Emerging Policy and Practice Issues (2011)

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2011), attempts to identify the key trends and issues for 2012 in U.S. federal procurement. It begins from the premise that the most significant emerging issue in government contracting, looking ahead, is the money (or lack of it). As the fiscal belt tightens, the procurement landscape - what the government buys, from whom, and how - will necessarily change. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of the federal procurement spending trend and attempts to predict what lies ahead. It also discusses the proliferation of policy guidance on information technology (IT) procurement, cloud computing, and cyber-security. In addition, among other things, it addresses the Defense Department’s initiatives to squeeze savings, efficiencies, and productivity out of the acquisition regime and how this may affect the defense industrial base

E-Government evaluation factors: Citizen’s perspective

The e-government field is growing to a considerable size, both in its contents and position with respect to other research fields. The government to citizen segment of egovernment is taking the lead in terms of its importance and size. Like the evaluation of all other information systems initiatives, the evaluation of egovernments in both theory and practice has proved to be important but complex. The complexity of evaluation is mostly due to the multiple perspectives involved, the difficulties of quantifying benefits, and the social and technical context of use. The importance of e-government evaluation is due to the enormous investment of governments on delivering e-government services, and to the considerable pace of growing in the e-government field. However, despite the importance of the evaluation of e-government services, literature shows that e-government evaluation is still an immature area in terms of development and management. This work is part of a research effort that aims to develop a holistic evaluation framework for e-government systems. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the citizen’ perspective in evaluating e-government services, and present a set of evaluating factors that influence citizens’ utilization of e-government services. These evaluation factors can serve as part of an e-government evaluation framework. Moreover, the evaluation factors can also be used as means of providing valuable feedback for the planning of future egovernment initiatives

Government and Corporate Initiatives for Indian Women in IT

Education of women severely lags behind that of men in many developing nations. Fewer girls go to school, tend to drop out earlier than boys, do not receive the same level of education as their male counterparts, and often choose careers that are female predominant (Kelly, 1987). Without exception, India is quite representative of these gender-biased phenomena in education. However, the recent explosion of offshore outsourcing market in India has created a new recognition regarding the role of women in technological careers. The Indian IT sector has seen a trend contrary to what most western nations are experiencing—predominance of women in IT, particularly in IT-enabled services (ITES). India has acknowledged that extensive and intensive use of information and communications technologies (ICT) alone can help the nation develop its neglected human resources, emerge as a knowledge-based society, and participate competitively in the global trade and services. Consequently, the development of ICT has become a national issue with strong impetus from the union government in New Delhi (Choudhary, 1999). Explicit in this initiative is the recognition that to progress as an information society, women must be empowered as key players the IT sector. In parallel, two other trends have focused attention on women in the information society—a nationwide movement for women’s rights spearheaded by many non-government organizations (NGOs) and an increased awareness of corporate social responsibility. Consequently, over the last decade, there has been an increased emphasis on education and reskilling India’s female workforce. While many government efforts are targeted toward the overall upliftment of women, many grassroots level initiatives led by NGO’s and corporations emphasize technological training. This article highlights how the intertwining of grassroots and policy level efforts can increase the pace at which a nation’s female workforce can be reskilled and prepared for a technological world. The article also addresses concerns about such rapid development and potentially challenging outcomes while making recommendations for improvement

The role of intermediaries in facilitating e-government diffusion in Saudi Arabia

Recent studies of e-government activity have highlighted adoption and diffusion issues as important subjects for rating e-government success. However in developing countries inadequate resources and limited citizens’ capabilities regarding new e-government have resulted in low diffusion and adoption of e-government services. This paper examines the role of intermediaries, which can be played by a third party; in bridging the gap between e-government implementation and social reality, and looks at the roles a third party can add within the e-government services mechanism. This paper uses a case study approach in order to reflect e-government progress within the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as one developing country. The result of this paper shows that intermediaries play an important role in the diffusion of e-services in relation to improving the availability, accessibility and enhancing privacy and security

Countering Social Engineering through Social Media: An Enterprise Security Perspective

The increasing threat of social engineers targeting social media channels to advance their attack effectiveness on company data has seen many organizations introducing initiatives to better understand these vulnerabilities. This paper examines concerns of social engineering through social media within the enterprise and explores countermeasures undertaken to stem ensuing risk. Also included is an analysis of existing social media security policies and guidelines within the public and private sectors.Comment: Proceedings of The 7th International Conference on Computational Collective Intelligence Technologies and Applications (ICCCI 2015), LNAI, Springer, Vol. 9330, pp. 54-6