Evaluation of E-Government Implementation: The Case of State Government Websites in Nigeria

This study evaluated the extent to which current status of e-government implementation in Nigeria conforms to the national IT policy strategy. The study is based on content analysis of the official websites of the thirty six states and the federal capital territory of the country. It focuses on the content, functional and construction features of the websites. It was found that, out of the thirty six states, only twenty-three (64 percent) had websites and mostly provide textual information; few provide downloadable digital documents and functional online interactions. We recommend that, in addition to the National IT policy, Nigerian government needs to have an established guideline for its e-government implementation and NITDA needs to be more proactive in its duty of monitoring IT policy implementation. The site designers should acknowledge the importance of government websites as the main channels for information dissemination, for facilitating citizens’ interaction with government and for transforming government operations. Thus, the websites must be more than static notice boards but be function-oriented, dynamic and interactive

Performance assessment of urban precinct design: a scoping study

Executive Summary: Significant advances have been made over the past decade in the development of scientifically and industry accepted tools for the performance assessment of buildings in terms of energy, carbon, water, indoor environment quality etc. For resilient, sustainable low carbon urban development to be realised in the 21st century, however, will require several radical transitions in design performance beyond the scale of individual buildings. One of these involves the creation and application of leading edge tools (not widely available to built environment professions and practitioners) capable of being applied to an assessment of performance across all stages of development at a precinct scale (neighbourhood, community and district) in either greenfield, brownfield or greyfield settings. A core aspect here is the development of a new way of modelling precincts, referred to as Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) that provides for transparent sharing and linking of precinct object information across the development life cycle together with consistent, accurate and reliable access to reference data, including that associated with the urban context of the precinct. Neighbourhoods are the ‘building blocks’ of our cities and represent the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance: as productive, liveable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive places (COAG 2009). Neighbourhood design constitutes a major area for innovation as part of an urban design protocol established by the federal government (Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011, see Figure 1). The ability to efficiently and effectively assess urban design performance at a neighbourhood level is in its infancy. This study was undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, CSIRO and buildingSMART Australasia on behalf of the CRC for Low Carbon Living

Identifying the Determents of Government E-Service Quality In the UAE

Globally, government entities are facilitating ever more over-the-internet transactional services. In the Middle Eastern context, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is at the forefront. Although the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the UAE has adopted appropriate e-service quality (ESQ) assessment tools in-house, these tools are designed only for back-end developers, not for gauging end-user satisfaction levels. In light of this, we developed a conceptual framework for the holistic measuring of such citizen opinions. The study incorporated a survey instrument on a sample population (n = 2,197) for investigating the ESQ of the UAE Ministry of Interior transactional e-services. Key findings indicate that most ESQ content factors (excepting reliability) and all ESQ delivery factors, along with Trust in government positively impacted the ESQ user perceptions measured in terms of reuse intentions and overall satisfaction levels. However, familiarity with information and communication technology (ICT familiarity) was found to be insignificant. Responsiveness has the largest impact on ESQ perceptions. Interestingly, no differences between the genders were observed, but age, education and nationality all led to statistically significant differences. This research study adds an in-depth case to the relevant literature on public sector e-service provision in the Middle East and also to the one that considers ESQ assessment. The dissertation furnishes some suggestions about the wider and more systematic deployment of the analytical framework in future studies

Evaluating Public Website Performance: Content Analyses on Malang City Government Website

This study evaluates the performance of public websites in Malang City, a heavily digitizing government. Using content analysis, we determine the extent to which the availability of public information has been met and what records still need to be corrected by the Malang city government. This study examines five criteria: information quality, usability, privacy and security, interaction, and accessibility. As a result, the Malangkota. go. id website met the evaluation criteria for general public information availability. However, the government still needs improvement in terms of security and citizen-centered values. Thus, in the future, this research can be used as a basis for policy considerations by the Malang City government to improve the performance of its public services through the provision of good public information

