E-government Websites Research Articles

The Accessibility, Usability, Quality and Readability of Turkish State and Local Government Websites an Exploratory Study

With significant development in Internet technology contributing to daily lives in nearly every aspect, it is important that government websites and e-government services offered through them are used effectively, efficiently, and satisfactorily. Achieving accessible, usable, qualified, and readable e-government services that enable citizens to fulfill different users' requirements by everyone involved in the target group, implying a lack of equality between disabled and non-disabled people in benefiting from online governmental services regardless of time and location constraints, has become a global aim. This study investigated whether the websites of the state and local level e-government in the Turkish Republic comply with prevailing standards of accessibility, heuristic usability, mobile readiness, performance and, the readability of website content with six different indices and whether these qualities depend on the type of the government websites. After examining 77 state and 247 local e-government sites, the results indicate that the Turkish government websites have made many of the accessibility, usability, quality, and readability mistakes as predicted. In light of the study findings, this paper will present some recommendations for improving Turkish government websites, as well as discuss future implications.

Factors affecting the continued use of e-government websites by citizens

PurposeThe concept of eGovernment has received much focus and emphasis across the public administrative sector, with interest centred on its public performance in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Accordingly, this paper aims to consider those factors affecting the continuous adoption of eGovernment websites by citizens in the context of Jordan, through the design and development of a conceptual model, five factors included, notably digital literacy, e-service marketing efficiency, e-service quality, compulsory e-service utilisation and public staff assistance in regards the transformation of e-service.Design/methodology/approachTo conduct this paper, a quantitative approach was used, after operationalising variables into indicators; data were gathered through the application and completion of a questionnaire survey, by public-sector subjects making up a sample of 237 individuals purposively sampled, wit structural equation modelling was applied to analyse data.FindingsThe results garnered emphasise digital literacy and e-service quality as important factors amongst citizens in Jordan in regards their intention to use, on a continuous basis, eGovernment websites, providing an explanation across 42 per cent of the variance in this regard. On the other hand, the other three factors of e-service marketing efficiency, compulsory e-service use and public staff assistance in regards the transformation of e-service were not identified as significant in terms of their influence on the intention to adopt the ongoing use of eGovernment websites among citizens in the Jordanian context indicating some issues that challenge the eGovernment success.Research limitations/implicationsThis work’s findings are survey-based, subsequent studies could make use of qualitative methods in mind of achieving more detailed and comprehensive understanding of the links between the factors outlined in this study, further, there is the suggestion that other longitudinal and experimental works be completed to establish the links outlined in this study.Practical implicationsFor eGovernment websites continued usage to be efficacious, several facilitating and supporting conditions are vital, including technical and managerial sustenance, as well as supporting policies and regulations that put eGovernment websites into the compulsory utilisation, which requires all the other affecting factors to be in line with facilitating such compulsory orientation.Originality/valueMany studies have been done on exploring the factors that affect the initial adoption of eGovernment websites; however –and up to the author knowledge – this is the first study that explore the second stage of the adoption process, namely, continued use in the context of a developing country such as Jordan. This work will therefore provide a contribution to the eGovernment literature in specific relation to continued use. This will be done through taking into account all five of these factors.

Security of E-Government Website Encryption in Germany and Hungary

The paper deals with comparative research of the communication security of e-Government services in Germany and Hungary. The focus point of the research is to analyse the cryptographic security algorithms and protocols which encrypt communication in the relations of the citizen and a governmental body. The analysis includes the general e-Government portals, central web services, and specialised services, like taxation and criminal record extracts. The actuality of the topic lies in the fact that the security of the citizens’ personal data, used, stored and transferred by the governmental bodies can be in danger. Two examples are the loss of 25 million UK citizens’ personal data in 2007 because of a failure of the UK Customs Service and the compromise personally identifiable information of 191 million US citizens, stored in the Voter Database in 2015. The goal of the research is to check the current practice used for governmental communication, based on international standards and current practices. The study compares the e-administration systems of a country of Central Europe which is considered less developed in e-government systems and processes than a Western European country. Based on the evaluation, which can be found at the end of this study, those persons who are responsible for the operation of such systems, can see the actual benchmarks of the communication security. So, this way they can learn about the usage of what communication protocols and cryptographic algorithms are recommended and under what settings.

