E-gov Transparency Implementation Using Multi-agent System: a Brazilian Study-Case in Lawsuit Distribution Process

Abstract

Electronic government (e-gov) processes need transparency in order to allow citizens to access, understand and verify valuable information in a democratic society. As a crosscutting characteristic, transparency should be present in different e-gov perspectives, such as business processes, information, business rules and information systems. Thus, in this article, we present a multi-agent system (MAS) to implement transparent lawsuit distribution process. We demonstrate that the MAS paradigm emphasizes the organizational operating environment and the information systems alignment, being adequate to implement process transparency under a Brazilian study-case in lawsuit distribution that used real data from the Superior Labor Court of Brazil. The Tropos agent-oriented software development methodology is used to define the hard and soft goals of agents. The MAS architecture and the prototype were defined and implemented using JADE Framework.