ELEARNING FOR EGOVERNMENT INTEROPERABILITY ESSENTIALS: LATVIAN CASE

Already for more than 15 years intensive efforts take place in establishment of interoperable eGovernment in the European Union in general and in each member state particularly. This has led to appearance of an impressive knowledge base related to interoperability issues and aspects. It includes political initiatives, funding programmes, legal documents, results of studies and projects undertaken to solve a part of existent problems in this field. It should be noted that definition, design, and implementation of effective interoperable Europe-wide public services is possible only in case if all actors involved in the mentioned processes are properly equipped with necessary knowledge and skills. However, no learning possibilities exist at this time. The project "ELGI - eLearning for eGovernment" (2011-2013) aims at producing an e-course for delivering knowledge concerning interoperability. At the moment, participants of the project made intensive study and produced several comprehensive reports taking into account European and national dimension of interoperability, as well as they developed design of the e-course. Therefore, the paper presents findings obtained so far and it includes definitions of interoperability and public service, overview of the main European-level initiatives on interoperability, and main design aspects of the e-course together with slight bias to Latvian case especially situation in the field of eGovernment and interoperability of public services, as well as first feedback from piloting of the e-course.