2012
ALBANY, NEW YORK UNITED STATES
6TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THEORY AND PRACTICE OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNANCE
22 - 25 OCTOBER 2012
EDITED BY J. RAMON GIL-GARCIA, NATALIE HELBIG & ADEGBOYEGA OJO
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Foreword The 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ICEGOV2012, was organized in Albany, New York, United States (US) from the 22nd to the 25th of October 2012, hosted by the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York under the patronage of the United States National Archives and Record Administration. The conference was supported by the Center for Electronic Governance of the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), Macao SAR as the ICEGOV Series Organizer. The ICEGOV (International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance) series focuses on the use of technology to transform relationships between government and citizens, businesses, civil society and other arms of government (Electronic Governance). Established in 2007 by the Center for Electronic Governance, UNU-IIST, the series looks beyond the traditional focus on technology-enabled transformation in government (Electronic Government) towards new forms, new paradigms, and new foundations for technology-enabled governance, collaboration and sustainable development. ICEGOV is a platform where researchers and practitioners meet, a platform where theories are tested, insights are shared and experiences are reported. It is a platform for network- and capacity-building through keynote lectures, paper sessions, tutorials, thematic sessions, discussion panels, round tables, posters and demonstrations. It is also a platform for development, attended by participants from developing and transition countries, from the United Nations, and from a range of governmental and non-governmental organizations. Since its establishment, the series has traveled globally from Macao SAR (ICEGOV2007), to Cairo (ICEGOV2008), Bogota (ICEGOV2009), Beijing (ICEGOV2010), Tallinn (ICEGOV2011), and now to Albany (ICEGOV2012); with each edition generating significant local interest and stakeholder engagement. Continuing the ICEGOV tradition, ICEGOV2012 featured a rich academic, capacity-building and network-building program of keynote lectures, tutorials, doctoral colloquium, plenary sessions, thematic sessions, paper sessions, poster session and discussion panels, built upon the contributions from researchers and practitioners from around the world. Individuals from over 60 countries and economies were involved in the preparations for ICEGOV2012, as authors, reviewers or committee members. The 2012 edition provided a unique platform for rich interactions between digital government researchers in the United States and North America and peers from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. The conference featured three keynote lectures by distinguished experts who offered government, academic and international perspectives on Electronic Governance. David Ferriero, the 10th Archivist of the United States, National Archives and Records Administration; presented the first keynote. Nigel Shadbolt, Co-founder of the Open Data Initiative, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton, and Head of the Web and Internet Science Group presented the second keynote on Open Data Ecosystems. The third keynote was presented by Dr. Beth Simnoe Noveck, former United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer on the Future of Governance in the Digital Age. Seven tutorials were provided as part of the conference exploring emerging areas such as: Contests and Prizes in the Age of Social Media by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US General Services Administration (GSA); Digital Curation for Public Sector Professionals by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Open Data by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and NASA; Fraud Detection using Modeling and Simulation Approaches in Practice and Research by Arizona State University; Public Value Assessment of Open Government Efforts by the Center for Technology in Government and US Department of Transportation (DOT); Smart Cities, Smart Government: A Research and Practice Consortium; and Data Privacy in the Digital Age by Ivar Tallo and Nele Leosk. Six plenary sessions were organized on topics including: Value Creation through Open Data Ecosystem moderated by Alex Howard from O’Reilly Media; Open Government: Vision, Value and the Way Forward moderated by Chris Vein, US Deputy Chief Technology Officer; Information Stewardship: Policy Foundations for Open Government moderated by Miriam Nisbet, Director of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), US National Archives and Records Administration; Smart Innovation for Sustainable Urban Growth and Development moderated by Meghan Cook, Program Manager, Center for Technology in Government; Women and ICTs: Access and Empowerment moderated by Dina Refki, D.A., Executive Director, Center for Women in Government & Civil Society, University at Albany; and Celebrating 20 Years of UNU-IIST: A Conversation about the Future of Government in the Digital Age, moderated by Tomasz Janowski, Senior Research Fellow, IIST Center for Electronic Governance. An interactive Doctoral Colloquium was co-organized by Elsa Estevez, UNU-IIST Center for Electronic Governance, Macao SAR and Lei Zheng from Fudan University, China providing doctoral students from different countries and disciplines an opportunity to discuss a variety of themes related to electronic governance research and topics and issues associated with their dissertation research and career plans. The colloquium included presentations from Wojciech Cellary, Professor and Head of Department of Information Technology, Poznan University of Economics, and a representative of Elsevier on how to publish scholarly articles. Eight thematic sessions were organized by invited experts from academia, government, industry, non-governmental organizations (NGO), the World Bank, and the United Nations drawing attention to specific electronic governance concerns in a particular country or upon an issue of particular, topical interest: (1) Civic Platforms and Coalitions; (2) Regional Integration through e-
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Governance in UN-ESCWA region organized by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; (3) Smart Cities - Sustainable Urban Innovation organized by European Commission, JRC-IPTS, Information Society Unit; (4) Financial Transparency and the Role of Government organized by the OrgPedia Project; (5) Developing Public Value Metrics for Return on Government ICT Investments organized and sponsored by Microsoft; (6) Big Data Analytics organized and sponsored by EMC and (7) Bridging the North and South Gap in ICT-enabled Policy Modeling and Governance co-organized by UN-IIST Center for Electronic Governance, Center for Technology in Government, and the EgovPoliNet/Crossover project. In response to the call for submissions, the conference received 166 submissions from 68 countries and economies. Five kinds of contributions were sought in the call – (1) Completed research or practice papers – 10 pages in length, (2) Short research or practice papers – 4 pages in length, (3) Demonstrations – 2 pages in length, (4) Posters - 2 pages in length and (5) Tutorials proposals – 4 pages in length. A total of 98 completed works, 49 ongoing works, 2 demonstrations, 11 posters and 5 tutorial proposals were received. After a process of anonymous peer review (on average, three reviews were carried out for each submission) by the members of the program committee and expert colleagues, 23 submissions were accepted as Completed Research work, 10 as Completed Practice/Policy work, 24 as Ongoing Research Work, 14 as ongoing Practice Work, 33 as Posters, 2 as Tutorials and 1 as Demonstration; giving an acceptance rate of 34%. All of the accepted submissions have been included, in revised form, in this volume, and presented in 1 poster and 15 paper sessions: Open Government Data, E-democracy and Participation 1, Policies 1, E-Government Adoption and Usage, Information Sharing Models and Platforms, Digital Records and Information Management, Policies 2, Measurement 1, Social Media in Government, ICTs and Governance Transformation, IT Governance and Policy, Implementation and Impact, E-democracy and Participation 2, Information Infrastructure and Measurement. This volume is organized into 17 sections: 15 for regular paper sessions, and one for posters and one for tutorials. Many people and institutions contributed to the organization of ICEGOV2012. We wish to express our most sincere thanks to the official host of ICEGOV2012 – the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, and particularly to the Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), Dr. Nancy Zimpher and President of the University at Albany, George M. Phillip for creating the enabling environment to turn ICEGOV 2012 into a reality. We also wish to thank the Mayor of the City of Albany, Gerald D. Jennings for supporting and hosting the conference in the beautiful city of Albany, New York. We also wish to thank the conference patron, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration for endorsing the conference. We would like to thank our Silver Sponsors Accenture and the Macau Foundation whose contributions have allowed ICEGOV to be one the premier international conferences in electronic governance. We would also like to recognize Microsoft and EMC for their dedication to ICEGOV since its inception—it could not have grown without their support. Special gratitude is due to Macao SAR Government, Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) and Macao Foundation, particularly to Ms. Florinda da Rosa Silva Chan, Secretary for Administration and Justice; Mr. José Chu, Director of SAFP and the President of the Macao Foundation; for supporting ICEGOV2012, the ICEGOV global conference series, and the e-Macao Program as the origin of the series. Our sincere thanks goes to the host of ICEGOV2012: the Center for Technology in Government (CTG), University at Albany. In particular we would like to recognize the efforts of,Dr. Theresa Pardo, Jana Hrdinova, Jane Krumm-Schwan, Meghan Cook, Alison Heaphy, Paula Rickert, Jim Costello, and the whole CTG team for their time, energy, and dedication to ICEGOV2012. We are grateful to the General Conference Chairs in particular, David Ferriero, 10th Archivist of the United States, National Archives and Records Administration and Haiyan Qian, Director of the Division for Public Administration and Development Management, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. We are appreciative of the guidance and support provided by the International Steering Committee and the National Steering Committee at various stages of the conference planning. We thank Dr. Sharon Dawes for chairing the Best Paper Awards Committee and the members of the committee for conducting a thoughtful and rigorous selection process. We would like to thank all of the members of the Program Committee and additional reviewers for their efforts in carrying out a quality review process which is the foundation of a strong conference program. We are most grateful to the keynote speakers, to the organizers and chairs of tutorials, doctoral colloquium, plenary sessions, thematic sessions, paper sessions and discussion panels, and to all panelists and speakers for their contributions. We are most thankful to all authors for their efforts in preparing, submitting and presenting papers at ICEGOV2012. Last but not least, we would like to acknowledge the efforts of the ICEGOV2012 Conference Committee and the team at the Electronic Governance Center, UNU-IIST towards organizing ICEGOV2012. We believe ICEGOV2012 has contributed to the ongoing efforts of building a global community of research and practice for Electronic Governance that is able to cross not only national but also institutional and thematic borders, and that the contacts, discussions and ideas in Albany in October 2012 will continue well after the conference is over and continue to build as we approach ICEGOV2013. Albany, NY October 2012
J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico Natalie Helbig, Center for Technology in Government, SUNY, United States Adegboyega Ojo, United Nations University, Macao Program Co-Chairs ICEGOV 2012
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Table of Contents Forward .......................................................................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................................................................... v Conference Organization ................................................................................................................................................................ x Session 1: Open Government Data o Beyond Open Government: Ontologies and Data Architectures to Support Ethical Consumption ........................................ 1 Luis Luna-Reyes, Djoko Sigit Sayogo, Jing Zhang, Theresa Pardo, Giri Kumar Tayi, Jana Hrdinova, David Andersen o Exploring Process Barriers to Release Public Sector Information in Local Government ....................................................... 5 Peter Conradie, Sunil Choenni o Implementation Framework for Open Data in Columbia ........................................................................................................ 14 Lydia Marleny Prieto, Ana Carolina Rodriguez, Johanna Pimiento o Increasing Kenyan Open Data Consumption: A Design Thinking Approach ......................................................................... 18 Leonida Mutuku, Jessica Colaco o New Perspectives for Electronic Government in Brazil: The Adoption of Open Government Data in National and Subnational Governments of Brazil ............................................................................................................................................................. 22 Ricardo Matheus, Manuella Maia Ribeiro, José Carlos Vaz o Open Government 2.0: Citizen Empowerment through Open Data, Web and Mobile Apps .................................................. 30 Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, Luis Luna-Reyes, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, Dolores E. Luna, Yaneileth Rojas-Romero Session 2 - E-democracy & Participation 1 o A Logistic Multilevel Model for Civic Engagement and Community Group Impact in the Digital Age ............................... 34 B. Joon Kim, Stephen Kleinschmit o Designing Online Deliberation Using Web 2.0 Technologies: Drafting a Bill of Law on Internet Regulation in Brazil ....... 38 Fabro Steibel o E-Participation in the Era of Web 2.0: Factors Affecting Citizens' Active E-Participation in Local Governance ................. 44 Jooho Lee, Soonhee Kim o Genres of Communication in Activist eParticipation: A Comparison of New and Old Media ............................................... 48 Marius Rohde Johannessen o Internet Voting: Fatally Torn Between Conflicting Goals? ..................................................................................................... 58 Marco Prandini, Marco Ramilli Session 3: Policies 1 o A New Roadmap for Next-Generation Policy-Making ........................................................................................................... 62 Francesco Mureddu, David Osimo, Gianluca Misuraca, Stefano Armenia o Best International Practices for Access, Ownership and Use of Information and Communication Technologies for People with Sensory Disabilities ......................................................................................................................................................... 67 Marco Peres, Paula Suárez o E-Government Education at the Public Administration Departments in Turkey .................................................................... 71 Cenay Babaoglu, H. Serkan Akilli, Mehmet Akif Demircioglu o e-Government in Latin American Countries: Are they Building National Policies with a Regional Perspective? ................. 75 J. Ignacio Criado o e-Government in Russia: Is or Seems? .................................................................................................................................... 79 Lyudmila Bershadskaya, Andrei Chugunov, Dmitrii Trutnev Session 4 - EGOV Adoption and Usage o Framework for Useful Transparency Websites for Citizens .................................................................................................. 83 Josune Arcelus o The Circular Continuum of Agencies, Libraries, and Users: A Model of E-Government in Practice .................................. 87 Natalie Greene Taylor, Paul Jaeger, Ursula Gorham, John Bertot, Ruth Lincoln, Elizabeth Larson o The Critical Success Factors for Websites for Chinese Migrant Farmer Workers: A Multi-case Study ............................... 95 Fang Wang, Lihong Gu o The Development of Public Smart Phone Apps in Korea: Empirical Approach ................................................................... 105 Eom Seok-Jin, Mi Yeon Lee, Jun Houng Kim o Understanding Citizens' Perceptions of E-Government Services in Mexico ......................................................................... 109 Juan M. Gomez Reynoso, Celene Navarrete, Rodrigo Sandoval Almazan
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Session 5 - Information Sharing, Models, & Platforms o Factors Influencing Exchange Activities in Transnational Knowledge Networks: The Case of the Hajj-MDSS ................. 113 Mohammed Gharawi, Theresa Pardo o Information Sharing and Financial Market Regulation: Understanding the Capability Gap ................................................. 123 Djoko Sayogo, Theresa Pardo, Peter Bloniarz o On Public Service Provision Informative Phase: A Dialogue-based Model and Platform .................................................... 132 Efthimios Tambouris, Vassiliti Outsetari, Konstantinos Tarabanis o The Complexity of Cross-Boundary Information Sharing: An Organizational Perspective on Taiwan E-Government ....... 143 Tung-Mou Yang Session 6: Digital Records & Information Management o A Patent System Ontology for Facilitating Retrieval of Patent Related Information ............................................................ 147 Siddharth Taduri, Gloria Lau, Kincho Law, Jay Kesan o Digitisation of Electoral Rolls: Analysis of a Multi-Agency E-Government Project in Pakistan ......................................... 158 Hasnain Bokhari, Mustafa Maqsood Khan o Integrating Argumentation Technologies and Context-Based Search for Intelligent Processing of Citizens' Opinion in Social Media ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 166 Carlos Chesñevar, Ana Maguitman, Elsa Estévez, Ramón Brena o Preparing for Digital Curation Governance: Educating Stewards of Public Information ...................................................... 171 Christopher Lee, Helen Tibbo o REGNET: Regulatory Information Management, Compliance and Analysis ....................................................................... 175 Kincho Law, Gloria Lau Session 7: Policies 2 o From Information-poor to Information-rich: Bridging Regional Economic Disparities in Nigeria through e-Governance ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 184 Sanjo Faniran, Kayode Olaniyan o ICT for Development and the MuNet Program: Experiences and Lessons Learnt from an Indigenous Municipality in Guatemala ............................................................................................................................................................................... 188 Jorge López-Bachiller, Javier Sáenz-Coré, Diego Cardona o ICT Policy in Africa a Comparative Study of Ghana and Kenya: Drawing on Lessons from Developed Countries ........... 192 Agnes Odongo o Laggards or Victims of Socioeconomic Conditions? Findings from Ongoing Survey of Female Slum-dwellers Without Cell Phone Ownership ................................................................................................................................................................... 202 Devendra Potnis, Kanchan Deosthali o Promoting User Uptake of E-Government in Colombia ........................................................................................................ 206 Diana Parra Silva, Johanna Pimiento Quintero Session 8: Measurement 1 o From Failure to Success: Using Design-Reality Gap Analysis as a Mid-implementation Assessment Tool for e-Government ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 210 Lemma Lessa, Solomon Negash, Mesfin Belachew o Measuring Organizational Interoperability in Practice: The Case Study of Population Welfare Department of Government of Sindh, Pakistan ....................................................................................................................................................................... 216 Devender Maheshwari, Marijn Janssen o Ranking and Hotspot Detection Methods on Infant Health for Districts in Java, Indonesia: E-Governance Micro Tools ... 226 Yekti Widyaningsih, Wayne Myers o Technological Assessment of e-government Web presence in Nigeria ................................................................................. 236 O. Michael Awoleye, Blessing Ojuloge, Willie Siyanbola Session 9: Social Media in Government o Exploring Social Media Usage in Saudi E-Government Websites ........................................................................................ 243 Hend Al-Khalifa, Muna Al-Razgan, Nora Al-Rejebah, Ameera Al-Masoud o Government Crisis Communication on the Microblog: A Theory Framework and the Case of Shanghai Metro Rear-End Collision ................................................................................................................................................................................. 248 Xiao Liang o Government Official Microblogs: An Effective Platform for Facilitating Inclusive Governance ........................................ 258 Xinping Liu, Lei Zheng o Managing Chinese Government Microblogs: Enablers and Barriers ..................................................................................... 262 Lei Zheng o Study on Social Media Applications by Government in Hong Kong .................................................................................... 267 Huina Xu, Qian Chen
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Session 10: ICTs & Governance Transformation o E-Government and Transformation of Governance and Service Delivery in Bangladesh: A Developing Country Perspective ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 271 Noore Siddiquee o Evaluating and Assessing a Typology of Ubiquitous City Services by Classifying and Assigning Actual Services from an Inventory of Identified Services ............................................................................................................................................. 279 Jungwoo Lee, Hyejung Lee, Taesung Kim o Explaining the E-Government Paradox: An Analysis of Two Decades of Evidence from Scientific Literature and Practical on Barriers to E-Government ................................................................................................................................................. 287 Alberto Savoldelli, Cristiano Codagnone, Gianluca Misuraca o Investigating the Relationships between Accountability and Governments' Transformation to E-Government .................. 297 M. Sirajul Islam, Åke Grönlund o Technologies, Tools & Web 2.0 in Support of Public Administration Workplace Communications ................................... 301 Milena Krumova o Transforming City Government: A Case Study of Philly311 ................................................................................................ 310 Taewoo Nam, Theresa Pardo
Session 11: IT Governance & Policy o A Literature Review: IT Governance Guidelines and Areas ................................................................................................. 320 Ruben Pereira, Miguel Mira da Silva o Assessment of Success Factors of e-Government Project Implementation: Challenges for the Kosovo e-Government Perspective ............................................................................................................................................................................. 324 Artan Rexhepi, Blerim Rexha, Agni Dika o Computer Supported Contractor Selection for Public Administration Ventures ................................................................... 332 Zbigniew Paszkiewicz, Wojciech Cellary o E-Government Success Factors in the Context of an IT-enabled Budget Reform: A Questionnaire Report ........................ 336 Gabriel Puron-Cid o Public CIO, Figurehead or Decision-Maker? The Case of Germany .................................................................................... 346 Niels Proske, Moreen Heine, Norbert Gronau Session 12: Implementation & Impact o Design and Implementation of a Public School Government-to-Employee System ............................................................. 350 Carl Strang, Ira Goldstein o E-Governance and Millennium Development Goals: Sustainable Development Perspective in Rural India ....................... 354 Harekrishna Misra o Harnessing Renewable Energy Technologies for ICT and e-Governance Services in Un-electrified Communities in Rural Nepal ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 364 Mona Sharma o ICT-enabled Delivery of Maternal Health Services ............................................................................................................... 369 Johanna Awotwi o If We Build It, Will They Come? A Mixed-Method Exploration of High Speed Broadband Access and Economic Development .......................................................................................................................................................................... 379 Amy Huffman Session 13: E-democracy & Participation 2 o An e-Democracy Experience: Digital Cabinet Office of Rio Grande do Sul State (Brazil) .................................................. 385 Marie Anne Macadar, Gabriela Viale Pereira, Vanessa Marques Daniel o Social Inclusion and Digital Divide: eParticipation Dilemmas in Municipalities ................................................................. 389 Lukasz Porwol, Padraic O'donoghue, John Breslin, Chris Coughlan, Brendan Mulligan o Studying Chinese Government Microblogs: Content and Interactions .................................................................................. 393 Tuo Zheng, Lei Zheng Session 14: Information Structure o CRHIS: Cloud-based Rural Healthcare Information System ................................................................................................. 402 Manas Ranjan Patra, Rama Krushna Das, Rabi Prasad Padhy o Data collection in a degraded network: case of developing countries or countries in crisis .................................................. 406 Jiomekong Azanzi Azanzi, Broto Laurent, Hagimont Daniel, Tchuente Maurice o The Secure Platform Problem: Taxonomy and Analysis of Existing Proposals to Address this Problem ............................ 410 Michael Schläpfer, Melanie Volkamer
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Session 15: Measurement 2 o Anti-Corruption Online Monitoring Systems in Brazil .......................................................................................................... 419 Ricardo Matheus, Manuella M. Ribeiro, José Carlos Vaz, Cesar A. de Souza o E-Government Portals in Central America: A Preliminary Evaluation and Ranking (2011-2012) ....................................... 426 Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, Nancy Karina Saucedo Leyva o Evolving e-government Benchmarking to Better Cover Technology Development and Emerging Societal Needs ............. 430 Jeremy Millard, Kim Andreasson, Mikael Snaprud o Impacts of the Public Procurement Reform in Chile on the Municipal Level ....................................................................... 440 Gaston Concha, Roberto Anrique Posters o A Crowdsourcing Model for Public Consultations on Draft Laws ........................................................................................ 450 Vasiliy Burov, Evgeny Patarakin, Boris Yarmakhov o A Novel Scheme of Government Information Sharing System for Implementing Paperless Government ........................... 452 John (Jong Uk) Choi, Joowon Cho, Dong Hwa Kim, Chang Hun Yoo o A structure oriented evaluation model for readiness of e-governance ................................................................................... 454 Uranchimeg Tudevdagva, Uyanga Sambuu o An Initial Exploration of Hyperlinks of African Government Portal Websites ..................................................................... 456 Abebe Rorissa o C-DAC Pan India Strategy in High Performance Computing for Human Advancement ...................................................... 458 Kapil Mathur, Sandeep Agrawal, Sucheta Pawar, Abhishek Das, Goldi Misra o Crowdsourcing as Data Sharing: A Regional Web-based Real Estate Development Database ............................................ 460 Robert Goodspeed, Christian Spanring, Timothy Reardon o Drivers for Public Sector Contests ......................................................................................................................................... 460 Claudia Louis o E-Reconciliation in Rwanda ................................................................................................................................................... 464 Erika Bagambiki o Electronic Participation System: The Nigerian Perspective .................................................................................................. 468 Ibrahim Aliyu o Enterprise Systems and Government Organizational Changes: A Socio-materiality Analysis ............................................. 470 Loni Hagen, Donghee Sinn o Evaluation of E-Governance Projects of Nepal ..................................................................................................................... 472 Ganesh Adhikari o Exploiting the FLOSS Paradigm in Collaborative e-Learning: Application to e-Government ............................................. 474 Sara Fernandes, Antonio Cerone, Luis Barbosa o From Inter-agency Information Sharing to Open Data: A Case Study of Taiwan E-Government ........................................ 477 Tung-Mou Yang o From International Open Government Dataset Search to Discovery: A Semantic Web Service Approach ......................... 480 Eric Rozell, John Erickson, Jim Hendler o Implementation of Integrated Tax System COTS Product .................................................................................................... 483 Uyanga Sambuu, Zolbayar Chuluunbat, Esbold Unurkhaan o Information Sharing in Inter-departmental Collaboration: A Conceptual Framework for Local Government Authorities .. 485 Alinaghi Ziaee Bigdeli, Muhammad Kamal, Sergio de Cesare o Interagency Collaboration in Providing Public Services in Russia: A Legal Perspective ..................................................... 487 Evgeny Styrin, Andrey Zhulin o Monitoring Methods of e-Governance Development Assessment: Comparative Analysis of International and Russian Experience .............................................................................................................................................................................. 490 Lyudmila Bershadskaya, Andrei Chugunov, Dmitrii Trutnev o Moroccan E-government Ten years Evolutions ..................................................................................................................... 492 Mohamed Mohyi Eddine El Aichi o Opportunities for Improving eGovernment: Using Language Technology in Workflow Management ................................ 495 Ola Knutsson, Eriks Sneiders, Alyaa Alfalahi o Prioritization and Geo-spatiotemporal Hotspot Detection of Forest Loss Hotspot Using NDVI as a Response Variable .... 497 Koli Rajesh E., Rao Anil G., Ranei Guari M., Joshi Manish R. o Quality Assurance Case Study of an ICT Supported Legally Binding Election in Austria ................................................... 500 Klaus John, Andreas Ehringfeld o Quality Assurance Model for e-Governance Projects: A Case Study on e-Counseling ........................................................ 502 Rama Krushna Das Pabitrananda Patnaik, Manas Ranjan Patra o Regulation Room: Moving Towards Civic Participation 2.0 ................................................................................................. 504 Josiah Heidt, Jackeline Solivan
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o o o o o o o o o o
Revival of Farming Community with M-Agriculture ............................................................................................................ 506 Swapna Veldanda Social Media Usage Guidelines for the Government of the United Arab Emirates .............................................................. 508 Ibrahim Elbadawi System For Measuring E-Gov: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach ............................................................................................ 511 Camilo Cristancho Mantilla, Juan Carlos Noriega Silva The Digital Divide's Devaluing of Local E-Government ...................................................................................................... 513 Richard Huff, Liana Kleeman The Importance of Electronic Accessibility in Brazilian Juridical Electronic Process .......................................................... 516 Adriana Simeao Ferreira, Daniel Goncalves de Melo, Leondeniz Freitas The Use of Mobile and Wireless Technology and Food Quality Control in China ............................................................... 518 Shuhua Monica Liu, Qianli Yuan, Danyao Li, Lei Zheng The Use of Recursive Bisection in the Mapping of Sample New York State Electoral Districts ......................................... 520 David Molik, Michelle Sharer Toward Interoperable Government: A case of Bangladesh ................................................................................................... 522 M. Shakhawat Hossain Bhuiyan Trust Issues in the E-Government Implementation in Nepal ................................................................................................. 524 Garima Dhakal, Prajwal Amatya, Bal Krishna Bal eGovernance Implementation Model for Public Sector Innovation........................................................................................ 526 M. Irfanullah Arfeen, Nawar Khan
Tutorials o Tutorial: Digital Curation for Public Sector Proffesionals ..................................................................................................... 528 Christopher A. Lee and Helen Tibbo o Use of Agent-Based Modeling for e-Governance Research ................................................................................................... 531 Yushim Kim, Callie McGraw
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Conference Organization Host Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Patrons U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Conference Committee David FERRIERO, Conference Co-Chair - Archivist of the United States, National Archives and Records Administration, USA Theresa PARDO, Conference Co-Chair - Director and Research Professor, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Haiyan QIAN, Conference Co-Chair - Director, Division for Public Administration & Development Management (DPADM), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, USA Jose Ramon GIL-GARCIA, Program Co-Chair - Associate Professor and Director, Data Center for Applied Research in Social Sciences, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, Mexico Natalie HELBIG, Program Co-Chair - Senior Program Associate, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Adegboyega OJO, Program Co-Chair - Academic Program Officer, Center for Electronic Governance, UNU-IIST, Macao SAR Jana Hrdinova, Organization Chair - Program Associate, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Meghan Cook, Fundraising Chair - Program Manager, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Alison Heaphy, Publicity Chair - Communication Manager, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA
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International Steering Committee John Carlo BERTOT, Professor and Co-Director, Information Policy and Access Center (iPAC), University of Maryland, USA Francisco CAMARGO, Director General Programa Gobierno en Linea, Colombia Wojciech CELLARY, Professor, Department of Information Technology, Poznan University of Economics, Poland Samuel CHAN, Member of Administrative Committee, Science and Technology Development Fund, Macao SAR, China Jim DAVIES, Professor and Director, Software Engineering Programme, Department of Computer Science and Governing Body Fellow, Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK Sharon DAWES, Senior Fellow & Professor Emeritus of Public Administration, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Matthias FINGER, Professor, Faculty of Technology and Management, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland Tomasz JANOWSKI, Senior Research Fellow and Head, UNU-IIST Center for Electronic Governance, Macao SAR, China (Series Coordinator) Lorenzo MADRID, Chief Technology Officer for the Latin America Region and World Wide Director for the Government Interoperability Initiative, Microsoft Corporation, USA Henk G. SOL, Professor and Founding Dean, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Maurice TCHUENTE, Pro-Chancellor University of Buea, Cameroon Saleem ZOUGHBI, Regional Adviser (ICT), UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Lebanon
National Advisory Committee Cary COGLIANESE, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School Mitch LEVENTHAL, Global Affairs, State University of New York Kim McKINNEY, New York State Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) Beth NOVECK, Democracy Design Workshop, New York Law School Robert SAMSON, New York State Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission Jim HENDLER, Departments of Computer Science and Cognitive Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute David L. McCLURE, Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, GSA Miriam NISBET, Government Information Services (OGIS), National Archives and Records Administration Douglas ROBINSON, National Association of State Chief Information Officers Chris VEIN,The White House Office for Science and Technology Policy
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Awards Committee Sharon S. DAWES, University at Albany, SUNY – USA, Committee Chair Nicolau REINHARD -- Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brasil Enrico FERRO – Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy Marijn JANSSEN - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Lei ZHENG – Fudan University, China Luis F. LUNA REYES – Universidad de las Amércias Puebla, Mexico Rejean ROY – CEFRIO, Canada Gbenga ADEBUSUYI, Nigeria Johanna AWOTWI, Ghana
Program Committee Gustav AAGESON, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Gbenga ADEBUSUYI, National e-Government Strategies, Nigeria Rodrigo SANDOVAL-ALMAZAN, Universidad Autonoma del Estado de México, Mexico Kim ANDERSEN, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Jean-Pierre AUFFRET, International Academy of CIO, USA Johanna Ekua AWOTWI, Center for e-Governance, Ghana Frank BANNISTER, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Joerg BECKER, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Art and Design, USA Jaro BERCE, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Deepak BHATIA, World Bank, USA Melanie BICKING, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany Nikolaj BJORNER, Microsoft Corporation, USA Brian BURKE, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Luis CAMARINHA-MATOS, UNINOVA, Portugal Donna CANESTRARO, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Lemuria CARTER, Mississippi State University, USA Alejandra CECHICH, National University of Comahue, Argentina Wojciech CELLARY, Poznan University of Economics, Poland Yannis CHARALABIDIS, National Technical University of Athens, Greece Venkatesh CHOPPELLA, IIIT Hyderabad, India Eleni CHRISTODOULOU, University of Ciprus, Ciprus Gabriel PURON-CID, Centro de Investigación y Docencias Económicas, México Soon Ae CHUN, University of New York, USA Meghan COOK, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Antonio CORDELLA, Information Systems and Innovation Group at the Department of Management at the London School of Economics, UK Anthony CRESSWELL, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Ignacio CRIADO, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
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Jim DAVIES, Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK Sharon DAWES, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, USA Rahul DE, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India Zamira DZHUSUPOVA, Center for Electronic Governance, UNU-IIST, Macao SAR Sara ERIKSEN, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden Elsa ESTEVEZ, Center for Electronic Governance, UNU-IIST, Macao SAR Enrico FERRO, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy Pablo FILLOTRANI, National University of the South, Argentina Simon FONG, University of Macau, Macao SAR Jose FORMAZ, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Switzerland Mila GASCO, Institute of Governance and Public Management, ESADE, Spain Rimantas GATAUTIS, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania Jeremy GIBBONS, University of Oxford, UK Robert GOODSPEED Mary GRIFFITHS, The University of Adelaide, Australia Thad HALL, University of Utah, USA Steve HARRIS, Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK Karim HAMZA, Maastricht school of Management, Netherlands Paul HENMA, University of Queensland, Australia Andrew HOPPIN, New Amsterdam Ideas LLC, USA Princely IFINEDO, Cape Breton University, Shannon School of Business, Canada Sirajul ISLAM, Bangledesh Center for eGovernance & Örebro University, Sweeden Tomasz JANOWSKI, Center for Electronic Governance, UNU-IIST, Macao SAR Marijn JANSSEN, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Atreyi KANKANHALLI, School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore Andrea KAVANAUGH, Virginia Tech, USA Jay KESAN, University of Illinois, USA Ralf KLISCHEWSKI, German University in Cairo, Egypt Trond KNUDSEN, Research Council of Norway, Norway Padmanabhan KRISHNAN, Bond University, Kincho LAW, Stanford University, USA Deidre LEE, National University of Ireland, DERI, Ireland Christine LEITNER, Center for European Public Administration, Danube University Krems, Austria Calvin LEONG, SAFP, Macao SAR Government, Macao SAR Miriam LIPS, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Nikos LOUTAS, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Ireland Luis LUNA-REYES, Universidad de las Americas-Puebla, Mexico Ann MACINTOSH, University of Leeds, Institute of Communication Studies, United Kingdom Egle MALINAUSKIENE, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania Albert MEIJER, University of Utrecht, Netherlands Vassilis MENEKLIS, University of Piraeus, Greece Ines MERGEL, Syracuse University, USA Jeremy MILLARD, Danish Technological Institute, Centre for Policy and Business Analysis, Denmark Gianluca MISURACA, EC Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Spain Hrushikesha MOHANTY, University of Hyderabad, India Fawzi MULKI, Social and Economic Directorate, Royal Hashemite Court, Jordan Taewoo NAM, University at Albany, USA Toshio OBI, Waseda University, Japan Theresa PARDO, University at Albany, USA Marco PERES USECHE, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Colombia Vasillios PERISTERAS, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Ireland
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Chris REDDICK, The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA Scott ROBERTSON, University of Hawaii, USA Tomáš SABOL, Technical University of Košice, Slovak Republic Steve SAWYER, Syracuse University, USA Apetipe SEAKOW, Stamford International University, Thailand Bory SENG, Seoul National University, South Korea Jochen SCHOLL, University of Washington, USA Charles SCHWEIK, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA Aadya SHUKLA, Harvard University, USA Stuart SHULMAN, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA Henk SOL, University of Groningen, Netherlands Maddalane SORRENTINO, University of Milan, Italy Evgeny STYRIN, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Russia Ivar TALLO, e-Governance Academy, Estonia Efthimios TAMBOURIS, University of Macedonia, Greece Vishanth WEERAKKODY, Brunel University, UK Maria WIMMER, University of Koblenz and Landau, Germany Gamel WIREDU, University of London, UK Peter WINSTANLEY, Scottish Government, UK Jing ZHANG, Clark University, USA Lei ZHENG, Fudan University, China Jozef ZURADA, University of Louisville, USA
Additional Reviewers Alberto Savoldelli
Jörg Becker
Marco Prandini Maurizio Leo
Petra Wolf Eleni Kaliva
Eleni Panopoulou Efthimios Tambouris
Efthimios Tambouris Carl Erik Moe
Alberto Savoldelli
Brunella Caroleo
Walter Cerroni Marco Ramilli
Elisa Pautasso Enrico Ferro
Franco Callegati
Evangelos Kalampokis
Hans-Dieter Zimmermann
Manabu Nakashima Djoko Sayogo
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Session 1 Open Government Data
Beyond Open Government: Ontologies and Data Architectures to Support Ethical Consumption Luis F. Luna-Reyes
Djoko Sigit Sayogo
Jing Zhang
Universidad de las Americas-Puebla
University at Albany – SUNY
Clark University
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Theresa A. Pardo
Giri Kumar Tayi
Jana Hrdinova
University at Albany – SUNY
University at Albany – SUNY
University at Albany – SUNY
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
David F. Andersen University at Albany – SUNY
[email protected] organizations to be more accountable, transparent, and ethical [2,6]. Although the first documented stakeholder actions to hold corporations accountable and transparent took place in the early 1600’s [2], the movement has intensified in the last decades through grassroots movements lead by NGOs to address perceived failures by States to protect workers [6], and more recently, because of an increased consumer interest in the environment and sustainability [14]. In the US, government has also included as part of its open government initiative, the need to take regulatory approaches to “smart disclosure” of information needed to help consumers to make better choices1 [19].
ABSTRACT Two important trends on openness are promoting improved accountability from government and private organizations. The case of private transparency finds its roots in consumer and other stakeholder movements. The open government movement in the US is looking for alternatives to “smart disclosure,” which implies providing consumers with better information to make better buying choices. We explore current knowledge on ethical consumption, as well as two influential technological tools to support consumer decisions. Our initial discussion suggests that the use of ontologies and data architectures, together with the appropriate policy environment and governance system, may solve some of the current problems identified.
Although there are many formal attempts to measure and communicate corporate practices to consumers (surveys, indexes, or technology applications), there is no agreement on what information should be disclosed to consumers to better help their decision making. Moreover, there is even less agreement in terms of how to ensure data availability, reliability, and validity, as well as transparency of the processes to disclose such information [14].
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4.1 [Public Policy Issues]: Private Sector Transparency and Ethical Consumption
Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore what is the relevant information for consumers, as well as feasible ways of pulling the information together to fulfill consumers’ needs. To accomplish this objective, we explore the literature on ethical consumption and two prominent tools for ethical consumption in the US and the European Union. The paper ends by proposing the use of open architecture and innovative governance systems not only to enable interoperability along the supply chain, but also to improve consumer access to information to make better buying decisions.
General Terms Management, Design, Human Languages, Theory, Legal Aspects
Factors,
Standardization,
Keywords Sustainability, Supply-Chain, Ethical Consumption, Private Sector Transparency
1. INTRODUCTION
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
In the last years we have witnessed two parallel but closely related trends. First, governments around the world have increasingly worked to make their operations and decisions more open [17]. On the other hand, a there is a trend pushing corporate
2.1 Understanding Ethical Consumer Values and Preferences A large body of literature focusing on ethical consumption is based on the premise that consumer behavior is “rational”. As a rational actor, a consumer will seek a product that satisfies his/her needs by optimally considering all available alternatives and information [7]. The consumer consumption behavior is guided by
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/inforeg/foragencies/informing-consumers-through-smart-disclosure.pdf
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Other stream of research assesses consumers’ trust based product labeling or certification. This research explores the values that consumers attach to certification and labels. For instance, consumers positively correlate organic certification with values such as stricter production standards and control system, domestic origination of product, and familiarity with the logo as source of trust [8]. Customers rely on the label regardless of their understanding of the meaning behind label [3].
the combination of their moral sentiments and economic motives, especially for the sustainable products [1]. Based on their information seeking behavior, consumers can be categorized into: the “super-informed” and the “ignorant” [12]. The “super-informed” consumers actively search for product information related to social and environmental values. These types of consumers consider social attributes such as fair labor practices [13], environmental attributes such as climate change, carbon footprint, recycling, energy conservation and other. The “ignorant” consumers have to rely on the information provided by supply-chain actors and government. Disclosure of organizational and industry information becomes a valuable tool to guide ethical consumption decisions [5].
3. METHOD We used a convenience sampling approach to identify the current tools providing consumers with information for value-based purchasing. We chose to evaluate Barcoo and GoodGuide based on the following considerations: 1) each tool was developed and is primarily used on a different continent, thus enabling us to make a comparison. Barcoo was established and widely used in Europe while GoodGuide was established and extensively used in North America. 2) Both tools are currently popular tools used for valuebased purchasing considerations.
Other streams of literature depict some ethical consumers as altruistic actors. These consumers adopt their ethical values into their life styles [13], and adjust their behavior to consume environmental friendly, ethical or fairly traded products and show pro-environment behaviors [3,13,16]. Consumers who are more involved in ethical lifestyles perceived higher benefits from additional information [18].
4. RESULTS
Other research shows that the degree of commitment to the ethical values also depends on economic factors. Ethical consumers have to make a compromise due to conflicting and competing priorities [16]. The social and environmental attributes and consumer lifestyles serve as interacting and/or moderating variables in the determinants of ethical consumption behavior. Research show that consumers deal with three interacting factors in ethical consumption behavior, price, quality and convenience [3].
4.1 Ethical Consumption – Online Information Strategy
2.2 Sustainability Liability
4.1.1 GoodGuide (www.goodguide.com)
This section evaluates the above mentioned tools that are designed to help consumers make ethical purchasing decisions. The evaluation focuses on examining the data problems related to building the tool, identifying the source of trust on the measurements used in each tool and delineating the possible limitations of each tool.
Following ethical consumption could become a liability for the consumers. In general, although consumers might shift their purchasing preference from cheaper non-labeled products, they may not venture to choose more expensive alternatives [16]. Buying unethical products is usually cheaper than buying better equivalent products thus hindering the proliferation of ethical consumption [5]. Researchers argue that this is due to the fact that higher costs to the environment does not translate into higher price to consumers, and capturing all social and environmental costs associated with a product is hard to accomplish [5].
GoodGuide was founded in 2007 by Dara O’Rourke, a professor specializing in global supply chain at the University of California at Berkeley. The mission of GoodGuide is to transform the marketplace by helping consumers make value-based purchasing decisions. It provides expert judgment about the health, environment, and social performance of products and companies with a team of scientific and technology experts. GoodGuide gives four 1-10 numeric ratings, with one general score and three sub-scores for health, environmental and social performance of the product or the company respectively.
2.3 The Role of Trust for Ethical Consumer
4.1.2 Barcoo (www.barcoo.com) Barcoo is an independent service that offers consumers product information on their mobile phone. Consumer can use their mobile phone to scan the barcode of products and obtain background information about the product. Barcoo has a customer base of more than two million in Germany. It is used mostly in Europe. The information provided by Barcoo includes ingredients, nutrition value, certification, and other environmental information, as well as price comparison and users reviews.
Trust in information plays also a key role in consumption decisions. Trust formation is affected by shared values and joint beliefs held by consumers and companies about certain social or ethical behavior [15]. Consumers rely on existing information to assess the conformance of ethical values practiced by particular companies [15]. Findings from these streams of research suggest that consumer’s trust in the product depends partly on consumer’s trust in the company’s ethical conduct and partly on product labeling. Thus, some research explores the role of trust in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This research found that ethical conduct reflected in the CRS report influences consumers’ perception of trust toward the company [4,15]. However, trust based on the CSR practices does not always account for corporate success in the market [4]. The positive impact of trust depends on factors such as consumers’ perceptions of the social reputation of a company [4], product quality and consumer satisfaction [15].
A summary of the evaluation on GoodGuide and Barcoo is presented in Table 1. The assessment on both tools indicates several limitations that exist in both tools: 1) lack of clarity in the mechanism to generate the score, 2) data collection, matching, and processing is manual resulting in limited scalability, 3) the transparency and accuracy is limited in the sense that both tools cannot drill down to the data at product level, and 4) because of the lack of source data and verification capacity, the construction of trusted information is primarily based on human judgment,
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Researchers have explored extensively key factors affecting consumer buying decisions, however, we could not find literature on the impacts of the use of tools such as Barcoo or GoodGuide in these decisions. More research in the area is needed. This research may benefit from current efforts on understanding adoption of software to aid consumer decision making [17]. Some of the research that we found suggested that incorporating the cost of externalities in price is yet another way to promote ethical consumption [5]. However, there is little research on ways to account for externalities such as environmental impact. There is still less research exploring the economic impacts of a policy of this nature.
such as users based assessment in the case of Barcoo or combination of users and experts in the case of GoodGuide. These limitations are arguably affecting the trustworthiness of the information provided to the users. In addition, their inability to integrate information across the supply-chain impacts the validity of their result. In the next section, we will argue for the case of IChoose as an architecture that could assist web tools such as Barcoo and GoodGuide with increasing the credibility and trustworthiness of the information produced.
Table 1. Comparison of Barcoo and GoodGuide Indicators
Information elements & scoring
Data Source
Source of Trust
Data Problem
GoodGuide 1 – 10 numeric ratings: General score, Health, Environment, and Social scores
• Over 1,000 third party sources • Comprehensiveness of data sources • Experts and Users judgment • Company image • Clarity of scoring • Manual data collection • Human judgment biases • Limited granularity of data • Credibility of data source
Finally, a potentially important problem with this area of research is the fact that most is looking for ways to promote ethical consumption, without exploring the possibility of consuming less or changing significantly current consumption patterns.
Barcoo Product background information:
4.2.2 A Pathway Forward: A Socio-Technical System for Opening Private Sector Information to Support Consumer Choice
Ingredients, nutrients, certifications, price • Third party providers • Independent sources
Our current research suggests that some of the current gaps and shortcomings of tools that support ethical consumption can be addressed by the creation of a socio-technical system such as IChoose to facilitate information sharing and interoperability among stakeholders in the supply chain [10]. Our current efforts are focusing on coffee produced and traded in the NAFTA region. Coffee producers and consumers have made an effort to attach additional information to specific kinds of coffee –such as organic or Fair Trade—to differentiate them and to allow consumers to make ethical decisions. Lessons from our current project have the potential to be used by other industries and in different geographical areas.
• Data sources – facts • Legitimacy of partners & their database • Users judgment • Limited granularity of data • Reliance on 3rd party • Credibility of data source
We envision that I-Choose should include at least three different components: a set of data standards to share information across the supply chain, a set of Application Programming Interface (API) standards to make it possible for developers and other interested groups to create specific applications to make this information usable by regular consumers, and a governance system, which will be in charge of creating and modifying the standards over time. We are calling this system the I-Choose system [9].
4.2 I-Choose As An Architecture to Empower Current Tools and Trends In this section, we develop a proposal that could make a contribution to research and practice of ethical consumption.
4.2.1 Main Gaps from the Literature
In terms of the data standards for information sharing and interoperability, we are currently developing an ontology-based set of standards to integrate information from the coffee supply chain. There are already many higher order ontologies or data classifications that can be used to support this interoperability such as the XBRL standard for financial information. Because of that, our focus is on data components that are related to certification, which will link to other data standards.
Although there is an agreement in the literature that the main consumer concerns are associated with both environmental and social impacts of corporate activities, there is not an agreement on how to measure such impact. Rahman and Post [14] found 15 different ways to define environmental impacts, and different ways to measure them. Another gap is the difficulty in creating transparent and reliable measures. Data is not equally available for all corporations, and because of that, all available scores require the intensive use of expert judgment, making them highly costly. Moreover, many of the either publicly available or proprietary data are not transparent enough, and do not report on reliability and validity [14].
Shared data promoted by I-Choose will benefit efforts such as GoodGuide or Barcoo by providing better and wider information. However, this kind of ventures will need to have a way to access the information. Thus, the second component of I-Choose should be an API to ease the development of these kinds of applications.
Research in the area has also shown the importance of labeling in buying decisions [11]. However, labels that certify low environmental or social impacts may present very similar information to the consumer at the point of sale, but use very different criteria or processes in order to get the certification.
Finally, those two technical components need to meet the requirements of usability, utility, trust and openness to be widely adopted and used. To accomplish this objective, we believe that a multi-stakeholder group needs to collaborate to set the standards, but also to maintain and adjust them over time. Our current efforts
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[5] Chouinard, Y., Ellison, J., and Ridgeway, R. The Sustainable Economy. Harvard Business Review 89, 10 (2011), 52–62. [6] Doorey, D. The Transparent Supply Chain: from Resistance to Implementation at Nike and Levi-Strauss. 2011. [7] Freestone, O.M. and McGoldrick, P.J. Ethical positioning and political marketing: the ethical awareness and concerns of UK voters. Journal of Marketing Management 23, 7-8 (2007), 651–673. [8] Janssen, M. and Hamm, U. Consumer perception of different organic certification schemes in five European countries. Organic Agriculture, (2011), 1–13. [9] Luna-Reyes, L.F., Andersen, D.F., Andersen, D.L., Derrick, D., and Jarman, H. Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP) Regimes: Policy Implications for US-Mexico Sustainable Commerce. (2012). [10] Luna-Reyes, L.F., Zhang, J., Whitmore, A., et al. Full Information Product Pricing: An Information Strategy for Harnessing Consumer Choice to Create a More Sustainable World. 2011. [11] De Magistris, T. and Gracia, A. Do Consumers Pay Attention to the Organic Label When Shopping Organic Food in Italy? In M. Reed, ed., Organic Food and Agriculture - New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences. Janeza Trdine, Croatia, 2011. [12] McEachern, M.G. and McClean, P. Organic purchasing motivations and attitudes: are they ethical? International Journal of Consumer Studies 26, 2 (2002), 85–92. [13] Michaelidou, N. and Hassan, L.M. Modeling the factors affecting rural consumers’ purchase of organic and freerange produce: A case study of consumers’ from the Island of Arran in Scotland, UK. Food Policy 35, 2 (2010), 130– 139. [14] Rahman, N. and Post, C. Measurement Issues in Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR): Toward a Transparent, Reliable, and Construct Valid Instrument. Journal of Business Ethics 105, 3 (2012), 307– 319. [15] Swaen, V. and Chumpitaz, C.R. Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on consumer trust. Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition) 23, 4 (2008), 7–33. [16] Szmigin, I., Carrigan, M., and McEachern, M.G. The conscious consumer: taking a flexible approach to ethical behaviour. International Journal of Consumer Studies 33, 2 (2009), 224–231. [17] Xiao, B. and Benbasat, I. E-Commerce Product Recommendation Agents: Use, Characteristics and Impact. MIS Quarterly 31, 1 (2007), 137–209. [18] Zander, K. and Hamm, U. Consumer preferences for additional ethical attributes of organic food. Food Quality and Preference 21, 5 (2010), 495–503. [19] MOU for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies - Informing Consumers through Smart Disclosure. Executive Office of The President - Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC, 2011.
involve the creation of a Network of coffee stakeholders that we believe can constitute a very first group to promote this kind of standards. The group must include government regulators, industry associations, consumers, consumer associations, producers and other stakeholders. The group will need to have in place a series of policies and procedures to ensure the fairness of the process, avoiding standards that become driven only by the larger players in the supply chain.
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS This paper aims to explore feasible ways of drawing relevant information to fulfill consumers’ needs in making ethical purchasing decision. To do this, we explore extant literature on ethical consumption and evaluate two existing tools available to support consumers’ ethical consumption. Our exploration identifies some of the current gaps and shortcomings of the existing tools supporting ethical consumption. We then proposed a scalable socio-technical system to facilitate information sharing and interoperability among stakeholders in the supply chain. This system comprises of three different but interrelated components, namely: 1) a set of data standards to share information across the supply chain, 2) a set of Application Programming Interface (API) standards to make it possible for developers and other interested groups to create specific applications to make this information usable by regular consumers, and 3) a governance system, which will be in charge of creating and modifying the standards over time. We are calling this system the I-Choose system. We further call for more attention to the role of government in the management of an architecture such as I-Choose.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research reported in this paper is supported in part by the USNSF (Grant No. IIS-0540069), CONACYT-Mexico (Grant No. 133670), and COMEXUS-Fulbright Commission in Mexico. The views and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of COMEXUS, CONACYT or NSF.
