507 I Interoperability Integrating E-Government Portals Giorgos Laskaridis University of Athens, Greece Penelope Markellou University of Patras, Greece Angeliki Panayiotaki University of Patras, Greece Athanasios Tsakalidis University of Patras, Greece Copyright © 2007, Idea Group Inc., distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI is prohibited. IntroductIon In recent years, we have witnessed the rapid evolution of the World Wide Web. This development allowed millions of people all over the world to access, share, interchange, and publish information. In this context, many governments have realized that their information resources are not only of value in themselves. They are valuable economic as- sets—the fuel of the knowledge economy. By making sure the information they hold can be readily located and passed between the public and private sectors, taking account of privacy and security obligations, it will help to make the most of this asset, thereby driving and stimulating national and international economy. The governments take advantage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the continuing expansion of the Web and started e-government strategies to renew the public sector and eliminate existing bureaucracy and therefore reduce costs (Riedl, 2003; Tam- bouris, Gorilas, & Boukis, 2001). There is a growing awareness that the interoperability of national public ICT infrastructures is a precondition for a more service-oriented and competitive public sector. Ever since the adoption of the Interoperability Decision (1720/1999/EC) of the European Parliament and of Council in July 1999, the European Commission has focused on the pan-European dimension of e-government and on the interoperability requirements for its implementation. This article highlights the critical issue of interoperability and investigates the way it can be incorporated into e-govern- ment domain in order to provide integrated, effcient, and effective e-services. It also describes the issues, tasks, and steps that are connected with interoperability, depicts the technical dimensions that arise, proposes solutions when possible, and discusses its effectiveness. Moreover it inves- tigates the methodology to develop a generic, standardized, interoperable platform able to model and manage adminis- trative business-related processes and content and follow a one-stop approach where certain governmental organizations, through their portal, act as liaisons (intermediaries) between the Government, and clients and businesses, introducing a new Government level. Hereafter, the term clients is used for both citizens and businesses, as they are clients of e- government portals. Finally, it illustrates the future trends in the feld and, thus, suggests directions that may produce new scientifc results. Background Although countries worldwide are different culturally, politically, and in population and education, they all have one thing in common—they all realize that their national investment in information technology (IT) provides enor- mous opportunities for making the transformation of their government into a citizen-centered e-government. It is obvious that governmental institutions and agencies are the most complicated organizations in the society providing the legal, political, and economic infrastructure to support the daily needs of clients (Bouguettaya, Rezgui, Medjahed, & Ouzzani, 2004). In their transition from the traditional operation and interoperation to the electronic one, the Web can be considered the key vehicle for the implementation and achievement of this scope. In this framework, govern- ments across the world are grappling today with how to use electronic technologies to improve services to citizens, increase effciency (including reducing ineffciencies due to redundant and overlapping government agency activities, investments, duplicative reporting requirements, among others), and streamline traditional paper processes.