ISACA research: Building the Business Case for COBIT® and Val IT™: Executive Briefing

The majority of today’s business processes depend heavily upon an IT organisation and supporting processes that function well. To
ensure that investments in IT generate the required business value and that risks associated with IT are mitigated, a specific focus on enterprise governance of IT is required. Enterprise governance of IT can be seen as an integral part of enterprise governance since it addresses the definition and implementation of processes, structures and relational mechanisms in the enterprise that enable both the business and IT to execute their responsibilities in support of business/IT alignment and the creation of business value (Van Grembergen and De Haes, 2009). Investments in enterprise governance of IT practices and adoption of typical frameworks, such as CobiT and Val IT, are increasing and enterprises appreciate their practical relevance. But implementing these practices requires a reasonable amount of effort since enterprises must evaluate and re-think their processes. Investing in IT-related governance and management practices is, therefore, often perceived as costly and complex, while return in short- and long-term value is difficult to measure in tangible (financial) outcomes.

This research explores and demonstrates the business value of CobiT and Val IT. The project was commissioned by ISACA and executed by the IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute of the University of Antwerp Management School (UAMS).

Building the Business Case for COBIT® and Val IT™: Executive Briefing (PDF, 1.9M) Jun 2009
Available for free download at:
http://www.isaca.org/download
http://www.isaca.org/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm?ContentID=50791

GEMINI2 metadata standard will be available soon

A new version of the GEMINI metadata (GEMINI2) standard has been prepared to meet the requirements of the INSPIRE Metadata Implementing Rules and will be available shortly.



UK GEMINI specifies a core set of metadata elements for use in a geospatial discovery metadata service. It is a definitive metadata standard for describing geographic information and it allows immediate creation of metadata content with the assurance of stability.

The first version GEMINI, (v1.0) which is the currently used version of the standard, was published in 2004 and is used in the Gigateway metadata service. GEMINI2 is a revised version and compatible with the requirements of the INSPIRE metadata Implementing Rules (IR), conforming to the international metadata standard for geographic information, ISO 19115. It is intended for use in a future UK geospatial discovery metadata service

EU: European Commission launches BUILD UP web portal

On 16 June 2009 the European Commission launched the BUILD UP web portal, to the update of which will also contribute regularly its same users, aiming at sharing information on reducing the energy consumption of building.



A wide range of topics, regarding good practice cases in energy reduction and information on the relative legislation, will be covered on this website. Given that buildings are responsible for about 40% of the total energy consumption in Europe, improvements in buildings' energy performance are important to achieving EU energy-savings targets and combating climate change.

Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs underlined that "the BUILD UP portal will enable anyone from home owners to builders to share best practice for information. At the same time, it will inform and update the market about the legislative framework. BUILD UP can be an extremely useful tool to improve building performance".

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) adopted by EU in 2002 provided the Member States with an integrated approach towards efficient energy use in the buildings sector. In November 2008, a recast of the EPBD was proposed in order to generate additional energy savings amounting to 60-80 million tones of oil per year by 2020. As a result, in April 2009, an even more ambitious and demanding legislative resolution was adopted by the European Parliament. The position of the Council of the European Union is still being expected.

CODICE - Interop. Components and Documents for eProcurement

CODICE are the specifications of documents and components for the interoperability in the eProcurement developed by the Spanish Government (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance - DG del Patrimonio del Estado)

The analysis and modeling of CODICE was based on the Directive 2004/18/EC with the aim of becoming a suitable solution for pan-european eprocurement interoperability.

All the electronic documents involved in the pre-awarding phase of public e-Procurement have been defined and implemented.

CODICE is based on and relationed with international standards and initiatives such as ebXML-CCTS, UN/CEFACT-UMM, UBL, IDABC, CEN/BII.

The IDABC eProcurement XML Schemas initiative and eProcurement Functional requirements were the starting point of CODICE.

CODICE implementation is based on the reuse of existing UBL components and UBL syntax for new components and documents.

There is also a syntax independent specification following the ebXML - Core Components Technical Specifications so that these components and documents could be implemented with a different syntax binding.

A new version of CODICE will be released at the end of 2009, and hopefully it will be included in the UBL 2.1 specifications.