7. REFERENCES [1] Barnett, C., Cloke, P., Clarke, N., and Malpass, A. Consuming Ethics: Articulating the Subjects and Spaces of Ethical Consumption. Antipode 37, 1 (2005), 23–45. [2] Baue, B. and Murninghan, M. The Accountability Web: Weaving Corporate Accountability and Interactive Technology. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 41 (2011), 27– 49. [3] Carrigan, M. and Attalla, A. The myth of the ethical consumer – do ethics matter in purchase behaviour? Journal of Consumer Marketing 18, 7 (2001), 560–578. [4] Castaldo, S., Perrini, F., Misani, N., and Tencati, A. The missing link between corporate social responsibility and consumer trust: the case of fair trade products. Journal of Business Ethics 84, 1 (2009), 1–15.
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Exploring Process Barriers to Release Public Sector Information in Local Government Peter Conradie
Sunil Choenni
Creating 010
Research and Documentation Centre
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, P.O. Box 3001 HA Rotterdam The Netherlands 003110 794 4801
Ministry of Security and Justice P.O. Box 20301 2500 EH, The Hague The Netherlands 0031648100301
[email protected]
[email protected] in his presidency, United States President Obama called for increased release of public sector information [24]. Similarly, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes is a strong advocate for the release of Public Sector Information in the European Union, by its member states, but also by the commission [21]. Her view is supported by the 2003 PSI Directive the European Parliament and the European Council [11].
ABSTRACT Due to expected benefits such as citizen participation and innovation, the release of Public Sector Information is getting increased attention on various levels of government. However, currently, data release by governments is still novel, with little experience and knowledge thus far about the benefits and barriers of release. This is compounded by a lack of understanding about how internal processes influence data release. Our aim in this paper is to get a better understanding of these processes and how they influence data release, i.e, to find determinants for the release of public sector information. For this purpose, we conducted workshops, interviews, questionnaires and desk research. We find that the way data is used by a department, the way data is obtained, how data is stored, and the suitability of data to become open, as crucial indicators for open data release. We conclude with lessons learned based on the research findings. These are that we should take a nuanced approach towards data release, avoid releasing data for it’s own sake and take small incremental steps to explore data release.
Oft cited motivations for data release are hopes of increased citizen involvement in government, increased transparency and improved decision making [2, 21, 24]. Besides the premise of increased citizen involvement, open data is also seen as fuel for innovation. To illustrate, the MEPSIR study places the estimated value of the PSI market at 27 billion within the EU [10]. Furthermore, open data may give also a boost to the field of egovernance. However, this increased call for data release by governmental agencies presents data professionals with tasks that are as of yet unknown, in addition to having side effects that are hard to predict on a large scale. The cost associated with data release is also not always known, while the benefits that open data can have need to be explored. Having said that, the directives from higher levels of government are putting pressure onto local governments to find answers to pressing questions in relation to open data, such as what are the challenges, potentials, barriers and impact of open data?
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3 [Information Systems]: Information Storage and Retrieval; K.4 [Computers and Society]: Public Policy Issues
General Terms Design, Experimentation
In The Netherlands the calls for the re-use of data has not gone unheard. On various levels of national government in The Netherlands initiatives have been launched to free data for re-use in the public domain. These include local city councils, ministries and provincial governments. To illustrate: recent months has seen the launch of a national platform of data release [20], but also platforms on metropolitan level, as the that of the Dutch city Enschede [19].
Keywords Open Data, PSI, Participatory Action Research
1. INTRODUCTION The release of Public Sector Information by governmental organisations is getting increasing attention from government on several levels, local, national and international. For example, early
While possible barriers and potentials of open data are reported by several researchers (see Section 2), a deep understanding of the underlying processes for these barriers is missing. In this paper, we study the underlying processes that pertain to data release in a local context, i.e., we search for crucial determinants for the release of open data. We have studied the processes involved in releasing data at four organizations of the municipal Rotterdam, which is the second largest city in the Netherlands, with a population of 680 000. The municipality currently has 12 000 employees. We have implemented a participatory action research
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example, according to [16, 18], combining datasets could lead to undesirable results such as revealing the identity of persons. Additionally, publishing data that was gathered and managed for a one purpose might lead to different conclusions if implemented in an unrelated context [16]. The potential violation of privacy, has especially gained a lot of attention in the literature, see for example [1, 5, 13, 16, 22, 23, 26].
approach [28] to expose indicators that play a significant role in releasing data for public at the four organizations. Important elements in this approach are desktop research, workshops, questionnaires, and in-depth interviews with key persons at different levels of the organizations. We have found that important indicators for data release are the way data is stored in an organization (distributed/decentralized versus centralized), whether data is internally produced or externally gathered, the use of data, and the availability of guidelines to determine whether data is suitable for release. We discuss how these indicators may contribute to shape an open data policy at a local level.
In [5] a study is devoted on the impact that information technology has on several privacy issues. While the field of database security [1] mainly focuses to technical solutions that enforce the “need to know principle” i.e., access control policies, which may prevent the disclosure of privacy, more comprehensive alternatives to prevent the disclosure of privacy are proposed in [4, 16, 26]. In [26] a framework is proposed to protect the privacy of citizens, while in [4] and [16] comprehensive architectures are proposed to minimize the violation of privacy law and regulations. In [13], the authors plea for a so-called ambient law that articulates fundamental legal protections, including privacy, within the socio-technical infrastructure. In [23] privacy concerns about using cameras and solutions to these concerns are discussed in the context of monitoring dementia patients, while [8, 22] do the same in the context of public safety.
We note that while the combination of the indicators may be considered as a predictor of data release by an organization, the focus of the paper is rather to identify these indicators. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we embed our work in the field of open data in more detail. In Section 3, we motivate the use of a participatory action research approach for our purpose, while we implement this approach in Section 4. In Section 5, we present our findings from the participatory action research sessions. Section 6 is devoted to the lessons that we have learned so far. Section 7 reports about our future activities, while Section 8 concludes the paper.
However, PSI, is not always personally bound. Moreover, the barriers that may be encountered depends on the type of data at hand to be released. Therefore, for different types of data, different kind of barriers may be encountered. At a national level, there are also barriers to data release above and beyond privacy. A comparative study by [15] highlights these issues. Barriers to data release on national level are cited as traditionally closed government culture, but also limited data quality or uncertain economic impact of data release.
2. RELATED WORK Despite the pressures from higher levels of (federal) government to realise data release on local level, there are barriers along several dimensions to open data release. From a user perspective, major barriers are the access to proper datasets and the adequate use of datasets. The access to proper datasets is aggravated by the fact that the datasets are fragmented and offered at several websites, which are in some case hard to find [3, 17]. Moreover, access to datasets are in some cases restricted to specific user groups. Adequate use of datasets is hindered since metadata with regard to datasets are poorly documented, and therefore the semantics of the data may be ambiguous. Furthermore, how to determine the quality of a dataset is an open question. In [29] an overview of the barriers that users may encounter in using public sector information is provided.
These studies, while providing a view to data release on a national level, lack the focus on issues as experienced on a local level by public sector information professionals. There is a lack of understanding on local government levels on the impact, barriers and opportunities of open data release. Our study focus on the understanding of the underlying processes entailed by open data at a municipal level. The rationale to choose this level instead of a national level is that data is mainly gathered at local levels, and therefore their support are of crucial importance for the success of open data. To prevent that the understanding of the underlying processes will be dominated by privacy issues, we will place our emphasis in this study on the release of data that not are personally bound, and therefore the chance that data is privacy sensitive is minimized. For example, we focus on the underlying process that are entailed by the release of data that pertains to all trees in Rotterdam, such as the number of trees in a street, the kind of trees in the street, the year that a tree is planted and so on.
Along with barriers from a user perspective, data providers also encounter barriers to data release. From this perspective, major barriers are the lack of knowledge to deposit data, the economical loss that data release may entail, and the lack of knowledge to decide which datasets are eligible to release. In order to deposit a dataset, often this dataset should be formatted and processed according to the system requirements that accepts the dataset. Especially dataset providers who are not familiar with the technical aspects of data processing should deliver a lot of effort to deposit a dataset. The economic impact of data release becomes clear when taking into account that some European public sector bodies used a cost recovery model to fund data collection. For example, the Dutch Business Register (KvK), knows a cost recovery ratio of 19,50% [25]. By releasing data that is currently sold, certain agencies loose a valuable source of income [27].
3. APPROACH As mentioned above, there is a lack of understanding of how data should be released, what the effects of release might be, and the processes needed to facilitate data release. This applies not only to national or federal governments, but also on a local level. Within our education program experience has also shown that data release is not self-evident.
Organizations need practical frameworks that support them to decide whether a dataset is eligible to release or not [30]. In these frameworks, special attention should be given to privacy issues. Nowadays, organizations are struggling with the questions whether a dataset is or may become privacy sensitive [7]. For
In order to explore data release, the University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam initiated a research project with four services that form part of the Municipality of Rotterdam. They are
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laboratory environment where variables can be tightly controlled in order to conduct experiments. Instead, individuals are busy conducting their regular tasks. Given this, a more flexible approach to research is required, where results can be quickly incorporated into the research. While [28] has expressed the benefits of PAR from a sociological point of view, [12] mentions that such an approach also benefits the development of information systems. For instance, the participatory process can elicit increased commitment, while helping create support for proposed solutions. This resonates with the recommendation of [28] that PAR can help to prevent misconceptions about research results and interpretations, because participants are involved in research. [12] further mentions that a more participative approach is less likely to result in change to resistance from users (i.e.: data professionals in the local council) during implementation, which is also relevant in the context of the implementation of open data policy. In practice, PAR thus means a more involved approach by all participating stakeholders. In the context of our research, this has meant not only conducting interviews with our participants, but also organization of workshops to discuss emerging themes about data release on a local level. Researchers also aim to be involved with discussions relating to PSI release by attending internal events at the council about PSI and data release. Furthermore, events are organized to involve external stakeholders in the process, by giving a platform from which issues related to open data could be discussed.
Figure 1. Stakeholders in the Participatory Action Research City Development (Stadsontwikkeling), City Works (Gemeentewerken), Library (Bibliohteek) and City Archive (Gemeentearchief). The participating services form part of a consortium exploring the barriers and benefits of open data for the local council and represent one of the clusters that comprises the municipality. The Library and the City Archive focuses on clients accessing its services, City Development is more involved with executing and developing urban policy, while City Works makes products such as detailed city maps in addition to maintaining objects and infrastructure in the city. These roles will be elaborated on later in Section 4. First, we motivate in the following the choice for a participatory action research approach and describe how we will apply this approach.
Throughout the project, there is also a strong focus on the use of cases that will guide data release. These cases are thematically tied to the middle and long-term goals of the local council. These themes were distilled down to projects, to be performed in our education program by students. The goal is to let the projects act as driver for data release in the local council, first by animating the participating partners to quickly supply data for project purposes, but also to highlight the type of data that is most wanted, and the potential re-uses of data. Results from the education program can subsequently be used by participants why data re-use can be valuable.
3.1 Participatory Action Research
Data release cannot be seen in isolation. In the long term, the goal of open data is to foster innovation, transparency and participation. This is achieved with actors found externally from the municipality. Additionally, the municipality, through its very nature serves goals of others. As such, PSI release is not in and of itself the goal. The aim is also to explore the value of data for the city, whether expressed financially, or through other metrics such as social cohesion o participation.
In order to understand barriers of data release, we employ a participatory approach to research, where stakeholders from the various public services are co-researching through action and participation how an open data policy can be implemented. Formally referred to as Participatory Action Research (PAR), this approach focuses on co-research with participants [28]. From the previous sections, it is clear that the barriers – e.g.: technical issues, privacy or law - associated with data release require expertise from different branches of knowledge. Seen from this perspective, PAR can be an appropriate methodology, due to its applicability in multidisciplinary research [28].
This prescribes the involvement of stakeholders from outside the public sector, such as the local creative industry. Several commercial companies partake in exploring, through their active involvement in our educational program. The cooperation between Creative Industry as potential user of data, the Public Sector as data supplier, education and research is shown in Figure 1. We believe that in bringing these four stakeholders together, a broad view of the issues can sketched, with education and creative industry acting as data users, while the public sector experimentally supplies data, with researchers cataloguing data release.
Furthermore, PAR is often a combination of theory and practice and thus brings together academic researchers and practitioners as problem solvers. PAR research aims to advance practical knowledge and is often built on an understanding that results from field experience [6]. According to [14], where knowledge embedded in local context, a PAR approach can be beneficial. What also speaks to more methodologically flexible approaches such as PAR is the context in which research is taking place. Organizations such as the local council are not found in a
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the data. Illustrative of this is the use of quantitative interview data from 17000 citizens in Rotterdam. These interviews, conducted by an external bureau, is subsequently analysed and presented in booklet form. This booklet might influence policy, but the underlying data: interview results with 17 000, or even the data interpretation that results from an analysis of the data is not necessarily used again for different purposes within the department, nor is it centrally controlled. Ownership of the data is also opaque, in addition to its status as public sector information, due to the fact that it was bought from an external agency.
4. IMPLENTING PAR In order to come to a deeper understanding of the underlying processes for the barriers to data release, we have studied the participating services provided by the four organizations at the municipality. This happened first through an exploratory workshop with consortium partners where earlier experiences with regards to data release within each service was highlighted. This was attended by a representative of the four services, plus a member of the Management Service (Bestuursdienst) (n=6). In addition to this, we performed desk research about the services. This was followed up with a questionnaire with all the participants (n=11). Subsequently, the questionnaire was also filled in by other civil servants (n=50). Questions were based around five themes, introduced by [15]: internal; judicial, social cultural, economic and technical barriers to data release. The statements relating to these themes were given, asking respondents to agree or disagree, on a 5-point Likert scale. Examples include: Because my department generates income through licensing data, I think my department should retain the right to license the data, or, Within my department, too much of the data is too privacy sensitive to release.
While City Development creates policy, City Works has as task to maintain the objects and infrastructure of the city. This includes trimming trees, maintaining garbage bins, or removing unwanted growth from bicycle paths, but also large infrastructure project planning and advice. Additionally, City Works also produces a variety of products, such as detailed maps of the city. These tasks require intensive use of data, either because data is needed to identify the location of objects due for maintenance, or simply because it is a core aspect of created products such as maps. City Works also supplies data to organizations inside the local council. This would include sharing data with City Development to assist policy development. For all these tasks City Works has traditionally been very reliant on data management. Data must be easily accessible and findable because not only is it important for the internal functioning of the department, it is also one of the core services offered.
The answers from the questionnaire formed the input for subsequent in-depth interviews with participants (n=11). As part of the project, a workshop was also attended, where statements regarding data use was introduced and discussed by attendees (n=8). Following this, a second workshop was organized where the benefits and barriers of data release was discussed (n=6).
The Library relates to City Works and City Development in the sense that data is essential for the internal functioning of the service. Data is collected about books to make them findable online or in a local catalogue, but the library also keeps data about all their customers, to ensure efficient service delivery. However, data is either personally bound, or might be subjected to copyright law. For example, meta data about books might contain descriptions supplied by publishers, unavailable for re-use.
These various investigations were used to construct the indicators for the underlying processes. Below we present the results from these investigations. Participants work at various departments within the local council and were recruited as a result of previous engagement with projects at the University. Respondents also came from services outside of the project consortium, in order to give a broader impression of open data. Interviews were loosely structured and conducted on site.
However, the Library is also in the midst of reorganization and might in the future not be part of the city council, at least not in its current form. This essentially means that the data gathered and used by the library might not be considered as PSI. Subsequently, the legal frameworks, as recommended on European and national level might not be applicable. This creates uncertainty about the status of the data and to what extent in might be made available.
The goal of these initial interviews was to explore how data release is currently facilitated within the organization. It also helped in connecting the internal processes of the council with the barriers, leading to a better understanding of how data is managed. Interviews were created based on themes that emerged from a first open workshop about data release, where participants reflected on earlier experiences. These results were compared with existing research on data release by national governments, to form a better picture of the subject. Respondents also filled out a questionnaire prior to the interview, which helped to focus the interview themes and identify some barriers as expressed by the participants
The last service, the City Archive, is fundamentally already an active participant in open data, albeit in a largely non-digital form. Currently, the archive consists of almost 20 kilometres of archived material, stretching back 800 years. The legacy of, until recent years, always working with physical artefacts means that digitization is not traditionally part of the role of the Archive. However, the Archive has already digitized more than 150TB worth of data. This data has not been imported into any centralised system for easy retrieval. There is thus a significant amount of available information, but a proportionally small amount is currently accessible through the digital archive. A scan on demand services has also been launched, but it seems illusory that the entire archive will be available online soon. Additionally, certain objects are not easily scanned: these would include objects that are of unusual format, or very fragile. The City Archive also possesses very little geographical information about catalogued objects, prohibiting its use in maps, or other geographic applications.
The first impression gathered from the interviews is the large variety between the profiles of the services and how this impacts data treatment. City Development executes and develops urban development policies such as new housing complexes, or new traffic routes. For this task, City Development uses data extensively. The organization has a traditional decentralized data structure, where data is used to execute policy, but is subsequently often not re-used. The sources of the data also varies. In some cases, it is gathered by a certain department, for example through sensors on the road. In other cases, data might be bought externally, or requested from a service of department controlling
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This sketches the picture of the four services participating in the research. Through our interviews we also identified certain recurring themes, as identified by respondents. What follows is a closer look at the most important subjects.
5.1.4 Priority Finally, from our interviews and workshops, it transpired that open data is not necessarily a priority within the council and does not form part of existing tasks. This is not a consequence of unwillingness, but simply because data release is not part of the regular work for many data professionals. In combination with this, the immediate benefits of data release are not always explicit, making it an extra task, without clear incentives.
5. OBSERVATIONS The data collection in our PAR results in a number of interesting observations. In the following two subsections we report on these observations. We have classified the observations in two mainstreams. Observations that pertain to underlying thresholds of data release, and therefore indirectly determine the release of data, and observations that directly determine the release of data. From the latter observations, we derive a set of indicators that are relevant for the release of data. In Section 5.1, we outline the main underlying thresholds that play a role in data release. Section 5.2 is devoted to the observations and a set of indicators that directly determine the release of data.
While the interviews conducted provide insights into the experience of data release by the data professionals in the city council, it neglects exploring the actual process of data release in an empirical form. In the following section, we elaborate on the released data, but also on the data that has, as of yet, not been easily released. From these observations, we derive a set of indicators that determines the release of data.
5.2 Indicators for Data Release For our educational program, the focus has been to release data that can be described as the low hanging fruit. This was for the most part non-personal data related to objects in the city, for reasons elaborated on earlier. A majority of data relates to public property – in essence everything controlled by the municipality that can be observed in the public space. Given this, a major supplier has been City Works. The data released includes data such as the locations of objects like trees, roads, or parks. However, release has not only been swift because of the types of data, but also due to the central data storage at City Works.
5.1 Underlying Thresholds 5.1.1 Fear of False Conclusions A recurring theme was the fear of false conclusions being drawn from released data. An example of this would be the potential decrease in property value if details would surface about policy plans of new city developments, even if these were not yet finalised. Interpretations of data by outsiders without prior knowledge about the goal of data gathering could also lead unwanted situations. For example, research performed on the demographic profile of certain neighbourhoods might not appear nuanced enough to an outsider without knowledge about statistical methods. In the case that there are judicial frameworks in place to mitigate such issues, there might not be known to individuals dealing with a particular data request.
However, data released by the City Works was not made available for re-use outside of our education program. The reason behind this is the lack of clear judicial rules with regards to data re-use on a wider scale. This effectively means that the data cannot strictly be referred to as open data: it may not be used without restrictions outside of our education program.
5.1.2 Financial Effects of PSI Release
Despite the ease with which data about objects was released, other types of data that relate to the internal processes of the council is much more sensitive. For example, data about the maintenance costs of objects has not been released, even within the education program. This would include data about how often trees are treated for various disease and the costs associated with cutting the grass in public parks, or what the budgets are for keeping the city maintained. Anecdotal evidence from our education program suggests that this type of data (such as the maintenance cycle of objects, or the costs associated with taking care of trees), can form interesting input for applications. Also from the perspective of transparent government, this data seems valuable. However, in the short term, this is not forthcoming.
On the economic front, licensing fees also formed a barrier to release. As mentioned earlier, some public bodies charge usage fees for data. This is also the case for City Works. While research has shown that the data recovery model results in proportionally low amounts of income and that less restrictive data release can in some cases lead to increases in revenue and or, in the case of free data, lower transaction costs [25], services find themselves in a transitional phase. Even proportionally low amounts of income from data licenses need compensation. The current climate of decreased government spending aggravates the problem since it is not a given that lost income from releasing previously licenced data for free will be compensated by the national government or the council.
The lack of judicial frameworks and the ease of release stands in stark contrast with data from City Development. This department has made explicit decisions about data release, by classifying data released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. Applying this license means that, unless otherwise indicated, the contents of data objects such as traffic information is available for any type of reuse. An exception to this might be the presence of copyrighted material inside a document. For example, a policy document could be supplied, unless it contains a photograph that does not fall under the CC0 license. Furthermore, it is not required to state the source of the data by the re-user. However, it is prohibited to create the impression that the local council agrees with any
5.1.3 Opaque Ownership and Unknown Data Locations There are also significant questions regarding ownership of data. Due to vertical data management in the past, data sharing between departments has historically not always been the case. As a result, services and, in extreme cases, departments within a service, lack a complete picture about which data others control. Additionally, even if the location of data is known, its ownership remains opaque, inhibiting release. Merely identifying a dataset that would strictly speaking be suitable for release does not warrant its appropriateness as open data.
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Table 1. Indicators of data release based on observations Themes Use of data
Source of data
Data storage Suitability of data for release
Data released Biggest threshold
City Development
City Works
Library
City Archive
Execute development policy.
Maintain public objects, producing geographical products.
Support core services, internally and externally
Enhance services, catalogue objects
Externally gathered
Internally produced
Metadata internally created, artefacts externally supplied
Decentralized
Central
Internally produced through services processes and externally bought Central
Medium: combination of personally identifiable information, live sensor data and object data. None
High: many sets related to public objects, nonpersonal.
Low: data personally identifiable or subject to copyright
Object data of public artefacts No legal framework for the supply of data, commercial interests.
Book metadata
Decentralized data storage and internal data management processes.
Personally identifiable data, uncertain organizational status, copyright.
Central (meta data only) High: data not personally identifiable and owned by the Archive Search API of archive metadata Costs associated with digitalization of archive artefacts.
As mentioned before, the Library has more comprehensive digital service provision, due to the reliance on data to manage the collection and serve the public. However, the only set of information that is currently available for use contains book meta data. The use of this data currently falls into a grey zone: bibliographic information gets bought from a commercial organization, which has implications on its release as open data, while for education purposes, re-use would be allowed. While the library is also in possession of other data that is without copyright restrictions, this comprises information about book lending, or statistics about members. This data could theoretically be personally identifiable, which complicates its use as open data. Even in cases where data is anonymized it might still be possible to extract personally identifiable data, through methods discussed by [18].
conclusions that might arise rom the data, when interpreted by external parties [9]. Notwithstanding, despite having seemingly unambiguous permission to release data to the public, the City Development department is often in the dark as to where data actually resides. Even if the data location is fully known, it does not warrant release. Illustrative of this is a request for the locations of public transport data. While this data is controlled by City Development, the data is owned on a metropolitan regional level. As a result, requests for the data’s release needs to go to metropolitan level, even though the data location is known. Due to its ownership being external, it is subsequently unclear whether the data can be classified under the CC0 license mentioned above. This illustrates that defining the judicial aspects of data release does not translate to release. Practical or technical issues remain.
From these observations, we note that the judicial issues, which include privacy and copyright concerns, the way data is collected and how it is stored, play an important role in data release. Therefore, we distinguish the following indicators that may be important for data release:
Due to the product focussed work process present at City Development, the extreme decentralization is not conducive to an open data policy. Additionally, departments within City Development are controllers of datasets, but do not necessarily own them. This potentially creates uncertainty as to the applicability of the license, but also ambiguity as to who has the final word in releasing the data. Furthermore, while City Development has been very clear in taking care of the judicial side of open data, the data that is currently classified for re-use does not compromise all data. The real-time status of many parking garages in the city is such an example. This data, whilst known and shown in certain locations in the city, is not available to third parties.
o
Use of data, i.e., the way data is used by the department.
o
Source of data, i.e., how is a set of data obtained?
o
Data Storage, i.e., is data stored centrally, or decentralized?
o
Suitability of data for release, i.e., are there rules and regulations that determine whether a dataset may be released or not, such as privacy or copyright.
In Table 1, we summarize how the several departments score on each of the indicators together with the results of dependent variable “data released”. Based on the research performed, we also name the biggest threshold to data release. These relate to indicators important for data release.
While City Development and City Works both deal for a big part with data in a digital format, the City Archive is historically much more focussed on physical artefacts. Data release by City Archive has up until now been limited to the opening up of the search Application Programming Interface (API), in order to access the object metadata. There is thus no raw, unedited data about archived objects such as high-resolution images, or historical maps available in digital form, for reasons discussed earlier.
This overview of the release of data for use within the education program provides an initial view to the barriers of data release as experienced by the various participating partners. In the following
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Different barriers to data re-use apply. While only one service, City Development, has made explicit arrangements with regards to judicial matters, this service, as our interviews and data release shows, is not in a position to release data under a CC0 licence for reuse because of how it treats data.
section we will elaborate more on how these findings can impact open data policy on local level.
6. LESSONS LEARNED First and foremost, the act of freeing up data is new to the services at the city council. This results in many questions by public servants about how data requests should be handled. Because there is, as of yet, no real framework in place to answer these questions, data release stumbles. However, beyond the fact that data professionals lack clear guidelines to support data release to external parties, there are some more fundamental issues concerned with data release.
This too would be the case for data release by the City Archive. In the event that the Archive has a legal framework about data release it still might not possess the types of data that is easily released, due to physical limitations to what the archive can digitize, or financial restrictions. Conversely, the library can, and has, released data for re-use. However, this data is not widely reusable due to copyright, and the data that is not subject to copyright law can be sensitive to privacy.
Due to the urgency of the education program, the most effort has also been on acquiring easy datasets, without prioritizing data according to demand. As a result, our inquiry reveals where data is most easily retrieved, but also, by virtue of not being easily accessible, what types of data needs further exploration. This revealed that the easiest data to technically and practically release was non-personal object data and especially due to the centralized data storage of such data.
Given this, it seems that a nuanced view is needed to data release strategies on a local level, with all the implications this has for associated policy. Prior to formulating policy it remains important to look at how services deal with data storage by taking into account whether data is easily accessible, stored centrally, or available in digital formats and what the other financial, internal or judicial aspects might be.
Below we will elaborate more in depth about the main lessons learned from the research.
6.2 Data Release for its Own Sake The difficulties of data release, either as a result of technical issues, uncertain judicial frameworks, uncertain economic outcomes or simply not being able to find the data, means that data release can still be a costly, labour intensive activity. Our experience up until now has been that simply requesting “all” data yields no results.
6.1 Nuanced Approach to Data Release While the municipality typically presents itself as one entity to the outside world, there is a much more complex organisational reality. Even though our focus had merely been on four services, the heterogeneous character of these services are immediately apparent. This ranges from the types of tasks conducted, such as servicing the public (Library), to developing policy (City Development). Additionally, while some of the services are involved with interacting with the public as a core task (City Archive), others focus more on maintaining objects in the public space. Our attempts at data release further emphasized this view. This complex picture effectively also means that these services deal with data in different ways. City Development, as a service that is primarily concerned with developing and executing policy, uses data for the creation of a product (such as a policy recommendation). The data itself in this context merely supports a task. As a result, data requested by the service remain unused, except for the times when it is being applied in policy development or creation of various products such as informational publications about the city.
This means that choices are necessary to decide which data should be released. In reflecting back on the motivation behind PSI release, it is clear that the aim should not be merely the release of data for its own sake. Rather, the ambition of PSI release policy is to contribute to transparent government, innovation and increased public participation. This however, is easier said than done. The current state of affairs mean that to ensure efficient use of released data, it is important to consider the return on investment, not merely in a financial sense, but in the context of highest re-use achieved by datasets when compared to effort needed to realise its release. A more focused approach to data release has the potential to mitigate some of the problems identified earlier. For example, if finding the location of data is currently prohibiting release, as is indeed currently the case, a demand-based approach to data release might be applicable.
These processes of data usage thus impacts data release. Services where data is used and stored very centrally has shown to be much quicker in being able to release data, as the Library and City Works have shown. This does not take into effect the suitability of the data for release. The converse is true of City Development, where data is important, but where the emphasis is on the products that result from the data. Data storage is decentralized and ownership opaque, complicating data release.
To facilitate the release of data based on demand, it remains necessary to inform potential end users of the types of data currently controlled by a service or department. This is currently attempted within the department of Traffic and Mobility at City Development. Through our education program, students are given insight into the types of data that is regularly used at the department. Request for data can then be performed with much more focus and results of release, whether failure or success, can be documented. Through this, the demand is articulated and effort spent on data release yields quicker results.
The suitability of PSI for release as open data also varies. Based on two factors, privacy sensitivity and copyright restrictions, we identify that internally produced data about public objects are the most suitable, while at the other end, Library data, which is partly bought from third parties and pertains to persons have a lower suitability.
Additionally a stronger focus can be achieved without big investments into infrastructure: by exploring data release on a small scale, data is released with clearer end-goals, which also explicitly demonstrates the benefits of PSI.
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authorities, allowing the research results to be applied on a broader scale.
6.3 Large Scale Implementation In relation to the heterogeneity of the separate public sector organizations and in combination with the transaction costs associated with data release we identify that the large-scale implementation of open data infrastructure is likely to encounter significant difficulties. First and foremost, such an implementation would be troublesome to achieve due to the inherent heterogeneity of the services as discussed earlier. For example, significant efforts would first need to take place to ensure efficient data release and due to the differences in place at the various services this process could be lengthy and costly. In our context, merely clearing the judicial hurdles for the four participating services in cases where data is deemed usable could slow down development significantly. Even more illustrative of this is the change needed in internal processes, as would be the case in organizations with very fragmented data storage.
The results from the first exploratory phases of the project and the barriers introduced in Table 1 currently forms a basis from which stakeholders can attempt data release within their own department. Additionally, the results from the education program is assistive in illustrating data re-use in the municipality as a whole. In referring back to the PAR approach, this city lab provides conditions where stakeholders can actively play a role to explore efficient data release. Due to its small size, we can also focus on the barriers of individual services, whilst releasing data with explicit goals in mind. Such a pilot also precludes large information systems, but rather allows smaller explorations.
8. CONCLUSION
Furthermore, a large-scale implementation implicitly requires large amounts of data to be made available. As discussed above, even where there are judicial frameworks in place and data release is technically feasible, there are still transaction costs related to the release of data, such as locating datasets, or digitization. The resources needed to build op a large-scale infrastructure that could facilitate data release, might not be justified in relation to the uncertainty of the actual re-use of the data that is finally released. This holds especially true in a time when governments on local and national scale in industrialized countries are seeking to reduce expenditures.
In this paper, we explored data release on a local level. For this purpose, we conduct interviews, workshops, questionnaires and desk research. Through this we identified underlying thresholds that inhibit data release, summarized in Section 5.1. Most importantly, we identified indicators for data release, seen in Table 1, based on our observations. These include the use of data within a service, where data is stored and the suitability of data for release. More studies could show whether there is a dependency between indicators. This could assist in focussing efforts of process change to best suit an organization, based on discovered themes.
This sketches the conclusions of the research. In the following section we will reflect on how these barriers might be addressed in our own work.
To realise the ambition of open data on a wide scale on local level, there needs to be more questions answered about data release. Clear examples are needed that illustrate the benefit of an open data policy to civil servants, on a small scale. Large ICT projects that attempt to solve all these problems in one attempt might, in the current financial climate, not feasible. The focus should be on using pilot projects that illustrate, on a local, measurable level, the potential impact of open data.
7. OUTLOOK This research up until now presents a complicated picture with regards to open data release. We believe that the appropriate way to deal with data release on the local level is to run small pilots and cases where there is a continual focus on data release where direct effects of the value of data can be illustrated. Below we will elaborate on a practical case that acts as driver for data release.
9. ACKNOWELDGEMENTS We thank our colleagues of the Rotterdam University, both the researchers of the research lab Creating 010 and the teachers and students of the School of Communication, Media and Information Technology involved in the Rotterdam Open Data projects and the participants from the council of Rotterdam. Special thanks to Judith Lemmens. The work has been partly funded by the Rotterdam Media Commission and RAAK Publiek.
The data thus far collected is restricted to the easiest to release information. While this provides insights into what the low hanging fruit are, it does not answer questions about data that is harder to release, and what changes the underlying processes will have to undergo to facilitate release. In order to get a fuller understanding of data release, more effort should be placed on harder to release data.
10. REFERENCES
To achieve this we have identified a portion inside the city that can act as city laboratory for open data. Named the 1km3, this is a space where an Open Data experiment is being conducted. Located in the centre of the city, the 1km3 encompasses a place where people live, shop, play and work. Within the confines of this area, the goal is to gather as much data as possible. The case acts to motivate participants by showing the role PSI is playing for the city and its potential for interaction between residents and local government. This should also highlight, in addition to the barriers to data release, the potential benefits that PSI can have on a local scale. Because the 1km3 is a limited area, a more focused approach can be taken. Additionally, the limited scope is appropriate to analyse the process of data release by local
[1] Bertino, E. and Sandhu, R. 2005. Database security concepts, approaches, and challenges. IEEE. [2] Bertot, J.C., Jaeger, P.T. and Grimes, J.M. 2010. Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies. Government Information Quarterly. 27, 3 (Jul. 2010), 264– 271. [3] Boulton, G., Rawlins, M., Vallance, P. and Walport, M. 2011. Science as a public enterprise: the case for open data. The Lancet. 377, 9778 (2011), 1633–1635.
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[18] Ohm, P. 2009. Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization. Social Science Research Network. 57, 6 (2009), 1–64.
[4] Braak, S. van den, Choenni, R. and Verwer, S. Combining and Analyzing Judicial Databases. Discrimination and Privacy in the Information Society: Effects of Data Mining and Profiling Large Databases. Springer.
[19] Open Data Enschede: 2012. http://opendata.enschede.nl/. Accessed: 2012-04-10.
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[9] Creative Commons — CC0 1.0 Universal: 2011. http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Accessed: 2012-04-10.
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Implementation Framework for Open Data in Colombia Lydia Marleny Prieto
Ana Carolina Rodríguez
Johanna Pimiento
IT Development Manager GEL Programme, Ministry of ICT Cr 8 12-00 Bogotá, Colombia +57 (1) 3442270 x1501
Research and Politics Manager GEL Programme, Ministry of ICT Cr 8 12-00 Bogotá, Colombia +57 (1) 3442270 x 1007
General Manager GEL Programme, Ministry of ICT Cr 8 12-00 Bogotá, Colombia +57 (1) 3442270 x 1500
lydia.prieto@ gobiernoenlinea.gov.co
ana.rodriguez@ gobiernoenlinea.gov.co
johanna.pimiento@ gobiernoenlinea.gov.co
new topics such as Open Government [2] and Open Data have been included in the file of topics to develop, by taking concrete actions.
ABSTRACT This document contains an executive summary of the Open Data strategy for Colombia represented in an open data model fit into the Government online strategy, which allows operating and managing the supply, as well as the demand, of public access data. Colombian Open Data Model has been made with the objective of supporting the generation of economic and social progress in the country, by allowing citizens and business to have access to public information, so that it can be used for developing government services that create value to society in general; and to promote transparency in the country, through information and data available to citizens and businesses.
Article 230 of the National Development Plan 2010 - 2014, introduced this directive: "Government online as a strategy of good governance: All public agencies shall forward the actions identified by the national government through the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications" [5].
"Gobierno en Linea" (GEL) is the Colombian online strategy, led by a program with the same name, that contributes to developing a more efficient, transparent and participative government, which provides better services by means of ICT (http://www.gobiernoenlinea.gov.co). This strategy guides the delivery of online services by public agencies at both national and local levels.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4. [Computers and Society]: Public Policy Issues
General Terms
GEL strategy contributes to build an efficient, transparent and participative government which provides better services with the collaboration of the whole society through the use of information technologies in order to increase competitiveness and to improve the quality of life for the prosperity all throughout Colombia.
Documentation, standardization, legal aspects, management
Keywords Open data, open data strategy, open data model, online government, transparency, public data, support and operation.
Heading towards such objective, the open government data model for Colombia has been developed. International best practices, grounded on political and legal principles as well as technological, cultural, organizational and budgetary perspectives have been used to enable the publication of data by government agencies. The openness of information publicly available has been leveraged by citizens, academia, developer communities and agencies, along with some policy framework.
1. INTRODUCTION Information generated by public agencies can be considered as a public asset. According to the Colombian Constitution citizens have the right to access such information. The concept of open government data arises as part of the efforts made to structure information. Governments can have more effective administrations by means of being more transparent and by working on improving citizen’s quality of life.
Such work aims to introduce the open government data framework in Colombia, plus the strategic guidelines needed for its implementation. Chapters two and three describe the research methodology and the model design. In chapter four current results are described: a technical prototype for data and application catalogs implementation, a regulatory framework, and a road map to continue working until 2014. Lastly, conclusions and lessons learned are addressed.
In Colombia, the e-government program has been implemented in a systematic and coordinated way in all public agencies. Starting in 2000 with Presidential Directive No. 02 [4], followed in 2008 with Decree 1151 [3], a general framework for e-government strategy was defined. With the growth of the e-government strategy, from 2011, a new maturity model was developed, and Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This research was developed combining a mix approach of quantitative and qualitative components. It focused on the construction of the information that would support the formulation of guidelines and regulations for the open data strategy in the Republic of Colombia.
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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implement the initiative in public administration; and technological principles guide the definition of protocols, standards, tools and methodological guidelines necessary to implement the strategy.
In order to have elements of analysis to produce knowledge, experiences of other countries in the implementation of actions and policies of open data were studied. Focus groups led by experts on specific topics were carried out, as well as case studies were conducted in eight local national public institutions, mainly ministries and administrative departments.
Socio-cultural principles
Politic and legal principles
§ Support from all levels of government. § Phase out restrictions that limit access and use of
§ Pursue balance between supply and demand. § Seek for support from software development
Case studies aimed to assess the implementation of the strategic framework along with the methodological and technological tools developed by GEL program. This analysis involved a catch effort through interpretation by the research team against focus groups and case studies.
public information (such as payments or licenses).
communities, private companies and academia. § Promote of interaction and feedback from citizens and businesses about the relevance, quality and timeliness of published data. § Focus on the satisfaction level of citizens, businesses, the public and the media.
A benchmarking study including United Kingdom, Canada, USA, Australia, Spain and Chile open data models, helped to identify the main steps needed to develop the framework: a) definition of the objective situation; b) gap analysis between the objective situation and the current situation; c) definition of the necessary components for the model; d) definition of the proposed architecture for each of the perspectives; e) identification of elements and organizational structure, actors and components required to implement the initiative; f) identification of technological and regulatory elements; g) identification of sociocultural elements to cope with change; and h) identification of the mechanisms, actions and budgets required to implement the initiative.
Organizational and budgetary principles
§ Leadership, control and monitoring of the
§ Legal establishment of responsibilities and competencies.
§ Progressive coverage of the initiative, for all branches of government and private agencies exercising public functions.
§ Agencies responsible and autonomously publishing, hosting, maintaining and updating data
Strategic lines and fundamental principles
implementation strategy from the central level.
§ Encouraging and supporting generation of local and thematic initiatives.
§ Considered a common practice throughout public agencies.
§ Supported by a sustainable budget. § Aligned with e-government GEL maturity model. § Encouraging quality of data being published.
§ Support from a legal system that integrates open data guidelines and policies.
Technological principles
§ Data easily found by others at a central point. § One main data catalog for the country and multiple synchronized federate catalogs at local and thematic levels.
§ When possible, government should guarantee the authenticity of published data.
§ Multiple publication mechanisms to suit the conditions of the different public agencies.
Figure 1. Fundamental principles for open government data
3.3 Model components Based on the principles outlined before, Colombian open government data model has been structured. It was organized for describing the elements that should be considered at the strategic, tactical, operational and support levels, as displayed in Figure 2.
Through quantitative analysis, results of case studies were evaluated using surveys to officials of the organizations involved. Such surveys measured the quality of the concepts, content and language used in the proposed framework, which were studied through scales from 1 to 5. Concepts were transformed variables, identifying areas of improvement used for the formulation of the final version of the framework toolkit.
3. OPEN DATA MODEL
This model seeks to generate value-added services to society through the development of applications made by third parties (development communities, infomediaries industry, and academia), using open government data from public agencies. The elements associated with the model are described below.
3.1 Objectives
3.3.1. Strategic Elements
The open government data model in Colombia seeks to fulfill the following objectives: o Support the generation of economic and social progress in the country by allowing citizens and business to have access to public information, so that it can be used or transformed for developing government services that create value to society in general. o Promote transparency in the country by means of information available to citizens and businesses.
Strategic elements describe the articulation that must exist between the proposed open data strategy and the general GEL strategy. It contributes to the achievement of GEL vision under the following considerations:
3.2 Principles
3) Contribute to increase transparency in public administration. 4) Promote citizen participation using electronic media.
1) Facilitate the efficiency and collaboration within and between state agencies as well as society as a whole.
2) Strengthen the conditions for increasing competitiveness and improving the quality of life.
Taking into account the objectives, the expectations of the Colombian Government, and the best practices identified, the following are the fundamental principles for open government data, illustrated in Figure 1. Basic principles are grouped into four perspectives: politic and legal, socio-cultural, organizational and budgetary, and technological.
3.3.2. Tactical Elements Tactical elements sought to link operational and strategic components. For materializing this, an element of institutional articulation and public policy was formulated through which the responsibilities and powers of each of those involved in the open government data initiative in Colombia were defined. Three main indicators that allow the monitoring and continuous evaluation of the open data initiative were defined: 1) Compliance: Monitoring the level of compliance of open data policies and regulations by government agencies, through the criteria defined in GEL manual.
Politic and legal principles guide the policies handling political and legal efforts, and establish responsibilities and competences for its enforcement; sociocultural principles lead strategies, tools and actions necessary for the promotion and appropriation of good practices, and guidelines for policy massification by public bodies and third party application developers; Organizational principles give directives in policies, business processes, competencies, roles, organizational structures and resources required to
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For the correct operation of the proposed model, two activities to support initiative processes were created: release management, for accompaniment of the implementation, and support and maintenance, a process including management of the catalog data portal, plus the promotion and distribution of data dissemination and application development.
2) Usage: Assessed by quantifying the use of published data, taking into account feedback provided by users. Impact: Evaluated considering the applications that had been built using published data. Strategic
Open Data Objectives and alignment with GEL strategy
Tactic
Institutional and public policy articulation
Preparation
Operational
3.4 Road Map
Demand and value-added services generation
Open Data Offer
The road map proposed for the implementation on the open data initiative in Colombia comprises an incremental strategy that is aligned with GEL maturity model [9]: The initial level refers to having the institutional conditions that are necessary to establish open data. At this level some public agencies start publishing their information inventory, best practices are shared and an intra-governmental community of open data advocates starts to be created. At the basic level, all data sets are prioritized, collaborative focused events are performed, and feedback from citizens and organizations start to be significant. At the advanced level, the open data process has moved beyond the simple fulfillment of baseline requirements. Impact measurement, quality assurance, collaboration platforms and massive collaborative events will be performed. The maximum level will be reached with continuous processes of innovation, transparency, and public/private cooperation. Sustainability of the best applications is reached, key performance indicators are monitored and the use of semantic components is achieved [1].
Citizens
Demand identification
Identification Analysis and Prioritization
Sectors, unions, NOGs
Continued Feedback Published data access
Documentation Structuration, uploading and publishing
Culture Strengthening
Applications development and registration
Promotion and follow up
Processes
Legal and regulation Support
Services consumption
Monitoring
Evaluation
3)
Access and use of information and data
Publishing responsibility
Information and data publishing
Responsibility of information /data access and use
Support and maintaining
Publishing management
Technology Conceptual model
Non-functional requirements
Stekeholders GEL Agencies Academy
Developers, Infomediary Allies
Figure 2. Open Government Data Model for Colombia
3.3.3. Operational Elements Operating elements are those which bear with the “day to day” implementation of the open data model. These elements are solely responsible for promoting the provision of open government data, the generation of services around them and the balance between supply and demand through continuous public feedback and reinforcement of cultural strategies.
3.5 User Guidelines
Data supply is the backbone of the operation by which information is published by public agencies (and private companies with public functions) at national and local levels in structured and reusable formats under defined quality parameters.
A guide for public servants interested in easily acquiring open data knowledge and a toolkit were developed. It was structured in five stages of an ongoing process that guide them to publish data in open formats:
The demand for data that supports the operation allows identifying the needs that users have of open data and the requirements of added value services needed by citizens and companies.
o
Identification of information: At this stage the identification and characterization of all the information held by entities is performed.
o
Analysis of publishable information: At this phase information is classified by filtering what is publishable from what it is not, according to legal framework policies.
o
Prioritization of data: This phase organizes the data that needs to be published according to a strategic analysis which generates the inventory and working plan of public data to be published.
o
Documentation: This phase fully describes data to be published, producing useful metadata to make it understandable and easy to find and use.
o
Structuring, upload and publishing: This phase performs the preparation of data in open formats, and the execution of ETL processes to load and release data on the technology platform for subsequent open access.
3.3.4. Support Elements Support elements include the legal and regulatory framework, business processes and technological components. Legal framework establishes determination and the institutional mandate not only to formulate an open data policy, but also to implement that policy across the government, including the legal mechanism that establishes the fundamental principles, rights and obligations related to open government data. It focuses on four pillars: access to and use of information; publication of information; responsibility for publication; and responsibility for access and use of information. Technological framework comprises: a conceptual view that illustrates the different functional modules; a logical view that identifies the principal components of the required software structured by means of a layered architecture in which the external resources, the integration components, the presentation components, the business logics and the transversal and support components are identified; and a deployment view that identifies the possible physical distribution of the technical infrastructure components and some non-functional requirements identified as quality attributes of the required platform.
3.6 Government data and application catalogs The primary tool for data supply is the Colombian Government data catalog prototype available at http://www.datos.gov.co, a web portal that allows citizens and enterprises to centralize search and access to all public data – illustrated in Figure 3. This platform meets two goals: 1) It should make it as easy as possible for citizens – especially developers—to discover interesting
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At the moment, results from Colombian open government data initiative are still incipient. Complexity perceived by public agencies regarding the openness process is one of the main barriers for the model implementation. Agencies face diverse problems when trying to comply with the model. Those problems are mainly related to human behavior and fright to change: fear of losing control over data, lack of legal responsibility for publishing, and concern and distrust of third parties that would market or use the information to publish, summarize the main concerns.
datasets and to reuse them. 2) It should make it as easy as possible for government data stewards to make their datasets available for public consumption. As a pilot case study, nine datasets provided by national agencies including Transport, ICT and Education Ministries, Planning Department were identified and published. Data supply involved the development of a prototype of an online government operated clearinghouse for publishing third party applications using open government data, now available at http://ww.aplicaciones.gov.co. This tool allows third party agents (volunteers, civil society groups, government itself) to upload apps, and citizens to search and download apps that provide government services, using open published datasets.
Currently GEL open data team is working on improving the technological platform, optimizing the existing instruments, defining the uptake model, setting the initial legal framework and developing training campaigns to disseminate the strategy.
3.7 Legal Framework Definitions and actions associated with open data strategy in national regulations were absent and needed to be developed in order to implement the mandatory compliance of the model by public agencies in Colombia. In this sense the inclusion of a law, a draft decree and two manuals guiding public policy are being prepared.
In the near future some actions need to be included in the work agenda: quick gathering of data to be published that can be easily identified, such as data from national research statistics, already published at web portals; engage citizens themselves in the decisions about what data to publish; creation of open channels for developers to provide information about the use and impact of the data; and the design of an environment that gives developers the flexibility to use a full range of software tools to manipulate, and to add value to, government information, among others.
Citizens
National Open Data Plataform
www.datosentidad.gov.co www.datos.gov.co
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS GEL Storage Datasets
Data load website
Local and Thematic Open Data Platforms
Agency Data Base
This research was performed in the framework of the InterAdministrative Cooperation Agreement No. 308-2011, subscribed between “Fondo de Tecnologías de la Información - FONTIC and Centro de Investigación de las Telecomunicaciones – CINTEL”, with participation of “Everys Colombia” in its development.
Federated Storage Datasets
National Open Data Catalog
Federated Open Data Platform
6. REFERENCES
National, thematic and local web sites
[1] Cantera Fonseca, J. M., Hierro Sureda, J. J. and Romo Zabala, P.A. Web semántica: Tecnologías y arquitectura. Revista Comunicaciones de Telefónica I+D. ISSN 11304693, Nº. 39, 2006, 211-221. [2] Corojan, A. and Campos, Eva. Gobierno abierto: alcance e implicaciones. Fundación Ideas. ISBN: 978-84-15018-73-5. 2011. [3] Decreto 1151 de 2008. Ministerio de Comunicaciones de la República de Colombia. Diario Oficial No. 46.960 de 14 de abril de 2008. [4] Directiva Presidencial No. 02 de 2000: Gobierno en Línea del 28 de Agosto de 2008 [5] Ley 1450 de 2011. Por la cual se expide el Plan Nacional de Desarrollo, 2010-2014. Congreso de la República de Colombia. Diario Oficial No. 48.102 de 16 de junio de 2011. [6] Manual Único de Rendición de Cuentas. Proyecto de ley estatutaria no. 133/11 cámara– Por la cual se desarrollan disposiciones para la promoción, protección y garantía del derecho a la participación ciudadana en Colombia [7] Proyecto de Decreto para establecer los lineamientos de la Estrategia Gobierno en Línea para la República de Colombia. 2012. [8] Programa Agenda de Conectividad – Estrategia de Gobierno en línea. Manual 3.0 para la Implementación de la Estrategia de Gobierno en Línea en las entidades del orden nacional de la República de Colombia. Junio 2011. [9] Proyecto de Ley 156 de 2011 Senado, 228 de 2012 Cámara. Por medio de la cual se crea la ley de transparencia y del derecho de acceso a la información pública nacional y se dictan otras disposiciones. 2011.
