Policies and mechanisms for Internet governance have been topics of debate between many different Internet stakeholders, some of whom have very different opinions for how and indeed whether the Internet should facilitate free communication of ideas and information.

Definition

The definition of Internet governance has been contested by differing groups across political and ideological lines. One of the main debates concerns the authority and participation of certain actors, such as national governments and corporate entities, to play a role in the Internet’s governance.

A Working group established after a United Nations-initiated World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) proposed the following definition of Internet governance as part of its June 2005 report:

Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.^[1]

Law professor Yochai Benkler developed a conceptualization of Internet governance by the idea of three “layers” of governance: the “physical infrastructure” layer through which information travels; the “code” or “logical” layer that controls the infrastructure; and the “content” layer, which contains the information that signals through the network.^[2]

References

1. ^ WGIG (2005), p.4. Available at: http://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf
2. ^ Yochai Benkler, From Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation Towards Sustainable Commons and User Access, 52 Fed. Comm. L.J. 561, (2000).

Links

• Internet Governance Project
• Cyber Law In India
• IAB
• IETF
• IRTF
• ISOC
• Diplo Internet Governance Community
• The Politics and Issues of Internet Governance, Milton L. Mueller - April 2007, analyse from the Institute of research and debate on Governance
• ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
• Net Dialogue
• World Summit on the Information Society
• Working Group on Internet Governance
• CircleID: Internet Governance
• ICANN is becoming open
• Discover IG basic terminology through a crossroad

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Definitions

There are narrower and broader definitions of IT governance. Weill and Ross focus on “Specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behaviour in the use of IT.”^[1]

In contrast, the IT Governance Institute expands the definition to include foundational mechanisms: “… the leadership and organisational structures and processes that ensure that the organisation’s IT sustains and extends the organisation’s strategies and objectives.” ^[2]

While AS8015, the Australian Standard for Corporate Governance of ICT, defines Corporate Governance of ICT as “The system by which the current and future use of ICT is directed and controlled. It involves evaluating and directing the plans for the use of ICT to support the organisation and monitoring this use to achieve plans. It includes the strategy and policies for using ICT within an organisation.”

Background

The discipline of information technology governance derives from corporate governance and deals primarily with the connection between business focus and IT management of an organization. It highlights the importance of IT related matters in contemporary organizations and states that strategic IT decisions should be owned by the corporate board, rather than by the chief information officer or other IT managers.

The primary goals for information technology governance are to (1) assure that the investments in IT generate business value, and (2) mitigate the risks that are associated with IT. This can be done by implementing an organizational structure with well-defined roles for the responsibility of information, business processes, applications, infrastructure, etc.

Decision rights are a key concern of IT governance, being the primary topic of the book by that name by Weill and Ross.^[3] According to Weill and Ross, depending on the size, business scope, and IT maturity of an organization, either centralized, decentralized or federated models of responsibility for dealing with strategic IT matters are suggested. In this view, the well defined control of IT is the key to success.

After the widely reported collapse of Enron in 2000, and the alleged problems within Arthur Andersen and WorldCom, the duties and responsibilities of the boards of directors for public and privately held corporations were questioned. As a response to this, and to attempt to prevent similar problems from happening again, the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act was written to stress the importance of business control and auditing. Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel-II in Europe have been catalysts for the development of the discipline of information technology governance since the early 2000s. However, the concerns of Sarbanes Oxley (in particular Section 404) have less to do with IT decision rights as discussed by Weill and Ross, and more to do with operational control processes such as Change management.

Following Corporate Collapses in Australia around the same time, working groups were established to develop standards for Corporate Governance. A series of Australian Standards for Corporate Governance were published in 2003, these were:

• Good Governance Principles (AS8000)
• Fraud and Corruption Control (AS8001)
• Organisational Codes of Conduct (AS8002)
• Corporate Social Responsibility (AS8003)
• Whistle Blower protection programs (AS8004)

AS8015 Corporate Governance of ICT was published in January 2005. It was fast-track adopted as ISO/IEC 38500 in May 2008.

References

1. ^ Weill, P. & Ross, J. W., 2004, IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results“, Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
2. ^ IT Governance Institute 2003, “Board Briefing on IT Governance, 2nd Edition”. Retrieved January 18, 2006 from Board_Briefing
3. ^ Weill P., Ross J., IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT for Superior Results, Harvard Business School Press, 2004, ISBN 1-59139-253-5

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A characteristic theme of IT governance discussions is that the IT capability can no longer be a black box. The traditional involvement of board-level executives in IT issues was to defer all key decisions to the company’s IT professionals. IT governance implies a system in which all stakeholders, including the board, internal customers, and in particular departments such as finance, have the necessary input into the decision making process. This prevents IT from independently making and later being held solely responsible for poor decisions. It also prevents critical users from later finding that the system does not behave or perform as expected, as explained in the Harvard Business Review article by R. Nolan:

A board needs to understand the overall architecture of its company’s IT applications portfolio … The board must ensure that management knows what information resources are out there, what condition they are in, and what role they play in generating revenue… ^[1]

Inline references

1. ^ Nolan, R. and F. W. McFarlan (2005). “Information Technology and the Board of Directors.” Harvard Business Review (October 2005).

Other references

• Lutchen, M. (2004). Managing IT as a business : a survival guide for CEOs. Hoboken, N.J., J. Wiley., ISBN 0-471-47104-6
• March J., Simon H., Organizations, Blackwell Publishers, 1993 (First ed. Wiley, 1958), ISBN 0-631-18631-X
• Van Grembergen W., Strategies for Information technology Governance, IDEA Group Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-59140-284-0
• Georgel F., IT Gouvernance : Maitrise d’un systeme d’information, Dunod, 2004(Ed1) 2006(Ed2), ISBN 2-10-050241-7
• Renz, Patrick S. (2007). “Project Governance.” Heidelberg, Physica-Verl. (Contributions to Economics) ISBN 978-3-7908-1926-7

Links

Institutes and associations

• The IT Governance Institute
• Informations Systems Audit and Control Association
• International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers, Inc. – IAITAM
• Australian Computer Society Governance of ICT Committee
• IT Governance Network

Background

• Overview of IT Governance publications

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.