Examining the potential of language technologies in public organizations by means of a business and IT architecture model

New technologies have the potential to improve the quality and efficiency of public organizations. However, it is not always clear what new technologies exists, why they should be introduced, how they can be applied, and how they fit within existing business and IT architectures. In this paper, we examine the potential use of new technologies in the form of language technologies and tools, such as text mining, information extraction, and question and answering systems. We do this examination by introducing a business and IT architecture model. The model contains an overview of IT systems and information traditionally used by public organizations in their interaction with citizens. The model also includes a set of problems facing public organization using traditional IT solutions. More importantly, the paper presents an extension to the model showing how language technologies can be used for supporting operational and strategic processes in public organizations, and addressing the identified problems. The model, its extension and the identified problems are based on and exemplified by cases from Swedish public organizations.