Figure 3. Open Government data platform First, the draft "Law on Transparency and the Right to Access National Public Information" [9], included the enforcement for agencies to allow access to and use of public information, rules for information publication, accountability in the publication, and responsibility in access to and use of information. Second, the draft "Decree for establishing general guidelines for GEL strategy for the Republic of Colombia" [7], establishes the open data strategy as one of the priorities for the country, and identifies the rules for the disposal of information from public institutions to citizens, free of charge. Third, the matter of open data was incorporated into the guidelines contained in the "Manual for the Implementation of GEL strategy in Colombia" [8], as well as in the "Unique Manual of Accountability" [6], as mechanisms to promote openness, transparency and accountability in the Colombian Government.
4. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS Open data model developed by GEL provides a framework for data opening in a structured and organized manner, establishing balance and sustainability between supply and demand of data, and outlining a clear route for accomplishing a transparent, participative and collaborative strategy. Added value must be obtained from solutions that solve citizens’ needs and agencies required services for them.
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Increasing Kenyan Open Data Consumption: A Design Thinking Approach Leonida N. Mutuku
Jessica Colaco
iHub Research Bishop Magua Centre, Ngong Road P.O. Box 58275 – 00200 Nairobi +254 732792987
iHub Research Bishop Magua Centre, Ngong Road P.O. Box 58275 – 00200 Nairobi +254 735203733
[email protected]
[email protected] Since then, we have seen more than 20 governments and other major institutions around the world release their data, in a bid to democratize this public information by making it accessible to all citizens; and to promote innovation of local solutions to socioeconomic development issues that afflict the respective countries [13]. By providing this public information to citizens, the governments empower them to query this data and in this way promote accountability, transparency and innovation in service delivery.
ABSTRACT In July 2011, the Kenyan Government became the twenty-second government worldwide and the second in Africa to release many of its data sets in an open and reusable format on the Open Kenya portal. This open data portal has presented great opportunities to develop applications, especially on the mobile platform. There have been, however, challenges in engaging the technical and industry experts in conversations around the open data. We are conducting an ethnographic study on an experiment that brings together subject matter experts in the Water, Education, Transport, and Local County sectors, together with open data evangelists and software developers to guide them through a design thinking approach to identifying, idea-ting, and prototyping open data applications. The main objective of this study is to identify best practices in increasing open data consumption through scalable mass appeal mobilization and civic engagement tools and applications.
2. THE KENYA OPEN DATA INITIATIVE In July 2011, the Kenyan Government became the twenty-second country worldwide and the second in Africa [16] to release many of its data sets in an open and reusable format on the Open Kenya [13] portal. The Vision given for this initiative is that “with the launch of Open Kenya, Africa will have its own story of promoting transparency through open data to celebrate, learn from and share” [13]. At the launch of the portal, there were over 400 data sets released to the public in easily manipulated formats.
Categories and Subject Descriptors A.1 [General Literature]: General – Conference Proceedings
2.1 Potential of the Open Data Initiative The Kenya Open Data Initiative enables Kenyans to interact with government data at different levels and use this information to engage [11] further with the government in accordance with the new Constitution’s provisions on access to information [14]. The government has released many more large data sets since the launch of the portal, ranging from national census data to statistics on government spending at national and county level [9].
General Terms Documentation, Design
Keywords Kenya, Open Data, Design Thinking, Ethnography
1. INTRODUCTION
Various opportunities to develop applications that use the newly available open data as a basis to represent information have emerged. Over 90 dataset requests surfaced within the first month of the launch by developers and other stakeholders, which indicates a great interest to explore this data in meaningful ways and represent it visually, while providing useful insights into the information that lies within this data.
Over the past couple of years, various governments and public institutions have launched numerous initiatives to make their data sets open. Open data is data that is freely accessible, easily redistributed and reused [8]. The US Government and the World Bank were among the first of these institutions to release, in 2009, numerous data sets in an open format for access by all.
This opportunity could be explored further in the mobile space to create mobile open data applications. With over 99% of users that access Internet in Kenya doing so through their mobile phones, [4] a much faster and more efficient tool to disseminate open data information to citizens may be through mobiles. It is therefore worth considering mobile applications as an important dissemination method of open data information [9].
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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created must address real needs and not just be fancy visuals with no real value behind them.
Giving Kenya’s citizens greater access to government data enables communities to mobilize and demand better services based on evidence provided by open data. [1]
Despite the many efforts discussed above, there has been no real measurable engagement of industry and sector experts in these open data conversations to date. These are important stakeholders when it comes to formulate problem statements based on these data sets and advice on the solution development [2]. While software developers may create great visualization tools, great value is derived from their engagement with industry experts who together, will assist to build necessary service to serve the likes of those who will not readily accept or understand the data on the platform.
2.2 Importance of Open Data to Governance Through continuous interaction and providing feedback on the platform and its data sets, in the long term, open data promotes not only transparency and accountability, but also democracy. As previously highlighted, improved service delivery will be promoted by the feedback loops that arise through frequent querying of the open data by both citizens and government agencies. For example, the resource allocations and government expenditures could be queried and insights obtained by analyzing the open data accessed. In this manner, open data will allow for a paradigm shift from a centralized governance model to a citizencentric governance model. The government realizes these important values of the open data platform and has been a strong advocate for the platform, evangelizing about its potential and benefits at various events and public functions. In return, many developers and journalists have embraced the Open Data Portal with a number of applications that query the database being developed. Examples of such applications include: Huduma [10], MsemaKweli [12], CountyScoreCard [5] and CDF Review [3]. Further, the government has promoted interaction with these data sets by providing grants of up to $30,000 for the development of applications based on open data. [6]
Figure 1: How opendata.go.ke
The World Bank has also been instrumental in the education and awareness campaigns on the importance and opportunities of the open data portal by sending in their own open data evangelists and members of the finances’ open data team to officiate at boot camps with a focus on data journalism and open data visualization.
different
stakeholders
engage
with
There is a need to bridge the gap between those who can make sense of the data sets and interpret the seemingly random numbers to software developers, in a manner that can then be easily adapted and captured in innovative useful products and applications. This research aims to test the hypothesis that the realization of the full potential of open data will be achieved when easily interpretable open data products are made for the general public, the final end user of these data sets.
Despite these numerous efforts, the potential of the open data portal has only barely been realized.
3. OPEN DATA CONSUMPTION 3.1 Open Data Evangelism The openness of the platform is subject to interpretation because, though the data sets are available online, this does not necessarily translate to the data being available to all Kenyan citizens. This is because currently, the data is only available on a web or mobilebased portal. Less-educated citizens may not be comfortable accessing information through the Internet or mobile phones. Alternatively, the less educated citizens may not be Englishliterate. These less educated citizens may be the users who have the most need for the open data information. Therefore, for the portal to be a success, citizens, end users, and beneficiaries must be made aware of what information lies on the data platform and its relevance and usefulness. This awareness can be raised through direct interpretation of the data on the portal, but perhaps more importantly, from easily-digestible information created by intermediary parties from analysis and visualization of the open data.
3.2 Design Thinking Approach 3.2.1 The Open Data Pre-Incubator We are currently carrying out this research study around a sixmonth experiment, a pre-incubator, which aims to accelerate the ability for the public to make sense of open data in order to increase their engagement around critical public issues: in the sectors of Water, Education, Transport, and Local Counties. The Pre-incubator experiment will test a model that will be put to use in a broader two-year Incubator effort, endorsed and supported by the highest levels of government, which will be led by public mobilization agents with support from the technological community. In this Pre-Incubator, four Open Data Fellows have been embedded in civil society and media organizations and are working to build an application or service or platform around key thematic issues. These host organizations and fellows are conducting a close consultation process with issue expert working groups who provide insight into specific use cases and technical
These intermediary parties essentially interact directly with the platform creating applications based on the data. To reap maximum benefits from the open data sets, the applications
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insight into available data resources. The specific outcomes of this experiment are the creation of analytical dashboards and data tool kits for knowledge professionals; and the creation of mass appeal mobilizations applications/platforms for civic engagement.
development of open data applications that will be scaled in the region or continent of Africa; and the creation of an ecosystem at the grass root level (the communities) around open data, through the use of these applications.
The multi-stakeholder groups will then follow a Design Thinking approach to ideate the solutions and create meaningful and useful applications based on these insights from the data. This will be done in five steps, following concepts derived from the Stanford D. School Design Thinking methodologies [15], namely:
The research will continue to review the documentation of event proceedings and activities related to the process as well as qualitative research conducted through ethnographic observation and participatory approach, in-depth interviews and audience analysis.
o
Empathizing - observing, engaging, and immersing the developers and subject matter experts together so as to understand the needs of the general citizens. This will take place in a workshop where there will be brainstorm sessions around four thematic areas: Water, Education, Transport and Local County Data.
o
Defining -Problem statements will be formulated by the fellows and the working groups formed. These problem statements will be based on the synthesis of the empathy findings in terms of compelling needs and insights, scoping specific and meaningful challenges to solve. This will take place in another workshop where a number of projects will be selected with which to proceed.
The documents of the process of building and running the open data pre-incubator will then be critically analyzed and used to deliver use cases and recommendations that can be used for actionable planning in a larger incubator model. This may call for a review strategy for sustaining such open data incubator model by analyzing successes, weaknesses, opportunities & challenges for making this data more ‘mainstream’.
o
o
The findings will then be presented at the end of the experiment as use cases, recommendations, tool kits and a critical analysis of the process that can be used for actionable planning of a similar open data consumption product. Overall, the specific goals of the Pre-Incubator process are to create one app or service or platform that used at scale across Kenyan society and drastically increases the use of open data and the research will support this further by the recommendations delivered for a sustainable and scalable model.
Idea-ting - This will be done around the numerous problem statements and go further into strengthening solutions for the selected projects. The idea-tion will be supported by a boot camp where an initial prototype will be designed to be built in selected teams. This event will also have a public outreach component to help educate researchers and the broader public about the use of open data.
4. CONCLUSIONS This project will contribute in creating a knowledge community on this open data of experts and non-experts alike and spurring conversations around this open data. The research process will not only inform the underlying project, the pre-incubation model, but hopes to raise new questions on how further to promote engagement of the ordinary citizen with their government through the usage of other mass appeal applications. This research hopes to come up with an effective sustainable toolkit on how subject experts and developers can interact with the Open Kenya portal and in collaboration, build tools and services around the datasets that can benefit all citizens in spite of their literacy levels with regards to the platform.
Prototyping and testing - The actual prototyping will then follow where all the ideas generated are actualized as applications and technology services to address the problems identified to be solved using open data. This step will involve different levels of prototyping and showcasing demos of the published data applications.
3.2.1.1 The Research Process The specific objectives of the research are to:
1)
Document the Open Data Outreach process in order for it to be replicable in other communities and countries
2)
Use evaluation mechanisms of the design thinking approach and the documentation to understand how to make the Open Data Outreach initiative sustainable and scalable.
As we embrace new ideas of living, applications revolving around various sectors like Water, Education and Health will go a long way to assist the country in transitioning to more citizen engagement and efficient service delivery. Consequently, this will lead to identification of proper open data innovations that solve real problems within the society and essentially assist in achieving the objectives with regards to the release of open data.
This research is being conducted as an intense study that involves active participation and observation in the entire process of ideation and development of the open data applications through the pre-incubator model. Specifically, the study is using ethnographic models in order to fully understand this pre-incubator model in the development of open data applications, and uncover new and consequential variables [7] to consider in the construction of the larger incubator model.
5. REFERENCES [1] Beeman, H. 2011. Uses for open data http://hadleybeeman.net/2011/01/26/uses-for-open-data/ Accessed August 2012 [2] Business Daily, Government portal must have the required impact, 2011 http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion+++Analysis/G overnment+portal+must+have+the+required+impact//539548/1199730/-/10sesc1/-/index.html Accessed in April 2012
This research includes an exploratory survey and initial literature review to help determine scope of the project and verifiable metrics for success to aid in this evaluation and analyze the replicability of the open data pre-incubation process so as to provide targeted recommendations for scaling up the initiative. These have been identified so far, at a high level, as the successful
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[11] Madera, C. 2010 Solving Urban Challenges With Open Data http://americancity.org/daily/entry/solving-urban-challengeswith-open-data Accessed in August 2012
[3] CDF Review website, http://cdfreview.on.co.ke/ Accessed in April 2012 [4] CCK Quarterly Sector Statistics Report. 2012, 19 http://www.cck.go.ke/resc/downloads/SECTOR_STATISTI CS_REPORT_Q1_11-12.pdf
[12] MsemaKweli website, http://msemakweli.ihub.co.ke/pages/home.php Accessed in April 2012
[5] CountyScoreCard website, http://countyscorecard.on.co.ke/ Accessed in April 2012
[13] Open Kenya Portal. https://opendata.go.ke/ Accessed in April 2012
[6] Daily nation. Kenya frees Government data on the internet, 2011. http://www.nation.co.ke/sports/-/1090/1196768//item/0/-/bdooo5z/-/index.html Accessed in April 2012
[14] Rahemtulla, H., Kaplan, J., Gigler, B., Cluster, S., Kless, J. and Brigham, C. Open Data Kenya: Case Study of the Underlying Drivers, Principal Objectives and Evolution of One of the First Open Data Initiatives in Africa. Open Development Technology Alliance, 2011.
[7] Genzuk M, PH.D. A Synthesis Of Ethnographic Research, Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research, University of Southern California. 1999. [8] Halonen, A. Being Open About Data. Finnish Institute in London, London, 2012
[15] Stanford D. School, Design Thinking http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/ , Accessed in April 2012
[9] Howard, A. Open government data to fuel Kenya's app economy, 2011,http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/open-kenyagovernment-data.html Accessed in April 2012
[16] Were, D. Ushahidi Welcomes Kenya Open Data Initiative. http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2011/07/12/ushahidiwelcomes-kenya-open-data-initiative/ accessed in April 2011
[10] Huduma Website, http://huduma.info/ Accessed in April 2012
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New Perspectives for Electronic Government in Brazil: The Adoption of Open Government Data in National and Subnational Governments of Brazil Ricardo Matheus
Manuella Maia Ribeiro
José Carlos Vaz
University of São Paulo
Fundação Getúlio Vargas
University of São Paulo
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
internet. Through ICTs the promotion of transparency has been increased because ICTs allowed an easier ambient to access data and information of public information from governments. The possibilities of using new technologies by governments to promote transparency, social control and citizen participation are constantly presented in the literature [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
ABSTRACT The development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) enabled production of bases containing raw data which can be freely manipulated, filtered or being crossed to build new applications. These possibilities of using this raw data and its manipulation have been called Open Government Data (OGD). The aim of this paper is to present the State of Art of the Open Government Data in Brazilian National, State and Municipal governments. Some benefits that OGD have been promoted are: transparency promotion, and, improvements of social control and citizen participation. The methodology used is the literature review mainly about concepts of Open Government Data and three case studies about Brazilian governmental initiatives of OGD Portals. It was conducted an exploratory study of Brazilian initiatives National and Subnational governments that aims to verify the Brazilian level of OGD based on the eight principles of OGD and the five stars of open linked data, the last one was created by Tim Berners-Lee to measure the level of open data in websites. The final considerations reveal Brazilian initiatives adopt almost the entire principles of OGD. Further, the initiatives are in the third stage of a completely open linked data (three stars).
The first phase of the transparency process of governments was governmental portals of transparency, where several kind of information, especially financial information, was published in zipped format. This kind of publication is characterized by the fact that it is the government who decides what and how it will be seen. This applies to the publication of financial reports or data non-interactively. A second phase is characterized by the possibility of performing custom queries to databases. Some interested parties could access government databases and interact with them. This implies they could order structured queries producing crossed researched of specific data or, at least allowing filtering databases in search of detailed information. For example, this applies to appointments to the financial implementation of the Union, States and Municipalities in Brazil [2, 6, 7, 8, 9]. A new phase becomes possible more recently: the open government data (OGD). Afforded by the development of ICTs, OGD can go further publication of reports or queries to access the databases. It became possible to offer database in its raw state, to be freely manipulated, filtered or mixed with others, including allowing the construction of new knowledge and applications by civil society. Some of consequences of this new possibility of governmental transparency are social control and citizen participation through collaboration [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]. However, the limits of them are not yet fully known. Neither its boundaries were fully exploited [17, 18, 19].
Categories and Subject Descriptors J.1 [Computer Applications]: Administrative Data Processing – Government
General Terms Management, Theory
Keywords
Several new applications are emerging in some developed countries such as United States, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia, as well as movements on the part of organized sectors of society who are pressing for its implementation [11, 12, 16, 17, 18]. The pioneering example is United States of America. The federal government created a level of openness of government information by creating unprecedented memo on transparency and open government requires that all actions of the ministries themselves were based on transparency, citizen participation and collaboration between government and society. In addition, the Ministry of Science and Technology created the Open Government Initiative ("Open Government Initiative") to effect the availability of open government data [20, 21].
Electronic Government; Transparency; Social Control; Citizen Participation; Open Government Data
1.
INTRODUCTION
Recently, the Information and communications technology (ICT) development have been bringing new possibilities for promotion of transparency and availability of public data, mainly through the Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
While civil society organizations have emerged around the world that pressure governments to open their data in open format. In according with [21], in the United States, the Sunlight Foundation, OMB Watch and the League of Women Voters have created a
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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movement to pressure for open government data and creating applications for society from these data. Thus, also received support from large organizations in the country as the Open Society Institute, the Omidyar Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Despite the limited knowledge available on the subject, it is possible to envisage the emergence of OGD is appearing in many countries of the world. This article will explore the state of the art of using OGD in Brazil. The methodology used was literature on subject of OGD and an exploratory study of some of the few experiences in Brazil. Due to its recent creation, websites that provide open data were not analyzed by its impacts, but only their potential for promoting transparency, social control and citizen participation by offering OGD.
Regardless of open data might be considered in both the public and in private, this article, as a matter of focus, is only open to government data in government. Once the conceptual discussion, the article identifies some of the experiences of reference and uses them to make an exploratory reflection on the limits and possibilities of the OGD contribute in social struggle around the transparency practices and the relationship between government and civil society, because the data open not only relate to the dissemination of information but also to encourage new uses for the citizens of public data.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1
Open Government Data
2)
Primary: Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
3)
Timely: Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.
Machine understandable: Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.
6)
Non-discriminatory: Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
7)
Non-proprietary: Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.
8)
License-free: Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.
1)
A blog about the project;
2)
If data is not found and indexed on the web, it does not exist;
3)
If not already open and available in machine-understandable format, it cannot be exploited;
4)
If any legal provision does not allow its replication, it is useless.
A second category of benefits can also be addressed. It is the possibility of creating new information and applications from the open government data. In this case, transparency is not only encouraged, but also new services may originate from the interaction between government and society through the exploitation of OGD. These services can be generated through new ways of working collaboratively across the participatory government and private institution, since the concept of OGD avoids the vision of the citizen as a mere recipient of public information. The focus on the concept of citizen open government data is emphasized by [26], pointing the concept relates to an understanding that the way governments have their information available allows the intelligence collectively create better ways to work with them than the governments themselves could do. As an example, [26] says that “it would be possible to optimize resources in public administration, if they leach from the traffic data in urban open format”. Thus, citizens who would take care through the use of ICT to produce charts and graphs on traffic.
The idea of the OGD is developed from the discussion on open data engendered by Tim O'Reilly, owner of O'Reilly Media in mid-2007. In the same year, along with O’Reilly’s with others specialists joined by 30 supporters of open government to discuss OGD and its importance to democracy [24]. At this meeting of experts and advocates of OGD, it was developed the eight principles OGD. These principles state that the OGD should be: Complete: All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.
5)
Benefits of adopting the OGD in the field of transparency and social control are, at least in theory, evident. The provision of OGD tends to contribute to the increased transparency of government, creating better opportunities for social control of government actions. However, given the relative newness of the topic, yet there have been no studies that show the whole of this possibility.
Open Government Data (OGD) is a term used to denote governmental information available via the Internet in the public domain for free use by society [17]. This concept refers to the protection of public data as belonging to the citizen, which should have unrestricted access to government information, advocated by several authors [22, 17, 23], among others. It also refers to the context of recent development of ICT, where the Internet, databases, tools, standards and open formats allow and facilitate the provision and access to this information.
1)
Accessible: Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.
Civil society organizations are using these principles of governments to levy the availability of government information. [25] presented at an event in 2009, the three laws of open government data:
First, the paper presents a concept discussion about OGD. Then, it was chosen three Brazilians cases to analyze through two methods of analysis of Brazilian initiatives: the eight principles of OGD and the five stars of linked data ranking. The data collection occurred through structured inspection of these three OGD Portals.
2.
4)
To [23], "the provision of open government data allows information to be used in the manner and convenience of the person concerned so that they can be mixed and matched to add more value to the data." For this author, the purpose of the public information is made available under the rules of open data is overcome the limitations that exist for users of public information can easily find, access, understand and use the public data according to their interests and convenience [23].
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government and society with public data. President Obama early in the mandate, set policies for the promotion of transparency that encourages the provision of government data in open format.
Not without reason therefore that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international consortium that aims to develop Web standards, defines government data as open: the publication and dissemination of public sector information on the web , shared in raw format and open, understandable of course, to allow its reuse in digital applications developed by society [27]. In addition, the W3C considers that governments should encourage citizens to use the open data available by governments, ie, they should be encouraged to reuse the data according to their needs and wants. The [23] summarizes the purpose of this incentive: "There is value in providing open government data if the company has no interest in re-use them".
The memo sent by the president on January 21, 2009 to all heads of government called the Federal Transparency and Open Government. This memo pledged to create "unprecedented levels of openness" in government. The president called the representatives of the executive to work to ensure trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. The opening will strengthen democracy and will promote efficiency and effectiveness to government "[20, 26]. The Open Government Initiative policy aimed to guarantee the realization of this memo. Among its actions, is the portal Data.gov, created in May 2009. The aim of Data.gov, portal transparency of the federal government is offering information and expand the creative use of government data through web applications, encouraging innovative ideas to provide greater transparency of governmental actions. The site contains information about hundreds of government agencies and offices separated by organ. Statistics tell visitors monthly, daily, yearly. It also has space for participation of citizens wishing to express their will.
Likewise, the Declaration on the Public Service Open Europe believes that public bodies must provide the government data: in open formats and reusable, public institutions should seek to act as a platform for building of public value. Public organizations should offer citizens the ability to solve problems for themselves by providing them the proper tools to do so [17]. Protection of open data as a promoter of transparency is due to the possibilities of making government records accessible to eliminating all restrictions concerning technology, accessibility and legislation to International Initiatives of Portals of Open Government Data Worldwide, activists, international organizations and governments are thinking about access to public information from the data open. Although the discussion on this topic is new, there are already some experience of government provision of open data.
2.1.3
Private Portals of Open Government Data
Besides the government experiences, there are already nongovernmental organizations that seek to promote and support the adoption of open data policy. For example, the Sunlight Foundation and Project Open Government Data, Access the Open Knowledge Foundation Info. These experiences advocate in favor of adopting the policy of open data by governments and perform a variety of activities from research to encourage the creation of solutions and standards for open formats. In short, despite the recent discussion of existence and availability of open government data, there are already examples of governments that adopt this theory as a public policy to promote transparency and collaboration between government and society.
Several national and subnational governments now provide their data from the orientations of open government. Among the countries that have policies of open data include: United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand [26, 17]. These countries have developed national policies on access to public data and created web portals that provide public information in different formats. Moreover, they often encourage citizens to create new applications and ways of using information published in their portals.
2.1.1 The Australian, New Zealand and United Kingdom Portals of Open Government Data
2.2 How to Measure the Level of OGD in Governmental Portals?
The Australian government created the portal Data Australia in February 2010. The objective of the portal of transparency is to be the database of public information government of this country. They encourage us to use the information contained within the portal to create gadgets and computer programs by users who do social control of all information within the portal. The website of the New Zealand government was created this year to offer information and intelligence agencies and public bodies of government. It has space for discussion through forums that may be proposed by citizens.
One of the methods to measure the level of OGD in governmental Portals was created by Tim Berners-Lee. It was denominated the five stars of open linked data [27]. Actually, this method was created to “(…) categorise the publication of open data on the Web in levels of increasing usefulness, that encapsulate the present shared vision of the Semantic Web as a Web of Linked Open Data, and that individuals can use to rate their own data publication” [27]. It was divided in five categories [28]:
The example of the United Kingdom intends to offer data and information to citizens in public administration for the expansion of government social control. It has space for the wiki, online community, and sends in new web applications, among others. In 2008, Britain ceded public information to a competition to develop solutions to public data named Show us a better way.
1)
One star: available on the web (whatever format) but with an open licence, to be open data.
2)
Two stars: available as machine- readable structured data (e.g. excel instead of image scan of a table).
3)
2.1.2 The United States Portal of Open Government Data
Three stars: as (2) plus non proprietary format (e. g. CSV instead of excel).
4)
The flagship plan for adoption of open data is the U.S. Initiatives in this country can also be found in the sub-national governments. According to [26], Washington DC was one of the pioneers in developing the incentive to collaborative work between
Four star: all the above plus, use of open standards from W3C (RDF or SPARQL) to identify things, so that people can point at your stuff.
5)
Five stars: all the above, plus: link your data to other people’s data to provide context.
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3.
4)
RESEARCH APPROACH
The objective of this article is to present the State of Art of the OGD in Brazilian National and Subnational governments. To achieve this goal, firstly, it was done a literature review that guided this study focused on the key concept: Open Government Data (OGD) and its main examples in governments (United States, Australia, United Kingdon and New Zealand) and entities that promote OGD (Sunlight Foundation and Open Knowledge Foundation). This allowed us to highlight the possibilities that, in theory, the DGA can offer as tools for promoting transparency, social control, and reuse by civil society, among others. However, the virtually nonexistent literature on DGA in Brazil has required an exploratory study to identify the initiatives already undertaken by governments.
4. RESULTS OF THE EIGHT PRINCIPLES 4.1 Open Government Data in Brazilian Federal Government In December 2010, the federal government launched the first site that aims to provide public data on this being an open format. The Brazilian Portal of OGD was denominated DadosGov (http://beta.dados.gov.br/). The project was developed by Information Organizing Committee from the Presidency of the Republic (IOC-PR) which consists of the following Federal Government agencies: Office of Deputy Information for Decision Support, President's Chief of Staff, Institutional Relations Secretariat (SRI-PR), Department of Logistics and Information Technology , and two federal government-owned IT companies that provide services to government.
It was decided to perform preliminary research from experts and publicity materials on the Internet, which identified experiences promoted by the federal, state and municipal governments. After identifying the set of experiences available, it was decided to carry out structured visits to the following government websites that publish open government data (one from each level of government): DadosGov Project (Federal Government),Open Government SP (Government of the State of São Paulo) and São Paulo City Council (Municipal level).
The aim of this website is to organize and make available to the President, general government agencies and society governmental information, a reliable and easily accessible. For this, DadosGov website is structured to provide data in open format to be taken by anyone interested. The data come from federal government agencies, ministries and other public organizations. The table below shows the main government agencies that provided data to the project:
Other initiatives were found such as the portal of the State of Ceará Municipalities Court of Audits (TCM-CE) and the Public Security Secretariat of Rio Grande do Sul State. These two initiatives it was not chosen to a further analysis because they are isolated experiences in their states. We were looked for initiatives such as portals and initiatives from Executive or Legislative.
Table 1. Main data provided by DadosGov Project Government Organization Ministry of Education (MEC)
In Brazil there is still no transparency portal experience that is associated totally with a central policy of open government data available [26, 17, 23]. In general, cases in Brazil are far short of international experiences, such as the United States and United Kingdom. Therefore, the availability of open government data in Brazil does not have a systematic policy as the United States. Nevertheless, there are individual experiments and partial availability of public data by some government agencies and specific laws that encourage the adoption of open data by governments.
Ministry of Social Welfare (MPS) Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA)
The objectives of the structured inspections in these three initiatives were to verify that the Brazilian OGD Portals achieve the eight principles of OGD and the five stars of open linked data presented above in the literature review. A series of structured inspections on these websites was done between 02/08/2012 e 04/01/2012. Data collected were used to assess how the eight principles of open government data proposed by [24] and the five stars of open linked data are presented in these cases. The exploratory study was conducted because the cases we found are recent experiences, once OGD are a very recent issue in Brazil. Therefore, there was no way to make an analysis of its impacts yet.
An exploratory research of Brazilian governmental initiatives of OGD through Internet search;
2)
Definition of the studies cases. The conditions were: different levels of governments, preferably of Executive or Legislative and preferably portals.
3)
Time Series
Examples of content
252
Childhood Education, School Health Program, University Scholarships (PROUNI), Student Loans Fund for Higher Education (FIES), among others. Ministry branches.
132
131
Rural microcredit, Family Farm Insurance, among others.
Ministry of Justice (MJ)
127
Services to women victims of domestic violence, Amnesty Commission deliberations, among others.
Ministry of Agriculture (MAPA)
110
Contracts suppliyng.
for
urban
food
Source: DADOSGOV Project (2012) DadosGov portal like the site of the U.S. federal government, cataloging data that were already available in public bodies, but were not systematized in a single portal and open format. Over 30 agencies have provided historical series of public information for use of both governments and citizens. Among the sites studied is the one that provides more information. Due to the large amount of data available was not possible to verify that all data presented were the raw data.
Thus, the steps of this research were: 1)
Defining the results and State of Art in Brazilian OGD.
Data are presented usually by historical series that can be analyzed by the user via graphics, tables or records. Extractions of the series are in the following formats: CSV, RTF, PDF, XLS, and XML.
Structured inspections in these cases to find how many principles of OGD and stars they have.
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organs and entities of the State Public Administration. The decree that created the portal provides the rules of data and creation of the portal, summarized in its second article:
Another principle adopted by this site is that user identification is not required for data extraction. Although there is no space on site to discuss applications and other uses of the available information, there is an incentive for citizens to use these: "The idea of linked data formats is to allow civil society to development tools able to read data supplied by the government and make comparisons and analysis" [31]. Regarding to license to use the data, the site is not clear what are the chances of reproduction and use of information available. In 2010, federal government, through the Secretariat of Logistics and Information Technology of the Ministry of Planning has initiated a project to create the Open Data National Infrastructure (ODNI). The initiative focuses on interoperability and standardization of information resources. It also intends to promote best practices for the provision of open government data. It is defined as an "integrated set of technologies, policies, procedures and mechanisms for coordination and monitoring, standards and agreements necessary to facilitate the storage, access, sharing, dissemination and use of open data" [31].
o
Rules of provision, information, guidance and providing access to databases, as well as to the responsibilities of the parties.
o
Conditions of use of these bases provided, supposed to be free for any purpose or activity, safeguarding the legal restrictions and associated regulations.
o
Register of available bases, containing the identification and detailed description of each one and identify the agency or entity responsible.
o
Tools to facilitate collaboration between users of the available databases, including self-identification for who obtains a copy of available basis, including information of purpose for which the base was required; and registration and publication of products generated through the use of bases, identifying their authors.
The São Paulo law falls largely to the principles of open government data to ensure the free reuse of all available nonsensitive state data. The Open Government SP portal was released in January 2011. The website seeks to stimulate launching of new electronic services, promoting transparency and improving the quality of information of interest to society by providing updated copies of their public databases, on a free and open basis, using the Internet. Databases provided are produced by the State Statistical Agency (SEADE Foundation), which has most state social and economic indicators, the Department of Treasury and the Court of Auditors. However, the website does not provide data from other agencies in São Paulo, i.e. not all data are available on site. Among the information available are: Elections (information concerning the elections in São Paulo between 1998 and 2008); state indicators (Sao Paulo State Social Responsibility Index IPRS), catalogue of public services offered through the Internet; Information from municipalities. Unlike other sites, rules regarding use and availability of data are clear. All data available on the site are non-sensitive and have unrestricted access. The only requirements are that users accept the rules set out in this. Registration is optional for accessing the data. Developers can register applications built within the portal itself. However, for sending and accessing applications created registering is mandatory.
Factors that motivated the ODNI launching were difficulties for searching, accessing and reusing government data, both for the society and the government itself. The initiative seeks to support demands of changes in relationship between government and society, promoting transparency, control of government by citizens and citizen participation in policymaking. The ODNI will use existing experiences in the dissemination of public data available in the federal government as a starting point, including some isolated actions in federal agencies and two centralized operations of the federal government: the aforementioned DadosGov portal and federal government's Transparency Portal (http://www.portaltransparencia.gov.br/). ODNI's staff points out as a challenge to the success of the initiative the federal agencies involvement and a successful consensus around a single set of concepts. Implementation strategy for ODNI has some main elements: launching a virtual community for collaborative work involving officials of various public agencies, scripts and roadmaps for publishing open data, voluntary membership by various public agencies, technical training of civil servants in ontology modeling and implementation of a pilot project on public procurement. Portal was based on the availability of summary information and statistical series in a single location on the Internet. ODNI means a step forward from the experience of DadosGov. The ODNI's proposal takes a different approach: to create conditions for the various agencies to make available their data in a decentralized way. With this, ODNI will provide integrated data with a high level of interoperability through technologies such as Linked Data,. This strategy will make ODNI able to foster the opening of a much larger volume of data.
4.3 Open Government Data in Municipal Level The São Paulo City Council Portal has a space to present the project “Open Data Parliament Program”. The project was created with the purpose of making databases and non-confidential information in electronic open format, in accordance with the principles of public administration and observance of internationally accepted recommendations, such as those presented by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the International World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
A beta version was launched in the beginning of 2012. This version was done by civil servants and hackativists. One of the goals of creating this new portal is to guarantee the commitment proposed in the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a global effort to make governments better through open government.
The idea of a OGD Portal in the São Paulo Parliament was defined after the seminar “The Era of Open Data” in October 2011, conducted by the São Paulo City Council.
4.2 Open Government Data in Brazilian State Government
The Portals presents:
The São Paulo State Government Portal created SP Open Government portal in 2010. Its goal is to make available to civil society, via the Internet, copies of databases and information which is not confidential and gives unrestricted access to the
1)
26
International manuals of OGD such as the Open Data Handbook [29].
2)
An explanation about how civil society can open and read archive in open format;
5.
3) 4)
A blog about the project; Some City Council data in open format.
In the case of Tim Berners-Lee method, the Brazilian cases are in the following phase:
The open data presented in the website is: a) Presence of councilors at ordinary and extraordinary plenary sessions; b) Vote of councilors in ordinary and extraordinary plenary sessions; c) Budget of the Municipality of São Paulo in 2011; d) Budget allocations from the Municipal Education in 2011; e) Ratio of employees (updated monthly); f) Budget Execution of the Municipality of São Paulo (since January 2010);g) Monthly Balance of Performance Budget Revenues - Direct Administration; and, h) Historical Series of the benefits of Aid Accounts-General Charges In Office. The data presented in this Portal are few in relation to all information that has a City Council. But it is a primary and timely data. They use mainly XML format. Despite claiming that they follow the recommendations of international organizations, it is not clear what are the licenses used. They also do not have a space to present applications that use their data. The following table summarizes how open government data principles of are adopted by the Brazilian experiences:
1)
One Star: the first stage requires that the website contains data available independently of the format, but with an open license. All the cases studies presented data available and an open license. For example, Dados Gov from Federal Government uses Creative Commons License. We found three problems to guarantee the excellence of the first stage in Brazilian initiatives: a) There are few data presented in these Open Data Portals in relation to public data that governments have; b) São Paulo City Council does not explain clearly what open license they use; and c) DadosGov has some data that is not open license.
2)
Two Stars: All portals presented data available as machinereadable structured data.
3)
Three Stars: The Portals use mainly non-proprietary archives such as XML, CSV and HTML, so, they achieved the third stage.
Unfortunately, it was not found the four and five stars. To achieve these stars, the governmental portals have to: i)Use URIs, so people can point at their stuff, and; ii) Link their data to other data to provide context.
6.
Complete Data Primary Data Timely Data Accessible Data Machine understandable Non Discriminatory Non Proprietary Free License
Dados Gov
Governo Aberto SP
No
No
No
No
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
São Paulo City Council No
There is a major change in the principles that guide the handling of demands for transparency. So far, everything that was not confidential should be made available to the public upon request, or kept available as possible. The new framework gives rise to a new level of demand for transparency: everything that is not confidential should be available on the internet as open data in a way people cannot just access data, but also create new services and analysis with these open data.
X X X
Logically, implementing broader OGD programs will face huge barriers, because most governments wouldn't be mobilized to increase the level of social control over them. However, the complexity of the issue makes it impossible to reduce it only to the interest of governments in promoting transparency through the OGD. Civil society has an important role, too.
X X X
In addition, comprehensive programs to spread open government data require using data formats and technologies are not always employed by governments themselves. Therefore it will be a difficult task even for well-intentioned governments and surely will took many years to reach a high level of open government data availability.
Info not provided Source: Created by authors from cases website X
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The emergence of the OGD requires a shift in thinking about the transparency of governmental actions and information. This need is not just theoretical. The very practice of social actors involved is creating new demands for transparency, not served by traditional practices in electronic government.
Table 2. OGD principles adoption in Brazilian cases Principles
OGD in Brazil and the Five Stars of Open Linked Data
X
Therefore, when we compare these cases and the principles of open government data, we can realize that most of the principles are used in the examples of Brazil. Data are not complete and most are not primary. However, there was still little information available. There is also lack of clarity about the license of the data presented in the case of São Paulo City Council.
According to [17] technology already exists for governments and civil society to use government data as they decide. Available technology can support new ways and new indicators of thinking about public administration. In this way, civil society could generate more innovation from unrestricted access to public data.
A positive point is that they all have current data, accessible and understandable by machines. Furthermore, it is not necessary a register to data access.
For these authors, the development of open government data depends on: a clear policy of the Administration in regard to
27
access to public information, changes in public sector strategies aiming to foster transformation of relations between state and society. Moreover, it depends on a change in the central locus of public organizations as interpreters of social needs” and also as service delivery agents [17].
7.
[2] Pinho, José Antonio Gomes. Investigating states portals of electronic government in Brazil: Lots of technology, poor Democracy. Journal Public Administration (RAP), 42 (3): 471-93, MAY/JUN. 2008.
[30] argues that to achieve the goal of providing open government records should be observed three fronts: o
Map of Youth and Adults School (EJA): map showing the openings of adult education in public schools in Brazil;
o
Tr3e: website that crosses over the information of deforestation in Brazil;
o
Open Parliament: website designed to facilitate access to information about MPs in Brazil.
REFERENCES
[1] Ribeiro, Manuella Maia. Transparency on the portals of Federal Government: The cases of Comprasnet and portal of transparency. University of São Paulo (USP), 2009.
[3] Welp, Yanina. Democracy and the digital divide in Latin America. International Conference of Direct Democracy in Latin America, 14-15.MAR. 2007. [4] Prado, Otávio & Loureiro, Maria Rita. Electronic Government and transparency: evaluation of advertising the public accounts of the Brazilian capitals. Reach Magazine, vol.13, n.3, p. 355-372, SEP/DEC 2006.
These civil society initiatives demonstrate how the issue is increasingly taking up space on the agenda of organizations and groups interested in using IT to promote democratic developments in Brazil. Taken together with the emergence of new government initiatives, these initiatives show a clear sign of an expanding supply of OGD in the coming years.
[5] Vaz, José Carlos. Prospects and challenges for the expansion of electronic government in the municipalities. International Seminar on Electronic Government and Local Governments. Brasília, 2003.
Despite the existence of few theoretical and empirical data on open government in Brazil, there is a clear expansion of national experiences and discussions.
[6] Ferrer, F. & Borges, Z.. Electronic government: transparency, efficiency and inclusion. In: E-gov.br: the next revolution in Brazil: efficiency, quality and democracy: electronic government in Brazil and abroad. Prentice Hall. 2004.
If we take the experience of Transparency Portal of the federal government as a reference, it can be said that the ODNI has great potential to accelerate the adoption of open government data initiatives in the country. Its impact should go beyond the limits of the Federal Government and stimulate initiatives at the subnational level, by giving greater visibility to the idea of the OGD, and by offering standards and roadmaps that may be adopted by states and municipalities.
[7] Ruediger, Marco Aurelio. Electronic Government and Electronic Governance - Alternative Concepts in the Use of Information Technologies for Providing Access to mechanisms of Civic Government and State Reform. Contest XVI Ensayos y Monografías del CLAD Reforma del Estado y on Modernización de la Administración Pública "Electronic Government”. Caracas, 2002.
Besides the few public sites that adopt the open government data, there is a law that deals with open data in known Freedom Information Act, which regulate access to government information as provided in the Constitution.
[8] Diniz, Eduardo Henrique et al. Electronic government in Brazil: a historical perspective from a structured model of analysis. Journal Public Administration (RAP). 43( 1):23-48, JAN./FEB. 2009.
The Brazilian law on transparency emphasizes the information technologies and communication (ICTS), in particular the Internet, encouraging and requiring public organizations to make the information on the World Wide Web. The internet is regarded as a means of easy access and opportunities to reach a large number of people.
[9] Mello, Gilmar Ribeiro de & Slomski, Valmor. Electronic Governance Index of Brazilian States : Within The Executive Branch. JISTEM J.Inf.Syst. Technol. Manag. (Online) [online]. 2010, vol.7, n.2, pp. 375-408. ISSN 18071775.
Among the required data are public expenditures and the general data for the monitoring of programs, activities, projects and public works. There is an obligation of public agencies not only to disclose such information, but also make them available so that they are easily accessed, understood and updated.
[10] Yildiz, Mete. E-government research: Reviewing the literature, limitations, and ways forward. Government Information Quarterly. Volume 24, Issue 3, July 2007. [11] Althrop D. & Ruma, L. Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. O’Reilly Media. P11-39. 2010.
Open government means that public data should be disclosed in the most disaggregated level possible and in different formats. Disclosure must attain the raw data which should be able to be viewed on any type of machine for anyone who want to make use of such data. Thus, the law has principles of open government (even if not explicitly quote) for the dissemination of public information.
[12] Nam, Taewoo. New Ends, New Means, but Old Attitudes: Citizens’ Views on Open Government and Government 2.0. Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2011. [13] Parks, W.. The open government principle: Applying the right to know under the constitution. The George Washington Law Review. 26(1), 1-22, 1957.
Future additional studies would be useful for better understanding demands for OGD and evaluate impacts of present and new cases of OGD to promote transparency, social control and citizen participation. In future studies, it would be also important to check what are the challenges of Brazilian governments to achieve the five stars.
[14] Parycek, P. & Sachs, M. Open Government: Information flow in Web 2.0. European Journal of ePractice. 9(1), 59-70. 2009.
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organizations. In: GARSON, G. Handbook of public information systems. Marcel Dekker Publishers. 2000.
[15] Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, Zeller, William P. & Felten, Edward W.. Government Data and the invisible hand. Yale Journal of Law and technology, 160. 2008.
[23] Diniz, Vagner. How to achieve open government data. In III Congress Consad of Public Management, 2010.
[16] Sheridan, John & Tennison, Jeni. Linkin UK Government Data. LDOW 2010, April 27, 2010, Raleigh, North Carolina. 2010.
[24] Open Gov Data. Eight principles of open government data. http://resource.org/8_principles.html. 2010.
[17] Agune, Roberto Meizi; Gregorio Filho, Alvaro Santos & Bolliger, Sergio Pinto. Open government SP: provision of databases and information in an open format. III Congress Consad of Public Management, 2010.
[25] Eaves, David. The three laws of open government. http://eaves.ca/. 2010 [26] Silva, Daniela Bezerra. Transparency in public interconnected. College Casper Libero, 2010.
[18] Vaz, J. C., Matheus, R. & Ribeiro, M. M.. Open government data and its impact on the concepts and practices of transparency in Brazil. Cadernos PPG-AU/FAUFBA, 2010.
[27] Berners-Lee, Tim. Linked Data. http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html. 2011.
[19] Torkington, N.. Rethinking Open Data - O'Reilly Radar. O'Reilly Radar. 2010.
[28] Shotton, David. The five stars of online journal articles – a framework for article evaluation. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january12/shotton/01shotton.html. 2012.
[20] Obama, B., Memo from President Obama on Transparency and Open Government. In D. Lathrop & L. Ruma, eds. Open Government. http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/opengovernment-directive. 2010.
[29] Open Data Handbook. http://opendatahandbook.org/. 2011. [30] World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). http://www.w3c.br/divulgacao/. 2010.
[21] Fung, A. & Weil, D.. Open Government and Open Society. In: Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. O'Reilly Media. 2010.
[31] Miranda, C. & Silva, N. National Infrastructure Open Data. www.w3c.br/conferenciaegov/05_ODNI_Christian_Nitai.pdf . Brasília. 2010
[22] Laporte, T.; Demchak, C., Friis, C.. Webbing governance: national differences in constructing the face of public
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Open Government 2.0: Citizen Empowerment through Open Data, Web and Mobile Apps Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan
Luis F. Luna-Reyes
Yaneileth Rojas-Romero
Universidad Autonoma del Estado de México
Universidad de las Américas-Puebla
Universidad Autonoma del Estado de México
[email protected]
[email protected] J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
[email protected] Dolores E. Luna
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Universidad de las Américas-Puebla Económicas
[email protected]
[email protected]
data sets of raw and geospatial datasets to the public through the data.gov website. Many other States are following the US initiative, making raw data available to the public. On the other hand, the popularization of mobile devices and social media tools and platforms have promoted the emergence of new forms of interaction between organizations and the public, or even among the public themselves[4].
ABSTRACT Although the open government concept is not new, current trends in open government imply a change in focus from the traditional principle of accountability to a concept of citizen empowerment, collaboration and information sharing. In this paper, we explore the use of open data and mobile apps in the top countries according to the UN 2010 e-Government Survey. Our exploration suggests that, although not all countries yet offer mobile apps to their citizens, there is a great diversity of apps to create citizen value. Moreover, private companies and citizens are getting involved in the creation of such apps. More research is needed to understand ways to promote the development of this kind of government applications.
Small applications running on web pages or in mobile devices (or mobile apps) have become a wide-adopted way of interaction. Mobile apps stores were estimated to serve 17.7 billion downloads in 2011, and it is expected that they will serve 185 billion downloads by 2014 [5]. It is expected that mobile computing will replace desktop computing by 2015 [6] . Again, just in data.gov, about 1,500 web and mobile applications (apps for short) have been developed, more than 200 by citizens themselves. We believe that these two trends together have the potential to transform the relationships between government and the public.
Categories and Subject Descriptors Design, performance, human factors
General Terms
Despite this emerging context, we still know very little about the level of adoption of apps in government websites anrd their use. In this way, the purpose of this paper is to give a first step to answer this set of questions, looking for an initial categorization of practices among top-rated governments in terms of the use of information technologies, as well as providing some examples of current app use in government websites. To accomplish this objective, the paper will be divided in five main sections. This introduction constitutes the first section. The second section includes a literature review. The third section describes the method that we followed to survey the websites and to classify the apps. The fourth section includes initial results, and the final section discusses the findings and provides some future research.
Performance, Design, Human Factors
Keywords Government apps, apps, mobile apps
1. INTRODUCTION During the last years, governments around the world have emphasized the need of a more open and transparent government [1]. Although the idea of freedom of information and open government can be traced back to the 50s[2], the principle has been invigorated with the Open Government initiative from the Obama administration. Moreover, the traditional focus for open government was accountability, while current efforts are emphasizing on information sharing and citizen empowerment [3]. In fact, the US government has made available about 390,000
2. LITERATURE REVIEW The literature review includes social media in government, and the trend of web and mobile apps.
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2.1 Web 2.0 in Government At least since 2008 government web sites have been including web 2.0 tools to become more interactive with citizens [7] [8] [9] [10]. All of these applications, although may be very different in purpose and function, they share some common features like the collective generation and classification of content, the integration of communities, and the production and consumption of socially distributed knowledge. Web 2.0 is a social network platform
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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government or promoted to be public by government regulations to solve important problems [3].
because some of its content is user-generated –as if it were a collective intelligence— converting into co-producers of content and not just passive subjects who only receive information. Interaction plays a vital role in this platform [11], and offers a great opportunity as a way of approaching citizens and making sure their participation enriches government efforts [12].
In summary, we think that apps expand the potential for egovernment to allow citizens to access content, create content, send communications to government officials, adding in some cases value to information and allowing citizens to create ecosystems interested in solve important public problems. One first step that we want to do in this paper is to explore some of the current applications that exist in government websites.
Wilson and colleagues proposes that web 2.0 must be understood as “the second generation of the Web, wherein interoperable, user-centered web applications and services promote social connectedness, media and information sharing, user-created content, and collaboration among individuals and organizations” [13] (p. 2).
3. METHOD
In the near future, it looks like mobile government will adopt more web 2.0 tools and features The different programs of the Somus project suggest a promising trend for the use of these tools on citizen-government interaction in the following years [16].The use of web 2.0 in the current activities of citizens and politicians is an ongoing work.
In this paper, we follow the approach of Internet-mediated research (IMR) [23], which consists of “the gathering of novel, original data to be subjected to analysis in order to provide new evidence in relation to a particular research question” (p. 58).In order to make our exploration on the current adoption and use of government apps more systematic, we decided to look for current applications in the top 10 countries in the 2010 UNPAN eGovernment Survey [24]. Given that we did not find enough examples in these initial countries, we decided to increase the sample size, exploring the first 35 countries in the list,, finding applications only in 7 out of the 35. We started our search on the main country websites, exploring to find mobile applications and/or publicly available data sets. We visited the English versions of each website during January and February 2012.
2.2 Desktop and Mobile Apps
4. Government Apps: an Exploratory Survey
The Web 2.0 tools and applications have been used in government websites in several countries [14] , [Eliason, 2006 #10752]. Lerman and his colleagues researched about social tagging using the example of Digg [15]. They find that the use of these tools depends on context events and not ordinary or common use for activities.
The current section of the paper presents an overview of the use of apps and some examples of how governments are making available apps for citizens.
Research on the development of apps is not as extensive as the number of domains for which them have been developed. There is some evidence that the current app movement is promoting new development approaches and delivery channels allowing small ventures to compete globally [5]. However, there is still dominance of the global mobile media corporations in the market [17]. The Apple store was the first to open on July 2008. Nine months later one billion of apps were downloaded. On April 2010, just 185,000 apps were available for the Iphone [18]. The offer of apps grew with Android market (346,526 apps until January 21, 2012), the windows phone marketplace, the Samsung apps, the blackberry App World, and Nokia Ovi Store.
