The European Journal of ePractice is a peer-reviewed online publication on eTransformation, launched in November 2007. (Warning: there are more "e" words ahead!)

The Journal belongs to the ePractice.eu community ('e' standing for electronic), is sponsored by the European Commission as part of its good practice exchange activity.

The publication is open access, free of charge to all readers and aims to promote the diffusion and exchange of good practice in three domains: eGovernment, eHealth and eInclusion.

The meaning of eGovernment and eHealth should be fairly obvious. The third domain, eInclusion, "aims to prevent social and economic exclusion, especially of already disadvantaged people, due to divergences in knowledge and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), notably Internet-allowed services. eInclusion also means tapping new 'digital opportunities' for the participation of less-favored people and areas."

The report starts out by acknowledging that standards have numerous benefits, including enabling innovation, preparing the ground for better products, spreading new technology, expanding market access, boosting transparency, avoiding lock-in, creating market stability, and ensuring efficiency and economic growth. The standards process balances change and continuity in the marketplace.

And according to Vint Cerf (2008), widely esteemed as the father of the Internet: “The Internet is fundamentally based on the existence of open, non-proprietary standards”.

It quickly moves on to the importance of interoperability, which is one of the main reasons for setting up open standards in the first place.

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