IMAPS: Aligning your digital public services with the EIF and interoperability good practices

The New European Interoperability Framework (EIF) provides guidance to public administrations through recommendations on how  to set up interoperable digital public services and to design and deliver seamless European public services to businesses and citizens. 

IMAPS allows public administrations to assess to what extent their digital public services are aligned with EIF recommendations. IMAPS provides a user-friendly online questionnaire which can be used by public service owners to evaluate key interoperability aspects of their digital public service.

EIF guidance for interoperable digital public services
The EIF is a commonly agreed approach to the delivery of European public services in an interoperable manner. It defines basic interoperability guidelines in the form of common principles, models and recommendations.

The EIF puts more emphasis on how interoperability principles and models should apply in practice. The updated interoperability recommendations have been made more specific to facilitate their implementation, with a stronger focus on openness and information management, data portability, interoperability governance, and integrated service delivery.

IMAPS alignment with the EIF
The New EIF provides guidance to public administrations via four levels of interoperability (legal, organisational, semantic and technical) which need to be considered when implementing interoperable digital public services. In light of the New EIF, the IMAPS team has released a suite of new IMAPS specialisations (LIMAPS, OIMAPS, SIMAPS and TIMAPS) which allow public administrations to get insights on the legal, organisational, semantic and technical interoperability maturity of their digital public service.

 
How can IMAPS and its specialisations be used as tools to assess conformance with EIF principles?
From the 12 general EIF interoperability principles which provide fundamental behavioural aspects to consider when designing and delivering seamless European public services, principles 3 (transparency), 4 (reusability) and 6 (user-centricity) have been chosen to illustrate how IMAPS and its specialisations can be used to assess the conformance with EIF principles. 

EIF principle 3 – Transparency
Ensuring visibility inside the administrative environment of a public administration and availability of interfaces with internal information systems is at the core of the principle of transparency. Its importance is explained by the possibility of the end-users to view and understand the administrative rules, processes and services. Concretely, IMAPS assesses whether there is a certification procedure defined for the end-users to access the digital public service. In addition, OIMAPS evaluates how user-centered and streamlined the process of delivering the digital public service is.

EIF principle 4 – Reusability
Reusing and sharing of information, data and solutions with other European public services is an enabler of interoperability. It contributes to improving quality because it extends operational use and saving costs and time required for the development of new service components. On the practical side, IMAPS assesses to which extent the public administration participates in the reuse and sharing of services and solutions. Complementarily, SIMAPS evaluates the readiness of the public service to consume data coming from other Member States by examining the means under which this data consumption takes place. 

EIF principle 6 – User-centricity
Placing users’ needs at the center when designing and delivering digital public services is a key success criterion for seamless services. Therefore, as far as possible, user needs and requirements should guide the design and development of public services. In this context, IMAPS assesses whether citizens and businesses can contribute to the design and improvement of digital public services by providing feedback on the delivery of a digital public service. TIMAPS looks at the user experience of the public service by examining whether the public service supports multiple and different hardware and software.

Common vision of seamless interoperability 
The New EIF and IMAPS share the common objective of assisting  public administrations in providing public services which are interoperable by design. The shift in the European citizens’ life to digital, as consequence of the COVID-19 crisis, emphasised more than ever the need for accelerating the digitalisation of public services and ensuring seamless interoperability. In this context, the EIF and IMAPS provide practical guidance to public administrations for innovating and improving their digital public services.

For a complete overview of EIF principles covered by IMAPS, please have a look at the EIF toolbox.