UAlbany Center for Technology in Government Collaborates with SAP Business Software Solutions to Increase Data Accessibility

ALBANY, N.Y. (August 17, 2012) – The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany announces a joint collaboration with German-based business software provider SAP to use technology to make government data more accessible to the public. The partnership is designed to create new tools to help government leaders understand how open data can improve decision-making among government, citizens, and non-government stakeholders.

From left, CTG Senior Fellow Anthony Cresswell, CTG Program Manager Meghan Cook, and Ashley Casovan, strategic coordinator for the Office of the CIO, City of Edmonton. (Photo, courtesy of Alison Heaphy, CTG)

"The government’s ability to employ practices which make the best use of information lags behind the rapidly increasing power of information technologies," said Theresa Pardo, director, CTG. "This collaboration will yield better research, consulting, and government practice models to address the policy, technology, and management challenges in an increasingly computational and data-intensive world."

"SAP has heard from its worldwide government client base that in an effort to illustrate government’s accountability and transparency, and show public value to constituents, they need a framework devoted specifically to understanding and supporting open-government initiatives," said Russ LeFevre, vice president, Industry Marketing, SAP. "As the leading software provider for the public sector, SAP will work with government to look outward and use innovative technologies to take advantage of the tremendous potential of government data and other open government strategies."

Pardo references the 1999 New York City restaurant inspections as a prime example of a successful open data collaboration. The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication (DOITT) was tasked with creating a website to provide restaurant inspection reports directly to consumers. In the end, consumers had access to a new mobile application advising them how a restaurant rated on recent health department inspections.

"Since launching this site more than a decade ago, the information relationships among government, restaurant inspectors, restaurant operators, citizens, and mobile application developers changed dramatically leading to greater openness, transparency, and accuracy of information," said CTG senior program associate Natalie Helbig.

The NYC restaurant inspection is featured in Modeling the Informational Relationships between Government and Society, a CTG white paper. The paper served as the basis for discussion about CTG’s conceptual opening government model among an international group of leaders and experts in academia, government, and the private sector at a recent workshop.

The CTG research team will analyze the feedback and other data collected during the workshop, and use the results to develop the next version of the project’s white paper. The draft is currently available to readers. More information is available on the project at http://www.ctg.albany.edu/projects/opengov_sap.

For more UAlbany news, visit the News Center.

About CTG

The mission of the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany is to foster public sector innovation, enhance capability, generate public value, and support good governance. We carry out this mission through applied research, knowledge sharing, and collaboration at the intersection of policy, management, and technology. For more information visit www.ctg.albany.edu.

About UAlbany

For more news, subscribe to UAlbany's RSS feed, or follow the University on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Educationally and culturally, the University at Albany-SUNY puts "The World Within Reach" for its 18,000 students. An internationally recognized  research university with 56 undergraduate majors and 115 graduate degree programs, UAlbany is a leader among all New York State colleges and universities in such diverse fields as public policy, nanotechnology and criminal justice. With a curriculum enhanced by 300 study-abroad opportunities, UAlbany launches great careers. Visit UAlbany's extensive roster of faculty experts.

SAP Forward-looking Statement

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

For more news, subscribe to UAlbany's RSS headline feeds