4.1 App use by Governments Results from our initial survey are shown on Table 1. US apps are mainly linked to the Data.gov website. The apps from U.K. are linked to the Direct Gov site. In the case of Canada, we did not found the official number of apps, but we identified some apps that match our criteria. Similar cases are New Zealand and Japan. We have four main findings from this sample. The first one, is that the total number of apps in each country is not easy to find given that they are not always readily available in a single repository. On the other hand, only 7 out of 35 countries are apparently using this kind of applications, which still seems as a low level of adoption. The second finding is related to the use of the apps, most of them are focus on access government content, a very few enable citizens to interact with government sending data, reusing it, or collaborate making comments using the apps.
In this environments, independent software developers, as well as private and public organizations, design tailor apps with almost any imaginable objective. In fact, many professional areas are encouraging their members to write their own applications, by showing its value as well as how-to guides and approaches [19] [20] . On the government side, apps have been proposed to provide G2G inter-agency collaboration [21] and public services [22]. Mobile applications have the potential to improve service delivery, as well as efficiency and efficacy in government operations[4] . Furthermore, mobile apps create the capability of creating Location-based Services (LBS), such as traffic, bus or parking applications[4]
Table 1. Apps and categories on egov websites in our sample
Nowadays there are several websites and organizations that promote the use of apps in the government. However, maybe the most high impact applications of these mobile technologies come when government partners with NGOs or private organizations to allow citizens to get information, add value to it, giving it back to government to solve important problems and create value [3] . This implies that government will need to find creative ways of promoting the creation of ecosystems where vendors, developers, and citizen hackers use public information made available by
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Country
#Apps
Mobile Apps
Web-based Apps
UNITED KINGDOM
1854
103
1751
UNITED STATES
1164
153
1011
CANADA
N.A.
N.A.
N.A.
AUSTRALIA
80
25
55
SINGAPORE
N.A.
61
N.A.
KOREA
N.A.
6500
N.A.
SWEDEN
N.A.
1
N.A.
using Google Maps, hours of operation. It is important to mention that this application is an independent development that uses data from the official website. The author is SKB Wireless Technology.
As a third finding, we also found a limited number of apps related to citizens’ relevant issues such as health or finances. We found also a number of apps for personal development, and not related to government information. Finally, the fourth finding is that some apps are created not only by government, but also by citizens, non-government organizations or consultants. Some of these apps are developed with marketing purposes such as acquiring clients, recognition or just to contribute for government. In this way, open data is in fact opening the opportunity of sharing, collaborating and disseminating knowledge through this kind of applications.
Another kind of applications we found can be categorized as simulation apps. For example, an online financial health checker has been launched to help people make the most of their money in the UK website. The application offers money advice on the basis of a series of queries to the user. Application developers declare that they care about confidentiality of the user answers. The author is Direct Recruit LTD (see Figure 2b).
4.2 Selected Examples of Government Apps on Several Application Domains In order to give a better sense of the kinds of applications that are being made available for mobile devices, we introduce in this section several examples of the different kinds of apps that is possible to find in government web sites in our sample. One kind of applications that we found involves apps addressing the needs of individuals to search and manage information. The example we selected is Ask Karen from the US Department of Agriculture (see Figure 1a). Ask-Karen provides 24/7 virtual assistance and tips on preventing foodborne illness, safe food handling and storage, and safe preparation of meat, poultry, and egg products.
(a)
Figure 2. Educational App: Public Libraries and Simulation Software: Health Check
The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) has developed the ACRA app. This app searchs on the agency database to check if a business firm, company, has limited liability partnership (LLP), limited partnership (LP), Public Accounting Corporation (PAC) or Public Accounting Firm (PAF) is registered in Singapore in order to validate this data. One of the main features is to search by name or business registration number (see Figure 1b).
(a)
(b)
One last type of apps that we were able to identify constitutes a mobile enterprise application. GovPro is a remarkable example for e-procurement and purchasing of Government. This application delivers news, product trends and events in the government market place. The Author is Penton Inc (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Enterprise Software: GovPro
(b)
These are only few examples of the current diversity of mobile applications and its use in government.
Figure 1. Information App: Ask Karen and Content Access App: ACRA A different version is the ACRA iPhone app which provides the business community free information that would help users in their decision-making and planning. This application is a mobile directory search function facilitates the search of names of all business firms, local companies, foreign companies, limited liability partnerships (LLP). A complementary feature is ASKACRA Mobile, which allows to have easy access to a FAQs section on related business.
5. FINAL REMARKS In this paper we have presented some initial findings related to the use of mobile apps on e-government portals of the top countries according to the United Nations 2010 survey on e-Government [24]. Only 7 of the 35 selected countries have adopted this kind of applications by the time we did the review. Similarly to main corporations, governments may consider to include a single repository of government apps to improve discoverability, as it is one of the main determinants of app adoption by the citizen. Even this small sample size, governments are fostering the use of apps to interact with open data. We can not measure this impact yet, because only a few government websites make available the
We found applications that can be used for educational purposes. “Libraries for Ottawa” is an application providing access to the information of different libraries in the region (Figure 2a). The application provides name, address, phone number and location
32
information of their apps. However, further research could show this new trend as a facing change on the government strategy for interact with citizens.
[7] Sandoval-Almazan, R. and Gil-Garcia, J. R. Are EGovernment Portals Becoming Central Components for Public Information Sharing Networks? An Initial Exploration of Local Governments in Mexico. Government Information Quarterly, Forthcoming2011).
Previous research reports that government portals expand their capabilities by using web 2.0 tools, empowering citizens to collaborate with government and other NGOs to produce relevant information and solve important citizen problems. That is to say, governments expands their own limits when a citizen can send reports of problems with public services or safety problems, allowing government to respond faster, and overtime, accumulating information to respond better [3]. Our initial exploration suggests that most common applications are still those to access information, and that we are still short of applications that will increase government-citizen collaboration.
[8] Reynolds, W. N., Weber, M. S., Farber, R. M., Corley, C., Cowell, A. J. and Gregory, M. Social media and social reality. City. [9] Mennecke, B. E., Mc Neill, D., Roche, E. M., Bray, D. A., Townsend, A. M. and Lester, J. Second Life and Other Virtual Worlds: A Roadmap for Research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems2008), 371-388. [10] Kavanaugh, A., Fox, E. A., Sheetz, S., Yang, S., Li, L. T., Whalen, T., Shoemaker, D., Natsev, P. and Xie, L. Social Media Use by Government : From the Routine to the Critical. Computers and Society2011).
If analysts are correct in their predictions of the predominance of mobile over desktop devices by 2015[6], the initial trend reported here has the potential of transforming the current ways in which government attempts to get in touch with their constituencies, moving to a digital convergence of voice, text and multimedia in the citizen’s smartphone. More research is needed on the new roles that government portals should play in this transformation process.
[11] Haythornthwaite, C. Democratic Processs in Online Crowds and Communities. In Proceedings of the Conference for Democracy and Open Government (Austria, May 2011, 2011), [insert City of Publication],[insert 2011 of Publication]. [12] Woods, E. Web 2.0 and the public sector - Public Sector Breaking Business and Technology silicon.com Driving Business Through technology, City, 2007.
Our research provides some preliminary evidence that suggests government portals are changing direction [7]. Also citizens are using open data for their own purposes and developing new apps to interact with government data. This change on the relationship among citizen-Government interaction must be analyzed and promoted as a new trend of collaboration and coproduction.
[13] Wilson, D., Lin, X., Longstreet, P. and Sarker, S. Web 2.0: A Definition, Literature Review, and Directions for Future Research. AISNET.org, City, 2011. [14] de Kool, D. and van Wamelen, J. Web 2.0: A New Basis for E-Government? , City, 2008.
Finally, current trends and analysis suggest that ecosystems of citizens, vendors and developers will be created around government open data, and most analysis are quite optimistic [3]. There are also other potential constraints related to attitudes of citizens towards privacy, credit card adoption or language [25]. This paper is then a first step in the direction to understand the use of government mobile apps, its evolution and impact on government innovation.
[15] Lerman, K. User Participation in Social Media: Digg Study. 2007 IEEEWICACM International Conferences on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology Workshops, 02007), 255-258. [16] Näkki, P., Bäck, A., Ropponen, T., Kronqvist, J., Hintikka, K. A. and Harju, A. Social media for citizen participation Report on the Somus project. City, 2011. [17] Mascaro, C. M., Novak, A. and Goggins, S. Shepherding and Censorship: Discourse Management in the Tea Party Patriots Facebook Group. IEEE, City.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is partially supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) in Mexico under grant No. 107154. Any opinions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CONACYT.
[18] Isaacson, W. Steve Jobs Biography. Simon & Schuster;, 2011. [19] Pocatilu, P. Developing Mobile Learning Applications for Android using Web Services. City, 2010.
7. REFERENCES [1] Scholl, H. J. and Luna-Reyes, L. F. Transparency and openness in government: a system dynamics perspective. In Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (Tallinn, Estonia, 2011).
[20] B. Boardman No app for that? Write one! Industrial Engineer: IE, 44, 3 (Marzo 2012.), 44–48. [21] Beer, D., Kunis, R. and Runger, G. A component based software architecture for e-government applications. Ieee, City, 2006.
[2] Parks, W. The Open Government Principle: Applying the Right to Know under the constitution. The George Washington Law Review, 26, 1 1957), 1-22.
[22] Estevez, E. and Janowski, T. Programmable Messaging for Electronic Government - Building A Foundation. LNCS, Springer, City, 2007.
[3] Nath, J. Reimagining government in the digital age. Fall, City, 2011.
[23] Hewson, C. Internet-mediated research as an emergent method and its potential role in facilitating mixed methods research. Guilford Press, City, 2008.
[4] Trimi, S. and Sheng, H. Emerging trends in M-government. Communications of the ACM, May2008), 53-58.
[24] United Nations Global E-Government Development Report 2010. City, 2010.
[5] Anthes, G. Invasion of the mobile apps 2011, p 18-18. [6] Milam, L. and Avery, E. J. Apps4Africa: A new State Department public diplomacy initiative. Public Relations Review, 38, 2 2012), 328-335.
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Session 2 E-democracy & Participation 1
A Logistic Multilevel Model for Civic Engagement and Community Group Impact in the Digital Age B. Joon Kim
Stephen W. Kleinschmit
Department of Public Policy Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne Fort Wayne, Indiana, 46805 +1-260-481-0133
Department of Public Policy Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne Fort Wayne, Indiana, 46805 +1-260-481-6351
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Prior research has demonstrated that a citizens’ socioeconomic status is a significant determinant of the extent of citizen involvement via ICT [18]. Others have focused on its impact on civic engagement in terms of community group impacts, finding that such groups play an important role in increasing citizen involvement within democratic processes [8]. Thus, previous research has examined effects aggregated at the ‘individual level’ and ‘group level,’ respectively. This paper seeks to reconcile these levels in order to assess the impact of ICT on civic engagement. Our study examines the interplay of individual level and community group level factors through analysis of the data from a household survey (N=717) taken in Blacksburg, Virginia in 2005. This study identifies the idiosyncratic influences at both levels by applying a multilevel model (specifically, a logistic hierarchical linear model). In particular, we verify the positive impact of community groups utilizing ICT in increasing civic engagement. This research will be used to form the basis of a comparative study of civic engagement through eGovernment portals, mobile technology and social media, and to assess their impact on facilitating group communication and sensemaking.
Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to significantly increase citizen participation within democratic community processes [6, 9]. Such technology has also been credited with establishing new forms of social interaction among citizens and governmental agencies. Web 2.0 technologies are also providing new mechanisms for civic engagement, political expression and public discussion [19], while others have found that these technologies are important for facilitating and augmenting the dynamics of political and civic engagement [9, 12]. The use of ICT can be used to as a mechanism to reverse the decline of social capital in community groups. Putnam [13] describes the steady decline of group membership in the United States, which has led to a complimentary decrease in community involvement. Though he attributes some of this decline to the isolation effect of internet communication, paradoxically online communication can also be used to foster civic engagement and political expression, particularly when it is used to acquire and share information within community groups. [8, 9]. Previous research has focused on exploring the effect of ICT on civic engagement, modeling its effects at the ‘individual level’ and ‘group level’ respectively. This study applies a multilevel model to analyze the community group impact on civic engagement, in an effort to reconcile their effects. Therefore, the main research question is; Does the use of ICT affect the nature of civic engagement for citizens affiliated with community groups? Additionally, this study also examines; What effects do different types of community group affiliations, group ICT use (email, listserv, online discussion boards and websites, including blogs) have on the civic engagement of individual citizens? To study and discuss these questions in more detail, this paper is divided into four sections. First, this paper explores previous studies about the relationship between ICTs and online civic engagement in general. Next, we provide an overview of our research methods, with an emphasis on our explaining our hierarchical linear models. Then, the preliminary findings are presented before we discuss the implications of these findings.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization interfaces-Collaborative Computing.
General Terms Measurement, Human Factors, Theory
Keywords E-governance, Civic Engagement, Information and Communication Technology, Community Group Impact, Hierarchical Linear Model.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
2. CONCEPTURAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Civic Engagement in the Digital Age This study focuses on the civic engagement through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). When we discuss the relationship between ICT and civic engagement, there are three different perspectives we use to explore this relationship:
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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two polarized (optimistic or utopian and negative or pessimistic) views and a skeptical standpoint [1, 7]. Optimists insist that interactive ICT improve connections between citizens and public bureaucrats, improve public policy-making processes and grow trust by promoting government transparency and accountability. With the adoption of interactive technology, improvements to public deliberation and participatory democracy can be realized [2, 17]. Therefore, ICT is viewed as a means for invigorating democracy. Conversely, pessimists argue that such mechanisms for discourse are less likely to mobilize citizens and more likely to reinforce the power and status of political elites [4, 12]. The promise of true participatory democracy online is thus undercut by the problem of demographic representativeness; those who use it are significantly younger, wealthier and more educated than the average person [4].
individual observations are clustered, thus are not truly independent. To accurately assess their effects, there is a need to differentiate fixed group effects from the random effects of individuals. Citizens within the same community group tend to share similar traits. Because of selection processes (e.g., groups aggregate those with similar socioeconomic status or interest) and because of common history, many citizens share the same affiliation. As a result, the average correlation (the so-called intraclass correlation) between variables shared by individual members of the same group will be higher than the average correlation between variables shared by those from different groups. Standard statistical tests lean heavily on the assumption of the independence of the observation. If this assumption is violated (and in multilevel data this is almost always the case), the estimates of the standard errors of conventional statistical tests are much too small, resulting in many spuriously significant results. Hierarchical linear model estimation accounts for nonindependent observation at the group level [15]. In this study, a
Finally, scholars representing the skeptical standpoint argue that the ICT neither improves nor reduces civic engagement [1, 14]. Margolis and Resnick suggest that ICT is taking on the features of ordinary life [11], and Putnam [14] insists that such measures are likely to displace personal engagement and thus may fail to generate social capital. Furthermore, some argue there is little evidence to support a significant relationship between the evolution of ICT use and levels of civic engagement [1]. As suggested by the dispute among the polarized perspectives and the skeptical view, the nature and extent of the impacts of the ICT on civic engagement are not yet fully understood. Each point of view has shortcomings. Nevertheless, it can serve a useful supplementary function. The ICT had not yet profoundly impacted social trends, but felt it would play an important part of explaining the contemporary context of a person’s overall civic and political life. Subsequent developments such as Facebook, iPods, instant messaging, and text messaging have shown that citizens, particularly younger generations, are particularly “plugged in.”
logistic multilevel model is used, then this study estimates the effects of group level characteristics on an individuals’ level of volunteerism, after controlling for other demographic variables1. Level two consists of group variables and level one consists of individual variables. The equations estimated for the base model of this study are: Level 1:
π ij =logistic ( β
0j
+ β 1 j poleff ij + β 2 j rtrust ij + β 3 j eduij + β 4 j age ij )
Level 2:
β0 j = γ 00 + γ 01grpictu j + u0 j
β1 j = γ10 + u1 β2 j = γ 20 + u2 β3 j = γ 30 + u3 β 4 j = γ 40 + u4
3. METHODS
2.2 Bridging Individual and Group Levels of Analysis: A Logistic Multilevel Model
In order to achieve a more in depth investigation of citizens affiliated with community groups, this paper uses a logistic multilevel analysis (a two level model) with a single binomial dependent variable, volunteer. The outcome individual averages that are used as 1group level variables are often interpreted as ‘direct and contextual effects.’ To facilitate contributions to the reconciliation between these levels of analysis, the following hypothesis is examined:
Past studies have investigated the relationship between ICT use and civic engagement by modeling behavior at the individual level, while also considering effects at the group (contextual) level. By examining both levels through the same level of analysis, the results were potentially insignificant or underestimation of variability across levels. According to Katz and Rice’s panel study of national survey data in the United States (1995, 1996, 1997, and 2000), internet users were significantly more likely to belong to at least one local group than non-internet users. At the same time, on an individual level, the internet has provided a platform for a significant number of additional forms of political activity [7].
o
This paper focuses on detecting the group effects on individual citizens’ level of civic behavior. In other words, how much their community group (aggregate) level of ICT use and political interests affect an individual’s level of civic engagement, while controlling for their demographic characteristics. Explaining this effect requires a statistical model that addresses a hierarchically structured data problem. For example, a multistage sample must be used to model the effects of the group: first, we aggregate data at higher levels of organization (e.g., community groups), and next we sample the sub-units from the available units (e.g., individual members from each community group). In such the
1
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Hypothesis: Individual civic engagement (volunteer work) would be greater in local groups with higher group ICT (email, listserv, online discussion boards, and websites, including blogs) use, taking into account individual citizens’ psychological characteristics (the level of political efficacy and the extent of social trust) and socioeconomic variables (age and education).
To develop a parsimonious model, we included variables which focused on our research question. However, we also tested control variables which were revealed significant effects in prior studies such as education, income and age. We then excluded statistically insignificant controlling variables.
there is statically significant intraclass correlation (random effect: p’ relation is defined as a transitive relation, then {A => B} can be used to infer {B => A}. Hence, if properly defined, new knowledge can be derived from existing knowledge. Additionally, we can define necessary and sufficient conditions on classes which can be used to logically classify instances into classes [13].
4.1 Scope Ontologies are typically developed with specific applications as targets. Gruninger and Fox suggested that a set of competency questions be developed; these are questions that the ontology is expected to answer [10]. Developing these questions not only helps define the scope of our ontology but also allows us to verify the usefulness of the ontology both throughout and after the development phase [18]. In the patent system domain, the target applications may include patent claim invalidation, and patent infringement analysis. The following are selected examples of competency questions.
4.2 Conceptualization Figures 1 and 2 show a conceptual view of the patent and court case documents respectively. The relations between two entities (shown as a black line) are directional from patents and court cases out to other classes, e.g. {Patent, hasTitle, Title}. The relations are not symmetric and hence the inverse {Title, hasTitle, Patent} does not hold true. As shown in the figures, the remaining classes can be grouped under either metadata or textual information. This form of classification helps to address all the metadata at once, instead of individually calling out to each one. For example, if an application requested for all metadata of a patent, using the ontology we can return all metadata entities such as Title, Date, Classification, etc.. We can further group metadata and textual information into a single parent node Information. When the patent and court case hierarchies are combined, classes which are common to both documents will refer to the same concept and not two different concepts.
Patent Domain: o Return all patent documents which contain the phrase ‘recombinant erythropoietin receptor’ in the claims o
Return all the patent documents which contain the phrase ‘recombinant erythropoietin receptor’, at least 3 claims, issued before 02-02-1999 and assigned to Genetics Inc.
Court Case Domain: o Return all court cases which ‘erythropoietin’ o
contain
the
term
–
Return all court cases which involve the company Amgen Inc. either as the plaintiff or defendant, and from the District Court of Massachusetts
This form of abstraction is not only possible for classes, but also for relations, made possible by the rdfs:subPropertyOf construct. Court cases and Patents are related to each of the classes shown in Figures 1 and 2. These relations, such as ‘hasTitle’, ‘hasAbstract’, and ‘hasPlaintiff’, etc., can also be abstracted into a common parent relation ‘hasInformation’. This relation has a domain of either Patent or Court Case and Information as a range.
Multi-domain: o Return all patents which contain the term – ‘erythropoietin’ in their claims, which are involved in at least one court litigation. o
Return all court cases with the term ‘erythropoietin’. From these court cases, return the patents involved. From these patents, follow the backward and forward citations to identify more important patents.
File wrappers are not documents themselves, but in fact a collection of documents. This makes modeling file wrappers trickier than the other documents such as patents and court cases. Firstly, a vocabulary of all kinds of documents contained within the file wrapper must be defined. Since each of these documents refers to a particular event of communication between the applicant and patent office, we will call it Event instead of document to avoid confusion between the class Document and a file wrapper event. The events of importance to us are shown in Figure 3. We group application events and office actions separately to allow representation of queries such as – “Return all office actions for file wrapper A”. Each file wrapper event must be individually modeled keeping in mind the information it contains. For example, each examiner Rejection contains critical information such as – the allowed claims, the rejected claims, and the withdrawn claims (see Figure 4). Similarly, other events such
Note that the questions can get more complex depending on the requirement of the user. The results of one query can be further re-filtered with additional constraints. In each of the listed questions, the main terms (or objects) are underlined. First, these terms are grouped together into concepts or classes such that they represent a collection of items corresponding to that term. Second, relations are drawn between classes such that the competency questions can be sufficiently expressed as a query using those classes and relationships. The competency questions shown in no way limit the use of the ontology to these applications alone, rather they are examples of questions the ontology must be capable of answering at the minimum. Furthermore, the list of
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Figure 1. Conceptual View of Patent Documents
Figure 2. Conceptual View of Court Case as Interference, Restriction, and Amendments can be modeled using the patent system ontology.
Inventor, Examiner, Author, and Judge, etc., can be abstracted into a common parent node such as Person.
The Patent, Court Case, and File Wrapper classes shown in Figures 1-3 are different types of documents available from different information sources. The patent system comprises many such information sources and many such documents. In the top level ontology for the patent system (shown in Figure 5), all types of documents are abstracted into a single parent class (Document).
As mentioned earlier, information sources in the patent system implicitly cross-reference one another (see Figure 6). These implicit cross-references show relevancy for comparing documents from different information sources. When manually comparing two documents, these cross-references are rather obvious to the human eye. For example, a human could easily spot a reference to a patent document in the court case. These references can very quickly help identify relevant documents to a user query. The power of the patent system ontology lies in the ability to integrate information across multiple information sources by explicitly expressing such cross-references. Applications built around the patent system ontology can
The Document class can be sub-classed any number of times to include other forms of documents such as regulations and laws which are currently not in the scope of our study. The classes Document, Information, and Event correspond to the three root nodes of the patent system ontology. Additionally, the classes
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court cases or through patent citations, but not in the corpus are instantiated but contain no information about the patent since the original document itself is unavailable. A file wrapper has also been partially (including the first amendment, rejection, interference and the original application) incorporated into the knowledge-base.
dynamically derive relevancy based on these pre-defined crossreferences.
4.3 Populating the Ontology The ontology is populated with information from actual physical documents from the document repository. The instantiation is done automatically using the standard Jena and Protégé Java libraries [23]. Once the instantiation is complete, a standard OWL reasoner such as Pellet is triggered to check for consistency and make inferences [33]. For example, an entity in the class Patent will be additionally classified as a Document, since Patent is a subclass of Document. The current version of the knowledge-base is populated with the actual documents from our corpus described in Section 3. Other documents which may have been found in
RDF Triple stores are specialized databases to manage large amount of information written in RDF [5][17][20]. Due to the size of the ontology, we create a local instance of a triple store (Virtuoso) and store all the triples in it. Using a triple store will allow us to scale our ontology to millions of instances (documents). Moreover, ontology editors such as Protégé require
Figure 3. Events Contained in a File Wrapper
Figure 4. Excerpt from the Patent System Ontology: Rejection class
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Figure 5. Top Level Ontology for the Patent System
Table 1. Expressing Competency Questions in SPARQL Competency Questions
SPARQL Query
Return all court cases which involve the company Amgen Inc. as the plaintiff and from the District Court of Massachusetts
Return all patents which contain the phrase ‘recombinant erythropoietin receptor’ in the claims and IPC class “A61K”
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SELECT ?case WHERE { ?case type CourtCase . ?case hasPlaintiff “Amgen Inc.” . ?case hasCourt “District Court…” } SELECT ?pat WHERE { ?pat type Patent . ?pat hasClaim ?clm . ?clm hasTerm “recombinant …” . ?pat hasIPCClass “A61K” . }
Figure 6. Cross-‐Reference between Documents in the Patent System loading the ontology each time the application is executed. The triple stores provide a persistent store for the triples and significantly lower the loading time. The ontology can be queried using SPARQL through both Protégé and Virtuoso interfaces [20][23].
5. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL FRAMEWORK In information retrieval, the information desired is seldom achieved with a single query. Queries are typically reformulated several times based on intermediate search results until the information need is satisfied [25]. This reformulation could include the addition of synonyms, new search terms, and other constraints. When performing multi-source search, information obtained from searching one domain is applied to another. The patent system ontology provides the backbone for automating this process by standardizing representation of the information sources. In this section, we present an IR framework which builds on top of the semantics of the patent system ontology in multiple stages to enhance multi-source IR (see Figure 7):
Table 1 shows examples of how we can represent any natural language question in SPARQL to query the ontology, as long as the classes and relations required to express the query are defined in the ontology. The queries do not always have to return documents, but can return other classes like Inventors or Examiners as well. These SPARQL queries will generally be handled at the application level and will be abstracted from users. Applications can request any information they want from the ontology. In fact, even the applications do not have to fully know the details of the ontology. The ontology can be queried for all its relations for a particular class or between two classes. For example, the query:
Step–I Expand Query: In this stage, the user’s initial query is expanded using external knowledge such as dictionaries, thesauri, or domain ontologies. While the patent system ontology provides a framework for the structural interoperability between the information sources, domain ontologies provide semantic interoperability within a specific technical domain. The term expansion is based on several properties of domain ontologies such as abstraction, synonymy, and term mapping, etc.
SELECT ?rel WHERE { ?pat type
Patent .
?pat ?rel
Information
}
Step–II Search Information Sources: Information sources are independently searched using the expanded query from Step–I. The required vocabulary and syntax for searching the information sources is contained in the patent system ontology. For example, the patent system ontology provides the syntax for searching the titles of documents – hasTitle:‘erythropoietin’. The information
will return all relations (variable ?rel) which have the class Patent as the domain. In other words, all relations defined on patents such as hasTitle, hasAbstract, hasIPCClass, etc., will be returned. Hence, updating the underlying ontology with new information will automatically update the application using it as well.
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business, and more. The intention of the user must be captured through the search process in order to ensure that the results retrieved are indeed relevant to the user. User-relevancy feedback has been an important part of IR research [4][15]. However, the user relevancy feedback stage is out of this paper’s scope and will not be discussed.
sources are searched independently in this stage to retrieve highly relevant documents from each source. Step–III Cross-Reference Information: The cross-referenced information is highly important for multi-domain retrieval. The cross-references explicitly defined in the patent system ontology are used as relevancy measures to correlate search results between information sources. For example, a relation defined in the patent system ontology – {caseA, patentsInvolved, patentA} will help the framework to extract patent numbers from the court case. These patent numbers can be used to repeat or enhance the search for the patent domain. Similarly, text from one document can be used to search an entirely different information silo. For example,
5.1 Implementation Details In this section, we provide a brief overview of the implementation of the IR framework and its basic features (see Figure 8). The IR framework is implemented entirely in Java with abstractions of several modules that are critical for the system. The actual documents are parsed in order to populate the patent system ontology and perform reasoning using standard Jena libraries. A persistent storage such as Virtuoso or Mulgara is used to store the RDF triples [17][20]. Apache Lucene is a widely used text mining library [2]. In order to provide text-based search, a simple user interface is developed which interacts with the lucene text index. A summary of the implementation is provided below: o
Jena libraries and triple store integration for modifying the patent system ontology through new constructs, crossreferences, or rules.
o
Solr and Lucene libraries to create, update, and query the text indexes [3].
o
Generic API for integration with sources of domain knowledge such as BioPortal [19]
o
Automatic query generation, abstracting the syntactic details from the user.
6. ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES
Figure 7. Information Retrieval Framework
As explained in Sections 1 and 2, during the lifetime of a patent, the patent system will constantly be searched for information. Examples include prior art searches, patent claim invalidations, and infringement analysis, etc.. In this section, we demonstrate how the patent system ontology enables queries across multiple sources in order to retrieve related information. Specifically, we focus on Step-III of the framework, i.e., the cross-referencing capabilities of the patent system ontology. We develop a SPARQL query to search for information related to US patent 5,955,422 (see Figure 9). The individual clauses in the query are grouped into three categories each meant to retrieve related case documents, patents, and scientific publications respectively.
Category I: Court cases provide important information regarding the major competitors, and successful patents, etc.. A patent which has been challenged in court several times is considered very important in its respective technology class. Clauses 1-3 attempt to retrieve related documents by following the crossreferences between court cases and patent documents. Court cases related to US patent 5,955,422 are identified by querying the ontology for all court cases that involve the patent. This search retrieves around 20 patent litigations from our corpus. In addition, other patents involved in the court case are also extracted as relevant documents using clause 3.
Figure 8. System Implementation the abstract of a patent document can be used as a query to search for relevant scientific publications. In fact, the extracted text can be directly fed back into Steps 1 and 2. Step–IV User Feedback: Besides the diverse information and knowledge sources, the users in the patent system domain area also come from a diverse background – scientific/technical, legal,
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Category II: After identifying some relevant patents, some of the possible next steps could be to retrieve patents by following the forward and backward citations etc. (clause 4), to get more relevant results. The information extracted from the ontology can also include names of inventors (clause 5), assignees (clause 6), and technology classifications (clause 7) that appear in the patent documents, which can in turn be used to search the documents.
SELECT ?pat1 ?pat2 ?case ?pub ?inv ?assg ?class WHERE { Category I: Clause 1: ?case a CourtCase . Clause 2: ?case patentsInvolved US5955422. Clause 3: ?case patentsInvolved ?pat1 Category II: {Clause 4: ?pat1 hasCitation ?pat2 .} {Clause 5: ?pat1 hasInventor ?inv .} {Clause 6: ?pat1 hasAssignee ?assg .} {Clause 7: ?pat1 hasUSClass ?class .} Category III: Clause 9: ?pat hasClaim ?claim . Clause 10: ?pub a Publication . Clause 11: ?pub hasBody ?body . Clause 12: FILTER REGEX (?body, ?claim, “i”) }
The extracted information from the documents is summarized in Table 2. Category III: In addition to metadata such as inventors and assignees, the text of the patent documents can also be used to search for related documents. For example, clauses 9-12 show how the claims of a patent can be used to search for related scientific publications. The query discussed in this section shows how the semantics provided by the patent system ontology can be used to integrate information across multiple domains, with a potential to improve search. Similar to the above example, in practical applications, SPARQL queries can be formulated to express extremely complex information needs. Figure 10 shows the actual documents retrieved from this query. Precision, a common metric used to evaluate the quality of IR methodologies, is measured as the ratio of the number of relevant documents retrieved to the total number of documents retrieved. In addition to the query in Figure 9, we retrieve patent documents related to the top inventors, assignees, and technology classes from Table 2. We calculate the precision of the retrieved patent documents with respect to the ground truth discussed in Section 3. Table 3 summarizes these results.
Figure 9. SPARQL Query to Retrieve Information Related to U.S. Patent 5,955,422 Table 2. Summary of Extracted Information Plaintiffs/Defendants
Patents Involved in Cases
US Class
Inventor
Assignee
Amgen Inc.
5,955,422
514/8
Lin, Fu-Kuen
Kirin-Amgen, Inc.
Chugai Pharmaceuticals
5,547,933
530/350
Hewick, Rodney, M.
Amgen, Inc.
Hoescht Marion Roussel
5,621,080
536/23.51
Seehra, Jasbir, S.
Kiren-Amgen, Inc.
Genetics Inc.
5,618,698
435/325
Seenra, Jasbir, S.
Genetics Institute, Inc.
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Figure 10. Actual Documents Retrieved by Querying Patent System Ontology
The patent system ontology provides the necessary semantics to allow users to develop complex declarative queries. The methodology presented will benefit many end users ranging from lawyers, start-up companies, to large corporations.
Table 3. Precision of Retrieved Patent Documents Related to a Set of Inventors, Assignees or US Class
Query Top 5 Technology Classes Inventors Assignees Combined
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Precision 0.183 0.8 0.256 0.186
This research is partially supported by NSF Grant Number 0811975 awarded to the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and NSF Grant Number 0811460 to Stanford University. Any opinions and findings are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
9. REFERENCES [1] 35 U.S.C. Sec. 103 (United States Code). “Conditions for Patentability; Non-Obvious Subject Matter,” 2010.
7. CONCLUSION
[2] Apache Lucene. http://lucene.apache.org/
Intellectual Property (IP) related information for science and technology is distributed across several heterogeneous information silos. The scattered distribution of information, combined with the enormous sizes and complexities, make any attempt to collect IP-related information for a particular technology a daunting task. Hence, there is a need for a software framework which facilitates semantic and structural interoperability between the diverse and un-coordinated information sources in the patent system. In this paper, we present a knowledge-based software framework to facilitate retrieval of patents and related information across multiple diverse and uncoordinated information sources in the US patent system. Specifically, we discuss the patent system ontology which provides standardized representation and a shared vocabulary of the information sources to facilitate interoperability.
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Through an illustrative example in Section 6, we showed how the patent system ontology can be used to integrate information and query multiple information sources to retrieve related information.
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[22] PACER. http://www.pacer.gov/ (Accessed on 03/01/2012).
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Digitisation of Electoral Rolls: Analysis of a Multi-Agency E-Government Project in Pakistan Hasnain Bokhari
Mustafa Khan
Faculty of Humanities University of Erfurt Postfach 90 02 21. D-99105 Erfurt +491632359046
Willy Brandt School of Public Policy University of Erfurt Postfach 90 02 21. D-99105 Erfurt +4917671704089
[email protected]
[email protected] of countries are emphasizing horizontal and vertical integration of governmental agencies to ensure the one-stop-shop promise of egovernment. Thus, multiple governmental agencies cooperate with one another and more importantly with private partners in order to develop innovative eServices. Similarly, countries especially in the developing world are increasingly moving towards the concept of electronic public service delivery over multiple channels digital communication other than the internet. To connect with and inform citizens, governments around the world are now considering mobile phones as an alternative service delivery channel for government data. In the context of developing countries, mobile phones offer a feasible opportunity for governments to expand their digital focus to the disconnected areas. The entire ‘e’ lexicon of e-government is now focusing towards ‘m’ making a plausible case for m-government. Mgovernment, in a nutshell is not hugely different from its predecessor. Rather it offers a strategy for providing information and services through mobile or wireless technology [21]. As the definition relies on e-government practices, the basic theory and implications of m-government are going to work as complementary to e-government.
ABSTRACT Mobile governments are seen as an ancillary extension of egovernment practices. The low cost of mobile equipment, its mobility factor and a personalised device may however, herald them as the predominant means of e-government in developing countries. Inclusive participation to mobilise and engage the poorer, excluded and lesser-informed citizens has been the bane of e-government yet, but it may change by including m-government as an emphasis factor in the national e-government plans. This paper considers the case study of the Election Commission of Pakistan, which initiated a SMS-based voter verification system with the central database authority in order to inform over 85 million voters of their electoral registration in March 2012. This unique service is among the first public mobile based initiatives in Pakistan which builds upon an inter-agency collaboration drawing on the success of a digitized and central database.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.6.1 [Management of Computing and Information Systems]: Project and People Management - Strategic information systems planning; J.1 [Computer Applications]: Administrative Data Processing – Government; H.1.2 [Information Systems]: User/Machine Systems - Human information processing
What sets m-government apart and makes it a new focus area are its strengths of “mobility” and being “wireless” [33]. Freeing the user from desktop-bound and wired internet access, it allows information access on the move, increased functionality, low opportunity cost for access and more pervasive reach into ‘unwired’ or physically unsupported areas. This latter property makes it the ideal infrastructure choice in developing or underdeveloped countries, where internet access is expensive or not available and requires more technical literacy. It must, however, be noted that m-government does not need to eliminate the online and offline modalities of service-delivery but it aims at harnessing the powerful and transformational capacity of the mobile platform to enhance public service [16].
General Terms Management, Documentation, Human Factors, Verification.
Keywords E-government, Developing Countries, Interagency collaboration, M-government, Alternative public service delivery
1. INTRODUCTION Rapidly declining costs of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobile phone equipment are paving new ways for a digitally connected society through a variety of communications spectra. e-government initiatives are now taking a crucial turn in the domain of public service delivery. A number
Since the beginning of new millennium, there has been a phenomenal growth in mobile subscription around the world. In 2011, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated 5.9 billion mobile subscriptions, with a global penetration rate at an astounding 87%-79% in developing countries against a global internet penetration rate of 35% [17]. What matters here the most is the social construction of mobile technology, which qualifies the mobile platform as a preferred means of communication due to the oral communication culture it espouses. Given its spatial mobility and flexibility to manage contextual mobility with an
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Hereinafter, this paper discusses the case of multiagency collaboration for an m-government application for voters’ registration and verification in Pakistan. Taking into consideration all the above-mentioned limitations and opportunities, this paper analyzes Pakistan as an aberrant transitive democracy to see if and how a m-government initiative led by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in collaboration with National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) could facilitate voting for the general elections planned in 2013. The paper touches upon a brief chronological progress of e-government evolution in Pakistan with the formation of NADRA, which eventually guided ECP in its m-government application.
oral option, it also allows for a much wider usability within digitally challenged or ageing populations. The prevalent oral communication culture that is inherent with mobile phones has found a strong audience in rural and geographically-isolated communities of developing and under developed countries that have shown considerable acceptance towards mobile technologies. Such a communal reliance has led a number of local and state level agencies to provide emergency, health, agriculture and education related information through mobile phones [23] [25]. The location-based targeting system of m-government is becoming increasingly popular way to communicate with only certain geographically proximate communities, which can prove to be a vital mobilisation tool in the case of natural disasters, epidemics or accidents.
2. E-GOVERNMENT AND PARTICIPATORY FACTOR OF DEMOCRACY The driving force behind the phenomenon of e-government was to make governments rely on digital gadgetry in order to provide services that are more responsive and effective. This in turn could bring more transparency to administrative processes, thereby triggering a democratic culture which is supported by new communication media. For a more responsive government, it is inevitably necessary for governments to assure access and the right to information. It is perhaps the similar motivation held by Layne & Lee model of e-government whose first phase, the catalogue model, focuses on the availability of government information via web portals. However, such a model has repeatedly been rebuffed academically and contested for its viability in developing countries where there still is a huge digital gap and illiteracy. This brings the participatory promise of egovernment in a questionable position where governments on one hand try to offer multi-channel public services but on the other hand are unavailable to deliver the basic promise i.e. the availability of government information – the first requirement in almost every possible e-government model. In order to ensure the participatory nature of democracy, would it not be just to assure the access to the portal or at least an alternative way to provide government information [1]. With his empirical findings Donald Norris has challenged these early hyperbolic claims [27] that provisions for better governance through digital means does not essentially translate into enhanced or increased public participation in governments. Also, in case of developing countries, most are delineated by fledgling democracy that are yet to take root in relatively younger states staggering on to postconflict and transitional stages where the need for stability often trumps egalitarian inclusion into governments and elections. The case of e-government in Pakistan suffers from the similar developing country syndrome of digital divide where the government has not been able to reach out to its public via its web portal. There are, however, a number of multi-channel electronic public services that continues to facilitate the citizens. With the inception of the m-government application in February 2012, the Government of Pakistan introduced probably for the first time, a digital service via a short message (or SMS) that enable citizens to verify and confirm them as registered voters for the general elections in 2013. For a transitional democracy such as Pakistan, an eService of such sort can have a considerable impact on voter turnout. However, can it be claimed if an eService of this calibre delineates the participatory element for Pakistani voters? To answer, one probably needs to revisit the most celebrated and equally contested theorist of democracy, Robert Dahl, whose general set of criteria for evaluating democratic process includes
Figure 1: Mobile and Internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants in Pakistan The urban-rural divide and the digital imbalance more synonymous with the developing world has so far not let Layne & Lee widely debated model of e-government provide a functional solution for developing countries. The Layne & Lee model based on catalogue stage, transaction stage and vertical and horizontal integration stage gets seriously challenged by the cost of infrastructure, limited government budgets and the lack of information in local and regional languages [14]. A number of developing countries are now moving beyond the informational web portal (which is a catalogue stage in Layne & Lee model) and are concentrating on multiple channels of public service delivery, either through kiosk machines, telecentres, over-the-counter approaches and now mobile phones to digitally facilitate their public. In India for example, a free SMS service, launched in February 2007, enables farmers in rural areas to ask agricultural or animal husbandry related queries to experts. Similarly in Pakistan, an SMS service was launched by the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) to facilitate citizens for SIM verification against their unique national identity cards [18].
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development of the electronic passport, driver’s license, birth registration certificate and/or the vehicle identification and tracking system. Pakistan moved beyond the web portal when in 2005 NADRA started a kiosk machine service in order to pay utility bills. The idea behind kiosk machine was the lack of internet penetration and possibility of mCommerce application on official web portal. The kiosk machine service is now being franchised and exists as a part of the eSahulat project, which allows people to transfer money without involving any bank transaction for the recipient and sender. It would not be wrong to mention that in Pakistan NADRA has now assumed the role of a master agency as it possesses the major citizen database and collaborates in a number of intergovernmental projects such as the World Bank supported cash transfer programme called Income Support Programme and the Watan Card for flood afectees. NADRA has also collaborated with the PTA by sharing its database with telecom operators in order for people to verify their SIM cards against their CNICs. This paper considers NADRA’s most recent collaboration with another governmental agency- the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The next section describes the role of the ECP and its collaboration with the NADRA to develop the digitised electoral rolls.
effective participation, voting equality, enlightened understanding, and control of the policy agenda [7]. If the democratic and participatory element of the ECP’s SMS application is gauged with Dahl’s criteria, this application does seem to qualify at least for one of Dahl’s five criteria. However, before dwelling upon the details of this application, it seems necessary to give a brief chronology of events that has eventually led ECP to undertake a rather sensitive and careful task of voter registration and verification via the m-government application.
3. E-GOVERNMENT SCENARIO IN PAKISTAN The Government of Pakistan started its chapter of e-government in 2002 by forming a separate organisation under the Ministry of Information Technology named Electronic Government Directorate (EGD). EGD’s major tasks included to plan, prepare and implement e-government projects in Pakistan and to provide technical guidelines on the implementation of these projects at the federal, provincial and district levels. Since 2005 EGD has also put an e-government strategy and action plan for years 2005-2010, which so far has not been revised, at least publicly. At the beginning of millennium, offering a web portal remained the first task for national governments and Pakistan’s one-stop-shop solution was to initiate web portal of government ministries, divisions, and its sub organisations accessible via Internet at www.pakistan.gov.pk. The portal provided information about the ministries and explained their functioning albeit in English – a language which is only spoken and understood by a small minority of a population of 185 million people. The portal, which was revamped in 2008, does not yet offer or indicate any interactive G2C service in order to qualify for the second stage (transaction) of e-government model (by Layne & Lee) [18].
4. ELECTION COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN The Election Commission of Pakistan presides over the voting proceedings of the State and National assemblies and the Senate. Its Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) is appointed by the President of Pakistan and with amendments made in the constitution during 2012; it has been made an autonomous and independent organisation with separate funds and appointment powers for interim government, which will be responsible for organising fresh national elections [32].
While the EGD together with Government of Pakistan was trying to delve into e-government, a number of parallel initiatives started in the G2C scenario in Pakistan. Due to deregulation in the telecommunications sector, various telecom operators started their services in Pakistan. Over the course of 10 years the low rates of the mobile telecom sector found a strong audience all over the country. The figures mentioned by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) clearly indicate that Pakistani citizens prefer mobile phones to the internet. According to the ITU statistics, mobile users in Pakistan increased from 0.21 users in 2000 to 57.14 users per 100 inhabitants in 2010 [17]. As of May 2012, the PTA puts the cellular mobile teledensity at 68.6% making it the most highly penetrated South Asian country in this regard.
The ECP adopted a five-year strategic plan in May 2010, taking various stakeholders such as political parties, Civil Society Oraganizations (CSOs), female councillors, minorities, lawyers and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) on board. The strategic plan was aimed at overhauling various technical, organizational and legal functions of the ECP. Alongside, the ECP also came up with strategic deliverables to foster digitization of the electoral rolls, building a new website, translation of content in regional languages, a better Content Management System (CMS), adoption of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), a mobile version of the website and online availability of all ECP information, results and notifications as and when announced [11]. The following section details the collaborative model that the ECP adopted in order to verify and collate the digitization of electoral rolls with the help of NADRA.
The increased reliance on mobile phones made a number of telecom operators in Pakistan realise the potential of mobile penetration and they started offering G2C services by acting as a middle agency. Currently, Norwegian telecom operator Telenor’s easy Paisa service for the payment of utility bills and money transfer is considered the most frequently used service, which has triggered a new era of branchless banking in Pakistan. However, a major development in e-government scenario that took place in Pakistan is the formation of National Database Registration Authority (NADRA). In order to digitise the population data, the Ministry of Interior initiated a technical wing named as the NADRA to develop Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs), which eventually became one of the first G2C electronic public services. Over a number of years NADRA has initiated other G2C projects as well. These projects include the
4.1 Multiagency Collaboration at Work: Preparation of the Computerised Electoral Rolls System (CERS II) In June 2011, ECP and NADRA signed a formal contract for the revision of electoral rolls and the updating of the 2006 Computerised Electoral Rolls System (CERS I). NADRA extended its support by sharing the citizen database and by appending and adding supplementary information from their unique CNIC system against every voter. The CNIC carries unique identification card with multiple biometric features, photograph and includes details of residence, contact information and family status. This inter-sectoral and inter-organisational
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NADRA then entered the data changes on the basis of voters’ data forms collected during door-to-door verification in light of guidelines/business rules, using double-blind data entry mechanism. Thereafter, the preliminary electoral rolls were printed by NADRA and delivered to the ECP’s field offices on 23 February 2012. The ECP released the draft electoral rolls at 52,166 display centres across Pakistan for public display for inviting claims and objections for corrections on the prescribed forms as per existing legal framework. On 29 February, both the paper-based electoral rolls and a unique SMS facility (explained in the next section) to verify citizens’ voting details were launched [8]. After incorporating the decisions of the revising authorities, the final electoral rolls were displayed successfully in May 2012.
mapping of citizens would ensure unique identity within the system and prepare clear transparent rolls which would be now called as CERS II. The ECP established a project management unit comprising ECP and IFES officials to steer and monitor this enormous task. The ECP handed over the existing electoral rolls data to NADRA in February 2011 for verification, updating and augmentation of electoral rolls 2006-07 on the basis of CNIC database. Simultaneously, the Population Census Organization (PCO) which conducts census every five years was instructed in its April 2011 census to collect the information of the head of family’s data on a specially designed form for preparing preliminary electoral rolls on the basis of new census blocks as prescribed by the Census Organisation previously and now adopted by the ECP as revised electoral areas. These data were handed over to NADRA offices at district level. NADRA used the data for assignment of new census block codes after verification and augmentation of existing electoral rolls with its CNIC data. In effect, NADRA created a new database for the ECP from a data image of its CNIC database but customised it along the lines of the newly defined electoral areas. This meant further clarity and precision of voter distribution [11].
Thus, from 2012 onwards, the revised CERS-II can be updated annually as originally envisaged in the constitution of Pakistan. NADRA and the ECP plan to extend its cooperation to the next level by updating the voter data simultaneously in the ECP database when voters visit the NADRA offices for renewing or changing the personal details of their CNIC.
4.2 SMS Voter Verification Application After an extensive multi-agency collaboration in collecting the voters’ data the ECP planned to not only announce the paperbased results of the voters but it also launched a unique SMS voter verification application on 29 February 2012. A widespread print and electronic media campaign was organised and the announcement of the electoral roll received prime coverage on all leading television channels, given the loaded political atmosphere with the impending 2013 elections. With regard to geographically isolated and rural areas, these campaigns were chiselled with the ECP conducting radio spots in six local languages to advertise the publication of the electoral rolls and the SMS verification application.
NADRA prepared preliminary electoral rolls on the basis of new census blocks, using CNIC as unique identifier of voters. The ECP then conducted a country-wide door-to-door verification of these rolls in August-October 2011. A pilot project was completed in 60 selected electoral areas in four districts through door-to-door verification which helped in identifying issues during field exercise which were taken care of while rolling out the national level verification project.
Figure 3: Sample of return SMS with voter registration details . The SMS application requires a voter to text her/his unique CNIC number to a short code ‘8300’. Irrespective of the mobile network operator, the voter is charged, Rs. 2 (USD 0.02) and a reply SMS in the national language Urdu is received, showing the CNIC number, electoral area name, block code, tehsil/district and serial
Figure 2: Digitisation flowchart of electoral rolls by the Election Commission of Pakistan .
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using location based targeting and its new CERS II rolls to SMS voters their block codes, polling station names and numbers and serial numbers.
number [10]. Keeping in view that multiple voters may use one mobile phone in a household to verify their vote and to protect the privacy of the voter, the name, parentage and home address which are attributes of CNIC are not included in the return SMS.
The architecture behind the SMS application is a G2C informational exchange initiated by texting a short code- a C2G pull communication. On the front end, it is a text-based communication on the GSM cellular network in a local language and numbers. The middleware is a NADRA SMS Gateway. All the Mobile Network Operators (MNO) have reserved short code 8300 for the ECP. Once a network operator receives an SMS, it passes the message to the NADRA SMS gate way. In return, if the message is appropriate (i.e. if it contains 13 digits of CNIC) the voters’ information is returned.
The block code is the assigned block or colony number allotted after the new housing census of 2011 as mentioned before. The serial number replaces the old manual slip system that was issued to every voter with the serial number and name upon registration. The idea of digitally replacing the paper slip system intends to save cost and paper waste and also reduces the chances of misplaced slips. Another important issue it helps address is a voting malpractice, which was often reported in rural areas with illiterate or inexperienced voters. It is observed during elections in Pakistan that political party agents canvassing outside polling station would try to influence the voter in the guise of providing support to inexperienced voters [20]. With a new digitised version of electoral rolls, voters only need to carry their CNIC and newly issued serial number via digital electoral rolls to polling stations and cast their ballot. It shall , however, be noted that physical display of electoral rolls will continue side by side in order to ensure that no voter is denied this right. The electoral roll verification drive ended on March 20, 2012.
