E-Governance Survey on Municipalities Web Sites

Abstract

E-Governance aims to provide high quality of government for citizens. It covers services, information delivery and interactive community / government communication. This goal can be achieved by adopting the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) tools in the government web site´s design and contents. This communication channel allows a redefinition of the traditional role played by each one of the actors of the relation. The government as provider of: services, information, transparency and interactive communication. The citizens acting as active subjects with their government, using services, receiving information, controlling the government´s decisions and returning feedback to them. This feedback includes opinions, complaints and suggestions delivered by the web sites’ interactive tools. This research surveyed if the implementation of ICT tools regarding national and international norms and regulations for web sites development and content, increases the fulfillment of the key concepts of e-governance: e-democracy, e-services, e-transparency and active and passive communication. 30 local government web sites of Argentine were analyzed by checking if they implemented the ICT tools expressed by the seven basic concepts of design and contents: Navigability, Veracity, Friendliness, Functionality, Accessibility, Usability and Information through 152 weighed aspects that fulfill these seven concepts. The analysis of the score obtained by the web sites showed their e-governance development level and what aspects they have to implement to improve e-governance quality.