COBRA framework to evaluate e-government services: A citizen-centric perspective

E-government services involve many stakeholders who have different objectives that can have an impact on success. Among these stakeholders, citizens are the primary stakeholders of government activities. Accordingly, their satisfaction plays an important role in e-government success. Although several models have been proposed to assess the success of e-government services through measuring users' satisfaction levels, they fail to provide a comprehensive evaluation model. This study provides an insight and critical analysis of the extant literature to identify the most critical factors and their manifested variables for user satisfaction in the provision of e-government services. The various manifested variables are then grouped into a new quantitative analysis framework consisting of four main constructs: cost; benefit; risk and opportunity (COBRA) by analogy to the well-known SWOT qualitative analysis framework. The COBRA measurement scale is developed, tested, refined and validated on a sample group of e-government service users in Turkey. A structured equation model is used to establish relationships among the identified constructs, associated variables and users' satisfaction. The results confirm that COBRA framework is a useful approach for evaluating the success of e-government services from citizens' perspective and it can be generalised to other perspectives and measurement contexts. Crown Copyright © 2014.PIAP-GA-2008-230658) from the European Union Framework Program and another grant (NPRP 09-1023-5-158) from the Qatar National Research Fund (amember of Qatar Foundation

Barriers and Facilitators to a Healthy Diet and Physical Activity

Background and Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the barriers and facilitators to a healthy diet and physical activity of students attending the University of North Dakota. The research was designed to determine the students overall perception of the specific barriers and facilitators, however researchers also wanted to specify disparities existing among the different ages, genders, physical activity levels, body mass index and ethnicity. This study determined the attitudes and beliefs of UND students towards a healthy lifestyle. From the information gathered the researchers were able to make recommendations for program implementation and improvement. Methods: A sample of 50 UND students was obtained from 1,931 randomized e-mail applications sent through the UND registrar\u27s office. The data was collected by using the qualitative nominal focus group technique, with a total of 10 focus groups being conducted by the researchers. Data analysis was completed using open thematic coding and weighted analysis. Results: The top 4 perceived barriers for eating healthy included availability, time, cost/money and social factors. The highest ranked implications/facilitators to address these barriers included healthy options, education, meal plan and store location. The top 4 perceived barriers to physical activity included time, weather conditions, motivation and individual goals. The highest ranked implications/facilitators to address these barriers included promotion/Ads, Hours, 24hr. gym, activities and PEX courses. Conclusion and Discussion: With low physical activity (P A) and poor dietary habits an ever present issue across the United States, finding the underlying cause in the University setting may have good implications for future interventions addressing these issues. The results of this study allowed researchers to make recommendations for implementing and improving programs at the University of North Dakota regarding healthy lifestyles

Medical interpreting and the law in the European Union

In 2011, the Danish government announced that from June that year it would no longer cover the costs of medical interpreters for patients who had been living in Denmark for more than seven years. The Dutch Ministry of Health followed with an even more draconian approach; from 1 January 2012 the cost of translation and interpreting would no longer be covered by the state. These two announcements led to widespread concern about whether or not there is a legal foundation for interpreter provision in healthcare. This article considers United Nations treaties, conventions from the Council of Europe and European Union law. European Union member states have been slow to sign up to international agreements to protect the rights of migrant workers. The European Union itself has only recently moved into the area of discrimination and it is unclear if the Race Directive covers language. As a result, access to interpreters in healthcare, where it exists, is dependent on national anti-discrimination legislation or on positive action taken at national or local level rather than on European or international law

Mandevillian Intelligence: From Individual Vice to Collective Virtue

Mandevillian intelligence is a specific form of collective intelligence in which individual cognitive shortcomings, limitations and biases play a positive functional role in yielding various forms of collective cognitive success. When this idea is transposed to the epistemological domain, mandevillian intelligence emerges as the idea that individual forms of intellectual vice may, on occasion, support the epistemic performance of some form of multi-agent ensemble, such as a socio-epistemic system, a collective doxastic agent, or an epistemic group agent. As a specific form of collective intelligence, mandevillian intelligence is relevant to a number of debates in social epistemology, especially those that seek to understand how group (or collective) knowledge arises from the interactions between a collection of individual epistemic agents. Beyond this, however, mandevillian intelligence raises issues that are relevant to the research agendas of both virtue epistemology and applied epistemology. From a virtue epistemological perspective, mandevillian intelligence encourages us to adopt a relativistic conception of intellectual vice/virtue, enabling us to see how individual forms of intellectual vice may (sometimes) be relevant to collective forms of intellectual virtue. In addition, mandevillian intelligence is relevant to the nascent sub-discipline of applied epistemology. In particular, mandevillian intelligence forces us see the potential epistemic value of (e.g., technological) interventions that create, maintain or promote individual forms of intellectual vice

Insights from an Industry Advisory Board about Online Education for Practitioners

Higher education institutions are increasingly using media and Internet for teaching and learning. The 2011 Survey of Online Learning reported that the number of students taking at least one online class was 6.7 million (Allen & Seaman, 2013). Sixty-five percent of higher education organizations perceive online education as a necessary part of their long-term development strategy (Babson Survey Research Group). Moreover, online education not only applies to college students, but also expands to continuing education of industry employees. Increasing technical skill requirements in apparel companies cause employees to need continued training, to keep up with the ever-changing work environment

DSS Access on the WWW: An Intelligent Agent Prototype

This paper describes a prototype DSS Discovery Agent, an intelligent agent designed to facilitate access to DSS deployed using an Open DSS protocol. The agent utilizes a set of specialized HTML metainformation headers to determine whether a given Web site contains a Decision Support System (DSS) and whether that DSS meets user defined requirements

Antonyms and synonyms in relation to the Buildings Performance

The facade is a representative element of a building which may faces the roads or public spaces. It is essential that the facade is correctly built because it directly influences the performance of the building

Conservative Management of Paediatric Clavicle Fractures

Paediatric clavicle fractures have traditionally been treated nonoperatively. Recent studies have recommended operative management for displaced midshaft fractures. We conducted a retrospective review of all clavicle fractures in children aged one to sixteen over a two-year period. We classified fractures and evaluated followup and clinical outcome. We identified 190 fractures. There were 135 boys and 55 girls. 65% of fractures were displaced and 35% undisplaced. Mean radiographic and clinical followup was 35 days and 44 days, respectively. Clavicle fractures in children heal with nonoperative management. Radiographs of clavicle fractures in children are unnecessary in the absence of clinical symptoms

Music-making: a fundamental or a vain accomplishment?

No abstract available