If this application is analysed against the Task-Technology Fit model [13], it can be argued that the ECP-NADRA’s application is a useful one in a way that a huge chunk of the target audience is available on the employed platform, the task (here informational) can be viably transmitted. Given the text-based informational request in a mobile and geographically diverse target area, with a varied skill set and technical abilities and round the clock access to ensure all voters could verify their status within the 20-day period- this match serves a useful proposition for the SMS verification system. Had the ECP launched a website version of this application then, , the application would not have even achieved the 8.3% of audience due to limited internet penetration in Pakistan as compared to the mobile phone subscription as indicated in Figure 1. Building up on the location-based facility in m-government, the future plan to inform voters of their designated polling stations through a similar SMS based application may also be successful, which was test run in the bye-elections of constituency Multan-IV as pointed before.
5. ECP-NADRA SMS APPLICATION ANALYSIS It is perhaps the first time in Pakistan that a number of governmental agencies namely, the ECP, NADRA and the Population Census Organisation have cooperated with one another in order to make a digital electoral roll. The Pakistani voters’ uptake on this service was considerable in both rural and urban sectors. With mobiles, virtual display centres for a small price could be created anywhere at the convenience of the voter. Indicative of the demand shift in the new service delivery, voters opted to use the SMS service and the display centres were not crowded, making it easier and speedier to deal with modification complaints of effected voters. Within 17 days of the launch of the application, 4.6 million people had used it to verify their electoral details [28]. By end of March 2012, the number of verified voters exceeded the 7 million that used this facility.
Incorporation of an external facilitator or technology provider in a highly sensitive national affair such as the national election is not desirable [19] especially with regard to credibility and neutrality of an election body. By hiring an indigenous public firm on a formal contract to implement both the software and hardware ends of a project, while keeping check and balance on the tailored solution, ensured control with the contractee. The digitisation of voters’ registration roll brought together not only the government officials but also IT experts to ensure that the design phase does not suffer from the absence of experts from both ends. Brewer et.al. [5] have argued that the combination of bureaucracy and technology experts would minimise the pitfalls in an egovernment application. The ECP relied on NADRA’s accumulated experience of over 10 years in the automation and biometric business. A unique factor was that NADRA customized a data image of its CNIC and appended the CERS I with it to create CERS II. Such a multiagency cooperation for interagency information sharing can be extended and scaled to further future projects [35].
The SMS service serves as an auxiliary provision that enabled the 8.4% registered voters in Pakistan. However, this level of collaboration will be able to open new areas of interagency collaborations, which actually could be considered as the third and fourth phase of horizontal and vertical integration, if compared with the Layne & Lee model of e-government. Similarly, the SMS service has landed the ECP in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the World’s largest voter verification SMS service with a voter density of 83.28 million [31]. Introducing this application on an even bigger network of almost 111 million mobile users in one go, relying on indigenous technology and skills without physical external assistance bodes well for developing countries and their m-government plans. As of 2012, the ECP plans to launch the same SMS service to announce and inform voters of their allocated polling stations before the national elections are conducted.
Ideally, there should not have been any costs involved for an SMS, but to avoid jamming of the SMS service by miscreants the ECP decided to keep a minimal cost. Despite the lower cost of SMS, it may still prevent the marginally poor people from availing it. However, the government did not abandon the paper display of electoral rolls to ensure no citizen is missed out. Security and trust though remain tangible issues to be addressed as with all e-government initiatives- establishing an identity versus the anonymity of a citizen have confounded electronic notions of governance and elections [19].
An instance of this provision was observed in July 2012, after the dismissal of the then Prime Minister Gillani by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. His seat in the Pakistan National Assembly eventually fell vacant and bye-election had to be held. Here the ECP provided information to over 138,000 voters in that constituency
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Here the authors wish to extend the analysis of the ECP project by gauging against the success factor model proposed by Sandy and Macmillian [29] to evaluate the internal effects on the government based on six points:
5.1 Litmus Test- Requisite Agility of the CERS II and SMS application Coming to the last factor- has the governance module succeeded with this initiative? Coupling this system with the aforementioned electoral bill, the CNIC numbers have essentially become unique identifying factors in elections. The ECP’s initiative has the potential to promote transparency and would help in removal of defunct or fraudulent votes from the vote bank - hence the strengthening of related factors of openness, accountability and participation. Here, one recent incident that was reported during the verification procedure serves as a litmus test of this initiative’s working. After the display of electoral rolls, a member of national and another of provincial assembly observed abnormal increase in the electorate records of their respective constituencies and reported it to the ECP. The ECP gave NADRA and its provincial election commission office a forty-eight hour deadline to explain the cause behind this anomaly. Not only was the mistake traced and rectified, but NADRA investigated that five people had tried to manually fill thousands of vote-transfer forms and migrated voters in these districts. As they had submitted these forms with some identification, NADRA used the biometric assets of the CNIC and traced the culprits. Similar patterns were also traced out in two other constituencies and rectified [9] [26].
Cost: Governments need to find cost effective solutions to ensure funding and look into options for joint operations. In this case, even buying services from MNO in the long-term or in a bulk package lasting only during the verification drive, might have further lessened or eliminated the charge of the service on the public, perhaps making it more inclusive. Who might pay for the novelty of receiving an SMS for a service viewed as too expensive? After all e-government services tend to have an elastic demand [24] and do not stand the test of the cost distribution well. Similarly, attracting and keeping staff with “requisite agility” will make for a self-conscious government that can adequately handle and deal with citizen demand [5]. Business Reengineering: A central authority and political support in the form of a coordinated and bench-marked national egovernment plan with specific m-government services recognized with clearly defined deliverables would ensure a better and cohesive strategy. This would mean that dependency on legacy systems be reduced and government should try to keep or maintain central databases or platforms that can be used to test, pilot-run and launch e-government or m-government initiatives, which will prove to be launching pads and resource centres for all departments and sectors.
6. CONCLUSION Encouraging as the result of this debilitation may be, it is however, difficult to say as to what extent governance will be fostered by this initiative in the long run despite its wide usage and demonstrated benefits. But the ECP-NADRA app surely is a unique experiment in strengthening the democratic culture in Pakistan. Apart from NADRA’s kiosk machine project and an eSahulat programme, the ECP SMS app can be considered as another contribution in the category of alternative channel of electronic public service delivery which excludes the web portal as a main communication medium. This app has tried to exploit the most frequently used gadget, i.e., a mobile phone which does not even have to be a smart phone to use this app. For a young democracy like Pakistan the ECP-NADRA collaboration seems to have contributed to a larger extent in assuring the effective participation and/or voting equality in Dahl’s sense of effective democracy. The way multiple governmental agency have collaborated in the preparation of electoral rolls, the ECP and NADRA have set up a decent example for other developing countries how vertical boundaries can be overcome in such inter agency collaborations. M-government presents a substantive case in enfranchising the participatory nature and equal rights to information sharing for all citizens. Once this information divide is plugged, participation may seep into the public policy formulation sphere. However, the external implication of mgovernment on public is not the only factor in their success.
Education: Better access and training programs to ensure adoption of m-government initiatives so as to have stronger back office work. Identifying and maintaining open source international standards that would make it easier for both employees and public to remain at the top of the infrastructural game and the everchanging technology blitz. Acceptance: There should be ownership of the projects to ensure that the increased participation of the public is handled well or it would have a reverse effect on inclusive nature of m-government. Here, the popularity of the e-Sahulat programme over the Kiosk system may explain the local populace’s preference for human interaction rather than machine-human interfaces [3]. For this purpose, incorporating government officials in the design and feedback of such initiatives will create interest. Supporting employees with technically sound and well-fitted offices with clearly defined job descriptions will ensure accountability. Security: Data loss in terms of device theft can be limited by ensuring that mobile phone SIMs are registered against CNICs. Similarly providing access to an online temporary identification should also be accepted in case of ID theft. Data protocols on office machinery should be defined and stripped down for work purposes only and IT administrators should have strict policies against external data storage devices in workplaces. These policies currently prevail in NADRA offices.
The internal implications that m-government will have in making the government effective and efficient in its function is also important. There is diverse literature from organisational behaviour studies that shows that lack of ownership for projects from within governments can kill the most promising innovations. The public and governments are generally seen as complacent in their business models and more so when accountability and checks and balances are absent or hindered by fledging, discontinuous democracies. This is also the political case of Pakistan, where change in governments leads to entire and sudden shifts in policy which means squandering the already deficit
Access: Providing key infrastructure to all actors, both within and without the government. Presence of content in local language, regular and audited updating of CMS system and providing similar opportunities for people with physical disability and special needs will ensure equal access for all.
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too many graphics, and they should be available in the national as well as regional languages.
public money. As most of the e-government initiatives in developing countries are based on legacy systems, there is little scope for backward compatibility for newer front-end applications. Additional training cost, quality of manpower and organizational rigidities are hindrances [33] [34], which ideally the private sector has always adapted better to. Thus, Public Private Partnerships (PPP) maybe the way forward as public sector brings in money, employees and better business models, while the government ensures that the role of governance and common public good are not lost in capital building.
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors are indebted to the technical wing of National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) for their assistance in providing information about the case study.
9. REFERENCES [1] Baums, C. H., & Maio, A. D. Gartner's Four phases of EGovernment Model. Retrieved March 12, 2012, from GARTNER: www.gartner.com, 2000
7. RECOMMENDATIONS With regards to the case study, certain recommendations that could facilitate newer m-government initiatives and thus make room for innovative and useful e-government initiatives which are user-centric are listed below:
[2] Bokhari, H. Paradigm shift in service delivery channels for G2C services–Service Oriented Architecture an option for the success of eGovernment in Pakistan? In International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies, University of Science and Technology, Bannu, Pakistan, 2008.
1. Establish a Mobile Service Gateway Delivery system, which could be an incubation cell for all or any government initiatives into m-government. It would maintain a technical infrastructure and staff to help formulate, devise, test-run and then deploy various m-government initiatives. It would be ideal to have one central Mobile Gateway with networked centres in all provinces to keep a balanced and federal linearity in equal funding but will allow them flexibility to identify preferred areas for action thus promoting a bottom-up approach.
[3] Bokhari, H. Multi-channel Electronic Public Service Delivery Mechanisms in Developing Countries- A Case Study of the Esahulat Programme in Pakistan. In Janowski, T. and Davies, J. (Ed). 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance.ACM: New York, 2010. [4] Bokhari, H. Realising hybrid model of eGovernment for citizen-centric eServices in developing countries. Analysis of eSahulat programme in Pakistan. In IEEE 13th International Multitopic Conference, UET Taxila and MAJU Islamabad, 2009.
2. Ensure that the format of the CNIC database is the groundwork database for all new initiatives for e-government and mgovernment. This would allow mapping of citizens across different organizations building up a single unified repository on user-id with unique biometric features. These would prevent identity theft or misuse of data, as biometric checks are embedded within these systems.
[5] Brewer, G. A., Neubauer, B. J., & Geiselhart, a. K. Designing and Implementing E-Government Systems : Critical Implications for Public Administration and Democracy. Administration and Society (July, 2006), p. 472500.
3. Establish a market for m-government applications not only for smartphones but normal cellular phones that can exploit the location-based context of the mobile phone to provide crucial information. The Government should provide incentives to mobile application programmers to compete and design comprehensive application that can be used to facilitate agricultural, medical and educational initiatives over the mobile channel.
[6] Castells, M. The rise of the network society: volume i: the information age: economy, society, and culture. WilleyBlackwell, 2009. [7] Dahl, R. A. Democracy and its critics. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1989.
4. Initiating a standard for mobile applications and incorporating it within the National e-government plan. The EGD of Pakistan has to revise and update its e-government strategy plan and design a separate model for m-government that can be used to benchmark and help future initiatives on this platform across the public sector.
[8] Dawn. ECP starts Rolls display, SMS service for voters verification. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Dawn: http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/29/ecp-starts-rolls-displaysms-service-for-voters-verification.html [9] ECP. Press Release. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Election Commission of Pakistan: http://www.ecp.gov.pk/ViewPressReleaseNotific.aspx?ID=1 538&TypeID=0
5. Pre-designated short codes should be reserved for future mgovernment initiatives. Reserving short codes on a national level and then using them for deploying essential services comes in handy for the recalling abilities of these short codes. Similarly, a long number should be reserved which would be the touch point of all m-government initiatives. It would feature a menu-based Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu that would serve to be a repository for accessing, using and interacting with all mgovernment initiatives through oral occupation thus involving illiterate or technically challenged citizens.
[10] ECP. Press Release: ECP inaugurates SMS facility tomorrow. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Election Commission of Pakistan: http://www.ecp.gov.pk/ViewPressReleaseNotific.aspx?ID=1 503 [11] ECP. Progress Report on Implementation of the Five Year Strategic Plan. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from Election Commission of Pakistan:
6. Developing mobile websites for all government websites which would have the same URL but would divert the user to the mobile website after it has been established that it is being accessed through mobile. Mobile websites need to be text-rich and without
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http://www.ecp.gov.pk/Reports/SPStrategicPlanProgress.pdf, January, 2012. [12] El-Kiki, T., & Lawrence, E. Emerging Mobile Government Services: Strategies for Success. 20th Bled eConference. Bled, Slovenia, 2007.
[27] Norris, D. F. E-Government...Not E-Governance...Not Edemocracry Not Now! Not Ever? ICEGOV 2010 Beijing, China: ACM. pp. 339-346, 2010
[13] Gebauer, J., Shaw, M. J., & Gribbins, M. Task technology fit for mobile information systems. Journal of Information Technology. p. 259-272, 2010.
[28] Pakistan Today. Over 4.6m citizens verify vote through SMS. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Pakistan Today: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/03/18/city/islamabad /over-4-6m-citizens-verify-vote-through-sms/
[14] Ghyasi, A. F., & Kushchu, I. mGovernment: Case for developing countries. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from Mobile Government Lab: http://www.mgovernment.org/ resurces/mgovlab_afgik.pdf.
[29] Sandy, G. A., & Macmillian, S. A success factors model for M-government. Euro mGov (pp. 349-352). Brighton, UK: Mobile Government Consortium International Pub, 2005 [30] Symonds, M. A survey of government and the internet: The next revolution. The Economist (June, 2000), p. 36.
[15] ITU. ICT- Facts and Figures: The World in 2011. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from International Telecommunications Union: http://www.itu.int/ITU/ict/facts/2011/ material/ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf
[31] Tribune. ECP 'SMS voters’ verification service may break World Record. Retrieved 2012 25, March, from The Express Tribune: http://tribune.com.pk/story/350452/ecp-sms-votersverification-service-may-break-world-record/
[16] ITU & OECD. M-government: Mobile technologies for responsive governments and connected societies. ITU & OECD, 2011.
[32] Tribune, P. Neutral caretakers, independent EC promised; passed 20th amendment bill. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from Pakistan News Service: http://paktribune.com/news/Neutralcaretakers-independent-EC-promised;-passed-20thAmendment-bill-247519.html
[17] ITU. (2011, December). Key 2000-2010 Country Statistics. Retrieved March 10, 2012, from International Telecommunications Union: http://www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/statistics/
[33] Trimi, S., & Sheng, H. Emerging trends in M-government. Communications of the ACM (May, 2008), p. 53-58.
[18] Karen, L., Jungwoo L. “Developing Fully Functional EGovernment. A Four Stage Model”. Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 18, Issue 2 (2001). p. 122-136.
[34] VR Salkute, S. K. Implications of mobile communication technologies (mct) in m-government: challenges, technology and applications. International Research Journal of Management and Business Studies (2011), p. 62-67.
[19] Krimmer, R., Triessnig, S., & Volkamer, M. The Development of Remote E-voting Around the World: A review of roads and directions. Vote ID (pp. 1-15). Heidelberg, DE: Springer-Verlag Berlin, 2007.
[35] Yang, T.-M., Zheng, L., & Pardo, T. The boundaries of information sharing and integration: A case study of Taiwan e-government. Government Information Quarterly (2012), p. 51-60.
[20] Khan, I. H. Electoral malpractices during the 2008 elections in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011. [21] Kushchu, I., & Borucki, C. Impact of Mobile Technologies on Government. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Mobile Government Lab: http://www.mgovernment.org/resurces/ mgovlab_ikcb.pdf [22] Kushchu, I., & Kuscu, M. H. From M-government to Egovernment. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from Mobile Government Lab: http://www.mgovservice.ru/upload/ uploadfiles/From%20eGov%20to%20mGov.pdf [23] Moon, M. J. From E-government to M-government? Emerging trends in the use of mobile technology by State governments. Washington: IBM Centre for the Business of Government, 2004. [24] Naik, G., Joshi, S., & Basavaraj, K. Fostering inclusive growth through e-Governance Embedded Rural Telecenters. Government Information Quarterly (2012), p. 81-89. [25] Naqvi, S. J., & Al-Shihi, H. M-government initatives in Oman. Issues in Informing Science and Technology (2009), p. 818-824. [26] News, T. ECP, Nadra solve mystery of abnormal increase in registered voters. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from The News: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-98244-
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Integrating Argumentation Technologies and Context-Based Search for Intelligent Processing of Citizens’ Opinion in Social Media Carlos Chesñevar, Ana Maguitman
Elsa Estevez
Ramón Brena
Dept.of Computer Science and Eng. Universidad Nacional del Sur Av. Alem 1253 8000 Bahía Blanca, Argentina +54 291 459 5135
United Nations University Int. Institute for Software Technology Center for Electronic Governance P.O. Box 3058, Macao SAR, China +853 85040491
ITESM Monterrey Av. E. Garza Sada 2501, Col. Tecnológico, 64849 Monterrey, N.L., México +52 81 8358-2000 ext. 5246
{cic,agm}@cs.uns.edu.ar
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT Nowadays, governments are adopting Web 2.0 technologies for interacting with citizens, empowering them to share their views, react to issues of their concern and form opinion. In particular, social media play an important role in this context, due to their widespread use. For governments, a major technical challenge is the lack of automated intelligent tools for processing citizens’ opinion in government social media. At the same time, during the last decade, argumentation theory has consolidated itself in Artificial Intelligence as a new paradigm for modeling common sense reasoning, with application in several areas, such as legal reasoning, multiagent systems, and decision support systems, among others. This paper outlines an argument-based approach for overcoming such challenge, combined with context-based information retrieval. Our ultimate aim is to combine contextbased search and argumentation in a collaborative framework for managing (retrieving and publishing) service- and policy-related information in government-use social media tools.
1. INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATIONS Government 2.0 refers to government's adoption of Web 2.0 technologies to socialize government services, processes, and data [1][2]. Enabling new ways of communication – text, audio, video as well as two-way communications, Government 2.0 provides new mechanisms for government agencies to: 1) increase transparency – bringing public sector agenda and government activities closer to citizens [3], 2) facilitate participation – engaging citizens in making opinion and contributing to policydecision making; and 3) enhance service delivery – pushing service-related information and gathering citizens’ opinions about service delivery. As an example of Government 2.0 adoption, the Government of Singapore offers a directory of the web 2.0 and other social media initiatives, such as Facebook pages, Flickr photostreams, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels, among others; used by government agencies [4]. Aware of the benefits and willing to pursue them, governments first need to overcome various types of challenges posted by Government 2.0. In particular, the use of social media requires governments to overcome challenges related to privacy, security, data management, accessibility, social inclusion, governance and policy-related issues [5]. Focusing on the data management perspective, only integrating data streams from social media requires solving two important issues: 1) the magnitude of the information flow associated with such data streams (e.g. Twitter disseminates 55 million tweets a day), and 2) extracting meaningful information –social media data streams are usually incomplete which may be potentially inconsistent, as citizens might have different views on a certain issue.
Categories and Subject Descriptors J.1 [Administrative Data Processing]: Government; I.2 [Artificial Intelligence]: Learning; H.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval
General Terms Algorithms, Human Factors, Languages
Keywords Social media; Government 2.0; e-Governance; Participation; Intelligent Tools
Addressing technical challenges of data management in government-use social media tools, this paper presents DECIDE 2.0 – a framework integrating argumentation technologies and context-based search for intelligent processing of citizens’ opinion in social media. The framework relies on text mining and opinion mining techniques to filter noise and detect main topics being discussed by citizens in social media. Recognizing that the use of such techniques is not a common government practice, the main contribution of DECIDE 2.0 is to provide an automated tool for extracting arguments based on citizens’ opinions. The framework
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DECIDE 2.0 was originally presented in [8] and a revised version of its architecture is presented in Figure 1. The architecture comprises four main components: C1) Extracting Opinions based on data provided by social media, extracts citizens’ opinions on a given theme using context-based search and produces formal predicates, and stores opinions and predicates in a knowledgebase; C2) Argument-based Decision Making – based on the generated knowledgebase, the component selects predicates on a given theme; C3) Applying DeLP Web Services – predicates are analyzed with DeLP web services to assess whether they follow some assumptions or not; C4) Producing Global Assessment – based on the results of the previous stage, arguments are classified into pro- and cons- and are consolidated into a global assessment of citizens’ opinion on a given theme.
will enable to assess and confront pro- and cons- arguments to be used by policy makers and government officials as inputs in decision making processes. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents an overview of the framework; while Section 3 explains the main technologies applied in DECIDE 2.0 – context-based search and argumentation using Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP). Finally, Section 4 outlines a roadmap for future work.
2. DECIDE 2.0 - OVERVIEW DECIDE 2.0 aims at extending the current state of the art of web 2.0 technologies by integrating existing social media tools with argumentation and context-aware technologies. Following its aim, DECIDE 2.0 combines context-based search [6] and argumentation [7] in a collaborative system for managing (retrieving and publishing) service- and policy-related information in social media tools used by governments. Therefore, DECIDE 2.0 contributes to a more enhanced set of Government 2.0 tools.
Even though DECIDE 2.0 is intended to capture citizens’ opinions from different social media, our current research is particularly focused on the use of Twitter. Consequently, in what follows we will outline part of our ongoing research in this direction. r C3) Applying Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP) web services
C2) Argument-based decision making
Context of e-Governmentrelated issue
Citizens’ Opinion Knowledge base
C1) Extracting opinions using context-based search
C4) Producing global assessment of citizens’ opinions
Citizens’ Opinion (with details for policy-making oriented decisions)
Citizens’ Opinion Database Government Officials
Citizens SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS post opinions
post policy-related issues Fig. 1. DECIDE 2.0 Framework related material to consider or to help assure that relevant areas have been considered in her research work.
3. INTEGRATING ARGUMENTATION AND CONTEXT-BASED SEARCH Our approach involves two main stages: a) context-based search from social media - C1 in Figure 1; and b) argumentative decision making on the basis of the obtained information – C2, C3 and C4 in Figure 1. Next we will analyze these two stages in more detail.
To illustrate our approach, we define a case study where government stakeholders involved in a particular policy area are interested in collecting opinions from Twitter on a topic that is openly discussed by community members.
3.1. Context-Based Search for Social Media
One of the goals of the proposed framework is to develop a topic suggestion tool that has the capability of identifying a set of opinions that share a common theme. We assume that a citizen’s opinion refers to a certain theme and contains several terms. In turn, the opinion may be related to one or more topics and it is possible to associate each topic with the related terms in the citizen’s opinion. In addition, the suggested topics can be evaluated in the light of a set of criteria for assessing their quality.
Context-based search in Twitter is an instance of context-based search in general [6]. The task of context-based search could be applied in many different situations. For example, a contextualized suggestion interface could be useful to a journalist for exploring information sources while she writes a news article. It could also be helpful to a researcher, to identify novel but
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The concepts are illustrated in Figure 2. Technically. given a corpus of opinions O = {o1, o2, … ,om}, and a universe of possible terms K ={k1, k2, …, kn}, we consider a topic ti of an opinion oj to be a nonempty subset of the terms ki1, …, kip contained in K satisfying a set of criteria for topic quality. In this sense, a topic can be characterized as a set of cohesive terms associated with opinions that share a common theme.
By applying techniques described in [13] it is possible to identify a set of good topic descriptors and topic discriminators (e.g. preventive health care , obamacare, etc.) as well as a list of representative hashtags associated with this topic, such as #hcr and #obamacare. A context-based search system might then identify the following set of opinions, among others: o1: Thanks for the new health law, pregnant women can receive many free preventive health services and screenings. (tweeted by user U1) o2: Health care reform does not make health care more affordable it makes people buy something they can’t afford. (tweeted by user U2) From the opinions above, logical predicates can be extracted, structuring previous information in logic programming fashion:
Fig. 2. DECIDE 2.0 Concepts
opinion(o1, “Thanks for…”) opinion(o2, “Thanks for…”)
A contextualized search system starts with a piece of text d reflecting a general context or topic of interest td and identifies a set N = {t1, t2, …, tq} of new topics related to topic td. The performance of the main component of the system - a contextualized topic suggester, can be judged according to various criteria [10]:
topic(t1, preventive health care) useropinion(u1,o1, t1, positive) useropinion(u2,o2, t1,negative)
Such set of logical predicates derived from citizens’ opinions on a particular context will provide a Citizens’ Opinion Knowledgebase (see Figure 1), on top of which an argumentative analysis will be carried out.
o Global coherence: The new suggested topics (topics in N) must be relevant to the general topic of interest td. o Local coherence: Each suggested topic must be of high quality according to the criteria of the domain. Such criteria might include: 1) measures of coherence - each topic description is constituted of tightly related terms and opinions, 2) descriptiveness - the terms used to identify the topics are good descriptors, 3) discriminative power - the terms help differentiate among other suggested topics , 4) conciseness the topic is summarized in few terms; etc.
3.2. Argumentation using DeLP Over the last few years, argumentation systems have been gaining increasing importance in several areas of Artificial Intelligence, mainly as a vehicle for facilitating rationally justifiable decision making when handling incomplete and potentially inconsistent information [7]. Argumentation provides a sound model for dialectical reasoning, which underlies discussions or opinion confrontation in social networks.
o Coverage: The set of new suggested topics (N) must contain most of the topics considered to be relevant.
Rule-Based Argumentation Systems, such as Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP) [14] are increasingly being considered for applications in developing software engineering tools, constituting an important component of multi-agent systems for negotiation, problem solving, and for the fusion of data and knowledge. Such systems implement a dialectical reasoning process by determining whether a proposition follows from certain assumptions, analyzing whether some of those assumptions can be disproved by other assumptions in our premises. In this way, an argumentation system provides valuable help to analyze which assumptions from our knowledge base are really giving rise to inconsistency and which assumptions are harmless.
o Novelty: The set of new topics (N) must go beyond the information captured in the initial topic td. o Diversity: topics in N must be sufficiently diverse from each other. Using context-based search, given a set O of opinions provided by citizens via Twitter and a set of possible terms K on a topic of community discussion td, we can identify new topics associated with those opinions. Clearly, users might confront opinions, including positive or negative remarks within their tweets. Sentiment analysis techniques [11][12] allow to determine the attitude of a speaker (citizen) or a writer with respect to some topic or the overall contextual polarity of a document (e.g. positive, negative, neutral). As a final result, we will be able to identify different logical predicates associated with a user’s opinion, the topics involved, and the attitude of the speaker.
In DeLP we refer to a knowledgebase as a pair of sets (KS, KD), distinguishing strict and defeasible knowledge. Strict knowledge (KS) corresponds to the knowledge which is certain; typical elements in KS are statements or undisputable facts about the world (e.g. adopting the representation used in logic programming, implications of the form Q(x)←P(x)). The strict knowledge is consistent, i.e. no contradictory conclusions can be derived from it. Defeasible knowledge (KD) corresponds to that knowledge which is tentative, modelled through “rules with exceptions” (defeasible rules) of the form “if P then usually Q” (e.g., “if somebody is a citizen, it usually votes”). Such rules model our incomplete knowledge about the world, as they can have exceptions (e.g., a citizen may be travelling abroad without access to a voting place, or may not be willing to vote). Syntactically, a special symbol (⇐) is used to distinguish “defeasible” rules from logical implications.
As an example, consider the following piece of text d (extracted from http://www.conservapedia.com): ObamaCare, more formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," was passed by Congress on March 21, 2010, and signed into federal law by President Barack Obama on March 23. This law began the process to socialize the United States health care system. The centerpiece of ObamaCare is the individual mandate, a provision that makes it mandatory for every citizen to purchase private health insurance, which is unprecedented in American history.
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effectively use such information for decision making; and 3) developing customized information models providing targeted information to various categories of stakeholders requires having different “views” of the issues under analysis.
The underlying DeLP process is as follows. Given a particular query Q - e.g. assessing whether ObamaCare Programme is supported by citizens’ opinions – isSupported(ObamaCare), DeLP will automatically perform a backward chaining process to obtain a sequence of defeasible rules instantiations allowing to conclude Q. Such a sequence is called an argument supporting Q. Clearly, as contradictory information can be present in the defeasible knowledgebase, counter-arguments might arise (e.g. an argument supporting ~isSupported(ObamaCare). When two arguments A and B are in conflict, a preference criterion is used in DeLP to determine which argument should prevail. The argument that prevails will be called a defeater. The preference criterion to be applied (e.g. specificity [14]) can be defined in a modular way.
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research is funded by LACCIR (Latinamerican and Caribbean Collaborative ICT Research), Microsoft Research, CONACyT (Mexico) and Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) and PIP CONICET Projects 112-200801-02798 and 112-200901-00863.
6. REFERENCES [1] O’Reilly, T. Government as a Platform. Innovations, vol 6, no.1, pp 13-40, 2010. [2] DiMaio, A., Government 2.0: A Gartner Definition, 2009. http://blogs.gartner.com/andrea_dimaio/2009/11/13/governm ent-2-0-a-gartner-definition/, last retrieved 28 February 2012. [3] Bonson, E., Torres, L., Royo, S., and Flores, F., Local eGovernment 2.0: Social Media and Corporate Transparency in Municipalities, Government Information Quarterly, vol. 29, pp 123-132, 2012. [4] Government of Singapore, Government Social Media Directory, available at: http://www.socialmedia.gov.sg/Web/ Home/Default.aspx, last retrieved 15 April 2012. [5] Bertot, J.C, Jaeger, P.T, and Hansen, D., The Impact of Polices on Government Social Media Usage: Issues, Challenges, and Recommendations, Government Information Quarterly, vol. 29, pp 30-40, 2012. [6] Lorenzetti, C., Maguitman, A. A Semi-supervised Incremental Algorithm to Automatically Formulate Topical Queries. Information Science. Elsevier. 179 (12), 2009. [7] Simari, G., Rahwan, I. (eds), Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence, Springer Verlag, 2009. [8] Estévez, E., Chesñevar, C., Maguitman, A., Brena, R. DECIDE 2.0 – A Framework for Intelligent Processing of Citizens’ Opinion in Social Media. In Proc. dg.o 2012, Maryland, USA, pp.266-267, ACM Press, 2012. [9] Guo, L., Lease, M. Personalizing Local Search with Twitter. SIGIR 2011 Workshop on Enriching Information Retrieval (ENIR 2011).July 24–28, 2011, Beijing, China. Available at:
Note that the notion of defeat among arguments may lead to complex “cascade” situations: an argument A may be defeated by an argument B, which in turn may be defeated by an argument C, and so on. Besides, every argument involved may have on its turn more than one defeater. Argumentation systems allow us to determine when a given argument is considered as ultimately acceptable with respect to the knowledge we have available by means of a dialectical analysis, which takes the form of a tree-like structure called dialectical tree. The root of the tree is a given argument A supporting some claim, and children nodes for the root are those defeaters B1, B2, .. Bk for A. The process is repeated recursively on every defeater Bi, until all possible arguments have been considered. The tree leaves are arguments without defeaters. Some additional restrictions apply - e.g. the same argument cannot be used twice in a path, as that would be fallacious and would lead to infinite paths. In DECIDE 2.0 we expect to have a knowledge engineer with expertise in DeLP, who will be in charge (along with egovernment officials) of characterizing a knowledge base of strict and defeasible rules for assessing valuable aspects for policymaking oriented decisions. Through suitable visualization tools, the DeLP machinery will provide an automated dialectical analysis of arguments and counterarguments when facing a problematic situation (associated with a particular topic or context for decision making), helping government officials to make better and more informed decisions. It must be remarked that DeLPbased recommender systems have been already successfully formalized [15]. A particular deployment of DeLP for integrating sentiment analysis and recommendations has also been applied previously in a commercial software product for travelling recommendations [16]
http://select.cs.cmu.edu/meetings/enir2011/papers/guolease.pdf.
[10] Maguitman, A., Leake, D., Reichherzer, T., Suggesting novel but related topics: towards context-based support for knowledge model extension, Proc. of the 10th IUI Conf., San Diego, California, USA, January 2005. [11] Twitter Sentiment Corpus, available at: http://www. sananalytics.com/lab/twitter-sentiment/, retrieved April 2012. [12] Bing Liu. "Sentiment Analysis: A Multifaceted Problem." IEEE Intelligent Systems, 25(3), pp. 76-80, 2010. [13] Maguitman, A., Leake, D., Reichherzer, T., Menczer, F. Dynamic Extraction of Topic Descriptors and Discriminators: Towards Automatic Context-Based Topic Search. Proceedings of the 13th CIKM Conf.. ACM Press. Washington, DC, USA, November 2004 [14] García, A., Simari, G. Defeasible Logic Programming: An Argumentative Approach. Theory and Practice of Logic Programming 4(1-2): 95-138, 2004. [15] Chesñevar, C., Maguitman, A, Simari, G. Recommender Systems based on Argumentation, in "Emerging Artificial Intelligence Applications in Computer Engineering". Maglogiannis et al (eds). Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Vol. 160, pp. 53-70.. IOS Press, 2007.
4. BRIEF ROADMAP: CONCLUSIONS Research on the proposed framework will lead directly to improved coverage, scalability and context-awareness with respect to the current model of information delivery and retrieval in social networks. Governments can greatly benefit from the proposed solution in twofold - by having adequate mining techniques to retrieve valuable information provided by citizens on social media, and by targeting different announcements to the appropriate group of government stakeholders. In order to materialize the proposed solution, some important technical problems are to be solved, and constitute research questions of this work. Major challenges that we intend to address defining a roadmap for our future work include: 1) developing algorithms for integrating information - several users may post messages related to the same topic; hence accrual of information needs to be modeled properly; 2) implementing efficient models of trust and reputation propagation - users post information on social media whose reliability has to be assessed in order to
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[16] Galitsky, B., McKenna, E. Sentiment Extraction from Consumer Reviews for Providing Product Recommendations. US Patent Application US 2009/0282019 A1
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Preparing for Digital Curation Governance: Educating Stewards of Public Information Christopher A. Lee and Helen R. Tibbo School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina 216 Lenoir Drive, CB #3360 1-(919)-962-7024
callee,
[email protected] has been a dramatic push in many countries toward open access to government data, which will only be successful if appropriate data are retained and long-standing issues of data fragmentation can be addressed [6].
ABSTRACT We report results of research into curriculum development for dual degree programs and the development of a dual degree curriculum jointly undertaken by the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and School of Government (SOG). This IMLS-funded program provides training in public information stewardship to four cohorts of eighteen masters’ level students. The curriculum development rests upon previous curriculum development projects, examination of masters’ programs throughout the world, semi-structured interviews of public sector information experts, recommendations from an expert Advisory Board, and focus group responses from current and alumni project Fellows.
The public administration literature uses the term “governance” for the exercise of authority and control, in order to advance goals of the state. In contrast to “government,” which suggests established structures, governance is a continually evolving and interactive set of processes. The governance concept has spawned many associated terms within both the public and private sectors, including corporate governance, information technology governance, and data governance. Effective governance requires an understanding of stakeholder needs, existing policies, social norms, individual behaviors, incentive structures and characteristics of potential implementation mechanisms.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
“Digital curation governance” is an increasingly important arena of activity with associated requirements for professional education and engagement: ensuring the quality, integrity, discovery, access, and meaningful use of digital collections over time. Digital curation governance is a shared responsibility that requires extensive communication, collaboration and mutual learning. Those advancing the cause of digital curation governance must have skills and competencies to navigate the policy arena, manage projects, mobilize stakeholders and dig into the bits of digital collections.
J.1 [Computer Applications]: Administrative Data Processing – Government
General Terms Professional Governance
Development,
Digital
Curation,
Electronic
Keywords Continuing Education, Digital Information, Public Sector, Government
Many schools of information and library science have established curricula to prepare professionals to establish and administer new arrangements between information, technology and people. As these professionals move into higher levels of responsibility and authority, they engage not only in management but also in governance, which includes “specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use” of information and technology [14].
1. INTRODUCTION Curation of digital assets from all sectors of society provides fundamentally new challenges and opportunities. Nowhere is the need for stewardship of digital content greater than with government information. Government activities and services are now predominately performed using computer systems, and many interactions with government are now performed over the Internet. According to a recent study, 82% of internet users (61% of all American adults) “looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website” in the past year [7]. There
A common theme in the literatures on governance and digital curation has been the shared and distributed nature of the activities. Governance can be driven and shaped by many nongovernment actors, facilitated by changes in the geopolitical landscape [10] and information technologies [9]. Successful longterm stewardship of public information depends upon contributions and actions of individuals from various sectors. This will require “effective governance mechanisms…to aggregate the collective interest into an effective preservation strategy that ensures that the effort and cost of preservation are appropriately apportioned” [3]. Innovative and timely professional education will need to support new forms and features of governance.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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Students in the program earn dual MSIS/MPA or MSLS/MPA degrees, in order to prepare for careers in stewardship of digital information in the public sector. In 2011, IMLS funded a second project called Educating Stewards of the Public Information Infrastructure (ESOPI2).
2. NEW NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS Navigating the current environment increasingly requires the development and implementation of clear policies for data curation. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) includes among its top state CIO priorities for 2011: document/content/records/e-mail management; data and information management; data ownership in cloud computing; and data governance [11]. Supporting, documenting and evaluating government activities requires responsible stewardship of public digital information, which will involves coordinated efforts by a diversity of players. Professional education for stewards of public information is most effective if it can incorporate fundamental elements of both library and information science (LIS) and public administration curricula.
The ESOPI projects have developed educational and professional engagement opportunities. They fund two cohorts of eighteen graduate-level Fellows, who are pursuing dual degrees at SILS and SOG. The projects build on the work of two other IMLSfunded projects: the DigCCurr I & II (Digital Curation Curriculum) projects.
4. DUAL-DEGREE CURRICULUM The MSIS/MSLS and MPA dual degree program at UNC-CH is offered jointly by SILS and the SOG. It integrates policy development, issues of legal compliance, and knowledge of government structures and information with principles, values, methods and technologies of the information professions.
Many records services and archives have developed and advocated standards, policies and guidelines for public officials. The most common examples are email policies, metadata standards and recordkeeping system functional requirements. While these documents are valuable, they have often not been implemented widely and rarely carry enforcement mechanisms. Records professionals often have not integrated the documents into the larger arenas of policy and public administration in which they operate.
4.1 Master of Information/Library Science The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at UNCCH offers two masters degrees: Master of Science in Information Science (MSIS) and Master of Science in Library Science (MSLS). Each degree requires 48 semester hours, which students usually complete in four semesters (two academic years) of fulltime study. This includes 24 semester hours of required core courses and 24 semester hours of elective courses. Students must also complete a comprehensive exam and a master’s paper.
Based on early experiences with electronic records, two prominent themes in the literature are that records professionals must collaborate with and draw expertise from other professionals [8][12], and records professions must influence practices within the public sector, rather than focusing solely on the management of records already transferred to archival repositories [2].
The MSLS and MSIS core courses address five functional areas: organization, collection and retrieval, information-related behavior, design and evaluation, and management. The majority of the required courses are the same for both degrees. The differences are: MSLS students complete courses on Information Resources and Services (INLS 501) and Resource Selection and Evaluation (INLS 513), while MSIS students complete a course on Information Retrieval (INLS 509); and MSIS students take a class on Systems Analysis (INLS 582), which is not required for MSLS students.
As public digital information was becoming ubiquitous, there was significant parallel growth in “strength and individualization in graduate level archival education programs, a dramatic increase in full-time, tenure-track faculty, a growing number of course offerings often eclipsing the LIS offerings in an archival student’s course of study, and the nascent development of degrees acknowledging the archives and records field” [5]. Within the United States, “new archivists and career changers (from another career into archives) increasingly view the master’s degree as a necessary requirement” with a master of library and information science (MLIS) or an equivalent being “the degree of choice” [1].
4.2 Master of Public Administration
Unfortunately, these developments have not yet translated into widespread education on electronic records [1], nor have most records professionals had any formal education in issues of policy development, implementation or analysis. We believe it is important to develop clear tracks of graduate study that (1) attract students who already have an interest in government service, (2) bring government service opportunities to the attention of those already pursuing ARM careers, and (3) be built in programs that have a robust technology infrastructure.
The Master of Public Administration degree at the SOG is also designed to be completed in two years of full-time study. Students must complete at least 44 semester hours of course work. Core courses address: Public Administration Institutions and Values, Organization Theory, Public Service Leadership, Public Administration Analysis and Evaluation, Professional Communications, Human Resource Management, Public Financial Management, and Law for Public Administration. MPA students must also complete of a summer-long management internship in a position with meaningful administrative responsibilities, and a portfolio during the final semester of study. One component of the portfolio is a comprehensive oral exam.
3. EDUCATING STEWARDS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION In 2009, the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and School of Government (SOG) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) began a project called Educating Stewards of Public Information in the Twenty-First Century (ESOPI-21), funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The project has redesigned and enhanced a dual degree program that was earlier developed by SILS and the SOG.
4.3 MPA and MSIS/MSLS Dual Degree The UNC-CH MPA/MSIS and MPA/MSLS dual degree program is designed to prepare students to deal with information issues in a variety of public sector settings. This dual degree opportunity is designed as a three-year, full-time program, requiring at least 71
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are particularly relevant to their own jobs or disciplines. However, there were four main themes that emerged from the interview data about this issue. First, many interview participants discussed the importance of being able to understand and apply the definition of public record, whatever that might be within one’s particular jurisdiction. A second theme was balancing privacy or confidentiality on the one hand with public access on the other. A third theme was that of needing to understand the value of public information (what makes certain forms of information valuable and how to convey that importance to relevant stakeholders). Finally, interview responses suggested the need to differentiate the role of custodian as opposed to owner which may overlap but often reside in different individuals or organizations).
semester hours. Nine of the forty-four (44) semester hours required for the MPA may be counted from the SILS curriculum, and twelve of the forty-eight (48) semester hours required for the SILS degree may be counted from the MPA curriculum.
5. PRACTICAL ENGAGEMENT COMPONENT Project Fellows engage in coursework and simultaneously work for 15 hours per week (or 360 hours over the summer) at one of the projects’ participating partner institutions: the National Archives and Records Administration, University Archives at UNC-CH, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Town of Chapel Hill, NC Orange County’s CIO’s Office, NCLIVE, the H. W. Odum Institute of Research in Social Science, and UNC-CH Environmental Finance Center. The ESOPI projects have provided fellowships to eighteen students 2009-2014.
Many of the interview questions related to desired knowledge and competencies. Participants identified many different responses, which we have grouped into three broad categories: contextual background knowledge; technical and operational skills; and social skills and approach to work (see Table 1).
Tasks performed by the fellows have included the creation of various policies and policy-related guidance documents (on social media, email, and text messaging), authoring an article on eDiscovery software capabilities, revising and developing new online training modules, and advising government energy efficiency and water quality programs on possible financing options and institutional arrangements.
Table 1 - Desired Knowledge and Competencies • Contextual background knowledge - how government works, legal frameworks, accountability mechanisms, third party agreements and contracts, comprises in information lifecycle, balance between privacy and accessibility, planning and evaluation processes, project management and requirements definition and design, recordkeeping requirements, patterns of information use, environmental and budgetary drivers of workplace evolution • Technical and operational skills - integrating technological knowledge with understanding of government functions and processes; allocating storage and space; identifying and recommending access methods, preservation techniques and system designs; data quality and data management, metadata and access provision via interface design; identifying and explaining which information does or does not have longterm value; data and workflow modeling • Social skills and approach to work - verbal and written communication skills; teamwork skills; “thinking on one’s feet”; appreciating importance of speaking carefully and thoughtfully in the public sector; commitment to open government and public accountability; focus on creating efficiency and economy in processes; thinking at the enterprise level to act as change agents; capabilities to gain sponsorship, build coalitions, and get support by engaging in stakeholder identification and team building; ability to “manage people when you are not their boss”; curiosity and willingness to engage in ongoing education
6. RESEARCH METHODS ESOPI research has included investigation of functions and activities reflected in current research literature; professional association guidance on key curricular needs; and current offerings of graduate programs in public policy, information science, and archives and records management. The project has engaged in various research approaches, including a comprehensive literature and website review of information and library science and public administration masters-level programs, a series of interviews with Advisory Board Members, a series of interviews with public sector information experts, and a focus group study of current and alumni Fellows from the project. In 2010, we conducted two sets of semi-structured phone interviews with experts in public administration and public information management. The first eight interviews were with members of the ESOPI advisory board. These were followed by interviews with ten public-sector professionals who had presented their work at the 2010 Best Practices Exchange. In 2011, we conducted a focus group with four ESOPI fellows in their final semester of the dual degree program. The discussion revealed many program strengths, challenges and opportunities for improvement.
We also asked interview participants about current professional challenges. Responses fell into the following categories: limited funding for infrastructure (including storage); insufficient IT skills of responsible staff; outreach to stakeholders and making business case for investment in information stewardship; characteristics of data creation (large volume, highly distributed, often unstructured, inconsistent metadata conventions and quality); underdeveloped user interfaces and access mechanisms; and defining new job roles and categories.
7. FINDINGS Findings can be characterized in terms of factors related to “stewardship of public information,” desired knowledge and competencies, current professional challenges, and SILS/SOG dual degree integration.
7.1 Interviews When asked to explain what is meant by “stewardship of public information,” participants in our studies have provided a variety of answers, often emphasizing characteristics of stewardship that
Members of the ESOPI Advisory Board have also provided substantial input on how to approach the dual degree, what
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practical work experience contexts to pursue, and how to set the future direction of the dual degree.
acknowledge numerous contributions of Lori Richards to the two ESOPI projects and to various products reported in this paper.
7.2 Focus Group and Dual Degree Findings
10. REFERENCES
Our research has revealed numerous benefits and complementarities of completing both degrees. Interview participants and graduating ESOPI fellows have identified a variety of advantages, including complementary knowledge, skills and perspectives, as well as a wider range of employment opportunities.
[1] Bastian, J. and Yakel, E. 'Are We There Yet?' Professionalism and the Development of an Archival Core Curriculum in the United States. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 46, 2 (2005), 95-114. [2] Bearman, D. and Hedstrom, M. Reinventing Archives for Electronic Records: Alternative Service Delivery Options. In Electronic Records Management Program Strategies. Archives and Museum Informatics, Pittsburgh, PA, 1993, 8298.
We have also learned about cultural differences between the SOG and SILS. The SOG has a more regimented curriculum and smaller number of students, resulting in a more tight-knit cohort of students. The SOG also places heavy emphasis on preparing students to behave as public officials, with associated expectations for personal presentation and interaction. By contrast, SILS has a more individually-crafted curriculum and a larger set of students, resulting in less of a cohesive cohort. SILS courses often place great emphasis on scholarly knowledge and recent research literature.
[3] Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access. Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-Term Access to Digital Information. 2010. [4] Conference of Directors of National Libraries. Resolution on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage - Adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO at the 31st session. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris, 2001).
Feedback from ESOPI Fellows has revealed that the majority of content from the MSIS/MSLS and SOG degrees is complementary, rather than being repetitive. The dual degree has been designed to allow students to replace similar courses from one program to the other, e.g. the SOG course on Public Service Leadership (PUBA 711) can substitute for the SILS course on Management for Information Professionals (INLS 585). Courses in the two programs related to research methods, analysis and evaluation do have similarity in scope, but they address the topics quite differently given the nature of the two programs. SILS is considering changes to its research methods course sequence, and we may need to revisit this area of the dual degree.
[5] Cox, R. J., Yakel, E., Bastian, J. A., Wallace, D. and Marshall, J. Archival Education at the Millennium: The Status of Archival Education in North American Library and Information Science Schools. Library Quarterly, 71, 2 (2001), 141-194. [6] Doyle, C. D. Federal Electronic Information in the United States. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2010, 1823-1833. [7] Government Online. Pew Research Center, Washington, DC, 2010.
8. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Stewardship of public information is a fundamental responsibility of a democratic society. Providing appropriate access to public information promotes accountability, rights of citizens, effective administration of policy, and social memory. Public officials and public servants must increasingly make and enact decisions related to information systems; this requires an understanding of ways in which people, information and technology can best complement each other. Information professionals are also increasingly required to engage in policy discussions and processes; this requires an understanding of the history, principles, processes and methods of public administration.
[8] Hedstrom, M. Building Record-Keeping Systems: Archivists are Not Alone on the Wild Frontier. Archivaria, 44 (Fall 1997), 44-71.
Fundamental to ensuring successful e-governance is appropriate stewardship of the information that supports, documents and advances governance processes. This work includes its own flavor of governance, which we have called digital curation governance. Enabling it will require professionals with a range of skills and capabilities that may not have previously been considered part of public administration or the work of information professionals. We see great potential for advancing professional capabilities required at the frontier of public information stewardship.
[11] State CIO Priorities for 2011. National Association of State Chief Information Officers, October 19, 2010.
9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
[14] Weill, P. and Ross, J.W. IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2004.
[9] Marche, S. and McNiven, J.D. E-Government and EGovernance: The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 20, 1 (March 2003), 7486. [10] Rosenau, J.N. and Czenpiel, ed. Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.
[12] Walch, V.I. Maintaining State Records in an Era of Change: A National Challenge. Council of State Historical Records Coordinators, 1996. [13] Wallace, D. A. Survey of Archives and Records Management Graduate Students at Ten Universities in the United States and Canada. American Archivist, 63, 2 (Fall 2000), 284-300.
Research associated with this work has been supported by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (Grant Awards # RE05-09-0085-09 and # RE-05-11-0076). We would like to
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REGNET: Regulatory Information Management, Compliance and Analysis Kincho H. Law and Gloria Lau Engineering Informatics Group Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Stanford University Stanford, CA, 95014, USA
[email protected];
[email protected] However, the complexity, diversity, and volume of Federal and State regulations are detrimental to business and also hinder public understanding of government. As new issues arise, new regulations are promulgated; old regulations, however, are rarely removed. Regulations emanating from different agencies often overlap; because settings and objectives differ, they may be inconsistent. The scope of concern and the terminology used to express those concerns often differs among agencies. The distributed responsibilities also increase the complexity in dealing with regulations. Advances in information technology can potentially improve the situation by developing appropriate tools that can help facilitate the regulatory process, from rulemaking to compliance assistance.
