Setting the Framework for Developing E-Government Services on Cultural Heritage

This article is aimed at the design of a framework for the development of e-Government services on cultural heritage. Starting from a survey of the websites of the ministries of culture of a group of European Union countries we make a classification of the e-services provided and draw the conclusion that the development of advanced and complex services is possible with today’s technology but this technology is only an enabling factor and not a guarantee of success. The Lisbon strategy defined for the European Union aims at both the creation of the technical capability and also and foremost at the provision of content to the public. This goal, in turn, requires the compatibility of generated content across multiple, locally generated sites. Dynamic content exchange requires the use of a prescriptive framework for the development of cultural heritage websites, and their underlying data. This paper provides a primer on the development of such framework using observations from concrete applications, knowledge of information systems development methodologies, and today’s field proven IDEF0 modelling method.