A group decision making framework based on neutrosophic VIKOR approach for e-government website evaluation

A group decision making framework based on neutrosophic VIKOR approach for e-government website evaluation

Patrones de usabilidad para sitios de gobierno electrónico

El acelerado desarrollo tecnológico junto con el cada vez más diseminado acceso a Internet, ha marcado un hito importante en cuanto a la forma en la que los gobiernos entregan información y proveen gran parte de sus servicios a los ciudadanos. En la actualidad, se ha vuelto imperante que los ciudadanos puedan ejecutar gran parte de sus trámites de manera ágil, eficiente e incluso sin salir de casa. Los gobiernos están en la obligación de proveer herramientas para que los procesos puedan llevarse a cabo de manera segura pero además garantizando la satisfacción de los usuarios que los ejecutan. Tras una investigación anterior, en la que se llevó a cabo un proceso de evaluación a sitios de gobierno electrónico para determinar el nivel de usabilidad que presentan, fue posible identificar un conjunto de problemas recurrentes que repercuten en la facilidad de uso de este tipo de sitios y que podrían ser solucionados mediante los llamados patrones de usabilidad. El presente trabajo presenta el conjunto de patrones de usabilidad desarrollados bajo el contexto de las aplicaciones e-government, con la finalidad de proveer herramientas de diseño de este tipo de sitios y de esta manera evitar problemas que atenten contra la facilidad de uso de los servicios que son prestados a los ciudadanos desde portales de instituciones públicas o gubernamentales. Se desarrollaron un total de 8 patrones en base a problemas identificados y catálogos existentes. Los patrones desarrollados fueron aplicados a un sitio e-government el cual fue evaluado posteriormente, comprobándose un incremento sustancial en el nivel de usabilidad respecto a una evaluación ejecutada previamente.

Revisión del diseño de sitios web de gobierno desde una perspectiva comunicacional

Las TIC en los espacios de gobierno se asocian al denominado e-gobierno, un concepto que no se restringe sólo a cuestiones tecnológicas, sino que para su análisis pueden tomarse diversas perspectivas, entre otras la comunicacional. En el caso particular de los sitios web de gobierno resulta importante analizar la forma en la que se produce la interacción con los ciudadanos. En este trabajo se propone utilizar el análisis del discurso como una metodología que permita revisar el diseño de un sitio web de gobierno electrónico desde la perspectiva comunicacional. Así mismo, se presentan y discuten los resultados preliminares, sobre el análisis de un sitio web de gobierno electrónico del área de educación de una provincia de la patagonia argentina.

Exploring the Problems, Issues and Challenges of E-government in Kiribati

The use of e-government to deliver public service is a recent phenomenon for the small island developing states (SIDS) . This paper uses the Contingency approach to explore e-government in Kiribati. The Contingency approach is chosen for his paper on the grounds that it is able to adequately explain the ‘situational factors’ that affect the provision and delivery of e-government services in the context of Kiribati. Some of the situational factors present in the small island developing states that affect the provision and delivery of e-government services are poor infrastructure environment, technological environment, political environment, socio-economic conditions and dispersed geographical environment. The findings from this study showed that some of the problems, issues and challenges of e-government in Kiribati are poor internet connectivity, poor infrastructure environment, technical problems in developing and maintaining e-government website, low level of computer literacy rate, low level of computer and internet access, cultural issues and digital divide, lack of awareness on e-government services, privacy and trust issues, and language problems on the e-government website. Some of the ways how these problems can be addressed are development of infrastructure environment, training and development of staff, integrating e-government dynamics in the school curriculum, financial support, improving the e-government website and increasing awareness on e-government service, privacy and trust issues, and language problems on the e-government website. Some of the ways how these problems can be addressed are development of infrastructure environment, training and development of staff, integrating e-government dynamics in the school curriculum, financial support, improving the e-government website and increasing awareness on e-government service.