ABSTRACT This paper describes a research effort that aims to develop information infrastructure and tools to facilitate access, compliance and analysis of government regulations. It is well recognized that the complexity, diversity, and volume of government regulations are detrimental to business and hinder public understanding of government. The burden of complying with regulations can fall disproportionately on small businesses since these businesses may not have the expertise or resources to keep track of the regulations and the requirements. The situation can potentially be improved by developing appropriate tools that can help facilitate the regulatory and compliance process. To illustrate, this paper discusses the applications of information technology for selected services related to regulations, such as compliance assistance, comparison of regulation from diverse sources, and e-rulemaking.
“Deciphering and complying with federal regulations is a legal and paperwork nightmare for many businesses. To keep pace, some hire consultants--sort of regulatory accountants--to keep track of the applicable health, safety, environmental and equalopportunity rules [1].” Regulations can be particularly burdensome on small businesses since they often do not have the resources to keep track of and to deal with these complicated regulations and the compliance procedures. This burden has been recognized and targeted by legislation through the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), which was amended by Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA). Agencies have a commitment to take into account the burden that regulations can place on small businesses. SBREFA requires that agencies to establish procedures, policies and guides to promote compliance with RFA. Agencies published, in accordance to SBREFA, Small Entity Compliance Guides that are written in plain language and elucidate the rights of small entities in enforcement actions (e.g. reducing civil penalties for violations). Furthermore, agencies, such as EPA, must provide Congress and the General Accounting Office with copies of all final rules and supporting analyses [2]. The act clearly recognizes the information problem facing business, particularly small businesses, in compliance with regulations. The Small Business Administration (SBA) (with participation from various federal agencies, including EPA, FDA, OSHA, etc.) launched an initiative to build a “one-stop” portal to assist small businesses to comply with regulations [3]. In recent years, governmental portals (such as the FirstGov.gov and USA.gov) have emerged to provide public to gain access to US government information and services on the web. Government regulations are available online (for examples, see www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/ and www.regulations.gov). Most of the online portals are designed primarily for displaying the regulatory information and often usable only by experienced users, who are familiar with the
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval – retrieval models, I.2.1 [Artificial Intelligence]: Applications and Expert Systems – law.
General Terms Algorithms, Management, Legal Aspects.
Keywords regulations; compliance assistance; relatedness analysis; erulemaking; information retrieval; e-government.
1. INTRODUCTION This paper provides an overview of the REGNET research project at Stanford University, which aims to gain insights on information infrastructure and tools that can facilitate access, compliance, analysis and use of government regulations. Regulations, in general, provide many social benefits, such as protecting our environment and improving public safety and accessibility. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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parallel tracks: (1) representing the regulations so that they can be accessed according to the needs of the users and the regulatory agencies, and (2) structuring the regulations so that they can be assessed automatically to support applications, such as compliance assistance, business processes and others. The research of REGNET investigates information service infrastructure that takes textual repositories as a base and develop methodologies and tools to locate, merge, compare, and analyze the information. This paper describes selected examples to illustrate some of the research issues investigated in the REGNET project.
subject and the portal. Some primitive searching capabilities may be provided; however, it remains difficult to locate crossreferenced information and to link the regulatory information with useful applications. Utilization of advanced information technologies and development of new and innovative high quality tools are crucial to move the regulatory information available and useful to the public. This paper describes a research effort investigating useful information services related to regulatory information. The paper is organized as follows: First, a brief literature review on applications of IT in laws and regulations is provided in the next section. Example applications are then presented to illustrate some of the research issues investigated in the REGNET project. The paper is concluded with a brief summary and discussion on current research.
3. A REGULATION-CENTRIC COMPLIANCE ASSISTANCE FRAMEWORK There has been a push for government agencies to put more emphasis on compliance assistance in lieu of enforcement to encourage companies to comply with regulations [13]. Towards this end, specialized programs, using expert system technologies for example, have been built to assist users in understanding regulations and fulfilling the requirements [14]. Among the limitations of many compliance assistance systems is that the tools do not directly map or link to the source documents that they represent. Our research adopts a regulation-centric approach to structuring a compliance assistance system around the regulation itself [15,16]. The rules together with the metadata about the regulations are directly embedded within the provisions they represent. This framework allows clear linkages to the regulation text. Because all encoded regulation rules are tied to particular regulation provisions, it is straightforward to map the compliance process to the provisions. The following briefly describes the structure of the document repository for the regulations and the regulation assistance system.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW Research on information science and technology applicable to regulations and laws has been active research area for decades. There has been a great deal of work done on building expert systems for law [4,5]. T. Bench-Capon provided a review on the applications of knowledge-based systems for legal applications, particularly the research and development efforts related to the Alvey DHSS Demonstrator project in U.K. [6]. The reference includes several hundreds of citations that appeared before 1990 which are related to logic and rule based approaches and their application in legal systems. Erdelez and O’Hare also provided an overview of the research and status of legal informatics in the 1990s [7]. Applications of case-based reasoning and information retrieval techniques have been proposed [5,8]. Current state on information technology and laws can also be found in a recent book edited by Lodder and Oskamp [9]. While legal knowledge representation and reasoning has been an active research topic, an integrated approach covering the management of regulations, efficient access and retrieval of regulatory and related documents and tools for compliance assistance is missing.
3.1 A. Document Repository The scope of our research and the document repository demonstrative development cover Title 40 of the US Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR): Protection of the Environment [17]. Besides the regulations themselves, the repository also includes supplementary and supportive documents that are important for the accurate interpretation of the federal regulation(s) to which they refer [18].1 For the research prototype, supplemental documents dealing with used oil, which include the preamble to the regulation text found in 40 CFR 261 and 279, administrative decisions, guidance documents, federal cases, letters from the general counsel and letters of interpretation from the issuing agency. The document repository is designed not
Policies and public interests concerning how IT can be appropriately and effectively applied to regulation management, rulemaking and compliance assistance have been actively discussed in workshops and public forums [10-12]. It has been recognized that information technologies, including information retrieval, text mining, knowledge representation, logic reasoning, natural language processing and many other areas, can find applications in legal informatics and further enhance the development of regulatory information systems. Issues such as what types of support are needed to go from the textual information of the regulations to the formal models that can support computations, to integrate and link diverse source of related documents to regulations, and to provide means to analyze and compare regulatory data, are fundamentally important to an effective regulatory information system. Practical applications require that the computer be able to interpret the situation or circumstances, scenarios and exceptional cases. Solutions that do emerge must support the treatment of multiple, heterogeneous regulations and related documents from diverse sources. Modeling regulations requires not only the understanding of individual content within a regulation provision, but also the relationships among and within provisions as well as mechanisms for linking applications, supplemental documents and related information with the regulations. Research in this field must proceed in two
1
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Supplementary and supportive documents are important part of regulatory information and are commonly considered in judiciary decisions. To illustrate, for the case “Beazer East, Inc. v. U.S. EPA, Region III” (963 F.2d 603, 3rd Cir. 1992), Beazer East, Inc., argued that the aeration basins were “tanks”, not “surface impoundments”, and were therefore not subject to RCRA’s groundwater-monitoring regulations. The court ruled in favor of EPA by considering the so called “Weddle memorandum”, which was issued to clarify the definitions of a “tank” and a “surface impoundment,” as an interpretive rule, which can be exempted from the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act.
Definitions Definitions Letter LetterofofInterpretation Interpretation
References References
Search SearchTerms/ Terms/Concepts Concepts
Search Searchby byConcept ConceptCategory Category
(a) Definition, definition and concept tags (b) Retrieving supporting document using concepts Figure 1: Metadata defined for regulations to understand. Adding the definition tags would allow a regulation viewing system to incorporate explicit definitions of terms and acronyms into its user interface (for example, by mousing over the term). Definitions can be extracted from the regulations (and other sources) and automatically attached to the terms identified by a parser.
only to facilitate displaying the provisions but also to support compliance assistance by making these important documents more accessible. A document-centric repository is designed to structure and to organize the regulation texts and metadata. Mirroring the standard structure of regulations, the XML-based framework includes tags for each level of regulation text – for example part, subpart, section or subsection. A parsing system using basic pattern matching according to the regulation structures is built to transform the regulations from Portable Document Format (PDF) or HTML into the XML-based document framework. In addition to the regulation texts, the XML-based structure is augmented with regulation-specific metadata, including concept tags, reference tags and definition tags (see Figure 1). o
o
o
3.2 Compliance Assistance Our research of a compliance assistance infrastructure builds upon the XML regulation framework and takes advantage of the regulation metadata described earlier. Besides the concept, reference and definition tags, logic and control processing metadata are added into the XML regulation framework. The logic metadata represents a rule or concept from a regulation. First Order Predicate logic sentences are used to represent the rules that must be followed for an entity to be in compliance with the regulations. Control processing metadata provides information about what provisions need to be checked for compliance. Metadata are also introduced to manage the interaction between the user and the system. Each logic or control processing metadata is associated with a specific regulation provision and is manually tagged with logic and control process metadata.
With existing text mining and information retrieval tools, concepts can be generated automatically or semiautomatically from the regulation texts. The concept tags are introduced so that links to related supporting documents in the document repository can be dynamically generated. This is useful because supporting documents and regulations may not directly reference each other even when they address the same topic. The automatic application of concept tags to the XML framework means that as new supporting documents are added to the document repository, regulations stored in the framework can automatically be linked to them via the terms that they share.
The compliance assistance system controls the process by taking advantage of the metadata information. First, the system parses the XML-structured regulation to extract the information necessary to run a compliance check. Only those logic rules and control processing metadata (based on the information from the reference tags) are acquired and dynamically loaded into the reasoning system. Logic reasoning tools, such as a theorem prover, can then be used to perform the logic checks [19].
Regulation provisions tend to include casual references to other provisions. Simple references (for example, “as stated in 40 CFR section 262.14(a)(2)”) and complex references (for example, “the requirements in subparts G through I of this part” as in part 265) exist. Manually translating such references would be time consuming. A parsing system was developed using a context-free grammar and a semantic representation/interpretation system that is capable of tagging regulation provisions with the list of references they contain. The references serve not only for retrieval of related provisions, but also provide a list of provisions that may require consideration during the compliance checking process.
One essential feature of the web-based compliance assistance system is that it helps guide the user through the regulations. Utilizing the metadata tagged with the regulations, the system can link to any referenced regulation provisions and display terms and definitions. Key conceptual phrases for the provision are displayed and linked, enabling instant access to repository documents related to the provision. When the system completes the check against the regulation provisions or detects a conflict between the user’s answers and the regulation, it displays a summary of the question-and-answer history as well as the results of the compliance check.
Regulation contain many domain-specific terms and acronyms that can make regulation text difficult for novices
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results produced by the system. Second, since users can see the regulations during compliance process they may be able to learn how the regulation works, and re-tracing the results easier for validation purposes. Third, with supplementary documents linking with the regulation, users can not only track how the system is proceeding with its analysis, but also enquire background information on the intents and issues of the regulations, and directly address the questions that the regulation is intended. Fourth, updating the system as the regulation changes would become easier, since with the mapping between the regulation and the rules in the system, what parts of the system need to be changed become more obvious when the regulation is altered. Last but not least, even though regulations are often ambiguous, contain many exceptions, and are not written in the
One can easily build a compliance system for specific application utilizing the regulation compliance assistance system and the repository as a back end. To illustrate, Figure 2 shows linking the provisions from the used oil regulations of the New York state to the federal regulations implemented in the prototype. The online guide is built for vehicle maintenance shops to check compliance with the used oil based on paper-based 2002 guide developed by the New York State department of Environmental Conservation Prevention Unit [20]. As noted in Figure 2(b), the provision references 40 CFR 279.23, which can be used as a link to the regulation assistance system, as shown in Figure 2(c). Figure 2(d) shows the compliance result which shows the questions, answers and the related provisions that contributed to the logical conclusion.
(a) Vehicle maintenance shop compliance guide
(c)
(b) Compliance guide for used oil
Compliance guides linking to RAS (d) Results displaying questions, answers and provision Figure 2: A regulation assistance system
form that is computationally sound, the regulation texts are often well structured and organized. By implementing the compliance assistance system according to the regulation structure can greatly facilitate modular development of a compliance assistance system.
There are many challenges in developing a compliance assistance system. The regulation-centric approach where the document repository includes not only the regulation documents but also the supplemental document as well as rules and computational logic embedded within the provisions can offer many advantages. First, because users can see the regulation text as they interact with the system, users may have better understanding of the
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Government regulations should ideally be understandable and retrievable with ease by practitioners as well as the general public. Requirements for a given situation could be different from different regulations. Multiple sources of regulations, for instance, from the Federal, State and local governments, amend, complement and potentially conflict with one another. Regulations from different agencies on similar and related issues could differ and inconsistent with their intents. There are many reference guides that are published independent of governing bodies, attempting to help the public to better understand and comply with the regulations. The regulations, amending provisions and interpretive manuals together create a massive volume of documents with potentially similar content but possible differences in format, terminology and context. An information infrastructure that can consolidate, compare and contrast different regulatory documents will greatly enhance and aid the understanding of regulations.
techniques, our framework exploits the structural organization of the regulatory documents, references and their distributions, and the “bounded” terminology set to further enhance comparative analysis of regulations [23-25]. To illustrate, we compare similarities between sections from different regulations. Our attempt is to identify the most related provisions between different regulations. The “relatedness” analysis framework takes into consideration the structure (section hierarchy, referencing) of the document and the features (concepts, synonyms, etc.) that are specific to the corpus. In our current approach, a base score for each pair of provisions is first computed by matching extracted features (including concept phrases, synonym information, measurements and units, etc..). The scoring scheme for each of the features essentially reflects how much resemblance can be inferred between the pair of sections based on that particular feature. The score is then refined by taking into account the hierarchical organization of regulations. Finally, we further refine the score by considering reference distribution, which takes into account that regulations are heavily self-referenced and crossreferenced.
Retrieving and interpreting particular US government regulations have become easier with the establishment of government portals to enhance transparency to the public. For example, business.gov (or sba.gov) is a centralized portal that contains information to guide business owners and entrepreneurs through government rules and regulations and to identify resources that can help them start, grow and succeed in business. Regulations.gov provides a forum for users to comment on existing and pending federal rules. Government portals now provide useful information to help citizens to access regulations and submit feedbacks. However, what is needed is an information framework that enables individuals and small businesses with limited resources to retrieve related regulations from multiple copies of governing regulations and related regulatory documents and then perform comparative analysis. The REGNET project seeks to establish such a framework and have initiated a number of studies focusing on US national and regional regulations and codes in the domains of environmental and accessibility standards.
Figure 3 shows an example that reveals the similarity (almost identical texts) discovered between sections from Parts 141-143 of 40 CFR and Division 4 of 22 CCR on regulations related to drinking water [17,26]. It is not uncommon that one agency directly adopts provisions issued by another agency. However, subtle differences exist and can have significant effects to the public. As an example, Figure 4 shows the barium requirements for drinking water by both the US EPA and the California DHS [17,26]. While the two provisions contain identical texts (except for the agencies), a careful reader might also note that the EPA and the California DHS do have different barium requirements – the EPA requires 2 parts per million while the California DHS sets the requirement at 1 part per million. This example also illustrates the importance of domain knowledge, where a measurement comparison would reveal that these two provisions are not identical, even though the wordings are almost the same. Another interesting application for comparison analysis is to locate similar provisions from different states [27].
4.1 Relatedness Analysis of Regulatory Documents
In developing a regulation information management (RIM) system that would allow searching, retrieving and comparing regulations, domain knowledge plays a very important role in understanding regulations and the relationships between them. For instance, different regulations use different chemical acronyms, such as TTHM or HAA (used in 40CFR) and “total trihalomethanes” or “haloacetic acids” (appeared in 22CCR). Besides typical text mining and information retrieval methodologies, we believe a knowledge driven approach, combining with similar analysis, is a powerful way to develop a RIM system. In particular, distinct knowledge sources or regulations do not have to be made completely consistent, only the terms and the concepts that articulate their application connections are involved. Ontological information (terms, features and relationships) commonly used by industry experts can be important to search and compare regulations for specific industry sectors and regulatory domains [28,29].
4. COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF REGULATORY INFORMATION
Text document comparison, in particular similarity analysis between documents, has been an active research area in Information Retrieval [21,22]. Regulatory documents differ from generic text documents in that sections are organized hierarchically and they are heavily cross referenced. As noted earlier, a wide variety of meaningful concepts can be extracted and categorized using text mining and information retrieval tools. However, terminologies used in the regulations for a specific application, such as hazardous wastes, are better defined than free form text documents. On the other hand, common sense or dictionary knowledge may not substitute domain knowledge; “lift” and “elevator”, for example, are synonymic terms in normal English usage, but each have specific meanings in accessibility regulations. In addition to traditional information retrieval
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Figure 3: Comparison of similar sections in 40CFR [17] and 22CCR [26] on drinking water regulations 40.cfr.141.32.e.16 Barium The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets drinking water standards and has determined that barium is a health concern at certain levels of exposure. . . .In humans, EPA believes that effects from barium on blood pressure should not occur below 2 parts per million (ppm) in drinking water. EPA has set the drinking water standard for barium at 2 parts per million (ppm) to protect against the risk of these adverse health effects. Drinking water that meets the EPA standard is associated with little to none of this risk and is considered safe with respect to barium.
22.ccr.64468.1(c) Barium The California Department of Health Services (DHS) sets drinking water standards and has determined that barium is a health concern at certain levels of exposure. . . In humans, DHS believes that effects from barium on blood pressure should not occur below 2 parts per million (ppm) in drinking water. DHS has set the drinking water standard for barium at 1 part per million (ppm) to protect against the risk of these adverse health effects. Drinking water that meets the DHS standard is associated with little to none of this risk and is considered safe with respect to barium.
Figure 4: Comparison of drinking water standards for barium between US EPA [17] and CA DHS [26] making process, government agencies are required to inform the public about the drafted rules and to solicit comments and reviews. E-rulemaking redefines the process of rule drafting and commenting by utilizing electronic media, such as the Internet. For example, email has become a popular communication channel for the public to submit comments on proposed rules.
4.2 Comparing Drafted Regulations with Public Comments The making of government regulations involves communication between the issuing agency and the public. During the rule-
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ADAAG rights-of-way draft 1105.4.1 Length Where signal timing is inadequate for full crossing of all traffic lanes or where the crossing is not signalized, … Public comment Deborah Wood, October 29, 2002 … This often means walk lights that are so short in duration that by the time a person who is blind realizes they have the light, … (b) Related draft rule and comment 1105.4
[6]
ADAAG rights-of-way draft No relevant section identified Public Comment Donna Ring, September 6, 2002 If you become blind, no amount of electronics on your body or in the environment will make you safe and give back to you your freedom of movement. You have to learn modern blindness skills from a good teacher. …
Content of Section 1105.4
6 Related Public Comments
(a) Comparison of drafted rules with public comments
(c) Comment not related to drafted rules
Figure 5: Application of relatedness analysis for e-rulemaking The process of e-rulemaking with participation from the public involves sorting through and organizing a massive volume of electronically submitted comments. We extended the related analysis framework to compare drafted regulations with associated public comments [23,30,31]. To locate related materials, we use regulation structures and features as well as certain characteristics of the drafted rules to add knowledge to the comparison. In particular, most drafted rules are domain-specific, focusing on a narrowly-defined issue or area of interest. The relatedness analysis takes advantage of the added knowledge to facilitate the comparison between the drafted rules and public comments.
the internet, are used by the public to comment on proposed rules and regulations.
5. SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION This paper has demonstrated, in a small way, how information technology can potentially be used effectively to facilitate regulatory information management and compliance assistance. The complexity and scale of regulations pose many challenges to information technology research. In REGNET we have investigated fundamental issues related to government regulations, their features, characteristics and properties that need to be addressed. In this paper, we have presented a regulatory compliance assistance framework that not only focuses on translating requirements into computational rules but also takes into consideration the organization of regulations as well as the supplementary information that are needed to enable better understanding and interpretation of the regulations. We have presented examples to illustrate how advanced IT development can be applied to facilitate retrieval of regulatory information and to compare related regulations issued by different agencies and organizations. The relatedness analysis methodology has been shown to be potentially useful for supporting the e-rulemaking process.
To illustrate, we applied the prototype system to a 15-page drafted chapter for the ADAAG titled, “Guidelines for Accessible Public Right of Way,” which has received over 1400 public comments [32,33]. Figure 5 shows the results indicating the public comments that are related to a specific drafted rule as well as an example that is not relevant to the proposed rules. Figure 5(b) shows a typical pair consisting of drafted section and its identified related comment. The draft discusses situations that “signal timing is inadequate for full crossing of traffic lanes,” while the commenter wrote “walk lights that are so short in duration”. The result shows the importance of a full content comparison between provisions and comments is necessary instead of just simple keyword matching. Figure 5(c) shows a different type of comment screening that a particular piece of public comment is not latched with any drafted section. The commenter suggests how a visually impaired person should practice blindness skills as opposed to the drafted rule which concerns with installing electronic devices on streets to help.
Ongoing research in REGNET continues to explore how information technology can facilitate better understanding of regulations and public policies. For instance, regulations are traditionally issued and managed by isolated individual state and federal agencies. Coordination among different agencies about what issues agencies need to collaborate and in what capacity is not always easy. As part of the REGNET effort, Ekstrom has led the development of a tool to gauge agency involvement in a specific topic related to marine ecosystem management [34,35]. Utilizing information retrieval techniques and text analysis, the tool first maps out agency’s involvement in a particular topic
Although this experiment is performed on regulations with a relative small set of comments, the potential of such knowledgedriven similarity analysis approach could be quite useful for the erulemaking process, where electronic media, such as emails and
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[5] J. Zeleznikow and D. Hunter, Building Intelligent Legal Information Systems: Representation and Reasoning in Law, Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1994.
based on the laws and regulations issued by an agency, and then analyze possible areas of overlaps and disparities among the regulations by the different agencies on the topic. The tool has the potential to identify objectively what agencies are involved in the management of a topic across sectors and levels of government. In a collaborative effort with Prof. Jay Kesan at University of Illinois, our research has been extended to deal with laws and regulations related to intellectual properties (IP) [36,37]. Information pertaining to IP includes not only laws and regulations, but also patents, court cases, scientific literature, and other related data. Our research is to develop a computational framework that can assist in retrieving related information about a specific topic across these diverse domains, with the objective to mitigate and help solve many of the complicated issues involved in patent filings and compliance.
[6] T. Bench-Capon, Knowledge Based Systems and Legal Applications, The APIC Series 36, Academic Press, 1991. [7] S. Erdelez and S. O’Hare, “Legal informatics: application of information technology in law,” in Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, M. E. Williams(ed.), ASIS, Vol. 32, 1997. [8] P. Wahlgren, Automation of Legal Reasoning, Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1992. [9] A. R. Lodder and A. Oskamp (ed.), Information Technology and Lawyers: Advanced Technology in the Legal Domain, from Challenges to Daily Routine, Springer, 2006.
While our research has demonstrated the potential use of information science and technology in government regulation domain, much research and development efforts remain. Among the challenges include interpretation and validation of regulations, which are often ambiguous in nature. Translating regulations in computable rules, even manually, can be difficult. Automated translations would require the development of formal models for rule making and rule writing. Last but not least, technology transfer mechanisms are needed to bridge the gap between fundamental research demonstration and the development of tools ready for deployment.
[10] C. Coglianese, “E-rulemaking: information technology and regulatory process,” Faculty Research Working Paper Series, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Report No. RWP 04-002, 2004. [11] J.E. Fontane, “Prospects for improving the regulatory process using E-rulemaking,” Communications of the ACM, 46(1):63-64, 2003. [12] C. Coglianese, H. Kilmartin and E. Mendelson, “Transparency and public participation in the federal rulemaking P\process: recommendations for the new administration,” George Washington Law Review, 77:924972, 2009.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research has been partially supported by the National Science Foundation (Contract Numbers EIA-9983368, EIA-0085998, and IIS-0811460). The authors would like to thank Professor Gio Wiederhold of Stanford University for his mentorship in the REGNET project. The authors would also like to thank Larry Brandt and Valerie Gregg (former program directors of NSF’s Digital Government Program), and Sylvia Spengler, (program director of NSF’s Information Integration and Informatics program) for their encouragement and supports. The contributions by the former and current research students of the Engineering Informatics Group at Stanford University are gratefully acknowledged. In particular, the regulation assistance system (RAS) was implemented by Dr. Shawn Kerrigan under the supervision of the first author. Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the National Science Foundation and their collaborators.
[13] J.M. Van Wert, “Business compliance one-stop: creating a single face of government,” presented at the National Compliance Assistance Providers Forum, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality San Antonio, TX. 2002. [14] A. Botkin, “Wizards, advisors and websites, Oh My! interactive electronic tools for compliance assistance,” presented at the National Compliance Assistance Providers Forum, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, San Antonio, TX , 2002. [15] S. Kerrigan, A Software Infrastructure for Regulatory Information Management and Compliance Assistance, Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, August 2003. [16] S. Kerrigan and K.H. Law, “A regulation-centric, logic-based compliance assistance framework,” Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE, 19(1):1-15, 2005.
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[17] Code of Federal Regulation, Title 40: Protection of Environment, (Part 260-265: Hazardous Waste Management System) 2003.
[2] M. Romine, “Politics, the environment, and regulatory reform at the Environmental Protection Agency,” Environmental Lawyer, September 1999.
[18] F.A. Heffron and N. McFeeley, The Administrative Regulatory Process, Longman, 1983.
[3] Business Compliance One Stop Workshop, Small Business Administration, Queenstown, MD, July 24-26th, 2002.
[19] W.W. McCune, Otter 3.0 Reference Manual and Guide, ANL-94/6, Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL., 1993
[4] P. Wahlgren, Automation of Legal Reasoning, Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1992.
[20] New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Pollution Prevention Unit., Environmental Compliance And
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[29] C. P. Cheng, G. T. Lau, K. H. Law, J. Pan, and A. Jones, "Regulation retrieval using industry specific taxonomies," Artificial Intelligence and Law, 16(3): 277-303, 2008.
Pollution Prevention Guide for Vehicle Maintenance Shops, 2002. [21] R. Baeza-Yates and B. Ribeiro-Neto, Modern Information Retrieval ACM Press, 1999.
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[22] C.D. Manning, P. Raghavan and H. Schutze, H., Introduction to Information Retrieval, Cambridge University Press, 2008. [23] G. T. Lau. A Comparative Analysis Framework for SemiStructured Documents, with Applications to Government Regulations, Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, August 2004.
[31] G. T. Lau and K. H. Law. "A prototype study on electronicrulemaking," Encyclopedia of Digital Government, May 2006. [32] ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities, The Access Board, 1998.
[24] G. T. Lau, K. H. Law, and G. Wiederhold. "A relatedness analysis of government regulations using domain knowledge and structural organization," Information Retrieval, 9:657680, 2006.
[33] Draft Guidelines for Accessible Public Rights-of-Way, US Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, Washington, DC, 2002. [34] J. Ekstrom, G. Lau, C.P. Cheng, D. Spiteri, and K. Law, "Gauging agency involvement in environmental management using text analysis of laws and regulations," I/S – A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, 6(2):189-219, 2010.
[25] G. T. Lau, K. H. Law, and G. Wiederhold. "Comparative analysis of government regulations using structural and domain information," IEEE Computer, 38(12):70-76, 2005. [26] California Code of Regulations, Title 22 (Social Security), Division 4.5, Chapter 12, Standards Applicable to Generators of Hazardous Waste, Barclays (Publisher), 1997.
[35] J. Ekstrom, G. Lau, D. Spiteri, J.C.P. Cheng, and K. Law, "MINOE: a software to evaluate ocean management in the context of ecosystems,” Coastal Management, 38: 5, 457473, 2010.
[27] G. T. Lau, H. Wang, and K. H. Law. "Locating Related Regulations Using a Comparative Analysis Approach," Proceedings of the National Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o2006), San Diego, CA, May 2124, 2006.
[36] S. Taduri, H. Yu, J.P. Kesan, G.T. Lau, and K.H. Law, “Developing a comprehensive patent related information retrieval tool,” Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, (in press).
[28] C. P. Cheng, J. Pan, G. T. Lau, K. H. Law, and A. Jones, "Relating Taxonomies with Regulations," Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o2008), Montreal, Canada, May 18-21, 2008.
[37] H. Yu, S. Taduri, J.P. Kesan, G.T. Lau, and K.H. Law, “Retrieving information across multiple related domains based on user query and feedback: application to patent laws and regulations,” 4th International Conference on Electronic Governance, Beijing, China, 2010.
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Session 7 Policies 2
From Information-Poor to Information-Rich: Bridging Regional Economic Disparities in Nigeria through eGovernance Sanjo Faniran
Kayode Olaniyan
International Cooperation Department Plot 421 Constitution Avenue, Central Business District, Abuja, Nigeria +2348034264007
National Bureau of Statistics Plot 721 Constitution Avenue, Central Business District, Abuja, Nigeria +2348038499670
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Management, Economics
Most of the recent economic advancement experienced globally has been driven largely by information and communication technologies (ICTs) - from Kigali to Kuala Lumpur, Nairobi to New Delhi - bringing significant changes in development of the human society through technological innovation and information dissemination. The pervasive use of digital technologies has, no doubt, improved people’s day–to–day life in different ways and to varying extents resulting in “economically-rich” and “economically-poor” regions of the world, and at the same time, “information-rich” and “information-poor” societies. This broadly reflects the differing levels of access and utilization of information and communication technologies, a phenomenon referred to as the digital divide. This paper examines the coincidence between economic disparities and ICT use, both between and within countries. We argue that just as the adoption of focused strategies in ICTs by developing countries is bridging the global digital divide between countries and fast-tracking economic development in many of today’s emerging economies, the prioritization, adaptation and rapid diffusion of ICTs through e-governance could also help reduce economic disparities between sub-national entities and regions within countries. We review case studies from India and South Africa, and compare with Nigeria which aspires to become a top 20 economy by 2020. By examining the results of the 2010/11 surveys on ICT access and income-poverty distribution across the country, the paper highlights the recent efforts by sub-national administrations in Nigeria to advance e-government, presenting key opportunities to bridge the growing economic disparities between regions in Nigeria.
Keywords Digital Divide, Economic Development, Poverty, ICT Use, Nigeria
1. INTRODUCTION: THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC DISPARITIES A greater number of countries, and their citizens, are gaining both knowledge of and skills at using modern ICTs, connecting to the internet, and interacting using multiple media channels at a rapidly increasing rate. According to the 2012 UN E-Government Survey, the world average on the e-government index increased by 10 percent over the last two years led by Europe and the Americas [6]. One important point that the survey notes, however, is that the digital divide – the differing levels of access and usage of ICTs between the developed and the developing world remains a phenomenon of growing, rather than diminishing, importance. This is despite the array of cutting-edge technologies and evolution of social media and networking tools, which have re-defined inter-human relationships, government and governance in many parts of the world. According to a 2006 report, a person living in a high-income country is over 22 times more likely to be an Internet user than someone in a low -income country. Secure Internet servers, a rough indicator of electronic commerce, are over 100 times more common in high-income countries than in low-income countries. In spite of their rapid growth in developing nations, mobile phones are 29 times more prevalent in highincome countries, and mainline penetration is over 21 times that of low-income countries [5].
Categories and Subject Descriptors
The usage to which many citizens put the internet, mobile phones and other digital devices to spread information and record (and in some cases influence) recent events, from Japan’s tsunami to the different dimensions of the Arab Spring, demonstrate how far the developing world has come, and how fast it is catching up with the rest of the world. But despite the achievements towards bridging the digital divide, and improving its positive impacts on the society, there are still glaring regional disparities which are both the causes and consequences of the economic well-being of the developed world.
J.4 [Computer Applications]: Social and Behavioral Sciences – Economics
General Terms Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
With a history of high levels of functional education and widespread telephony infrastructure, Europe and the Americas as a whole remain far ahead of the rest of the world regions [6].
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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Asia, which is home to around three-fifths of the world citizens, has only around 70 per cent of the level of e-government in Europe while the level of services in Africa barely squares off at 40 per cent of those in Europe. Within any region, countries at the lower percentile of e-development do not fare well either. This is especially true of the lower income countries in both Asia and Africa. The 10 least e-ready countries in Asia have barely 37 per cent of the level of e-government in Europe while in Africa the figure is little more than 20 per cent [6]. Figure 1 below shows global trends over the last decade in regional progress towards egovernment.
2.
METHODOLOGY
A review of two country cases studies – India and South Africa – is undertaken to examine what the experience of countries with similar large populations and economic conditions have been with respect to bridging the digital divide. This is supported by examining the latest available official data on ICT use and poverty distribution at sub-national level for the country to determine whether a relationship exists between access to ICTs and economic development. For this purpose, access to ICTs is measured by the percentage of persons who own or have access to personal computers, mobile phones and internet access. Economic development, on the other hand, is indicated by the relative poverty (percentage) rate. Given the strong correlation between access to internet, and access to personal computers (estimated at 0.83, or 83%), and the fact that the data series for the latter is more complete than the former “access to personal computers” is selected as the better indicator of ICT access, and hence the measure of the digital divide in Nigeria. Data is obtained from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) General Household Survey (2010/11) which produced data on ICT use in Nigeria, as well as the Harmonised Nigeria Living Standard Survey (2009/10) which produced data on relative poverty.
3.
COMPARATIVE COUNTRY CASE STUDIES
In this section, we discuss the cases of India and South Africa: two countries that have undertaken considerable efforts to bridge the digital divide among sub-national entities and regions in their domains. India’s global leadership in the IT industry is wellacknowledged1. The second most populous nation in the world, India ranked 125th on the UN E-Government Development Index (EGDI) in 2012. India is one of the countries where telecommunication development activities have gained momentum in the past decade. Efforts have been made from both governmental and non-governmental platforms to enhance telecommunication infrastructure, provide modern technologies to serve all segments of India’s culturally-diverse society, and to transform the country into a IT powerhouse. However, the digital divide still remains significant between rural and urban India [7], [8]. While the major cities are even at par with some developed countries, rural areas in states like Eastern Bihar and Orissa are worse off than several least-developed countries. With respect to teledensity2 for example, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) while States like Delhi and Chennai have more phones than people (with >100% teledensity rate) the teledensity in States like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are as low as 4.18% and 3.49% respectively. India has around half a million software developers and is second only to the US, but 300,000 Indian villages do not have a phone connection, 26 per cent of the population lies below the poverty line and 35 per cent illiterate. There are only 5 PCs per 1000 people, 9 mobile lines per 1000 and 37 fixed lines per 1000 people in India, which is extremely low when compared to China.
Figure 1: Advances in regional e-government development (Source: UN E-Government Survey, 2012) However, this scenario is not entirely hopeless. Within the last decade in particular, many developing countries especially in Africa and Asia, have increased their web presence, clearly utilizing the opportunity to leapfrog the development cycle through innovative adoption and deployment of ICTs. In Eastern Africa, for example, mobile money transfer has taken strong roots in Kenya and Uganda, and rapidly spreading across the continent [1]. The effects of these technologies on socio-economic development, gender empowerment, increased schooling rates and rising income levels have been the subject of many recent economic literature. In view of the important role that ICTs play in bridging the digital divide between countries and regions of the world, can the deployment of ICTs also bridge the digital divide within countries to the same extent thereby reducing economic disparities within the country? This paper addresses this question by examining the case of Nigeria, a West African nation, which aspires to become a top 20 economy by 2020. The telecommunications industry remains the fastest-growing sector in the country, recording 34.38% growth in 2010 and 34.76% in 2011, rapidly transforming the business, economic and governance landscape across the country. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: in section 2, a brief review of the methodology employed is presented, while section 3 discusses the country experiences of India and South Africa as case studies. In section 4, the Nigerian case is explored more in-depth with respect to ICT access and the nature of economic disparities in the country. Section 5 highlights some opportunities for e-governance to reduce the disparities, while key challenges to realizing this are presented in section 6. Section 7 concludes the paper.
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1
This section relies on [4]
2
Number of landline telephones in use per 100 individuals living in an area.
To address the divide, specific government initiatives taken include the CARD project for land administration in Andhra Pradesh; the Bhoomi project in Karnataka covering over 6 million farmers and as many records of land ownership; Sourkaryan project which provides rural cyber hubs in Andhra Pradesh; the Gyandoot project in Madya Pradesh which facilitates access to information on crops, weather and markets; and the FRIENDS project in Kerala for tax and utility payments. These e-governance initiatives are a clear demonstration of improving rural infrastructure and information access thus bridging the rural-urban digital divide in India.
include mostly the Northern States of Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Bauchi and Adamawa. Table 1. Total access to ICTs and relative poverty among States in Nigeria Phones State (%)
Internet access (%)
Relative poverty (%)
Kano 36.2 0.4 0.5 72.3 Kebbi 65.0 0.5 0.3 80.5 Zamfara 36.1 0.6 0.5 80.2 Borno 54.1 0.7 N/A 61.1 Sokoto 33.1 0.8 0.3 86.4 Bauchi 42.8 1.1 0.5 83.7 Katsina 39.7 1.3 1.3 82.0 Ebonyi 82.0 1.5 0.8 80.4 Kaduna 54.8 1.9 0.5 73.0 Bayelsa 64.0 2.0 2.0 57.9 Taraba 33.1 2.1 1.7 76.3 Imo 81.9 2.5 2.3 57.3 Benue 55.0 2.6 1.7 74.1 Abia 70.6 2.9 2.6 63.4 Ondo 75.0 3.0 2.1 57.0 Enugu 71.2 3.1 4.0 72.1 Yobe 51.8 3.3 3.0 79.6 Ekiti 77.9 3.6 2.2 59.1 Gombe 62.3 3.7 1.1 79.8 Adamawa 46.5 3.7 1.8 80.7 Nasarawa 74.8 4.1 4.2 71.7 Plateau 67.2 4.5 3.6 79.7 Jigawa 75.4 4.6 2.0 79.0 Kwara 78.0 4.6 2.7 74.3 Akwa Ibom 68.1 4.7 1.5 62.8 Niger 86.2 4.7 4.4 43.6 Delta 76.8 5.2 3.4 70.1 Oyo 81.5 6.0 4.3 60.7 Cross River 54.3 6.3 3.3 59.7 Ogun 87.1 6.4 4.7 69.0 Edo 78.5 6.9 5.0 72.5 Anambra 95.1 8.6 3.4 68.0 Rivers 75.8 9.0 10.8 58.6 Osun 91.9 10.0 8.5 47.5 Lagos 85.6 15.8 27.0 59.2 FCT Abuja 71.8 15.9 14.1 59.9 Kogi 87.6 17.4 8.7 73.5 National 63.9 4.5 3.6 69.0 Sources: Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics General Household Survey, 2010/11, Nigeria Poverty Profile, 2009/10. A coloured row indicates a Southern State, otherwise a Northern State.
Africa’s largest economy today, South Africa ranks third among African countries on the 2012 EGDI3. There are 9 provinces and each has its own provincial legislature and Provincial Administration with various departments responsible for various aspects of service delivery. Provincial departments are key agencies of service delivery. Nevertheless, there are infrastructurally-disadvantaged areas, especially rural areas, with limited access to electricity and telephone lines. In summary, both case studies attest to the existence of withincountry digital divide even in developing countries, just as the global digital divide exists between the developed and developing worlds. In the next section, we discuss the Nigerian experience with respect to the nature of the digital divide and its interactions with the level of economic disparities across the country.
4. ICT ACCESS AND ECONOMIC DISPARITIES IN NIGERIA Nigeria, with population of about 160million in 2012 ranked 162nd on the UN E-government development index (2012) and is recognised among highly-populated (larger than 100 million) nations that made a special effort to improve service delivery to large swathes of their populations despite the challenges they face [6]. Africa’s largest country by population, Nigeria has 36 (subnational) States split almost equally into Northern and Southern Nigeria. Development indicators have historically pointed to better outcomes for the southern part of the country than the northern part. Nevertheless, it may be useful to add a note of caution that the evidence here does not warrant any conclusions regarding the direction of causation. However, the evidence does suggest a possible relationship between access to ICT and measure of poverty.The telecommunications industry has remained the fastest growing sector in the country, generating hundreds of thousands of jobs, directly and indirectly, and changing business processes and governance, while linking up new areas to centres of economic activity. According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), between February 2011 and February 2012, the number of active mobile phone lines increased by 10million to just over 92 million lines. Such has been the phenomenal growth in Nigeria’s mobile telephone market. Mobile phones represent the device with the highest total access rate, with nearly 64% of the population having access to mobile phones, according to data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics. As shown in Table 1, Anambra, Osun, Kogi, Ogun, Niger and Lagos (each with more than 85% total access levels) have the highest percentages of population with mobile phone access, while States with less than 50% access to mobile phones
3
Personal Computers (%)
Further analysis of table 1 indicates that in terms of personal computer access Kogi, FCT, Lagos, Osun and Rivers have the highest rates of access to PCs, while Kano, Kebbi, Zamfara, Borno and Sokoto have the least. Internet access rates suggest the same trends as access to PCs. These depict, although not absolutely, the disparity between the Northern and Southern regions of the country: while the southern states have a generally higher access rate to ICTs, the Northern States have generally
This section draws heavily from [3]
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lower access rates. In terms of relative poverty however, Northern States have a generally higher poverty level. governance platforms provide information that may be expensive to obtain privately such as weather forecasts, educational services, business support opportunities or agricultural markets information and prices. By creating such platforms of information exchange, economic activity is stimulated via private entrepreneurship, promoting better production, encouraging trade and ultimately impacting also on socio-economic disparities among States or regions.
6. CONCLUSION As Nigeria aspires towards becoming one of the largest economies in the world by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the year 2020, the challenges to adopting and promoting egovernance to bridge the digital divide and boost rapid economic integration need to be overcome. And they are not insurmountable; but they require political will, effective prioritization and sufficient financial commitment.
Figure 2: Scatter diagram showing the relationship between access to personal computers and relative poverty in Nigeria (Source: computed by authors)
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank the Hon. Minister/Deputy Chairman, National Planning Commission, Dr. S.U. Usman, for his inspirational leadership and support for this project. Special thanks also go to the Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale for his unending encouragement. We also wish to thank Mr. B.O. Akpanyung, Mr. C.E. Ezeilo, Alhaji Idris and Mr. Yukubu, all of National Planning Commission for their technical inputs and insightful comments on the paper.
The gap in PC access rates in Nigeria suggests that economic disparities also exist between these States in Nigeria, as reflected in the differing levels of poverty. This point is further clearly seen in Figure 2, which shows a negative relationship between access to personal computers (as a measure of ICT access) and level of poverty. It can be observed that States with lower levels of poverty have higher ICT access rates, while states with higher poverty levels have lower ICT access rates. Overall, many states in Nigeria have high poverty levels, hence the observations (dots) in Figure 2 appear clustered toward the upper left corner of the chart. Nevertheless, the downward sloping line shows clearly the inverse relationship between ICT access rates and economic development. Therefore, if ICTs have the potential to lower poverty rates, as seen in the case of the Southern states, it may be suggested that increasing ICT access rates for the Northern states could potentially lower poverty rates so as to reduce the socioeconomic disparities among states in Nigeria. E-governance presents a viable opportunity to increase ICT access rates in the country. This is discussed in the next section.
8. REFERENCES [1] Demombynes, G. and A. Thegeya. (2012). Kenya’s mobile revolution and the promise of mobile savings,Policy Research Working Paper 5988, the World Bank 2012 [2] Johnson, O. (2012) “The ICT industry in Nigeria: A roadmap”, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology Abuja, Nigeria (www.fmct.gov.ng) [3] Langmia, K.(2005). The role of ICT in the economic development of Africa: The case of South Africa, International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology, (IJEDICT), Vol. 2, Issue 4, pp. 144-156.
5. OPPORTUNITIES FOR EGOVERNANCE
[4] Shah, M. (2007). E-governance in India: Dream or reality? International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT), Vol. 3, Issue 2, pp. 125-137.
E-government is about visibility and transparency of government in the delivery of public services to the citizens, a deliberate and conscious policy to improve access to information by citizens and to deliver public services efficiently. In recognition of the critical role that e-governance can play in accelerating the rate of economic development in the country, the Federal Government in mid-2011 created the Ministry of Communication Technology to provide sectoral leadership and policy guidance to the government and administering policies to enable Nigeria bridge the digital divide. [2]. In addition, notable efforts by some state governments to bridge the divide are on-going. For example, in Lagos, Cross River and Ekiti, citizens are now comfortable with e-tax forms while Osun State has announced plans to introduce e-learning in secondary schools using the tablet device. On another level, the deployment of electronic governance tools such as community information centres, e-kiosks etc, offer the necessary support to private entrepreneurs to thrive especially where such e-
[5] United Nations (2006). Bridging the technology gap between and within nations, Commission on Science and Technology, E/CN.16/2006/2 [6] United Nations (2012). United Nations E-Government Survey, United Nations, New York [7] Dasgupta, S.; Lall, S. and Wheeler, D. (2002) Policy Reform, Economic Growth, and the Digital India, Policy Review Working Paper of the World Bank, No. WPS-2567, Washington, DC [8] Singh, Neena (2007) “Bridging the Digital Divide in India: Challenges and Opportunities”, World Libraries, Vol. 17, No. 1.
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ICT for Development and the MuNet Program- Experiences and Lessons Learnt from an Indigenous Municipality in Guatemala Jorge López-Bachiller
Javier Saenz-Core
Diego Cardona
Municipality of Patzún Consultant 2ª calle, 2-75 zona 2, Patzún Chimaltenango, Guatemala C.A. +502 45 36 30 88
MuNet II Project Coordinator Italia 536 B- B8000DKL Bahía Blanca, Argentina +54 9 291 4545726
Universidad del Rosario Calle 12 C No 4 – 80 of 1-01 Bogotá, Colombia +57 311 2395061
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Patzun Municipality. Challenges and lessons learnt from Patzun experience are discussed in Sections 4 and 5, respectively. Conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to present experiences and lessons learnt from the use and contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the development of the MuNet Program and one of its implementation instances in Patzún (Guatemala). With 94% indigenous population from the Maya Kaqchikel ethnic group, Patzun economy is based on agriculture and handicraft. Since 2005, Patzun Municipality is part of the Efficient and Transparent Municipality (MuNet) Program of the Organization of American States (OAS). Due to the MuNet Program, Patzun citizens and the local government were empowered through the use of ICT and ICT-based applications. As a result, citizens’ quality of life and governance processes were improved.
2. MUNET PROGRAM Continuous developments of ICTs have opened new opportunities to transform governments. Electronic Government (eGovernment) refers to the ICT-based transformations of government structures and processes aiming at improving efficiency in government operations, enhancing interactions with citizens and other social actors, reducing transaction costs and incrementing users’ satisfaction on public services [14]. In Latin America, municipalities are the government level where most social development activities take place. Therefore, actions oriented to enhance relationships between citizens and public administrations should start at the municipality level to guarantee immediate perceptible changes. Following this principle, the MuNet Program was designed as part of the cooperation activities among the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) [15], the “Andes Foment Corporation“ (CAF) [16] and the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (SEDI) [17] from OAS. The aim of the MuNet program is to help Latin American municipalities in the adoption of ICT, as a tool to increase transparency, efficiency and citizen participation.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4 [Information Systems Applications]; J [Computer Applications] - J.1 Administrative Data Processing – Government
General Terms Performance, Experimentation, Human Factors
Keywords MuNet; Modernization; Local Government; Digital Divide; ICT; Indigenous Population; Guatemala
1. INTRODUCTION
The Program was launched in Latin America in 2005. Comprising two phases, 11 countries and 22 municipalities, including Patzún, participated in Phase I. The Program methodology comprised achieving political support from the mayor or local authority, creating a MuNet team with municipality personnel and developing e-Government strategies. In 2010, the Phase II of the Program was started, with four participating countries - Panama, Guatemala, Paraguay and Costa Rica, and 179 municipalities.
Located in the central part of Guatemala, Patzun has a population of 52,000 - 94% of them indigenous from the Maya Kaqchikel ethnic group. Agriculture products are the main income for 90% of the population. Before 2005, the community had poor access to ICT services. Informing citizens was not a priority for the local government and citizen’s participation was restricted to development tasks and community councils. The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the MuNet Program; while Section 3 one of its instantiation -
3. MUNET IMPLEMENTATION PATZÚN EXPERIENCE The execution of the MuNet Program in Patzun lasted for four years. In such time frame, the municipal budget was USD 6M, from which USD 32,000 were dedicated to ICT. Despite the scarce resources, the municipality was able to achieve its ICTrelated strategic objectives due to international cooperation and optimal management. The implemented ICT initiatives are explained below.
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team members are linguistics, Kaqchikel speakers and local and international collaborators. Social development is tightly related to the promotion and protection of their culture. For this reason the content of the municipal website is presented in Spanish and Kaqchikel.
3.1 Municipality Modernization Initially, the Municipality had five old computers. The new municipal government purchased new hardware and software. Currently, 25 computers are available.
3.2 Internet Installation
3.9 Inter-Institutional Coordination
The Municipality used to have a non-stable 256 kbps Internet connection. This service was only available to the Mayor, the Treasurer, and the Secretary. To improve the service, a telephone company (Telgua) was hired to provide a service of 1 MHz. Wiring of all municipality offices was made and currently 30 staff have Internet access. Due to the increase in personnel, more installations are being made in new offices.
The success of the project mainly relied on the support received from the Municipality, various public institutions and private companies, as well as individual contributions of collaborators from Guatemala and other countries. Mainly, the project was developed and coordinated by MuNet OAS, public institutions at Patzún and the National Secretary of Science and Technology (SENACYT) [18], Guatemala.
3.3 Employee’s Training
3.10 Other Initiatives
One feature of Patzún Municipality is the continuous renewal of its staff. Therefore, new personnel have to be trained to acquire the required skills. 35% of the personnel do not have email accounts or do not use them properly. To overcome this difficulty a corporative email platform “@patzun.gob.gt” was deployed. In addition, personnel has to be trained in the focused use of internet and its applications to improve the services provided to citizens, and to work with others government departments. To promote a correct use of ICT, a user manual has been developed and is shared with the new staff. In addition, more communication devices are planned to be adopted.
Some other experimental ICT-related initiatives are being developed in Patzún in specific vertical domains: e-Health, eSafety, e-Learning, and e-Prevention. Results obtained so far are positive, show the potential of ICT use.
