The Effective Use Of Crowdsourcing In E-Governance

The rise of Web 2.0 paradigm has empowered the Internet users to share information and generate content on social networking and media sharing platforms such as wikis and blogs. The trend of harnessing the wisdom of public using Web 2.0 distributed networks through open calls is termed as ‘Crowdsourcing’. In addition to businesses, this powerful idea of using collective intelligence or the ‘wisdom of crowd’ applies to different situations, such as in governments and non-profit organizations which have started utilizing crowdsourcing as an essential problem-solving tool. In addition, the widespread and easy access to technologies such as the Internet, mobile phones and other communication devices has resulted in an exponential growth in the use of crowdsourcing for government policy advocacy, e-democracy and e-governance during the past decade. However, utilizing collective intelligence and efforts of public to find solutions to real life problems using web 2.0 tools does come with its share of associated challenges and limitations. This paper aims at identifying and examining the value-adding strategies which contribute to the success of crowdsourcing in e-governance. The qualitative case study analysis and emphatic design methodology are employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the identified strategic and functional components, by analyzing the characteristics of some of the notable cases of crowdsourcing in e-governance and the findings are tabulated and discussed. The paper concludes with the limitations and the implications for future research

E-democracy: exploring the current stage of e-government

Governments around the world have been pressured to implement e-Government programs in order to improve the government-citizen dialogue. The authors of this article review prior literature on such efforts to find if they lead to increased democratic participation ("e-Democracy") for the affected citizens, with a focus on the key concepts of transparency, openness, and engagement. The authors find that such efforts are a starting point toward e-Democracy, but the journey is far from complete

The role of trust in e-government adoption: A systematic literature review

Electronic government (e-government) is a concept that has been adopted in most countries for the purposes of providing government services digitally, improving transparency between government and citizens and enabling additional communication channels with the government. Although e-government readiness in most countries is at a high level, adoption of e-government services is still considered tentative. A critical review of the literature suggests that this may be linked to citizens’ trust in government and e-government. As such, there is a need to investigate the role of trust in e-government adoption. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was conducted in order to observe research design, methodologies and approaches adopted in these studies as well as limitations identified and recommendation for future studies. The findings highlight that quantitative techniques and survey research methods appear to have been much preferred over other available alternatives such as qualitative techniques and interview methods or mixed methods in studies relating to trust in e-government adoption

Urban socio-technical innovations with and by citizens

This article investigates bottom-up socio-technical innovations with and by citizen developers in an Urban living Lab, which is considered a platform for grassroots service creation in a city. In specific, the Living Lab framework is discussed as an instrumental platform within a Smart City, facilitating the governance of bottom-up innovation ‘by’ and ‘with’ citizens. The analysis is based on an in-depth case-study analysis on the use of Open Data and the ‘hackathon’ format within the Ghent Living Lab (Ghent, Belgium). The analytical framework focusses on the innovation ecosystem, urban transitions, user innovation, civic engagement, public and economic value creation and sustainability issues. Our findings explore the nature of the interactions and the outcomes of the projects. While hackathon events within an Urban Living Lab have already proven some of their potential, several opportunities remain. Especially the lack of involvement of private partners and a rather low focus on potential business models for the projects forecloses long-term sustainability and economic value creation. Central governance, focus on follow-up processes and a rigid innovation development framework are needed to overcome these challenges

User-centricity and Public Values in eGovernment: Friend or Foe?

In their delivery of services, public administrations seek to develop a ‘citizen-centric’ approach. Concomitantly, user-centricity is emerging as a widely accepted construct for Web 3.0 applications supporting the digital interaction between service providers and recipients. The digitalization of public services can positively impact important public values, such as efficiency and transparency. However, the digital divide highlights that information and communication technologies can simultaneously neglect public needs. This begs the question of whether user-centricity reflects or conflicts with public values. To answer this question, we present a systematic review of existing literature on user-centricity and public values. The contribution of this paper is an extended taxonomy of public values for user-centricity, as well as recommendations for public policy to address conflicts between public values and user-centricity

User-centricity and Public Values in eGovernment: Friend or Foe?

In their delivery of services, public administrations seek to develop a ‘citizen-centric’ approach. Concomitantly, user-centricity is emerging as a widely accepted construct for Web 3.0 applications supporting the digital interaction between service providers and recipients. The digitalization of public services can positively impact important public values, such as efficiency and transparency. However, the digital divide highlights that information and communication technologies can simultaneously neglect public needs. This begs the question of whether user-centricity reflects or conflicts with public values. To answer this question, we present a systematic review of existing literature on user-centricity and public values. The contribution of this paper is an extended taxonomy of public values for user- centricity, as well as recommendations for public policy to address conflicts between public values and user-centricity

e-Government awareness among the techno-disadvantaged in the United States

This exploratory research focuses on awareness among techno-disadvantaged citizens in the United States. Specifically, we address whether awareness is associated with visitation and whether there are differences between those who are aware and those who are not aware. Following up on on a theory-based community initiative designed to improve computer literacy and access to information and communication technologies (ICT) for members of an underserved public housing community, a survey was undertaken. The results indicate that awareness is associated with visitation. Differences in demographic characterisitics, perceived ease of use (PEOU), and perceived access barriers between those who are aware of e-government websites, and those who are not, were found. While nearly half of the respondents are neither aware of nor have visited e-government websites, a slight majority is partaking of e-government services. We identify directions for future research and conclude by emphasizing the value of a theory-based community initiative to improve computer literacy, provide access to ICT, and advance e-government inclusion

An Assessment Tool for E-Government System Performance:-A Citizen-Centric Model

Governments worldwide have, increasingly, implemented e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which, delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens‟ convenience, satisfaction, and independence; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factors. Hence, governments need to assess the extent to which they were able to obtain their preset goals. This study merely focuses on the citizens‟ perspective of the evaluation. However, the literature seems to lack studies that propose such a sufficient evaluation tool that has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing and validating a conceptual model and an associated evaluation tool which measures the e-government performance from citizens‟ perspective. The model includes factors which impact citizens‟ perceptions and their psychological and tangible benefits which, in turn, influence their adoption. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using PLS. The results support our model and shows that almost all paths in the proposed model are significant