A Comparison of Perspectives of Kuwaiti and Indonesian Residents Towards E-Government

Kuwait and Indonesia are two Asian countries with similar literacy rates and median ages of residents. An understanding of their residents' perspectives can help the governments of these countries better plan their e-government services and provide useful information to other countries. The current study used a survey to assess the importance of e-government services and website features from the perspective of Kuwaiti and Indonesian residents. Multigroup analysis was used to validate the instrument and research model. Four relationships were found to correspond across datasets, but only one relationship was found to be significantly different between the two datasets, i.e., the relationship of resident feedback services to the website's savings and control feature was significantly stronger (p < 0.01) in the Indonesian dataset as compared to the Kuwaiti dataset. The multigroup analysis demonstrated that residents in both countries interpreted the survey instrument similarly and had comparable expectations for e-government services and website features.

E-government Facilities Analysis for Public Services in Higher Education

E-Government in higher education can be utilized in order to provide public services to stakeholders both internal and external. The research objectives is to analyze the e-government facilities for public services in higher education. The research began by reviewing the concept of public services and e-government, then continued by analysing e-government facilities based on the E-Government Maturity Level developed by Wirtz and Piehler. The research subject was the e-government website of three universities that ranked the top three of webometrics version (Indonesia country rank), while the research object was e-government facilities for public services. Data collection was done by observing e-government sites via online browsing. The research’s results indicated that all three e-government sites have met four e-government business model and provided e-government services in line with the fourth stage on the e-government development stage. It can concluded that the three universities have achieved e-government maturity at the fourth level.

E-Government Service Quality Based on E-GovQual Approach Case Study in West Sumatera Province

This study aims to evaluate e-Government service quality especially in West Sumatera, Indonesia. The reason why the study conducted is that the difficulty obtaining available and accurate data from the Indonesian citizen regarding the implementation of e-government. The method used in this study is survey based on the e-GovQual questionnaire distributed to total 247 respondents to find out their perception of all the services provided by the e-Government website. The results showed that in general, the citizens agreed that quality of e-Government service provided by the government of West Sumatera province is good enough and meet their expectation regarding efficient, trust, reliability, citizen support, content & appearance of information, and functionality of interactive environment. However, e-Government service quality requires improvement due to the results obtained were still at a moderate level.

A usability assessment of e-government websites in Sub-Saharan Africa

E-government holds enormous potential for improving the administrative efficiency of public institutions, encouraging democratic governance, and building trust between citizens/private sector and governments. However, most e-government initiatives to date have failed to attain their full potential, because they are increasingly plagued by usability issues. Consequently, there have been increasing calls for evaluating the usability of e-government websites, as they are widely considered to be the primary platform for government interaction with citizens. This study, therefore, seeks to contribute to extant knowledge by evaluating the usability of e-government websites from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This is particularly important as little is known about the usability of e-government websites in the region, and worst still, it is the least advanced region in terms of e-government development. This study evaluated a total of 279 e-government websites from 31 SSA countries. The findings showed that most e-government websites in SSA were characterised by poor usability. The average usability score for the websites was 36.2%, with the most usable website having a score of only 64.8%. The study also showed that the usability of e-government websites was positively associated with the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) and the E-Participation Index (EPI).

A Revised Set of Usability Heuristics for the Evaluation of Interactive Systems

Usability is a critical quality attribute in the information society. Inspection based evaluation re-lies on various forms of design knowledge that are used to assess the usability, such as ergonomic criteria, heuristics, and guidelines. Usability heuristics are widely recognized principles against which the usability of an interactive system could be evaluated. This work presents a revised set of usability heuristics that are based on the experience acquired in previous studies targeting local e-government websites. The underlying goal is to include the most important er-gonomic criteria and usability heuristics into a clear hierarchical organization, which helps evaluators to better explain and developers to better understand the usability problems. The new set has only fourteen heuristics that are structured into four groups: user guidance, user effort, user control and freedom, and user support. The main strength of this approach is the good coverage achieved with a reduced number of heuristics.