4. CHALLENGES After presenting the overview of the MuNet Program and concrete examples of one implementation instance – the case of Patzún Municipality, this section discusses some of the main challenges faced during the project implementation and the adopted approaches to overcome it:
3.4 MuNet Team
o Resources – The Municipality faced difficulties to allocate resources to the project. Resources are limited or needed for other initiatives. Approach: To implement small actions with great impact on the population and thus convince the authorities about the benefit of investing on the project. o Human capital – The community lacked qualified human resources able to teach informatics. Approach: To foster international cooperation and appeal to national organizations to contribute with such resources. o Resistance to change – Municipal staff showed resilience to change and adopt new working practices. Approach: To manage cultural change and show how community members become familiar with the use of ICT. o Adoption of new practices – The team was uncertain about the acceptance from public employees to adopt ICT as a tool to enhance their efficiency, and apply it for creating new applications. Approach: To show enhanced efficiency in the management, leading and showing by examples how staff can innovate on their daily work. o Changing staff - Some personnel previously trained on ICT did not continue working at the municipality and new staff was hired after the elections in 2011. Approach: The new government hired younger staff that was more familiar with ICT. o Lack of support from central government – During the implementation of Phase I there was lack of support from the central government. Approach: In January 2012, the national government created the Digital Agenda for the Change, which is expected to generate decentralized actions. Municipal staff participated in meetings at the national level aiming at identifying ICT-related decision making areas or impact areas. o Lack of strategy to bridge digital divide - Guatemala does not have similar initiatives to reduce the digital gap. Approach: At the local level, the two community centers provided free internet access and delivered training on basic ICT
When the MuNet Program started, a MuNet team of consultants was assembled and trained. Over time, this team has been restructured with the incorporation of new members. Nowadays, the team has a Program Manager, who leads and defines the strategy.
3.5 Free Internet Access to Community A part of the strategy to close the digital gap, Internet access has been provided by the Municipality to the community. Two free access points were installed equipped with donated computers. The time for the use of computers is restricted so more users can benefit from the service.
3.6 Community Digital Center To reduce the digital gap, citizens need to be educated in the use of ICT. In order to contribute to this task, national and international institutions helped to create a Digital Community Center. Opened in 2010, the Center offers free ICT-basic courses (office and communication tools) to the community and government institutions.
3.7 Government Website A very important element of the Municipality ICT-driven development has been the deployment of its website www.patzun.gob.gt. The website provides information about the history, culture and geography of Patzun; as well as information about the government’s agenda and how citizens can be involved. Some sections, particularly those dedicated to history and culture, include multimedia materials, relying on free tools as Picasa and YouTube.
3.8 Language Stimulation To promote and protect the Kaqchikel language, a team is creating a Wikipedia version of the municipal website in Kaqchikel. The
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Lessons learnt from the execution of Phase I of the MuNet Program are classified into the following perspectives:
competencies and skills, contributing to reduce the digital divide. o Lack of awareness about potential benefits of ICT – Local authorities possess limited knowledge on ICT and its potential. Approach: Communicate in a massive and effective way to municipal authorities the benefits achieved through the use of ICT.
o Program Planning – It is important to define the terms of reference of project consultants and local stakeholders, and to establish local teams ensuring that interdisciplinary and multiple skills are represented. o Training – Officials and municipal workers should have a preparatory phase for the program implementation. Technology Adoption – A wide gap was identified among cultural and social diversity across teams. To overcome differences, required and essential organizational changes were implemented and a record of the identified technical challenges was maintained for future improvements. Additionally, as long as the program implementation progresses and ICT becomes embedded in the administration, new ICT demands emerged from specific areas – health, education, etc. o Political Management – Top-level leadership is essential for project success. Such leadership should manifest abilities in management and communication to share the achievements with project stakeholders, and maintain the e-Government strategy according to the municipal development plan. o Dissemination – Document all facts and events and dedicate special efforts to internally and externally disseminate the project progress. Moreover, awareness should be raised among project stakeholders on the opportunities offered by ICT. o Sustainability – It's essential to create legal, financial, and political instruments as well as building national and international networks to provide project sustainability. o Collaboration - MuNet contributed to strengthen collaboration among government authorities and officials, guaranteeing autonomy in the long term. Methodological Approach - MuNet offered a comprehensive methodological framework for the municipalities to use.
5. LESSONS LEARNED The following two sections present some lessons learnt from Patzún Municipality (Section 5.1) and from the MuNet Program (Section 5.2).
5.1 Patzún Municipality o Strategy for Digital Divide – The first important aspect to consider is to create a strategy to reduce the digital divide. Two mainstream topics of such strategy should be indigenous people development and inclusion. o Inter-disciplinarity – The project would have benefitted more from a multidisciplinary team. o Motivation – Part of the success of the project relied on the highly-motivated team. o Communication – The effective communication of both strategy and implemented activities is crucial to raise the interest of other institutions, creating the awareness and support that the program requires. o Stakeholders’ Participation – To enrich the opportunities and benefits of the program, participation of representatives from different areas - i.e. health, education, youth, is required. o Continuous Training – The support of local authorities is needed to ensure continuous efforts to building human capacity. o Efficiency –The program proved the efficiency to change traditional styles of working, reducing costs through the use of ITC tools. o Awareness – After taking the online e-Government course delivered by the MuNet Program, the awareness raised and competencies developed among government staff constituted a key factor to design and implement e-Government strategies.
6
5.2 MuNet Program Community development in any municipality must be accompanied with the provision of access to ICT. Since indigenous populations have fewer resources and opportunities, their inclusion in the knowledge society requires the implementation of e-Government initiatives. However, implementing such initiatives much rely on the political will of community leaders and national authorities.
Next steps for Patzún Municipality include presenting the program and its progress to the Municipal Corporation and obtaining their commitment to continue the activities under the Modernization Commission, led by a Councilor. To raise more visibility, there will be an official re-launch of the website and presentation of the actions carried out by the Municipality to reduce the digital divide. Finally, the Municipality will continue its efforts to publicize its actions in this field, both nationally and internationally.
Major qualitative impacts of the MuNet Program include: o Identifying municipal government strategic objectives in the short, medium and long term o Inspiring municipalities to improve their ICT infrastructure to enhance connectivity o Implementing online services for citizens o Contributing to increase citizen’s trust in the municipal government o Expanding team members’ perspective beyond the local context, stressing the importance of ICT in global development. o Deploying ICT applications to monitor the execution of projectrelated tasks.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper introduced the MuNet Program and the experience of its implementation in Patzun Municipality. The Patzún experience - called “Patzún, all its information in a click” has participated in several competitions; winning a third place in the call to the best local innovations organized by the Executive Secretariat of the Presidency Coordination (SCEP). In addition, it has being nominated in the category of e-Inclusion for the World Summit Awards 2011 Guatemala.
Next steps for the MuNet Program include seeking allies in government who are committed to implementing e-Government strategies and updating and improving several methodologies.
7
REFERENCES
[1] Cardona, D, MuNet un esfuerzo de la OEA/ACDI/CAF para llevar el gobierno electrónico a los municipios en el
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hemisferio, On Line document www.ahciet.net/comun/pags/agenda/eventos/2005/124/ponen cias/11.00%20diego%20Colombia_Rio.ppt [February, 2012] Cardona, D, Open Knowledge, Free Society third edition of the On Line Congress of the Observatory for CyberSociety, On Line document http://www.cibersociedad.net/congres2006/gts/gt.php?id=142 [February, 2012] Cardona, D, et al, MuNet. Una herramienta para lograr municipios eficientes y transparentes, en Said, E, TIC, Comunicación y Periodismo Digital. Reflexiones de América Latina y Europa; Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, 2010 Cardona, D, et al, MuNet, Municipios Eficientes y Transparentes, On Line document http://portal.oas.org/Portal/Sector/Secretar%C3%ADaGenera l/SEDI/OESEDI/Proyectos/NPA/UsoEficientedeTICs/MuNet FaseI/tabid/1767/language/es–CO/default.aspx [February, 2012] Iberomunicipios, V Premio Iberoamericano de Ciudades Digitales, On Line document http://www.iberomunicipios.org/premio/def1.aspx?idn=1005 3&idm=10166&ids=10735 [February, 2012] Lasagna, M, 1.- Programa MuNET: Productos y Resultados, On Line document http://www.educoas.org/RestrictedSites/Curso1/NewsletterAgosto06/Paratenerencuenta17.html [February, 2012] OEA, Firman en la OEA acuerdo sobre desarrollo municipal en países andinos y centroamericanos, On Line document http://www.oas.org/oaspage/press_releases/press_release.asp ?sCodigo=C-171/04 [February, 2012] OEA, oeainnovacionesyalianzas.org, On Line document http://www.oeainnovacionesyalianzas.org/ [February, 2012 Porrua, M, Introducción al Programa MuNet, On Line document http://hasp.axesnet.com/contenido/documentos/Caracas%20e Gobierno%202005%20-
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%20Introducci%C3%B3n%20Programa%20MuNet.ppt [February, 2012] Porrua, M, MuNet: municipal efficiency and transparency, On Line document http://www.it4allbilbao.org/ponentes/Miguel_A_Porrua.pdf [February, 2012] Saenz, J, Experiencias y perspectivas de Gobierno Electrónico a nivel local en la región LAC, On Line document http://www.cofemer.gob.mx/images/stories/conferencias/XX I_Conferencia_Nacional_de_MR/Javier_Sanz.ppt [February, 2012] Saenz, J, et al, MuNet, a new way to improve municipalities, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 322, Pages: 240–245, 2009, On Line document http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1693042.1693090 [February, 2012] Villagrán, S, MuNet (Municipios Eficientes y Transparentes), On Line document http://www.protic.org/proyectos.shtml?&sh_itm=df10f42820 87ae1170cbb506cafb2fd2. Field, T., Mield, T., Muller, E. and Law, E., The eGovernment Imperative. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ISBN 92-64-10117-9, Paris, France, 2003, available at http:213.253.134.43/ oecd/pdfs/browseit/4203071E.PDF. Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/home. Corporación Andina de Fomento, http://www.caf.com/view/index.asp?ms=19 Organization of American States (OAS), Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (SEDI), http://www.oas.org/en/sedi/ National Secretary of Science and Technology (SENACYT), http://www.concyt.gob.gt/
ICT Policy in Africa - A Comparative Study of Ghana and Kenya Drawing on Lessons from Developed Countries Agnes Owuato Odongo Kenya electricity generating company limited P.O Box 79439.00200 Nairobi, Kenya Mobile No. +254-722-273-589
[email protected] ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Kenya and Ghana realized that developing a National Information Communication Technology Policy (NICTP) is vital for the development of a nation. They also realized that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is a key accelerator to development. The two countries have made progress including liberalization of the ICT sector. The ICT sector has changed considerably in the two countries. However, there is need to review all stages of the policy and come up with suggestions for improvements or gaps that need to be filled. This paper looks into the process of reviewing Kenya and Ghana NICTP by applying the benchmarking process as a supporting tool for policy-making and improvement. The paper illustrates the analysis carried out and the results from five successful countries recognized worldwide on ICT policy formulation, policy focus areas and policy implementation. Besides the policy process and stakeholder‘s involvement, the ICT policy goals, objectives and mission are discussed. The institutional arrangements for driving the ICT policy at regional and international dimensions, as well as the implementation processes, policy comparison and monitoring are elaborated. The paper winds up with recommendations on how the policy comparison processes should be conducted.
ICT policy is a formal statement that specifies the objectives, goals, principles, strategies, etc intended to direct and control the development, operation and use of ICT. ICT policies must consider additional policies like education, trade and investment, foreign, monetary, transport polices, etc. ICT policies have been recognized by the African executives. The PANAFTEL network concept was approved in 1976. The PANAFTEL coordinating committee was established in 1973, to mobilize the resources necessary for the establishment of the system and to implement the network speedily. By 1982 a basic telecommunications infrastructure had been constructed within Africa, allowing intraAfrican telecom traffic, largely avoiding the previous long, complex and very expensive transit routes through Europe. By the end of 1982, 67 routes between African countries were available by using Intel sat satellite circuits. African authorities and the private sector should become more involved in the network exploitation through the different telecommunications restructuring processes; and to modernize the network by judiciously combining all technologies to build the continent telecommunications network representative. This should meet the countries need and prepare Africa for insertion within the global information technology infrastructure (GII).
Categories and Subject Descriptors
1.1Ghana
K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY K.4.0 General K.4.1 Public Policy Issues (privacy, regulation, transborder data flow).
The National Information Communication Technology Policy (NICTP) development process for Ghana started in the year 2003 as a result of the perceived lack of guidance on ICT [8]. The lack of ICT Policy and existence of isolated initiatives led to random adoption of different systems and standards, resulting in unnecessary duplication of effort hence wastage of resources. Benefits of effective adoption of ICT are likely to result not only in an increase in connectivity or access, but more importantly the benefits acquired from the facilitation of new types of development solutions and economic opportunities that the utilization of ICT makes possible.
General Terms Legal Aspects
Keywords ICT, NICTP, benchmarking, policy, mission, vision
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Ghana ICT Policy Process [8] has been touted as the most participatory policy development process on the continent. Extensive consultation with major stakeholders was conducted throughout the length and breadth of the country in search for national priorities and needs, as well as to sensitize the community prior to the development of the ICT4AD framework document and the eventual write-up of the policy document, action plans and legislations. The opportunities are envisaged in the National Strategy to simultaneously target the development of the ICT sector and industry as well as use ICTs as a broad-based enabler of
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of socioeconomic development policy frameworks over the years has identified a number of key developmental objectives to address the developmental problems facing the country. Of these policy frameworks, the key ones are Vision 2020 Socioeconomic Development Framework, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (2000-2004), the Ghana Science and Technology Policy and the Coordinated Program for Economic and Social Development of Ghana (2003-2012). Some of the key socioeconomic development objectives of Ghana as the policy Frameworks [8]:
developmental goals, with emphasis on the development, deployment and exploitation of ICTs, to aid the development of all other sectors of the economy. The said NICTP was essential and necessary to guide the ICT development in Ghana. The NICTP development was a four step process [8] under which these are some of the decisions made: To create enabling environment to facilitate the deployment, utilization and exploitation of ICTs • To support the development of a viable knowledge-based ICT industry • To facilitate the modernization of the agricultural sector • To support the development of a competitive high valueadded services sector • To aid the process of developing a national human resource capacity and the nation’s R&D capabilities • To promote an better educational system that deploys ICTs • To facilitate a wide-spread deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the society • To support the modernization of civil and public service • To facilitate the development, expansion, rehabilitation and the continuous modernization of the national information and communications infrastructure • To guide development and implementation of e-government, e-commerce and business strategies and action plans • To facilitate development and implementation of necessary legal, institutional and regulatory framework and structures
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Socioeconomic problems and challenges facing Ghana are likely to be compounded by the new challenges posed by globalization and the information age. And that for Ghana to make progress in its developmental process, the nation in addition to taking steps to address these developmental challenges will also need to put in place efforts to address the additional challenges posed by globalization and the information revolution.
The policy was approved and published in 2005, this was the first phase. The publishing of the policy followed implementation strategy as the ICT policy development process. This first policy implementation process was faced with various challenges that made the phase less effective in delivering the objectives. Some of the challenges experienced are that [8]: • • • •
•
The social and economic pressures of a youthful population Rapid population growth and declining per capita income An under-performing agricultural sector An economy dominated by the agricultural sector with weak under-developed industrial and service sector The Ghana heavy debt burden The disproportionate informal private sector Low professional, technical and managerial manpower base Relatively high proportion of population illiteracy Low job creation capacity of the economy Narrow export base dominated by traditional exports Under-developed physical infrastructure Poor and limited communications infrastructure
1.2 Kenya The National Information Communication Technology Policy (NICTP) development process for Kenya started in the year 2003 as a result of the perceived lack of guidance on ICT [14]. The Government recognizes the role of ICTs in the social and economic development of the nation and has promulgated a national ICT Policy based on the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation (2003-2007). The move to develop a national ICT policy was triggered BY three key and mutually reinforcing factors namely the fast and haphazard growth of information technology that lacked direction and regulation; the desire to develop the national ICT policy guidelines to steer development of ICTs in order to address the disorder; and the readiness of UNESCO to fund the process.
Ghana has a relatively high population growth rate Ghana has a youthful population; about 60% are under 25 years of age and 5% over 65 years of age Ghana has a high illiteracy rate with close to 40% of the population without any form of education Ghana has a high primary school dropout rate close to 50% fail to progress secondary school and senior secondary school leavers failing to continue with their education. Close to 40% of Ghanaians currently lives below the poverty line and 10 regions of the country currently have more than 40% of their people living in poverty.
Ghana recognized that the socioeconomic problems and challenges facing it are likely to be compounded by the new challenges posed by globalization and the information age, namely [22]: narrow export base dominated by traditional exports; under-developed physical infrastructure; Poor and limited communications infrastructure, etc. And that for it to make progress in developmental process, the nation has to take step to address the developmental challenges and to put in place efforts to address the additional challenges posed by globalization and the information revolution.
This policy seeks to facilitate sustained economic growth and poverty reduction; promote social justice and equity; mainstream gender in national development; empower the youth and disadvantaged groups; stimulate investment and innovation in ICT; and achieve universal access [14]. It is based on internationally accepted standards and best practices, particularly the COMESA Model adopted by the COMESA Council of Ministers in March 2003. The policy is based on four guiding principles: 1) infrastructure development 2) human resource development 3) stakeholder participation 4) appropriate policy and regulatory framework. The Government recognizes that there is a growing digital divide between the countries that are highly endowed and developed in the field of information technology and Kenya as well as between rural and urban areas in the country. The said NICTP was
From these weaknesses and challenges, Ghana saw a need of reviewing the policy to address the observed weaknesses and challenges, synergies and regional cooperation in ICT policies and harmonize regional policy framework in order to achieve economies of scale. Ghana through the formulation of a number
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deterioration of public services have discourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) since the 1980s.
essential and necessary to guide the ICT development in Ghana. The NICTP development was done by four committees under the supervision of Ministry of Information and Communication given the mandate by the government to formulate the ICT policy.
Therefore, for Kenya, to make progress in the developmental process, the nation in addition to taking steps to address these developmental challenges will also need to put in place efforts to address the additional challenges posed by globalization and the information revolution. Some of the key investment laws are outdated and fail to account for modern practices and principles in conducting and regulating business. A large degree of discretionary power is left to the civil service in administrating and enforcing the principles laid out in the laws.
The policy formulation process was in form of consultations that followed a three-tier approach at the national, provincial and district levels with stakeholders that included the Private Sector, Civil Society, Development Partners and local communities. This approach led to the formation of a National Steering Committee of stakeholders charged with the responsibility of spearheading consultations and ensuring inclusion at all levels; and chaired by Minister for Information and Communication. Also involved in the process were Kenya's development partners; civil society representatives and government officials. The government has implemented ICT policy reforms between 1999 and 2006 which resulted in a number of structural changes in the ICT sector. Several policy documents were released namely in January 1997, April 1999, and Dec 2001[14].
This paper underlines the need and effective process of NICTP review suitable for Ghana and Kenya, and the analysis of the key success factors that need to be considered during undertaking of the review task.
2. METHODOLOGY ICT is dynamic and therefore the processes and activities keep changing within short time scales. The rapid changes in the ICT sector affect key decisions made and essentially call for an up to date environmental scan. Due to the dynamic nature of ICT, benchmarking emerges to be the best tool for policy review. In this paper, a review of the ICT Policy formulation of fast growing countries in recent years namely Australia, Korea, Malaysia, Canada and Singapore is considered effective. In the final phase, an analysis on how the Kenya and Ghana ICT Policy was developed and implemented is made and thus exposing the commonalities and differences.
The Kenya ICT policy was approved and published in 2006. The publishing was followed by implementation of the strategy that was faced by various challenges so the implementation less effective in delivering the objectives stated in the policy document. Some of the challenges experienced are that [14]: • • • •
To harness the potential of ICTs for economic growth and poverty reduction Lack of a comprehensive policy and regulatory framework Inadequate infrastructure Insufficient skilled human resources
2.1 Source of Information
Kenya recognized that the socioeconomic problems and challenges facing it are likely to be compounded and that for it to make progress in developmental process; the nation has to take step to address the developmental challenges and to put in place efforts to address the additional challenges posed by globalization and the information revolution.
In this paper, key documents reviewed and analyzed included the following: National ICT policies for Kenya, Ghana, Singapore [2] [20], Korea [13] [15], Canada [10], Australia [6] [5] and Malaysia [1] [16]. Other documents are [12] [7]:
2.2 Selecting the Five Relatively Successful Countries for Benchmarking
From these weaknesses and challenges, Kenya saw a need of reviewing the policy to address the observed weaknesses and challenges, synergies in ICT policies and harmonize regional policy framework in order to achieve the set objectives. Kenya through the formulation of a number of socioeconomic development policy frameworks over the years has identified a number of key developmental objectives to address the developmental problems facing the country as listed below [14]: Policy, legal and regulatory framework, ICT infrastructure, human resource development, electronic learning, universal access, public-private partnerships (ppp), e-government, Electronic commerce, content development, electronic security, ICT leadership, engendering ICT, and youth and ICT
The selection of countries for benchmarking was based on the ranking of ICT Development Index (IDI) 2010 report released in February 2012 by ITU [9] (http://inwent-iijlab.org/Weblog/2010/07/26/ict-development-index-itu-omitssierra-leone-again/). Ghana has been touted to be the ICT hub of West Africa was ranked 116th and Kenya 115th. The republic of Korea was ranked 3rd; and Australia, Singapore Canada and Malaysia was ranked 14th, 19th, 26th, and 56th respectively. The desktop survey was used to review the policies of Australia, Canada, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia based on the IDI 2010 results as indicated above. In the final stage, the Benchmarking analysis of the ICT policy cycle (formulation, implementation and review process) in Kenya and Ghana was considered against experiences of five relatively successful countries namely Singapore, Korea, Canada, Australia and Malaysia. The research of this paper is discussed within the context of: 1) the policy development process and stakeholders involvement 2) the ICT policy goals, objectives and mission 3) ICT policy focal areas 4) institutional arrangements driving the ICT policy development and implementation 5) regional and international dimensions 6) implementation processes 7) policy monitoring, evaluation and review.
Kenya has had a long history of economic leadership in East Africa as one of the largest and most advanced economies in the region. However, inconsistent efforts at structural reforms and poor policies over the past decades have generated a prolonged period of decline in development indicators and significantly eroded the leadership position, at a time when other countries in the region have made significant strides. While Kenya was a prime choice for foreign investors seeking to establish a presence in Eastern and Southern Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, poor economic policies or inconsistent efforts at structural reforms, increased problems of corruption and governance, and the
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ownership of the majority of the stakeholders. The National ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee of Ghana were involved all key stakeholders and had an integrated approach to their national ICT development process. The process became an all inclusive venture and ensured that the policy development process and final product is acceptable to all [8]. In principle, the policy had ownership of the majority of the stakeholders and had clear harmonized approach to its implementation strategies.
Policy Mission &Vision Too general to measure
Policy objectives
1. Measure output and outcome of policy Policy implementation 2. Review and benchmark focus goals the prevailing status
3.2. Benchmarking ICT Policy Vision, Missions and Objectives of Selected Countries Compared to the Ghana’s and Kenya’s
Indicators
1. Translate obstacles into more concrete concerns Policy 2. Develop the basis of challenges specification of policy actions
Inter-regional benchmarking
3. BENCHMARKING AS A POLICY REVIEW TOOL
The policy vision, mission and objectives of Korea, Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore emphasize on addressing citizen problems which are similar to those of Kenya and Ghana. Furthermore, countries like Singapore [20] and Malaysia [16] [17] have provided milestones in the policy. Malaysia’s vision is to utilize ICT to transform progressively to information and a knowledge society; and as the fifth economy pillar of the economy and transforming the country to a regional ICT hub.
Benchmarking: 1. Determine if goals Policy assessment been met 2. If no asses the reasons Adapted from Selhofer 2003 Conclude and recommend
Ghana NICTP vision statement: “Ghana to improve the quality of life of the people by significantly enriching their social, economic and cultural well-being through the rapid development and modernization of the economy and society using information and communication technologies as the main engine for accelerated and sustainable economic and social development; the vision statement sets out the roadmap for developing Ghana’s information society and economy and provides a basis for facilitating the socioeconomic development of the country in the emerging information, knowledge and technological age to be dominated by information and knowledge-based economies” [8]. The Kenya policy vision is “A prosperous ICT-driven Kenyan society” and the mission statement is “to improve the livelihoods of Kenyans by ensuring the availability of accessible, efficient, reliable and affordable ICT services” [14]. The policy vision, mission and objectives of Kenya and Ghana lacks milestones of how to achieve these compared to Singapore above. Emphasis on universal access is lacking in the vision and mission statement as the success of becoming the ICT hub depending on accessibility issues; that includes the concept of digital divide between access in urban/rural and national/international relations.
www.observatory.gr/files/meletes/ BISER_Benchmarking_Rep.pdf
Figure 1. Policy making roles benchmarking
Benchmarking has different meaning based on the institutional and organization set-up in which it is applied. It can be used to measure the success factors of a policy towards developing an ICT society. There are several regional benchmarking options like bottom-up, top down, horizontal approaches etc. In the bottom-up approach, regions get together and agree among themselves on a set of common indicators. Since the region has different policy framework, it is not possible to apply the method initially. The choice of indicators is a result of a compromise among different regions without top-bottom coordination. This implies that the same indicator can measure different parameter in different regions for example a measure of policy output, results, and impacts, or a simple framework of readiness indicator could be adopted [19]. This paper considers the position of indicators into the policy review process and benchmarking as stipulated in Figure 1. The role of benchmarking is to determine policy challenges through policy evaluation that have impact on the policy review process.
3.3. Strategic ICT Leadership The objective of the Strategic ICT leadership involves an increase in the use of ICT for equitable and sustainable socioeconomic and cultural development, aiming at improving the awareness on the role and potential of ICT. In so doing, creating an authoritative national organization to effect, coordinate and review the ICT policy. The role of prioritizing ICT investment in development assistance policies and programs, enhancing synergy, economies of scale and productivity in all ICT matters and creating a favorable environment for cooperation and partnership in ICT among public and private sectors, civil society became an important ingredient to its development. This is in consistent with best-practice in Singapore, Korea, Canada, Australia and Malaysia picking a few supporting examples. The review process has to follow this definitive focus. The case of Ghana and Kenya the level of leadership is not ranked high like in Korea where ICT policy committee is chaired by the prime minister. Ghana ICT policy committee chair person is a university professor, while in
3.1 Policy Development, Review Process and Stakeholders Involvement The policy formulation of five selected countries demonstrate several advantages of involving stakeholders like the private sector, academia and civil society organizations such as professional bodies in the policy processes. The process for development of Australian, Canada, and Singapore, Malaysia and Korea ICT policies had consultative meetings with a range of stakeholders. Of interest is the case of Australia where the stakeholders were approached by e-mail regarding their discussions on effective use of ICT by citizens and consumers across civil society [5] [5]. The government should involve key stakeholders in the policy formulation process in order to affect its outcomes. Kenya did not involve all key stakeholders [14]. In principle, the policy lacked
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and has failed to keep up with the times. The problems of Ghana Telecom are further compounded by the array of legal battles it has found itself to deal with. Telekom Malaysia has been throwing legal challenges to the national carrier and the Ghana government.
Kenya it is the minister for Information Communication ministry. The political goodwill may not be achieved easing in order to support policy implementation.
3.4 ICT Infrastructure Infrastructure covers both national and institutional levels. At national levels, a system to ensure usefulness of the installed infrastructure has to be assured of. In Kenya’s and Ghana’s case for instance, building the broadband infrastructure is an agenda. Achievements realized in Korea, Malaysia, Canada, Australia and Singapore is as a result of broadband deployment. All countries based on the objectives of the respective Act, targets were set which include: •
• •
•
3.5 The ICT Industry and Human Resource The ICT industry is service or hardware manufacturing or assembly based. Companies should be involved in all aspects of the business. A national ICT policy could stimulate the establishment, development and growth of ICT businesses through incentives and support provision. In Korea for example, several strategies to enhance productivity and efficiency across economic sectors and SMEs through the use of ICT were set and it worked. Furthermore, the International Cooperation Division of Department of Information Technology has been set up to promote international cooperation in the emerging and frontier areas of information technology under bilateral, multilateral or regional framework. Such interaction provides an opportunity for sharing of knowledge and experience with countries, international bodies, academia and institutions for forging partnerships for mutual progress.
An increase in penetration for the whole country and rural areas respectively. An interim target of 30 per 100 persons had been set for Malaysia by the year 2005 and fully developed by year 2020 for example [1]. Quality of service at affordable costs. Infrastructure development, communications and multimedia infrastructures with adequate and effective plans for supporting overall economic development. Creation of a hub to serve the global hub of communications and multimedia industry in this region.
As far as international cooperation with Korea is concerned, it has been envisaged to promote the investment flow from Korea to the Indian ICT hardware sector, exploitation of complementarities, development of technology, human resource development, next generation ICT industry, Broadband infrastructure, E-Governance, etc. Two major Korean companies LG and Samsung are established brand names in Indian households and have already acquired a major share of the Indian market in the electronics and white goods segments. The Indian customers are happy with the pricing and service provided [21].
Development of ICT infrastructure is mentioned in the policy. The policy went further to mention need for provision of infrastructure e.g. energy and roads, support software development, promotion of local manufacturing among others. The policy recognizes power of open source software. However, the policy is just generic. The Kenya ICT policy is not providing details on how it will promote local software development. The Ghanaian Policy proposes no duty on computer hardware [8]. The policy for the benchmarked five countries are explicit on how to go about by saying that foreign owned and multinationals who will establish such production facilities and employ the local workforce, shall be offered special incentives. This can be part of technology transfer to the local workforce. The Kenya NICTP has several objectives concerning broadband issues to hitherto disenfranchised and isolated populations in the country and to extend the connection to the neighboring countries. The fact finding report revealed that, the private sector especially the mobile operators have invested substantially in developing an efficient infrastructure [4] [11]. However, interoperability, reliability and rural access are still a challenge in some parts of the country based on the provider to the initiative. Infrastructure sharing is the most sustainable and efficient way of rolling out infrastructure, even though it is facing internal resistance from the operators who consider their infrastructure as a business differentiation tool.
NICTP was to make Ghana and Kenya a producer and not a mere consumer of ICT products and services. It is thus clear that the ICT Policy is expected to create conducive environment for a vibrant and sustainable ICT industry, making the country a more competitive developer and producer of ICT products and services. The policy lacks support to entrepreneurship and emphasis on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). On human resource development, Korea, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Malaysia defined it clearly in their ICT policies. Malaysia set several objectives to improve the human resource capacity that stimulates improving science and technology courses, the use of e-learning and training teachers on ICT skills. Korea, Singapore, Canada and Australia trained the mass so that the mass is able to use the technology and appreciate the advantages. Kenya and Ghana NICTP provides for the development of an ICT ready workforce with the objective of increasing human resource ICT skills, support ICT training for political decision-makers, community and civil society leaders, as well as private and public sector executives, expand and develop the teaching of ICT at all levels of the national system of formal and informal education and training, to foster interest among scientists and citizen at large. However, the policy does not address how this is achieved. Korea set up a 3rd Basic Plan for Informatization Promotion (20022006) issued in April 2002, to provide every Korean with learning opportunity by fostering an online learning environment and training on Internet usage skill [15. Kenya and Ghana policy does not focus on regional linkages in human capacity development, for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
The Ghana NICTP has several objectives concerning universal access issues to hitherto disenfranchised and isolated populations in the country. The fact finding report revealed that, in the private sector especially the mobile services have grown thus increasing the number of service providers. Spacefon, a GSM operator is the only mobile phone operator that has deployed its services in all the ten regional capitals and most key cities and towns across the country [8]. However, interoperability, reliability and rural access are still a challenge in the country to the initiative. Infrastructure sharing is the best as the sustainable and efficient way of rolling out infrastructure. Ghana Telecom, the national carrier that is supposed to be at the forefront of ICT development is struggling
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3.6 ICT Productive and Service Sectors
Information Security Strategy and promoting adoption of Information Security Standards at national level.
The inception and diffusion of ICT in the production sectors forms an important basis for exploitation of the ICT muscles at the full-scale. The ICT policy needs to strengthen the competitive and comparative advantage of hardware and ICT service providers locally, regionally and internationally. Policies of some countries have focused on local companies over foreign-owned companies just as is the case with Korea ICT policy‘s priority to enhance productivity and efficiency across economic Sectors and SMEs through [13] [15]. Kenya and Ghana NICTP focuses on local companies to contribute to the reduction of poverty and to improve the quality of life of Kenyans and Ghana people, fostering enterprise, entrepreneurship and innovativeness for sustainable socio-economic and economic development.
The National Communication Authority (NCA) was established by an Act of parliament in 1996, to regulate the information and communication technologies (ICTs) industry in Ghana. Since inception the NCA focus has been on promoting growth of the communication sector and significant progress has been made in meeting the objectives. However, an area that needs similar attention is the “consumer” aspect of its mandate. Global trends in the ICT industry make it mandatory for consumer issues to be included in national regulatory structures. In addition, the world ICT governing body, ITU, upholds the need for regulators to carry the responsibility of addressing the consumer issues [17].
3.8 Public Service and Local Many developed and developing countries focus on the use of ICT to enhance service delivery to the public. Remarkable efforts have been shown in many of these countries including Singapore, Australia, Canada, Korea and Malaysia. The five have set out goals for the use of ICT for delivering government services and have implemented the same. This pillar (Public service) in the Kenya and Ghana NICTP focuses on effective delivery of services to the public [14] [8]. The specific objectives of e-government outlined in NICTP are to increase the productivity of both the public and private sectors, empowering the public by building and e-Government platform that facilitates their relationship and interactions with the Government, and enhances the range and delivery of more effective public services at both central and local levels, while also generating accurate and timely information to better shape policies, strategic plans and tactical decisions for developing and enhancing the delivery of affordable public services. The policy has also outlined strategies for promoting good corporate and public governance by furthering information sharing, transparency and accountability. In Kenya and Ghana part of this pillar has been implemented and some government transactions are now done online.
3.7 ICT Legal and Regulatory Framework Many of the leading countries in ICT policy formulation and implementation formulated regulatory and legal frameworks for easy implementation of the ICT policy. Singapore and Korea created several acts and regulations that provided legal recognition of electronic contracts and electronic signatures [13] [15]. Malaysia on the other hand, developed Digital Signature Act 1997 to give a digital signature the same legal status as an ordinary signature, thumbprint or other binding mark in use [16] [17]. Above all, Singapore and Malaysia enacted binding laws on cyber crime and Korea created laws for online procurement. Deployment of the necessary infrastructure to support secure electronic transactions for e-business and e-government need be implemented. Korea, Australia, Singapore, Canada and Malaysia are well known worldwide as the leading in the implementation of e-government. Other entailing key issues include measures to protect the confidentiality and privacy of citizens, increase the level of awareness on information security threats and best practices to safeguard data. Singapore established cabinet agencies to oversee ICT policy development. The key question is whether there is one best institutional model for policy development and implementation. It is critical that agency or commission leads in ICT planning and development.
Compared to infrastructure development, content development has not received as much attention from governments worldwide. Already we see that lack of local content has driven Internet traffic in many countries to foreign sites. There are countries such as Singapore that have initiatives to develop local content. Singapore and Malaysia have laws and rules regarding objectionable Internet content [1]. Singapore is unique in combining government rules with industry self-regulation in managing content [21]. In some countries, governments are nervous about content, in particular one that is challenging the political and economic interests of the State or its allies. Content that has the potential for political mobilization also comes within the orbit of the State‘s surveillance, which is provided for by the laws enacted in those countries.
Technological development to regulate is critical. Digital technology has enabled the use of one digital network to distribute services that used to require different analogue networks. Thus, broadcasting, telephony and internet can be delivered using one network. Malaysia‘s Communications and Multimedia Commission [16] [17] and Singapore‘s Infocomm Development Authority [1] [21] are good examples. The Kenya Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) is a convergence regulator bringing the convergence concept in communication sector to reality in Kenya [14]. The policy talks of strengthening the mandates of CCK to ensure quality and compatibility of IT products and services. However, the policy is quiet about the modes of strengthening needed and seems to ignore the importance of other standard bodies and professional groups to assist. There is no dedicated regulator for "ICT" in Kenya. The National Communications Secretariat has struggled with a culture of secrecy, which has made cooperation with more progressive entities such as the CCK and the Directorate of Egovernment housed inside the President's office. Emphasis is needed on confidentiality and privacy, formulation of the National
While other countries have developed laws governing the management of local content, Kenya has done little in regard to this. The government should provide support, resources, and put laws in place. Ghana NICTP lacks local content. Korea has strategies for harnessing ICT for Social Development [13] [15]. These include the specific targets of increasing ICT integration in society, by providing access to ICTs to all communities including those isolated geographically or economically, provide universal access through the enhancement
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KENYA ICT POLICY FRAMEWORK: Tiered approach to sector management
various institutions and organizations were conducted based on a Kenya opted for a tied framework with the policy instrument driving legal and regulatory aspects as 3 tiered to sector management, figure 2 [14]. illustrated on approach first diagram.
of existing Public Internet Access Points (PIAPs), reducing the digital divide, by encouraging the youth to set up computer clubs aimed at encouraging their interest in IT-related fields and provide online access to express their needs.
Increasing level Specificity
Instrument
A commitment to universal access is the cornerstone of efforts to reach out to include everyone in the information economy and is a first step in bridging the digital divide. A funding mechanism to meet the cost of universal access has to be discussed and negotiated by the telecoms regulator and/or the government department/ministry responsible for this. Operators should contribute to the cost of rolling out access as part of their obligations under the licensing agreements they have signed with the local regulatory authority of the government.
StakeholderMinister/Citizen
Policy &Vision-Policy Guidelines Regulation FrameworkKCA 98 Regulations-KCR 2001
Parliament
Minister
Operator License Regulator
Figure 2: Kenya’s IT Policy Framework …
ICT POLICY FRAMEWORK 4.1.2KENYA ICT Policy Institutional Support Framework Institutional Positioning Ministry for Communication
Policy Formulation
Kenya and Ghana have established CCK and NCA respectively as the sector ICT regulator just like Comparing Korea, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia with (. The regulator is an independent, credible, and effective quasi-government body whose functions are to regulate and monitor the ICT sector and foster competition through the issuance of licenses to operators and franchise holders. The regulator was established as part of the Government Policy reforms in the communication sector for both the countries with the aim of improving the availability of the info-communications services to the public as well as to allow new players into the market. Both CCK and NCA reports to the line Ministry in their respective countries. Furthermore, institutional arrangements for ICT policy implementations should consider the participation of both public and private sector and functional linkages between different key institutions should feature clearly in the policy.
Legislature-Parliamentary Committee on Public Works, Energy and Communications
National Communications Secretariat
Service Operation
Regulation
Arbitration
Consumers
3.9 Institutional Arrangements for Driving the ICT Policy
Source of Authority
Communications Commission of Kenya
Appeals Tribunal Content oo
Advisory Universal Access
Universal Access Fund Service Providers, Telecoms, ISP Broadcasters ,Vendors
Figure 3: Kenya’s IT Policy Institutional Framework
4.1.3 ICT policy development process Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation gave birth to “Investment Program for the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation 20032007 (IP-ERS)”, released in May 2004. The consultations followed a three-tier approach at the national, provincial and district levels with stakeholders that included the Private Sector, Civil Society, Development Partners and local communities. This approach led to the formation of a National Steering Committee of stakeholders charged with the responsibility of spearheading consultations and ensuring inclusion at all levels; and chaired by Minister of Information and Communication. Also involved in the process were Kenya's development partners; civil society representatives and government officials. The government has implemented ICT policy reforms between 1999 and 2006 which resulted in a number of structural changes in the ICT sector. Several policy documents were released at intervals namely in January 1997, April 1999, and Dec 2001.
4. FORMULATION PROCESS OF KENYA AND GHANA ICT POLICY 4.1 Kenya National ICT Policy Formulation Process Kenya developed its ICT policy as part of ICT for Economic Growth (2006) to represent the nation’s vision in the information age [14]. The aspirations set included Recovery Strategy for Wealth Creation and Employment as well as Poverty Reduction. The move to develop a national ICT policy was triggered off by three key and mutually reinforcing factors namely the fast and haphazard growth of information technology that lacked direction and regulation; the desire to develop the national ICT policy guidelines to steer development of ICTs in the country to address the disorder; and the readiness of UNESCO to fund the process.
4.1.4 ICT Cardinal Pillars The Cardinal Pillars of the Kenya policy are: 1) education and Training 2) new opportunities 3) marketing networking and promotion 4) recruitment and retention 5) market intelligence and research 6) business support and investment.
The development of a policy for the deployment of ICT for socialeconomic development in Kenya began in mid nineties. The policy is based on four guiding principles: infrastructure development, human resource development, stakeholder participation and appropriate policy and regulatory framework. The challenge is to harness the potential of ICTs for economic growth and poverty reduction [14].
4.2 Ghana National ICT Policy Formulation Process Ghana developed its ICT policy [8] for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) process led by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) within the context of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI). To the benefactor countries, the initiative served as a framework for a radical socioeconomic transformation of the countries through the deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the context of the challenges of the globalization and Information
4.1.1 Kenya ICT Policy Framework In order to identify and address the critical factors for the success of the policy formulation and plan development process, and eventual ICT implementation process, extensive consultation with
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modernizing agriculture and development of agro-business 7) developing a globally competitive value added service industry.
Age. It is based on the policy framework document “An Integrated ICT-led Socioeconomic Development Policy and Plan Development Framework for Ghana”. The Ghana ICT4AD Policy Statement recognizes the aspirations and provisions of key socioeconomic development framework documents like Vision 202o Socio-Economic Development Framework, Ghana Poverty reduction Strategy (GPRS) (2002 – 2004) and Coordinated Program for Economic and Social Development of Ghana (2003 2012)
4.3 Policy Priorities and Internet Regulation Despite the broad participation of multiple stakeholders in Ghana’s policy formulation process, and partial participation of stakeholder Kenya’s case, the implementation in both countries did not translate into action plans to acceptable level [8][17]. The establishment of the Ministry of Information Communications made it possible to update the policy framework and implements some flagship projects. Consequently there has been a major disconnection between communication policies that address access issues and broad based ICT policies that focus on the exploitation of ICTs as instrument of development. Although access to communication was improved through cellular services, progress with regards to fixed lines and broadband network that underpin ICT application has remained very low. Increasing access to affordable communication and developing human capacity are vital for the success of ICT policy.
4.2.1 ICT Policy Framework The development, deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society can contribute to and accelerate Ghana’s socioeconomic development process provided some critical success factors and conditions are addressed at the: national, organizational levels as well as at the level of individuals in the work place and in the society at large.
4.2.2 Ghana’s ICT Policy - Institutional Support Framework
Although Kenya and Ghana have started internal processes of governance over the Internet by developing their own set of National ICT Strategies, infrastructure, technological and regulatory frameworks, there is wide gap between national policy and the regulation of online environment in the aspects of international communications infrastructure, content access and development, electronic trade and on-line applications. In particular Ghana is not focusing on local content in its policy. A team should be formed to address Internet issues. The policy review shows that there is an overlap in the priority areas, a reflection of the common social and economic challenges in the two countries. The overlap is evident particularly in the areas of: human resources development; broadband infrastructure development; policy; legislative and regulatory framework; ICT sector development; and ICT applications and content.
Ghana ICT policy framework structure [22] formed four bodies to assume responsibility of coordinating, facilitating monitoring and subsequently ensuring the implementation of the policy: • The National ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee, constituted by the President, and chaired by a University Professor. • The Ministry of Communications as the host ministry and the policy implementation agency • The Ghana ICT Directory, as an implementation arm of the Ministry of Communications • The National Information Technology Authority, as a Presidential Advisory body
4.2.3 Ghana’s ICT Policy Process Ghana ICT Policy Process [22] has been touted as the most participatory policy development process on the continent. Extensive consultation with major stakeholders was conducted throughout the length and breadth of the country in search for national priorities and needs, as well as to sensitize the community prior to the development of the ICT4AD framework document and the eventual write-up of the policy document, action plans and legislations. The development, deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society can contribute to and accelerate Ghana’s socioeconomic development process provided some critical success factors and conditions are addressed at the: national and organizational levels as well as at the level of individuals in the work place and in the society at large. It was a four step process [22] involving the development of a framework, development of a policy, followed by development of plans and eventually the implementation of the policy strategies and action plans. Ghana conducted extensive consultation with the stakeholders that was located across the length and breadth of the country. Participatory nature of the process was referenced by the ECA as a benchmark for its facilitated ICT Policies
Main areas of focus of ICT policy Include: ICT Leadership, ICT Infrastructure, ICT Industry, Human Capital, Legal and Regulatory Framework, Productive Sectors, Service Sectors, Public Service, Local Content and Universal access. Furthermore, the vision and mission expressed in the policy documents remain consistent, an indication of a degree of convergence in adopting common vision to harness information and communication technologies for development. The review indicates that; there is under emphasis of the need for highly skilled human resources and ICT research and development that could have long term economic and social benefits to the country. The smart use of ICTs in the universities, public and private sector is critical for national and regional competitiveness. The application of ICTs in agriculture and health has not been given equal attention considering number of workforce and resources devoted to these sectors in the country.
4.3 Institutional Arrangement and Participation of Stakeholders Institutional arrangement and the participation of various stakeholders particularly the media, civil society, private sector and the academia provide a good indication of the maturity of ICT policy. The review of institutional arrangement shows that the more the ICT function is sponsored by the highest political leadership like the President, the better the chance of its success. Likewise, the higher the involvement of the major stakeholders in
4.2.4 Ghana’s ICT Policy – Cardinal Pillars The Cardinal Pillars of Ghana ICT4AD Policy are as follows [8]: 1) accelerating Human Resource Development 2) promoting ICTs in Education 3) facilitating Government administration and service delivery 4) facilitating private sector development 5) developing export-oriented ICT products and service industry 6)
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provision to meet the needs of voice, data, mobile, internet, leased circuit etc.
the policy process e.g. formulation, implementation and policy review; the higher the ownership and the better the success in implementing ICT programs.
5. KEY FACTORS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF NICTP
Although Kenya and Ghana have relatively developed broad consultation process in the ICT sector, the participation of civil society in ICT policy issues has not been that consistent due to lack of a strong ICT civil society with a national coverage. Figure 2 shows institutional framework for policy formulation and implementation for Kenya. The ministries formed by the two governments to administer the implementation of ICT policy should promote strong civil society participation. As a result of lack of limited ownership the formed ministries are expected to alleviate coordination challenges. It is necessary to encourage civil society participation and strong competitive private sector facilitated by good regulatory framework.
The NICTP for Kenya and Ghana were analyzed using benchmarking principals and compared to other countries. The emerging issues from the work and the entailing findings are categorized in the following key elements summarized as: the policy process and stakeholders involvement; the ICT policy goals, objectives and mission; ICT policy focus areas; institutional arrangements to drive ICT policy, regional and international dimensions, implementation processes; and policy review and monitoring The Institutional framework for implementing the national policy implementation and monitoring was not described adequately in the Kenya policy; hence some roles were left hanging. Monitoring was not covered in the Ghana policy. It is my observation and strong feeling that the policy left a serious governance gap. Based on the review it can be concluded that, coordination of the implementation strategy was inadequate and resulted in misunderstanding on the way forward and a priority on where funds or source of funding for the proposed activities.
Evaluation of the governance framework shows that various sectors and institutions continue to compete for external resources to meet their needs and concerns independently, rather than creating a favorable framework applicable to all. The main lessons drawn from the ICT policy can be summarized as follows: streamline institutional arrangements, establish the directorate of ICT at the Ministry of Communication Science and Technology has a high chance of success in the implementation of ICT programs and mobilize the resources. Since the Ministry to champion ICT exists in Ghana and Kenya, the established directorate will drive the policy process, develop priority and flagship projects and implement projects through public and private partnerships. The minister should act as key champions and sponsors for the ICT policy process. The separation of policy (political) and regulatory (procedural) function has been a key governance challenge. There is no one size fit strategy for the separation of policy and regulatory functions; however it is essential that the regulator is insulated from day-to-day interference of policy makers and secure its financial autonomy. The legitimacy of the regulator can be improved by enhancing competence and improving interaction with the public. A good coordination among institutions needs a champion Minister, trust and flexibility within the ICT policy.
6. CONCLUSION The analysis of the current NICTP development and implementation was conducted. Weaknesses were identified through the benchmarking analysis that compared Kenya and Ghana NICTP from other countries of similar nature but in different regions. The review shows that from the onset of the initiatives, drafting and development of the policy, stakeholders were not fully involved for Kenya’s as was the case of Ghana, thus resulting in: 1) lack of full ownership and operational institutional framework 2) poor participation of key stakeholders 3) poor coordination during implementation 4) lack of coherent but integrated implementation strategies. Kenya and Ghana NICTP is very generic. It eliminates strategy from the vision where the policy looks at vision, principles and guidelines, the Strategy should look at implementation plan, by focusing on who is to do what by when, where, benefits and cost of implementing the policy. The policy ignores implementation and no action plan is provided in the entire document.
4.4 Implementation of ICT Policy In general terms, the ICT policy leads to an implementation plan benchmarked by flagship projects, although the presence of an implementation plan may not guarantee the success of policy. A review of the situation of Kenya and Ghana show that the implementation of the ICT policy is driven by external funding than a well thought-out plan that addresses the key building blocks like infrastructure, regulatory functions and human resources development as envisaged and monitored.
Therefore, in order to rectify the situation, the policy review process has to consider changes in technology, new national and regional developments and recognize the need to add acts and policies to support policy implementation by creation enabling environment. A good policy with its implementation strategies and institutional framework has the potential of making ICT an effective tool in achieving set goals. For an effective policy review process the paper recommended the following:
Although NICTP existed, Kenya and Ghana did not develop the implementation strategy. Various projects targeted to the policy have been implemented with support from external donor agencies. The national fiber backbone network, Universal Access, and the e-government projects are among the current flagship projects for the implementation of the national ICT policy. The main objective of the national backbone project is to establish a telecom backbone transmission network to satisfy domestic and regional ICT requirements in the long term. It intends to provide long-distance telephone networks, data backbone networks and extend Internet bandwidth countrywide by offering sufficient capacities, network resiliency and guaranteed quality of service
•
• •
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NICTP assessment should involve stakeholders and ministries for a multi-stakeholder participatory approach. Policy vision and mission to be shared by key role players to address universal access and infrastructural developments. The policy should appreciate laws and regulations like cyber usage, e-transaction, confidentiality and privacy. The reviewed policy has to emphasize downstream issues like ICT Incubator to promote local entrepreneurial culture.
