Abstract:

The triple helix innovation is a process by which academia, government, and industry collaborate (i.e., engage in a process of mutually beneficial leveraging of resources) to create new knowledge, technology, or products and services that are transmitted to final users in fulfilment of a social need. Now, under the new 2.0 phenomenon, final users not only consume the knowledge, technology, or products and services but they use them to produce new goods and services.

More recently, the Quadruple-Helix model essentially extents the three main pillars of the Triple Helix with a new axis referred as the consumer, the market, or the people in the society. In this model, local agents, such as city halls, science and technology parks, as well as new technology-based companies, gain a more prominent role.

Citizen Information Services (CIS) is a term that encompasses all those names that NGOs and governments attach to public services such as: I&R, CAB, Citizen Attention Service (CAS), Central Information Point, Portal for citizens, etc The first social services orientated to the citizens were created in the USA in 1870 and were known as The Social Services Exchanges and consisted of maintaining a centralized file and confidential of the families and individuals through social agencies, in order to "ensure an information exchange for the aid to be adapted to real needs and detect impostors", these services have evolved and now known as Information and Referral (I & R). World War II forced the UK to create the Citizens Advice Bureaus (CAB) that still operate in present. The Republic of Ireland has followed the steps and created the Citizens Information Board. Governments, following the trend of the model G2C (Government-to-Citizens) and with the support of the UE and ONU, develop strategies to provide better management of government through transparency and public access to information enabling the completion of paperwork and on-line consultations and, in some cases, the service is available 24 hours, 365 days a year.

In this paper we draft how would these services benefit of a Quadruple-helix approach. This paper uses the previously sketched framework with the purpose of illustrating emergent e-Government initiatives. More concretely, we aim to discuss citizen information services (CIS) from two main perspectives. First, a review on their history, technological and social background is described in order to explain the time-line conductive to the actual situation. Second, an impact evaluation process is proposed with the aim of enabling the implied parties –city halls and citizens- drawing the main implications of using such tools. Preliminary results point to a series of benefits such as cost reduction, improved service quality, work reduction, and enhanced end-user perceived quality and satisfaction.

As a methodology we use the case-study. This methodology fits better our research since case studies are rich, empirical descriptions of particular instances of a phenomenon. Moreover, cases can be historical accounts, but they are more likely to be contemporary descriptions of recent events. Concretely, we focus on iSAC (Virtual Citizens Attention Service) a project designed to diversify the capacity of local Information and Referral (I&R) Services and to improve the quality of such services, by using the latest scientific findings on ICTs.

Keywords:

innovation, knowledge management, information services, icts, spain.