such as physical dimensions, textures and manipulation feedback. Multimedia presentations can also be used as a means for .information acceleration. for promoting "really new" products. This article aims to specify a system that exploits capabilities offered by adaptation and VR technologies to offer e-shoppers personalized and enhanced experiences, while addressing challenges related to the cost, complexity and effort of building and maintaining such a system.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Benou Poulcheria, Vassilakis Costas
Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Second Edition, IGI Global, 2009
Abstract:
In the mobile and pervasive computing environment, software engineering should not treat diversity and mobility as problems to overcome, but seek methods of which it could take advantage instead. In these environments, the selection of purpose-oriented and timely information, tailored to user preferences and media characteristics will ensure an optimised information delivery. To this end, the context .the information that surrounds the human-computer interaction. plays a key role and is rapidly changing in mobile settings, and the understanding of it is indispensable for the application designers in order to choose, capture and exploit it. In this work, we present an architecture facilitating the collection of context information and its exploitation for optimized information delivery, within mobile and pervasive computing environments.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Costas Vassilakis, George Lepouras, Stathis Rouvas, Panagiotis Georgiadis
Electronic Government, vol. 1, No 1, pp. 49-60, 2004.

Abstract:
Documents submitted by citizens through electronic services deployed in the context of e-Government must usually undergo processing by some organisational information system, in order to complete the citizens¢ requests and for the reply to be returned to the citizen. The integration, however, of the e-service delivery platform and the organisational information system is often hindered for a number of reasons, including security considerations, platform diversity or idiosyncrasies of legacy information systems. In this paper we present a generic method for providing seamless communication between the two platforms, enabling the full integration of documents submitted through electronic services into the organisational workflow, leveraging thus the quality of services offered to the citizens and facilitating e-service development and operation.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

E. Tambouris, G. Boukis, C. Vassilakis, G. Lepouras, S. Rouvas, R. Canadas, S. Heredia, J. C. Lopez Usero
Proceedings of the KMGov2002 Workshop, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 23-24, 2002, pp. 173-185.

Abstract:
Public transaction services (such as e-forms), although perceived the future of e-government have not yet realised their full potential. E-forms have a significant role in e-government, as they are the basis for realising most of the twenty public services that all European Union member states have to provide to their citizens and businesses. The aim of this paper is to present a knowledge-based platform to assist public sector employees to generate online transaction services by simplifying their development, maintenance and integration with already installed IT systems.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

P. Georgiadis, G. Lepouras, C. Vassilakis, G. Boukis, T. Tambouris, S. Gorilas, E. Davenport, A. Macintosh, J. Fraser and D. Lochhead
Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Electronic Government-EGOV 2002, pp. 362-369.

Abstract:
Public transaction services (such as e-forms) although perceived the future of e-government have not yet realised their full potential. E-forms have a significant role in e-government, as they are the basis for implementing most of the twenty public services that all member states have to provide to their citizens and businesses. The aim of the SmartGov project is to specify, develop, deploy and evaluate a knowledge-based platform to assist public sector employees to generate online transaction services by simplifying their development, maintenance and integration with already installed IT systems. This platform will be evaluated in two European countries (in one Ministry and one Local Authority). This paper outlines key issues in the development of the SmartGov system platform.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

George Lepouras, Anya Sotiropoulou, Dimitrios Theotokis, Costas Vassilakis
Proceedings of the IRMA 2004 conference, 2004.

Abstract:
The ever changing environment information systems model, and in particular e-government ones, intensifies the need for systems that are able to easily, efficiently and transparently adapt to changing environments. Accommodating unanticipated changes implies that systems must be able to adapt to changes occurring in and evolve in step with their changing environment. Adaptation is concerned with monitoring, analysing and understanding the patterns of the user's interaction with the system. Similarly, an information system is said to be evolutionary if it can be purposefully used in a dynamic environment. E-government information systems, in virtue of their nature and function, are driven by the need to adapt and evolve. This suggests that the design and implementation of such systems must provide the necessary infrastructure for evolution and adaptability. In other words, e-government information systems must abide to the Tailorable Information Systems paradigm. In this work we present a case study for the development of a Tailorable e-government information system.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

George Lepouras, Anya Sotiropoulou, Dimitrios Theotokis, Costas Vassilakis
Encyclopedia of E-Commerce, E-Government and Mobile Commerce, 2006.

Abstract:
Real-world information, knowledge and procedures after which information systems are modeled are generally of dynamic nature and subject to changes, due to the emergence of new requirements or revisions to initial specifications. E-government information systems (eGIS) present a higher degree of volatility in their environment, since requirement changes may stem from multiple sources, including legislation changes, organizational reforms, end-user needs, interoperability and distribution concerns etc. To this end, the design and implementation of eGIS must adhere to paradigms and practices that facilitate the accommodation of changes to the eGIS as they occur in the real world. In this work, we present a role-based model for designing and implementing eGIS that can dynamically accomodate changes, providing the necessary facilities for modeling multiple aspects of the same real-world entities and delivering context-specific behaviour.

Note: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Benou Poulcheria, Vassilakis Costas
Technical report TR-SSDBL-11-001

Abstract:
This document describes the architectural design and the detailed module design of a context management system for m-commerce applications.