DG-O

It is our pleasure to welcome you to dg.o 2006, The Seventh Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research. Dg.o 2006 is unique in bringing together computer and social science researchers, government officials and representatives of industry to investigate how information and communication technologies can be used to make government information, processes and services better and more conveniently and securely available to all stakeholders.The conference has grown considerably over the last six years - beginning as a national conference for U.S. researchers to a truly international conference attracting participants worldwide. Last year saw the successful introduction of International Research Workshops and Tutorials; this year we offer these again on a number of topics of shared interest to digital government researchers in different countries.We are also extremely fortunate to have three distinguished keynote speakers. Dr. Fran Berman, San Diego Supercomputer Center Professor and High Performance Computing Endowed Chair at UC San Diego, will deliver a conference keynote on Monday morning focusing on the past one hundred years of data and the challenges facing data management in the foreseeable future. On Tuesday morning, participants of dg.o 2006 and ISI 2006 will come together to hear from Dr. John R. Phillips the Chief Scientist for the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Philips will focus on information technology research for national security. Then on Tuesday afternoon, Kimberly Nelson, Executive Director eGovernment at Microsoft Corporation, will consider the importance of academic and business partnerships that have the potential to enhance digital government research.Dg.o 2006 is a forum for the presentation and discussion of interdisciplinary research on digital government and its applications in diverse domains. In addition to refereed research papers, we will also have panel discussions on key issues, system demonstrations, poster sessions, tutorials, and Birds-of-a-Feather roundtables. This year, 58 research paper submissions were received, 51 of which were complete and sent to reviewers. Of those 51, 20 were accepted as research papers for the conference. In addition to research papers, 60 project highlights will be presented at the conference, some as posters or system demonstrations and some as short research presentations. In addition we have 45 research posters, and 8 system demonstrations.Above all the conference aims to bring together researchers and developers from a wide range of academic, research, governmental, and industrial backgrounds. Delegates will have the opportunity to discuss their ideas and problems with researchers working at the leading edge of digital government developments and with government officials and technological developers with experience in the practical issues of getting systems into operation. We have arranged for breaks and common lunches and evening sessions to facilitate collaboration in the development of great new ideas. We expect to see the results of these at dg.o2007 and other future digital government conferences!The conference is generously supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and is organized by the Digital Government Research Center. DGRC is a joint center of the USC Information Sciences Institute and Columbia University.