Does social media transform city government? A case study of three ASEAN cities

PurposeThis research aims to investigate the impact of the use of social media on the organizational form and function in selected local governments of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.Design/methodology/approachThis research used quantitative and qualitative methods. The researchers not only conducted comparative– explanatory studies among the three ASEAN cities but also used multiple-informant and secondary data analyses. All variables are operationalized into indicators and transformed into a questionnaire in three languages: English, Indonesian and Thai. Primary data for the research were collected using a cross-sectional survey conducted in Bandung City, Indonesia; Iligan City, the Philippines; and Pukhet City, Thailand.FindingsThis research found that social media use has not yet affected the internal organizational processes in the three cities. Also, social media use is not appropriated as a space for citizen–government interaction. It is used for only information dissemination to the public; social media seems to have been used for only collecting information from citizens but not for involving them in the decision-making process.Research limitations/implicationsThis research covers only three cities in the ASEAN countries, and the findings cannot be generalized to others. Moreover, this research looks at the supply-side dimension or government organization side only. However, the findings confirm that findings of previous research studies that social media use in the local government is only for information dissemination.Practical implicationsLegal bases for social media use could be an urgent matter to address to advance more fundamental changes in government processes.Originality/valueThere is no prior comparative study on the use of social media by local governments in the ASEAN countries. Social media owing to its sense of personalization or sense of community improves communication between citizens and government better than e-government sites; however, as articulated by Mirchandani et al. (2008), social media may hinder rather than facilitate the delivery of services (Mirchandani et al., 2008). This is due to the absence of a legal basis of its use, as well as agreements on the manner of its use, which prevents full integration of social media into the governance process, particularly in the cases of the cities of Iligan, the Philippines, and Phuket, Thailand.

The Navigability Validation for Middle East E-governments Websites

The current study aimed to guarantee websites quality, we should evaluate them depending on certain criteria, this is to achieve the best service. This work aimed to build a platform to evaluate the navigability validation for some e-government websites. As a contribution to the field of websites evaluation, this study evaluates the quality of e-government portal website for 15 countries in the Middle East by using common automatic website evaluation tools. The proposed websites evaluation approach is conducted according to certain metrics based on five automatic website tools which are: Link checker, Xenu, page rank, Alexa, and TAW, those tools are freely available for evaluation purposes. The assessment of these websites helps their developers for improving them and following the quality principles. We tested accessibility, usability and page rank as three criteria of websites quality assessment. Our findings may improve some standards when building and developing Middle East E-government websites, finally, they presented some recommendations to avoid the weak points in these websites.

Usability, Accessibility and Web Security Assessment of E-government Websites in Tanzania

In spite of the fact that e-government agency (ega) in Tanzania emphasize on the use of ICT within public institutions in Tanzania, accessibility, usability and web security vulnerabilities are still not considered by the majority of web developers. The main objective of this study is to assess the usability, accessibility and web security vulnerabilities of selected Tanzania e-government websites. Using several automatic diagnostic (evaluation) tools such as pingdom, google speed insight, wave, w3c checker and acunetix, this study assess the usability, accessibility and web security vulnerabilities of 79 selected e-government websites in Tanzania. The results reveal several issues on usability, accessibility and security of Tanzania e-government websites. There is high number of usability problems where 100% of websites were found to have broken links and 52 out of 79 websites have loading time of more than five (5) seconds for their main page. The accessibility results show that all 79 selected websites have accessibility errors and violate w3c Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. The results on web security vulnerabilities indicate that 40 out of 79 (50.6%) assessed websites have one or more high-severity vulnerability (SQL injection or cross site scripting-XSS) while 51 out of 79 (64.5%) have one or more medium-severity vulnerabilities (Cross site request forgery or Denial of Service). Based on these results, this study provides some recommendations for improving the usability, accessibility and web security vulnerabilities of public institutions in Tanzania.