Investigating Personal And Community Factors In E-Government: A Citizen’s Perspective

This paper investigates the importance of personal factors and community factors in e-government based on the e-consultation aspect of government-to-citizen (G2C) interaction. The personal factors studied were ease of use, usefulness, reliability and security, and the community factors studied were privacy, transparency, participation and accountability. While previous empirical studies have focused mainly on personal factors of e-government web sites, this study also investigates community factors. The data analysis suggested that both personal and community factors are important factors in e-government web sites usage. Working from a socio-technical system design perspective, this paper proposes an e-government framework that reflects a G2C interaction by introducing community factors as a new e-government web site dimension, in addition to the well known personal factors that influence web site usage in general

Extending and Refining Usability Heuristics to Better Address User Centered Design Issues in the Development and Evaluation of Municipal Websites

Usability of public administration websites is a key issue in the information society. Unfortunately, the web content is still difficult to use if not unusable in many websites. Developers seem to neglect basic principles of user centered design. Usability heuristics are valuable resources for both developers and evaluators during and after the development process. The purpose of this work is to extend and refine an existing set of heuristics in order to better address some user centered design issues. Previous studies revealed specific usability problems of municipal websites as well as some evaluation issues. Two heuristics were added that refer to user guidance and task support. The revised heuristics could better help evaluators to explain and developers to understand usability problems in municipal websites

Advancing Patient Safety in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

As part of a systemwide transformation, the VA formed its National Center for Patient Safety to foster an organizational culture of safety within its nationwide network of hospitals and outpatient clinics. A recent medical team training program designed to improve communication among operating room staff was associated with a reduction in surgical mortality and improvements in quality of care, on-time surgery starts, and staff morale. The program is now being expanded to other clinical units, along with a patient engagement program that prevents errors by facilitating communication relating to patients' daily care plans. A recognition program stimulated facilities to conduct timelier and higher-quality root-cause analyses of reported safety events to identify stronger actions for preventing their recurrence. Other initiatives have reduced rates of health care -- associated infections, patient mortality, and post-operative complications. Success factors include leadership accountability for performance and organizational support for testing, expanding, and adopting improvements

Developing Credibility Guidelines for e-Government Website Design: An Empirical Study

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have changed how private sector business is conducted online. ICTs have also been adopted in the public sector, principally in terms of e-government. Users’ interaction with e-government can be influenced by a number of issues, notably e-government website credibility. Therefore, credibility is an important factor in e-government development, but one that has received little attention. This study has evaluated credibility of current e-government websites. The findings indicate a number of credibility problems, and suggest that current e-government websites need to improve their credibility. As such, this study has developed a set of credibility guidelines, which guide designers to develop credibility in e-government websites. The final goal is to develop more credible e-government that can generate greater users’ participation

REGIONAL COOPERATION IN DEALING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION. E-GOVERNMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN ANDEAN COUNTRIES

E-government for Sustainable Development is one of international cooperation strategy in dealing with environmental protection and ecological problems through enhanced citizen participation, better access and quality of services in order to achieve Green Governments. In this context, some countries are supported by international assistance to achieve this goal with benchmarking and benchlearning approaches. This research contributes to explain the relationship between improvements in governance influences in economic, social and environmental development and how such regional cooperation on the development of national information and communication technology (ICT) strategies and programs is related to E-government and Sustainable Development. This comparative study of Andean countries takes a Rational Neo-institutionalist perspective to look at longitudinal changes in these developing countries. Quantitative data such as E-government index is combined with qualitative information from reports and documents in order to empirically examine effects of e-government on sustainable development in these countries. The findings show that the strategies adopted by Ecuador have significantly contributed to its location within the references in progress of E-government and Sustainable Development in the region. The research suggests that E-government development has positive effects on better governance and sustainable development of Andeans countries. Advancement on E-government is not only a trait of developed countries but also serves as an enabler for sustainable development of developing countries