The Governance Effects of Korea's Leading E-Government Websites

While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureaucratic productivity, few studies have isolated the distinct effects of different types of E-government programs on rates of corruption and different measures of bureaucratic performance. This paper employs regression analysis to examine the governance effects of a wide range of innovative, Korean E-government websites, rated by the UN as the world's best from 2010 to 2014. Whereas business oriented E-government programs most greatly improved regulatory quality, citizen service oriented E-government most strongly affected government effectiveness. The Korean government E-tax program was most effective at combating the severe developmental obstacles of corruption and bribery. Nations pursuing development would best be served, therefore, by adopting the particular e-government program which best addresses their most pressing governance need.

The impact of initial learning experience on digital services usage diffusion: A field study of e-services in Lebanon

The initial learning experience is crucial for understanding digital services adoption and usage diffusion. Using a UTAUTv2 model, we explore the effect of process- and content-oriented knowledge on behavioral intentions to use e-government services. The adoption of e-government systems is lower than desired in general and faces considerable resistance in many developing countries. Scholars suggest that more knowledge and better training are critical to increasing adoption and usage rates. We conducted a survey of 262 citizens in Lebanon to investigate how consumers cope with high and moderate levels of complexity during their initial learning experience with a technology-based product. The results show that a moderate degree of content- and process-oriented knowledge about e-government services during an initial learning experience improves usage habits, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and facilitating conditions. The challenge for service providers is to understand consumers’ learning experience and coping strategies and to provide mechanisms that make the transition to e-services easier and more intuitive. This can be achieved by developing new infrastructure for e-services to facilitate easier access to e-government websites and to improve site performance. Marketers can also develop more effective communications that offer easy and flexible specific steps for using the portal.

EVALUATION OF THE ACCESSIBILITY OF KENYA E-GOVERNMENT WEBSITES IN THE NAIROBI CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accessibility of Kenya E-Government Websites in the Nairobi Central Business District.Methodology: This study adopted a descriptive survey design. The targeted population of this study was all cyber cafés management/owners and their users. This study used stratified random sampling. A sample size of 384 respondents was used. The questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. Questionnaires were issued to the respondents through self-introduction. Frequencies, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used. Microsoft excel were also used to complement SPSS.Results: This further means that ICT literacy influenced Government websites accessibility as supported by a p value of 0.000. Results also revealed that ICT delivery channel influenced Government websites accessibility as supported by a p value of 0.000. Further, results revealed that disability was statistically significant in explaining or predicting the accessibility of e-government websites as evidenced by p value of 0.000.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that Government website should accommodate facilities for persons with disabilities. It is therefore recommended that Government policy makers should review existing knowledge disseminations regulations within Government with the aim of relaxing regulations on information dissemination. This will build a culture of information openness between the Government and citizens. In other words the Government should maximize information dissemination through their websites.

Regional Sustainability

Regional sustainability promotes an integrated approach to planning and development in regional communities. European Union legislative acts bring together all levels of government to achieve a holistic approach to sustainability using Information and Communication Technologies tools for better delivery of services. Today, there has been observed an increasing interest in applying e-government to different business sectors such as the environmental sector. Sustainable management of National Forest Parks relies on a complete understanding of the goods and services, which are provided to the society. This paper aims to study e-government websites concerning the 10 Greek National Forest Parks and analyse the websites as to their qualitative and quantitative features. Then, the electronic services model adoption of the websites is assessed. The e-government websites are classified in electronic services adoption stages starting from a simple presence of the government agency in the Internet to the total electronic services integration through multiple ICT tools and applications provision according to content features accomplished by the websites. The findings can be helpful for managers, policy makers, web designers, environmentalists and government agencies.

Determining the Accessibility of e-Government Websites in Sub-Saharan Africa Against WCAG 2.0 Standard

The purpose of this study was to determine the conformance levels of government websites in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and examine which macro factors influenced the accessibility these websites. The findings indicated that the majority of government websites in SSA still had a long way to go to become accessible based on the WCAG 2.0 standards. None of the 217 government websites examined adhered to all the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. Cross country analysis showed that there are three macro factors influencing e-government accessibility in SSA, namely Human Development Index (HDI), Corruption Perception Index (CPI), and percentage of the active population (15-64 years). Countries with high HDI levels and low CPI levels tend to have websites with fewer accessibility errors, while those for countries with high percentage of the active population have more accessibility errors.