• •
[18]
In regard to vision and strategy the national ICT policy should be specific and should include strategy in the vision. It should be noted that many a nation develop ICT policies but few realize the widely acclaimed benefits of ICT in terms of socio-economic development, because it takes more than policy development to realize those benefits.
[19] OSIMO, D., AND GAREIS, K. 2005. The role of interregional benchmarking in the policy-making process: experiences in the field of information society, in proceedings of the Regional Studies Association conference, Aalborg, Denmark.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My thanks go to ICEGOV sponsoring organizations and conference organizers for the financial support given to attend the ICEGOV 2012 conference and to present a paper.
[20] Singapore National ICT Policy, Transform Singapore into a vibrant global ICT capital with a thriving and prosperous Net Economy by year 2010, (http://www.unapcict)
8. REFERENCES
[21] Sudhir Kumar Marwaha, International Cooperation in the ICT Field: Bridging the Digital Divide, 2009.
[1] BALRAJ-AMBIGAPATHY, S, GOONASEKERA, A AND LEE CHUN, W. 2001. Asian Communication Handbook ―Malaysiaǁ‖ in (eds). Singapore: AMIC.
[22] The Ghana ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy, 2003 (http://www.ict.gov.gh/).
[2] Cheryl Marie Cordeiro and Suliman Al-Hawamdeh, “National Information Infrastructure and the realization of Singapore IT2000 initiative,” Division of Information Studies, Information Research, Vol. 6 No. 2, 2001. [3] David A. Wolfe and Allison Bramwell, “Growing the ICT Industry in Canada: A Knowledge Synthesis Paper”, 2010. [4]
Margaret Abba-Donkor, “Effective regulation: The importance of addressing consumer issues in an Era of digitization and convergence”, 2007.
David Gichoya, “Factors Affecting the Successful Implementation of ICT Projects in Government”, 2005.
[5] Delivering Australian Government Services: Access and Distribution Strategy (http://www.finance.gov.au), 2006. [6] Delivering Australian Government Services: Managing Multiple Channels (http://www.finance.gov.au), 2006. [7] Ewen Le Borgne and Jaap Pels, “Knowledge management and Communication strategy West Africa Water Initiative Knowledge Management project, October 2010 [8] Ghana’s ICT4AD Policy Document (http://www.ict.gov.gh), 2003 [9] ICT Development Index (IDI) 2010 report February 2012 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (http://inwent-iij-lab.org/Weblog/2010/07/26/ictdevelopment-index-itu-omits-sierra-leone-again/) [10] ICT Policy Development: the Case of Canada, 2012 IPCSIT vol. 36 (2012) © (2012) IACSIT Press, Singapore, (http://www.ipcsit.com) [11] Investment Policy Review Kenya, 2005 by United Nations (http://mirror.undo.org). [12] Investment Policy Review of Kenya, 2005 (http://unctad.org) [13] IT839 Strategy Document (http://www.vus.sk) [14] Kenya ICT Policy Document (http://www.ist-africa.org) [15] Korea’s Informatization Policy to Deliver ICT Use in Everyday Life (http://unpan1.un.org), 2007 Edition [16] Malaysia draft national IT policy (revised) 2007-2013, (http://www.eeas.europa.eu) [17] Malaysia National ICT Policy; Malaysia‘s Vision 2020, which foresees Malaysia becoming an industrialized country (http://www.epu.gov.my)
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Laggards or Victims of Socioeconomic Conditions? Findings from Ongoing Survey of Female Slum-dwellers Without Cell Phone Ownership Devendra Potnis and Kanchan Deosthali University of Tennessee 01-865-974-2148, 01-518-322-6693
[email protected],
[email protected] per piece and above), fierce competition in the Indian cell phone industry (five out of 15 service providers sharing the market almost equally), and very cheap tariff rates (less than two cents per minute) have made cell phones affordable even to poor. Further, collective ownership models (sharing cell phones through SIM cards and payments for air-time) and flexible payment options such as micro-payments (up to a dollar) make cell phones an attractive communication medium [3].
ABSTRACT This paper presents the following details from an ongoing survey of 334 poor female slum-dwellers who don’t own cell phones: demographic features including socioeconomic status, sources of income, barriers to adopt cell phones, and perceived incentives for and consequences of using cell phones in India. The findings differ from three key characteristics of laggards identified by the diffusion of innovation literature. The findings based on responses from 334 poor laggards suggest hypotheses for predicting the cell phone adoption by the remaining poor laggards in India.
In India, thirty percent of the nation’s 1.3 billion people are under 18[5], which is the legal age for buying cell phones in the country. Out of 910 million potential cell phone owners, 907 million had adopted the ICT innovation as of September 2011 [4]. Thus, according to the diffusion of innovation literature, the citizens above 18 who do not own cell phones can be labeled as innovation laggards. The diffusion of innovation theory [2] proposes five categories for innovation adopters: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (see Figure 1).
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1.1 [Systems and Information Theory]: Value of Information H.1.2 [User/Machine Systems]: Human Factors
General Terms Economics and Human Factors
Keywords Diffusion of Innovation, Adoption of Cell Phones
Laggards,
Poor
Slum-Dwellers,
1. INTRODUCTION Cell phones are the most widely adopted information and communication technology (ICT) innovation in the world with more than five billion subscribers as of December 2010, and the customer-base was expected to exceed six billion by the end of 2011[1]. Since 2000, coverage of mobile telephony has expanded, and cell phone subscriptions in developing countries like India and China have increased by over 500%. Intense competition and innovation within the telecommunications sector in the last decade has catapulted India into the largest and fastest-growing cell phone market in the world. Inexpensive cell phone handsets ($15
Figure 1. Adopter Categories [2] Adopter categories are the classifications of members of a social system on the basis of innovativeness, or the degree to which an individual or other unit of adoption accepts new ideas when compared to other members of a system.
1.1 Research Objective
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Despite the cheapest cell phone prices in the world and a host of affordable services and products offered over the cell phones, more than 3 million Indian adults – categorized as innovation laggards – do not own and/or use cell phones. To learn more about these innovation laggards, this study focused on poor female slum-dwellers who don’t own cell phones. These female slum-dwellers earn less than two dollars a day and represent one of the most disadvantaged populations in the male-dominant Indian society. The following research questions were explored as part of this ongoing study:
1)
2) 3)
due to the individual’s adoption of innovation. Positive incentives like awards and rewards or negative incentives like penalties and fines increase the rate of adoption. Monetary or social incentives trigger the act of adoption. Immediate incentives, which are incentives that are paid at the time of the adoption, increase adoption rate; in contrast, delayed incentives could benefit adopter(s) days, weeks, months, or even years after adoption.
What are the demographic characteristics, including socioeconomic status, of female slum-dwellers who do not own cell phones? a) Is there a correlation between respondents’ income, education, age, family characteristics, and facilities at home and their lack of cell phone ownership? What are the key barriers to cell phone adoption by respondents? What are the perceived consequences of and incentives for cell phone adoption?
3. RESEARCH METHODS The current study focused on poor females living in urban and rural slums who did not own cell phones. Two female assistants in their 40s from the lowest socioeconomic stratum were recruited for data collection. The assistants were literate enough to write down responses on the survey questionnaire. The assistants were paid 60 cents for each respondent they surveyed. The assistants randomly distributed surveys and collected data from selected 386 slum-dwellers. Out of 386 responses, 334 responses were usable. The data collection is still going on in rural and urban areas of Maharashtra, one of the western states in India. The convenient sampling of respondents limits the generalizability of study findings.
The second section describes the relevant theory from diffusion of innovation literature. The third section presents the research methodology used to collect responses from slum-dwellers in urban and rural India. The fourth section presents the study findings, and the final section concludes with hypotheses and suggestions for future research, and practical implications of study findings.
2. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION Diffusion is a special type of communication in which messages are new ideas. It is a social change, defined as the “process by which alteration occurs in the structure and function of a social system” [2, p.6]. Social changes occur when new ideas are invented, diffused, and are adopted or rejected. Although the cell phone is not a new technology, it is definitely a new idea for millions of poor in India to start using cell phones for everyday life. The following sub-sections portray characteristics of laggards and consequences for and incentives of innovation as described by the diffusion of innovation theory [2].
4. FINDINGS This section provides answers to the three research questions.
4.1 Demographic Characteristics Including Socioeconomic Status Out of 334 female respondents, 79 belong to rural slums and 255 live in urban slums. The average age of respondents was close to 37 years (see Figure 2).
2.1 Characteristics of Laggards Laggards are the last in a social system to adopt an innovation. They are conservative and “localite” in their outlook. They often interact with those who have traditional values. They are not part of any social network and live in their own worlds with very limited exposure to the outside world. There are no leaders among laggards, and they are rarely associated with any opinion leaders. The point of reference for the laggard is always the past. They do not believe in innovations and, hence, tend to be suspicious of new innovations. Laggards adopt an innovation only when they are sure about its success, since they cannot afford to lose the investment made in any innovation.
2.2 Perceived Consequences of and Incentives for Innovation
Figure 2. Age Distribution for % of Respondents Approximately 37% of respondents were illiterate. Out of the remaining 63% of respondents, (a) 29% of respondents dropped out of school before 10th grade, (b) 21% of respondents attended school until 10th grade, and (c) 13% of respondents attended college. Fifty seven percent of respondents earned less than a dollar a day, 36% of respondents earned more than a dollar a day and less than two dollars a day, and 7% of respondents earned more than two dollars a day. Television, in-house bathrooms, and tap water connections were the three topmost facilities and services enjoyed by the respondents (see Figure 3).
Consequences are the changes that occur to an individual or to a social system as a result of the adoption or rejection of an innovation. There are three types of consequences of diffusion of innovation: (i) desirable versus undesirable consequences, depending on whether the effects of an innovation in a social system are functional or dysfunctional; (ii) direct versus indirect consequences, depending on whether the changes to an individual or to a social system occur in immediate response to an innovation or as a second-order result of the direct consequences of an innovation; and (iii) anticipated versus unanticipated consequences, depending on whether the changes are recognized and intended by the members of a social system or not. There are a variety of incentives observed with the diffusion of innovation. The incentives are as follows. Either the individual adopter or the system associated with that adopter is benefitted
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construction worker, government employee, bottle company worker, delivery girl by a courier company, assistant to an accountant, assistant to caterers, farm workers, server in weddings, floor mill operator, and assistant at a computer institute. Another type of income source for women was serving as helpers in others’ businesses. This included helping in husbands’ businesses, fathers’ businesses, uncles’ businesses, and sons’ businesses. The unemployed women were: students, job seekers, housewives whose husbands did not allow them to work, physically handicapped women, caretakers of their big families, daughter-in-laws refrained by their in-laws to work, illiterate, and less educated women.
4.2 Key Barriers to Cell Phone Adoption
Figure 3. Facilities & Services Enjoyed by Respondents
Respondents reported three key barriers that kept them away from owning cell phones. Table 2 shows low income or insufficient income as the most significant barrier and second most significant barrier to adopting cell phones. Miscellaneous financial reasons were reported as the third most significant barrier that prevented respondents from owning cell phones. The miscellaneous financial reasons were as follows: scarce money to eat food on a daily basis, insufficient money to repair a leaking roof, low savings for children’s schooling, uncertainty and unpredictability of daily wages, no raise in income and salary, seasonal employment, unemployment, lack of permanent job, remittance of money to relatives in native places, insufficient savings to buy a cell phone, lack of guidance for operating cell phones, loss in business, very small profit margin in business, meager pension, savings lost in son’s accident, medical expenses, and a lot of accrued debt due to mother’s sickness and daughter’s wedding.
There was no correlation found between respondents’ education, age, marital status, family characteristics, and facilities at home and their lack of cell phone ownership.
4.1.1 Sources of Income The survey sought primary, secondary, and tertiary sources of income from each respondent. Table 1 lists the income sources into the following categories: (i) business of selling services, (ii) business of selling products, (iii) employment, (iv) helper in nonemployee role for someone else’s business, (v) unemployed, (vi) retired, and (vii) miscellaneous. Table 1. Source of Income # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Types of Income Sources Business of selling services Business of selling products Employee Helper in Nonemployee Role Unemployed Retired Miscellaneous
Primary N= 312
Secondary N= 181
Tertiary N =84
44%
44%
35%
24%
27%
43%
14%
13%
13%
2%
4%
5%
13% 2% 1%
12% 0% 0%
4% 0% 0%
The miscellaneous non-financial reasons that served as barriers to cell phones included government policies, socio-cultural backwardness, illiteracy, less education, dependency on relatives, retirement, disabled husband, resistance by husband and in-laws to use cell phones, lack of freedom to make decisions, availability of office phones to make personal calls, lack of electricity to charge cell phones, lack of knowledge for operating cell phones, ease of access to public phone booths, old age, husband’s addiction to alcohol, possible mishandling and misuse of cell phones by children, and extreme difference of opinions among family members for using cell phones.
The business of selling services emerged as the topmost income source in primary and secondary category, whereas the business of selling products was the topmost tertiary source of income for respondents. Respondents offered the following services: house cleaning, dishwashing, cloth washing, cooking and catering, babysitting, dropping children to schools, massaging, teaching, tailoring, singing, training women for handicraft, renting photo frames to hospitals, singing, match-making, portering, and nursing. The business of selling products included a variety of products, such as vegetables, fruits, sweetmeats, traditional snacks, spices, dry fish, tea, meals, fish, bangles, pearl ornaments, hair-bands, dress material/clothing, flowers, fabric paintings, birthday party decorations, ribbons for typewriters, calendars, rubber stamps, brooms, and sticks for ice-cream candies.
Table 2. Barriers to Cell Phone Adoption
The different forms of employment for the women were as follows: compounder at a dispensary, care-taker of mentally retarded children, assistant in a photo studio, sales-girl, student assistant, office staff in placement office, nurse, assistant in transportation business, assistant at telephone booth, hotel staff,
#
Types of Barriers
1 2
Entire Financial Burden on Respondent Alone Low/Insufficient Income
3 4
5 6
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First Key Barrier N=325 2%
Second Key Barrier N=304 2%
Third Key Barrier N=208 0%
30%
27%
10%
Inflation
14%
14%
14%
a. Large Family b. More # of Dependents than Bread-winners Lack of Need for Using Cell Phones Borrow Cell Phones from Others
4%
8%
10%
4%
4%
3%
3%
4%
2%
7 8 9 10
11
Unaffordable Cell Phone Prices and Maintenance
7%
Miscellaneous Financial Reasons Poverty
13%
16%
32%
12%
5%
1%
Costly Upbringing and Education of Children Miscellaneous Nonfinancial Reasons
3%
9%
6%
8%
6%
8%
5%
14%
4.3 Perceived Consequences of and Incentives for Cell Phone Adoption
Table 3. Perceived Incentives for Cell Phone Adoption Incentives for Cell Phone Adoption Easy to make calls to anybody any time For expanding business
1 2
3 To maintain social contact with family, relatives, friends, and neighbors 4 To seek out help in emergency situations 5 Entertainment
First N = 334 3%
Second N = 327 3%
Third N = 271 1%
25%
28%
17%
55%
51%
62%
17%
17%
19%
0%
1%
1%
The lack of cell phone ownership among female slum-dwellers was largely based on unfavorable socioeconomic and financial conditions and not driven by choice as is the case with laggards. Poor female slum-dwellers are the victims of socioeconomic conditions in rural and urban India, discouraging them from adopting cell phones. Table 4 lists the differences between three key characteristics of laggards identified by the diffusion of innovation theory and the current study findings.
1
Laggards do not believe in innovations, hence are suspicious of innovations.
100% of respondents expressed their confidence in the utility of cell phones. They were not suspicious about the value created by adopting cell phones.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We would like to thank the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for funding this study.
REFERENCES [1] ITU. International Telecommunications Union Retrieved from www.itu.int/ on December 21, 2011. [2] Rogers, E. Diffusion of Innovations (4th ed.). New York: Free Press. 1995.
Table 4. Differences in Theory and Study Findings Theoretical Views for Laggards Laggards are conservative in their outlook.
3
outlook. Social networking with friends and family members emerged as the topmost incentive for slumdwellers to adopt cell phones.
Practical implications for cell phone manufacturers are as follows. Cell phone features supporting the “business of selling services and products” could increase the cell phone adoption by microentrepreneurs in India. In addition, mobile applications facilitating social networking with appropriate user interfaces designed for illiterate and semi-literate cell phone users would be an additional incentive for poor laggards to adopt cell phones.
5. CONCLUSION
#
Laggards are not part of any social network with very limited exposure to the outside world.
Findings based on responses from 334 poor laggards suggest hypotheses for predicting cell phone adoption by the remaining poor laggards in India, who do not own and use cell phones. The hypotheses are as follows. H1: Demographic variables (e.g., education, age, marital status, family characteristics, and facilities at home) do not influence cell phone adoption. H2: Low or insufficient income is the main barrier for cell phone adoption. H3: Improvement in social status is the most evident perceived consequence of cell phone adoption. H4: Social networking is the major perceived incentive for cell phone adoption. Hence, H4a: Respondents are more likely to adopt cell phones, if they have family, friends, relatives, or neighbors who own and use cell phones. In addition, future research focusing on personal characteristics and communication patterns of laggards without cell phone ownership would equip us better for predicting cell phone adoption by laggards in India.
Anticipated and desirable consequences of adopting cell phones were as follows. Ninety-five percent of respondents think that their status in the family would improve if they started using cell phones. Ninety eight percent of respondents believe that cell phone usage will lead to personal development. Table 3 presents respondents’ top perceived incentives for cell phone adoption. Social networking with family, relatives, friends, and neighbors emerged as the most important incentive for cell phone adoption.
#
2
[3] Sinha, C. Effect of Mobile Telephony on Empowering Rural Communities in Developing Countries, Conference on Digital Divide, Global Development and the Information Society (Tunis, Tunisia, 2005), 2005. [4] TRAI. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Retrieved from http://www.trai.gov.in/ on October 23, 2011. [5] US Census Bureau. US Census Bureau’s Intl. Database, Retrieved from http://www.census.gov on May 1, 2010.
Current Study Findings In the male-dominant Indian society, business of selling services and products forms the topmost source of income for poor female slum-dwellers. Respondents are financially independent microentrepreneurs with modern
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Promoting user uptake of e-government in Colombia Diana Parra Silva
Johanna Pimiento Quintero
International Consultant Orinoco 5006 Montevideo, Uruguay +598 97305822
Manager of "Gobierno en linea" CR 8 12-00 Bogota, Colombia +571 3442270
[email protected]
[email protected] delivery of online services by public agencies, at both national and local levels.
ABSTRACT This paper describes the key factors for the development of a successful strategy for the e-government uptake in Colombia.
Management, Measurement, Performance.
The Programme, taking into consideration the discussion mentioned before has impelled the awareness of e-government services in the country through the diagnosis, design, development and follow-up of a marketing and outreach strategy in Colombia from 2008 to 2010. Below you will find the most relevant aspects concerning such experience, which gave Colombia the basis to promote the citizens' awareness up to the present days.
Keywords
2. BASELINE
Categories and Subject Descriptors A.0 [General]: Conference proceedings.
General Terms
E-government, "Gobierno en linea", Uptake, Marketing.
In 2007, a study carried out in 21 municipalities allowed gathering information about knowledge, use, needs and expectations. The study consisted of face-to-face surveys conducted in 2,500 households which represented the total of individuals residing at urban areas, selected according to age, socioeconomic strata and education of the country's population. The following are some highlights of the study's findings:
1. INTRODUCTION In 2005, the OECD identified that having a strong brand, as well as developing a solid marketing strategy, was a key factor in egovernment successful cases. In 2009, some years later, the same organization dedicated a publication to highlight the importance of public awareness on e-government.
o
Raising awareness about the importance of user uptake has become a pressing matter in the last years, to such an extent that the UN E-Government Survey 2012 recognized it as a highpriority aspect, when it points: "availability of online public services ('supply-side') has been the primary focus of egovernment studies and policymaking, but over the past years citizens' usage of e-government services ('demand-side') has also become a priority issue". The fundamentals behind this fact have triggered a discussion on two aspects: if citizens are not aware of the government's online services and do not use them, are the efforts made by public administrations valuable for the citizens? And, will the benefits commonly associated to e-government and the social return of investments be achieved without a critical mass of users?
Only 23% of Colombians had visited a website of the government, which meant that there were nearly 4 million of Internet users at that time that had never visited any public agency website.
o
Only 4% had used a government online service.
o
77% had not used government online services because they didn't know how they worked, they were considered to be unsafe or unreliable.
o
54% of nonusers were willing to use them, representing 19 million of potential users.
These findings motivated the decision to develop the marketing and outreach strategy for enhancing awareness and use of egovernment services.
3. DIAGNOSTIC
"Gobierno en linea" is the Colombian strategy, led by a Programme with the same name, that contributes on developing a more efficient, transparent and participative government, which provides better services by means of ICT. This strategy guides the
In 2008, the work began by analyzing the desired positioning for "Gobierno en linea": being efficient, participatory and transparent, as well as a provider of high quality services, which was transformed into the strategy's specific objectives:
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o
To increase the government's efficiency by optimizing processes and sharing resources, as well as exchanging accurate and quality information.
o
To promote transparency and participation, by increasing the visibility of public matters and enabling new channels for participation and social control.
o
Therefore, it was decided to develop the marketing and outreach strategy on "awareness and use", focusing on building a closer relationship between people and the government.
To provide better services fulfilling the citizen's needs, with high quality, and reduced costs and time; making them simpler and accessible through multiple channels.
A diagnosis was made with the intention of gathering more information in order to design the marketing and outreach strategy, using: 4,700 surveys in households, SMEs and large companies, associative organizations and public agencies; a positioning study with 6,003 surveys; 104 focus groups with citizens, entrepreneurs and public servants; 369 interviews with ICT companies, SMEs, Colombians living abroad and international organisms.
The strategy focused on the following target audiences:
In addition, the main characteristics of the communicational approach of the leading countries on e-government were researched, along with the best international practices regarding incentives to citizens and companies for online services usage. Likewise, macro and micro characteristics were analyzed (economical, political, social and cultural factors; consumer, client and competition profiles, among others), as well as domestic and international audiences and potential users. Moreover, a study was carried out in order to determine the positioning of the brand and the organization and how they were perceived.
o
Citizens: Although they do not always know how to use it and they are not very aware of the administrative formalities, it is the main target audience because it is the most massive and most of the online services are provided for them.
o
Citizens living abroad: For this target audience, Gobiernoenlinea.gov.co is an optimal channel offering information and services, given that through this portal they will always have access to the government from any part of the world.
o
Enterprises: It refers to large companies with a closer contact to the government because they must regularly comply with mandatory formalities. They support initiatives that make them save time and money in their interactions with the government.
o
SMEs: It refers to small and medium enterprises, which should be considered as a specific target audience since they have different habits than large companies in their interaction with the government. SMEs require more support from the government because they do not have the same resources or the same expertise as large companies.
o
Public servants: They are especially important, as they are the human assets that assure e-government's good operation. They may have certain fears, resistance to change and may also think that technology might come in to take their place.
o
International community: The interaction with this target audience is a window to global advocacy of success and achievements. They provide the possibility of learning from other experiences and it is also a way of sharing what has been accomplished.
Equally important was to know the acceptance, motivations and habits of use, possible advantages and disadvantages, main benefits and problems, and usage intention for each target audience. Also, a study to evaluate opportunities and risks of repositioning or renovating the Programme denomination (called "Agenda de Conectividad" at the moment) was made. The following are some highlights about how the target audiences perceived the positioning values: o
What is EFFICIENCY? "To not keep people wandering around, from one government office to another". "Equal treatment for everyone".
o
What is TRANSPARENCY? "It is a government with clear rules". "It implies the right of citizens to review the government's performance".
o
What is PARTICIPATION? "To be able to have a free opinion and to express my ideas". "That every opinion is taken into account".
o
What is TO PROVIDE A GOOD SERVICE? "To make the client feel well". "That the human being comes first".
It was decided that the message was to be clear, outstanding and inspiring; solid enough to be used in every media communication. Such communications should have a pertinent tone according to the target audience to be reached taking into account its specific characteristics. Similarly, it was decided that the denomination of the Programme ("Agenda de Conectividad") should be changed, using the same name of the strategy ("Gobierno en linea") and therefore unifying its image. A new logo was designed to be present throughout the communication actions; the logo had to be simple and close to the citizen and it should also convey credibility and the government's identity (see Table 1). Using focus groups the whole process was tested by citizens, businessmen and public servants.
When people used Gobiernoenlinea.gov.co, they said things like: o
"There is no discrimination; it shows us that opportunities are equal for everybody because it is open to the public".
o
"It no longer depends on the shift of public servant's opinion; it is not open to interpretations".
o
"With this type of portals one can make things easily and it is not incited to pay somebody to speed up an administrative formality".
o
"It is serious because it avoids external middlemen".
Table 1. Changes in name and image Before
4. DESIGN From world experiences on e-government, it was concluded that the communication objective for these services is mainly oriented towards raising awareness on online services and promoting its use by target audiences.
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After
For example, it is more difficult to answer a question about life such as "What should I study?" than getting information to answer a question about an administrative formality such as "How can I get an educational loan?".
It was also decided that it was necessary to have a slogan, a short phrase, easy to remember, which would link the functional matter to the emotional one; something that would linger in time and that will reflect the identity and the characteristics of the brand. Consequently it should communicate change, easiness, and proximity in such a way that each target audience could feel identified with it: "Making your relationship with the government easier" was chosen as the appropriate one.
For the stage of experience, implemented in 2009, the objective was to produce satisfactory experiences for the target audiences, with the aim of allowing people to verify that "Gobierno en linea" actually works. In order to achieve such goal, workshops inside an itinerant classroom with a circus tent shape were carried out. The tent traveled more than 7,500 kilometers visiting 16 departments (states) across the country. It allowed more than 71,500 people (students, adults, social groups, communal leaders, elderly people, handicapped people, single mothers, indigenous, afroColombians, street vendors, teachers, public servants, among others), to have a direct contact with online services. The campaign was called "Vive Gobierno en linea" (Livin' "Gobierno en linea") and advertising material was used in local media, inviting people to participate in the workshops (see Figure 2).
To influence target audiences' perception, a five stages strategy was designed, as detailed below: o
Stage of Preparation - its purpose was to advance in research and strategic planning, prepare schedules and budgets, and negotiate with the media, producing and pre-testing campaigns, among others actions. It lasted for 7 months.
o
Stage of Sensitization - oriented specifically to public servants. Communication objective: to raise their brand awareness for the launching. Key message: We are all "Gobierno en linea". It lasted for 2 months.
o
Stage of Awareness - oriented to all target audiences. Communication objective: to generate positive perceptions for a better brand positioning, that would raise its awareness and impact. Key message: We are working to make your relationship with the government progressively easy. It lasted for 3 months.
o
Stage of Experience - oriented to all target audiences. Communication objective: to generate satisfactory experiences in all the audiences. Key message: "Gobierno en linea" works; check it out. It lasted for 12 months.
o
Stage of Habit - oriented to all target audiences. Communication objective: to set habit's groundwork to use "Gobierno en linea" when interacting with the government. Key message: You can always find something new on "Gobierno en linea". It lasted for 12 months.
This campaign was granted the 2010 FRIDA Award for Best Initiative of Public Administration in the region.
5. IMPLEMENTATION For the stage of awareness, which started in late 2008, a campaign focusing on massive media and brand activation was carried out, under the premise: "Questions about administrative formalities are easier to answer than questions about life" (see Figure 1).
Figure 2. Sample of the Experience Stage Finally for the stage of habit, executed in 2010, the objective was to motivate people to try not one but several online services, demonstrating through good experiences some of the new available services for the different target audiences, under the premise: "a good experience makes a good history". The fact that Colombians should be the ones communicating the benefits and kindness of "Gobierno en linea" was found to be a good opportunity, because people would use real life, human and inclusive stories. Thus, a contest was launched so that people could share their experiences through testimonies recorded on video. The best ones were turned into TV spots for the campaign under the name "Experiences that make history" (see Figure 3).
Figure 1. Sample of the Awareness Stage
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A raise of 309% of awareness (increasing from 22% up to 90%) and a raise of 550% in use (increasing from 6% up to 39%) were achieved. One fact that is worth highlighting, is the one referring to "re-use" (do it again): among people who had actually used "Gobierno en linea", 99% asserted that they would be willing to use it again. These results, together with an analysis of usage evolution, allowed inferring that next steps for the marketing and outreach strategy should be focused on promoting "the first time use". Once people experience online services, they would be willing to continue to use them due to the benefits perceived. The main lesson learnt was that a communication strategy should not be approached as a series of isolated actions but as a whole strategy (as its name indicates) with clear challenges, objectives, key messages, concepts, stages and indicators, and should also be projected within a definite timeline.
Figure 3. Sample of the Habit Stage The starting point for the development of each campaign was the media mix that was determined for each target audience: o
Citizens: ATL - Ads on national and regional press, magazines, television and radio, as well as free PR press (political speech of regional and national important authorities). TTL - Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, links on websites of the government and online ads. BTL - Events, banners, merchandising and text messages.
o
Citizens living abroad: ATL - Ads on international TV channels. TTL - To make contact with this segment digital and social media were crucial.
o
SMEs: ATL - Specialized magazines, professional guilds, radio stations and news channels. BTL Specialized events, direct email with information about the different uses and benefits, as well as brand presence at fairs and congresses.
o
Enterprises: ATL - Ads in specialized magazines oriented to different sectors and professional associations. Also, ads on TV and radio news shows. BTL - Presence at fairs and specialized congresses for large companies, as well as through speakers discoursing about different trends with the purpose of catching companies’ attention.
o
o
Furthermore, users need to be analyzed in depth in order to understand how they think and how they interact with the government, as well as the kind of messages they might consider interesting; plus examine how their perceptions are changing in order to set the service value promise according to their expectations. From that starting point on, a strategic plan was designed and piloted during 2011: an accompaniment outline was implemented, to help agencies to design their marketing and outreach strategies so as to enhance the use of online services, by transferring the knowledge gained by the Programme in such area. During the last years (between 2010 and 2011), through the maintenance of the strategy initially designed, awareness suffered a slight fall from 90% to 88% (that is within the margin of error in measurements), while use rose from 39% to 55% over the same period, which showed that the strategy was being successful and should continue this way (see Table 2). Table 2. Increase of awareness and use
International Community: ATL - Articles in specialized magazines. An annual magazine was created divulging successful cases and advances. BTL - Brand presence in events and congresses. TTL - Online networks related to e-government, for posting a variety of successful cases. Others - To follow international rankings and other types of publications.
Aspect
2008
2009
2010
2011
Awareness
22%
66%
90%
88%
Use
6%
30%
39%
55%
For Colombia the necessity to define sustained actions towards user uptake of e-government has been a priority. As a consequence of these actions, future strategies should leverage the lessons learnt in recent years.
7. REFERENCES [1] OECD. e-Government for Better Government, 2005.
Public servants: BTL: to carry out events, seminars, chats, direct email, presence at fairs and congresses. Others: production of training materials (using familyfriendly language and situations applicable to their realities).
[2] OECD. Rethinking e-Government Services, 2009. [3] UN. E-Government Survey 2012: E-Government for the People, 2012. [4] Gobierno en linea Programme. Study of knowledge, use, needs and expectations, 2007.
6. RESULTS AND FOLLOWING ACTIONS During the first three years of the strategy a follow-up was made analyzing the raise of awareness and use of electronic means in the interaction between people and the government.
[5] Gobierno en linea Programme. Results of application of the methodology for monitoring and evaluation, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
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Session 8 Measurement 1
From Failure to Success: Using Design-Reality Gap Analysis as a Mid-implementation Assessment Tool for e-Government Lemma Lessa
Solomon Negash
School of Information Sciences
Department of Information Systems Michael J. Coles College of Business Kennesaw State University, USA
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia (+251) 911683805
[email protected]
770-420-4312
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Mesfin Belachew Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Ethiopia (+251) 911791462
[email protected]
General Terms
e-Government implementation failure in low-income countries is reported to be as high as 85% where 35% being classified as total failures - the project never started or was started but immediately abandoned, and 50% are partial failures - major project goals are not attained or there were undesirable outcomes [5]. Given this rate of failure we wanted to investigate a project with partial failure and draw lessons learned that can be replicated in other projects. This paper looks at a Land Management Information System (LMIS) in Ethiopia that facilitates citizen’s request for land information. The project is credited for reducing the delay in retrieving land information, simplifying the process, and reducing the potential for corruption.
Management, Measurement, Performance
Keywords e-Government, implementation success, Design-Reality gap model, ITPOSMO model, developing countries, low-income countries
1. INTRODUCTION It has been said a lot about the tremendous role of e-Government to improve and more importantly transform the public sector especially in developing countries context. Although there are significant investments on e-Government initiatives in spite of limited budget, there are only few success stories recorded whereas majorities of those efforts end up in a failure. It is of the interest of all respective governments if those e-Government initiatives can be ideally successful as well as sustainable. In line with this there is also emerging keen interest to evaluate the contributions of such initiatives on the effectiveness and efficiency of their public services as it is natural to evaluate whether benefits out weight costs or not and as they ideally expect very much positive impacts in this regard.
We use Design-Reality gap model [5] as a theoretical framework to assess the project status. Primary data were collected from four different groups involved in the project including agency representatives from the Federal Government of Ethiopia, officials from the capacity building office of Diredawa City Administration, municipality representatives, and IT professionals. Our analysis revealed the main contributors for the success of the e-Government project and also show the implementation gaps which need due attention in the future to maximize the success of the project. Based on the implementation experiences of this project, list of recommendations are provided for successful execution of possible related initiatives in the future.
An e-Government project is said to be successful if most stakeholders attain their major goals and do not experience significant undesirable outcomes. Considerable amount of research has been carried out on the use and positive role of ICTs in low-income countries in areas such as health, public administration, and education [9]. And some studies have pointed out information systems project failure in low-income countries ([7]; [4]). Researchers have also argued that most of these projects fail either totally or partially due to ‘design-actuality’ [4] or ‘design-reality’ gaps [5], long-term sustainability problems [1], or lack of commitment on the part of political leadership and public managers [2].
Categories and Subject Descriptors J. [Computer Applications] J.1 [Administrative Data Processing] - Government; H.4 [Information systems Applications] H.4.m [Miscellaneous]
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According to a study curried out by Heeks (in [4, p.2]) who has done substantial research in the subject area, most implementations of e-Government in low-income countries fail, with 35% being classified as total failures (project was never started or was started but immediately abandoned), and 50% are partial failures (major goals are not attained and/or there were undesirable outcomes). Similarly, in a study by [6], it was estimated that US$3 trillion will be spent on information
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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each piece of paper that indicate different historical information in the land owner’s file/container), and address (address for the owner).
technology (IT) projects by governments during the ten year between 2000 and 2010; with the overall estimated failure rate of 60%, much of this investment will go to waste. This is a disturbing fact, especially as developing countries have limited resources at their disposal.
Current Reality
One way to avoid failure is to learn from successful projects within the developing countries. If we find such a project that is successful, then we should analyze why it was a success in order to learn lessons for other Developing Country e-Gov projects. Especially lessons learned from other low-income countries are more relevant for this group and encourage South-to-South best practice sharing. The e-Government system under consideration is a partial failure. What we are actually asking in this paper is how we can seek to steer projects that are partial failures from failure to success just by assessing progress to date, and identifying future action priorities to enable greater success.
Information
The rationale for the study is, thus, to promote local best practices while learning from strengths and mistakes of those initiatives so far. Hence, the main objectives of this study are exploring the factors critical to the success of the e-Government initiative; identify the extent of success, and forward recommendations for future action. In addition, we present the application of the Design-Reality Gap model, a theoretical model that explains success/failure of IT project implementation in low-income countries, vis-à-vis e-Government project.
2. A CASE STUDY OF LAND MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (LMIS)
Information
Technology
Technology
Processes
Processes
Objectives and values
Objectives and values
Staffing and skills
Staffing and skills
Management systems and structures
Management systems and structures
Other resources time and money
The Ethiopian ICT Development Agency (EICTDA) is a government body responsible to promote integration and utilization of ICT in Ethiopia. The deputy director of the Agency related to us one of an e-Government project in a city municipality in one of the regional governments. This piece of work is aimed at analyzing the project which is known as Land Management Information System (LMIS). This system is considered as a successful both by EICTDA and the Diredawa city administration.
Design proposal for New eGov project
Other resources time and money
Figure 1. The ITPOSMO dimensions of eGovernment project design-reality gaps [5]
The Land Management Information System (LMIS) under consideration was launched mid 2009 at Diredawa city administration. Diredawa is located in eastern part of Ethiopia and is one of the two city administrations directly reporting to the Federal government of Ethiopia. The LMIS was initiated by the ICT development bureau of the administration and outsourced in an open bid to a local software developing company. The application is aimed at managing the land-related information of the city. It has taken about a year to implement the system. The key stakeholders involved in the process of implementation were the top management, the Capacity Building Bureau, and the ICT staff in the city administration. The new system manages and provides information related to land(s) owned by residents. More specifically, it manages and provides basic information about the land(s) including size (area in sq. meter), zoning (such as commercial, residential, school, or church), plan number, and file number (container number). It also manages information on personal details (such as family information – spouse, children), documents (scanned softcopy of
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o
Information - indicates the information used in the eGovernment application (comparing the information requirements contained within the design of the eGovernment application vs. the information currently really being used in the organization);
o
Technology – indicates the technology used in the agency (comparing the requirements contained within the design of the e-Government application vs. the real situation now);
o
Process – indicates the work processes undertaken in the agency (comparing the processes needed for successful implementation of the e-Government application vs. the real situation now);
o
Objectives – indicates the objectives and values that key stakeholders need for successful implementation of the eGovernment application vs. their current real objectives and values;
o
Staffing and Skill - indicate the staffing numbers and skill levels/types required in/by the agency (comparing the requirements for successful implementation of the eGovernment application vs. the real situation now);
o
Management and Structure – indicate the management systems and structures required in the agency (comparing the
requirements for successful implementation of the eGovernment application vs. the real situation now); o
taken to close design-reality gaps.
Others – indicate such issues as the time and money required to successfully implement and operate the new application compared with the time and money really available now.
3. COLLECTION OF DATA All the Primary data were collected from the supply side of the system as citizens have no direct interaction with the system yet. Thus, those involved in the project were considered. Accordingly, interview was made with the Deputy administrator of the city administration; head of the Capacity Building and ICT Sector Bureaus; head of the ICT sector in the capacity building bureau; seven top level managers in the city administration whose duties are highly related to the Land Management practice, and the system administrator of the new system. In addition, group discussion was made with the four IT staff (data encoders) in the city administration. The questions for the structured interview were prepared based on the constructs of the Design-Reality gap model and a copy of the interview questions were given to each study subject at least two days in advance. But, some more clarifications were obtained through telephone conversation from two of the interviewees among the top level managers in the city administration during our discussion while rating the numerical values for each of the constructs in the Design-Reality Gap model.
There is partial failure in the eGovernment project as actions are not
The e-Government project certainly failed as actions are not taken to close design-reality gaps.
In reality majority of the land and user profile information are made ready by the new system except few documents to be scanned in incorporated. Gap = 3; a significant portion of the design goals are implemented. But supporting documents of few land owners were not scanned and incorporated yet.
4.2 Technology The design called for technologies including scanners, server computer and local area network, Internet connection, and personal computers. Scanners needed to digitize the current paper based documents, new court decisions, and tax receipts. Server computer and network needed for storing information in a centralized location for access by decision makers including engineers, finance officers, land administrators, and city managers. Internet connection needed for off-site access mostly by field personnel. About fifteen personal computers with Pentium IV processor and at least 40GB hard disk space were needed for decision makers and data entry personnel.
Interpretation
15-28
57-70
The Land Management Information System (LMIS) was designed manage data on the basic land information and owner profile. It provides information on land purpose/zoning (commercial vs. residential), lot size, land location, land identification number, other legal information in relation to that piece of land, the land owner name and address, spouse name, children names, and household number. The system design requires all supporting and related documents to be scanned and available online.
Table 1: Interpretation of total gap score
project
The e-Government project may well fail unless action is taken to close design-reality gaps.
4.1 Information
The rating of each dimension was made in a coconscious among the three researchers based on the data at hand and recommendations made by interviewees during the group discussion. Accordingly, each dimension is numerically rated in a scale from zero to ten where zero is to mean no change between the design proposal and current reality; ten means complete change between the design and current reality; and five would indicate some degree of change. Finally, all the rating numbers for each dimension were added up and interpreted as depicted in Table 1.The original table is for use with predictive – i.e. pre-hoc design-reality gap analysis before implementation. As this system has already been implemented, we were interested in doing a midimplementation assessment in order to see what has been achieved so far, and where the project may go in future. Thus, rewordings were done on the items in the table accordingly.
The e-Government succeeded.
43-56
In this section we will use the seven dimensions from the DesignReality Gap model to analyze the case study gaps. We will describe the design goals and the current reality followed by gap assessment between the two.
Thematic analysis [8] of the organizational reality and requirements within the design of the e-Government application was made based on the qualitative data collected from the field as per the seven ITPOSMO dimensions. Next, the rating of each dimension as well as the interpretation of the sum of the numerical values of the dimensions is made by adopting a detailed guideline available for same (See at http://www.egov4dev.org/success/techniques/risk_drg.shtml).
0-14
The e-Government project might fail totally, or might well be a partial failure unless action is taken to close design-reality gaps.
4. DESIGN-REALITY GAP ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.1 Presentation and analysis of data
Total Gap Score
29-42
well
The implemented reality has all technology requirements except scanners and some concerns regarding the processing as well as storage capacity of the Personal Computers as their capacity is lesser than the required capacity.
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Gap = 5; The weak and unreliable Internet connection provided by the Ethiopian Telecommunications and also the shortage of scanners weakens the Land Management Information System (LMIS) system ability to function in its full capacity.
4.5 Staffing and Skills The design calls for personnel including one system administrator, one network administrator, one database administrator, four data encoders, and two computer maintenance crew. The design called for all personnel to have experience and the administrators to have at least a bachelor degree.
4.3 Processes A business process re-design project has preceded the Land Management Information System (LMIS) project. Therefore the business process for the Land Management Information System (LMIS) was already defined and in place in the manual system. The major top-level processes that the system is involved in include the following among others: Land information registration sub-process – aimed at registering and documenting all required information regarding the land management; Land ownership licensing sub-process – aimed at providing and approving ownership license to owners of plot of land for a given purpose (business; residence; public service; or other); and Information provision service – aimed at providing any information regarding a plot occupied for an owner or any other concerned body within and outside the city administration such as the court and others. The new system design followed the business process already implemented; hence the reality was the same as the design, except in few cases the workers are required to follow the old process in those cases where there is no scanned copies of any document about a land owner.
In reality only five people were hired (the system administrator and the four data encoders), none had experience; they were all fresh graduates from ICT diploma program. Of course, they have stayed in the job for about a year on average and they have built up skills by learning on the job.
Gap = 2; the design was intended to incorporate scanned documents. Although a small portion of the process it still poses minimal gap.
Gap = 8 failed to create the intended department and management structure.
Gap = 7; Five of the staffing positions were filled, skill level fall short of the design.
4.6 Management Systems and Structures The design called for a new structure with an ICT department that manages the Land Management Information System (LMIS). The design also called for salary structure with clearly defined promotion levels. In reality the intended department was not created and the reporting structure falls under the existing land administration department. No permanent employees were hired; all ICT hires have temporary status.
4.7 Other Resources In other resources we looked at cost and time overrun. The design was loosely defined to take a year. The city administration allocated the required one-time budget for the project. The project was completed in the projected time period. However there is acute shortage of budget to cover the running cost required just following the system implementation.
4.4 Objectives and Values Two primary objectives and values of the design were efficient and transparent system. As to efficiency, the manual system took 3-4 months to process land administration inquiries, reducing this long processing time was one of the design objectives. Regarding transparency also the manual system has introduced many loopholes that are prone to corruption; hence the design calls for a transparent system. The design in terms of transparency assumes that this objective is also shared by all the public servants.
Gap = 3; project time was as expected. Although money was spent to complete the project the city administration did not consider the running costs of the new system.
In relation to efficiency, the current reality shows a significant improvement in land administration processing both in time, effort, and resource consumption. The current system takes less than a day to complete land administration queries, a significant improvement that reduced the time from months to hours. The intended transparency, however, is compromised because decision makers find loopholes to revert to the manual system. Although the design requires buy-in to the goals of efficiency and transparency, and that this buy-in – while absent among some (corrupt) staff in the middle and lower levels of the decision making ladder – was present for few senior decision makers and the volunteers.
5. CONCLUSIONS Summary of the Design-Reality gap is shown in Table 2. Table 2: Summary of Design-Reality gap SN
Gap = 7; Lack of scanned document is used as a primary reason for reverting to the manual system, but also decision makers resist using the new system and find excuses to revert to the manual system. The intent to overcome corruption is minimized but not eliminated.
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Dimension
Gap
1
Information
3
2
Technology
5
3
Process
2
4
Objectives and values
7
5
Staffing and Skills
7
6
Management system and structure
8
7
Other resources
3
Total
35
longitudinally used at different points to see the progress in closing identified gaps in the process of implementation as well as post-implementation periods.
The current research concludes with highlighting the following key findings and recommendations: The total gap of 35 indicates that there is a partial failure in the eGovernment project and the project may fail totally unless action is taken to close design-reality gaps; see Table 1 for reference. The largest gap is ‘management system and structure’ which is 8 followed by significant gaps in ‘staff and skill’ & ‘Objectives and values’, both showing 7. The main reason for the large gaps in these three dimensions was the lack of awareness about the priority of such systems among the decision makers except the champions. The transparency objective is also lacking because the documents not scanned still require manual intervention, this in turn has created a loophole for corruption. Installing scanners to digitize the all process flows will further reduce the DesignReality and increase the project success. These are clear indications for the fact that the project may still continue to be a partial failure unless those gaps are closed. However, in our discussion with the management they too have lately recognized this gap. In relation to the ‘management system and structure’ dimension, we are also informed that a new ICT department has been proposed and getting ready to implement. We were also informed additional staff with appropriate skills will soon be hired. A permanent position with clearly defined promotion scale is also in the works. Reducing the gaps in these two areas will significantly increases the project success rate.
o
o
o
The dimensions with the least Design-Reality gap are ‘process’ and ‘other resources’. The business process changes made prior to the project launch became an opportunity and has made the process gap low. The typical resistance often experienced during business process change has already been done and implemented. ‘Other resources (cost and time)’ gap was low because of the commitment from the project champion. Funding issues were not constrained by bureaucratic red tape; instead the champion had funded the project. The time commitment was also managed and accomplished by the project champion. The role of the champion played a critical role in materializing this project.
o
Given the overall rating of 35, the e-Government project may well fail unless action is taken to close design-reality gaps. The main actions needed are to reduce the largest design-reality gaps (i.e. working on key issues such as Management system and structure, objectives and values, and staffing and skill, and also availing financial resources to cover the recurrent costs which resulted in large design reality gap). The Diredawa city administration should try to identify ways in each case to make design more like reality and/or to make reality more like design.
Finally, the value of Design-Reality gap analysis model as a midimplementation assessment tool for e-government projects is worth mentioning. In this piece of work, we have found DesignReality gap analysis model as valuable tool in that it has capability to show possible gaps during implementation which actually need proper intervention from stakeholders and we have noticed that the model can also serve as a mid-implementation assessment tool for e-government projects as it can be
o
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Project champions: As revealed in the study, the most critical factors that contributed to the success of the eGovernment implementation are exceptional commitment from few influential decision makers to overcome the barriers and challenges for change, the alignment of the new systems with the Business Process Reengineering initiative, and unreserved effort from volunteers to support the change effort by the government. The e-Government project was not initially planned as a solution in the overall reform effort by the city administration. Rather it came to being at the end of the comprehensive business process reengineering effort when the administration noticed that the new business processes cannot be put in place unless automation in undertaken. This in turn shows that unless short term and long term measures are taken in order to bridge the observed gaps in all the ITPOSMO dimensions and specifically the gaps in objectives and values; staffing and skill as well as financial resource constraint; the success and sustainability of these e-Government applications will definitely be in trouble. Collaboration: Although not institutionalized, the effort made by few top management members and IT professionals in the capacity building bureau brought difference and hence credited for the success. Hence, the top management commitment takes the lion’s share of the achievement attained at the end of the day. Staffing, Skills and structure: The IT professionals are not recognized as permanent in the current organizational structure and as a result they are working in a temporary basis. This may disappoint the professionals and force them look for better job and salary elsewhere which in turn endanger the day to day operation of the application put in place. It should be underlined that the success of such initiatives depends largely on human skills and capabilities. Hence, education and training initiatives must be considered as priority actions. Staff need to be trained to handle new processes and activities; they have to be given incentives to prevent the brain drain of skilled people; and they need to feel part of the organization by engaging in the decision making process. Planned and continuous awareness creation effort through series of workshops, events, seminars, and conferences is required in the future to better create clear impression about the benefits of the new system among all stakeholders. Continuous improvement: Evaluating such an effort should not be one time activity rather it should be done periodically in order to assure long term success of the new system.
[4] Heeks, R., Information systems and developing countries: Failure, success, and local improvisations, The Information Society, 18(2), 2002, 101–112. [5] Heeks, R., Most eGovernment-for-development projects fail: How can risks be reduced? iGovernment Working Paper Series, paper no. 14, 2003. [6] Heeks, R. and Stanforth, C., Understanding eGovernment project trajectories from an actor-network perspective, European Journal of Information Systems, 16, 2007,165-177. [7] Ndou, V., E-Government for Developing Countries: Opportunities and Challenges, The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 18(1), 2004, 1-24 http://www.ejisdc.org (2004) [8] Orodho, A. J. and Kombo, D.K., Research Methods. Nairobi:Kenyatta University, Institute of Open Learning, 2002. [9] Walsham and Shahy, Information Systems Research Landscape in Developing countries, Information Technology for Development, 2005, Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com), Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We are grateful to the management of Ethiopian Information & Communication Technology Agency (EICTDA) of the Federal Democratic Government of Ethiopia for partially sponsoring the case study.
7. REFERENCES [1] Aichholzer, G., Scenarios of eGovernment in 2010 and implications for strategy design, Electronic Journal of eGovernment, 2(1), 2004, 1–10. [2] Bhatnagar, S., Social implications of information and communication technology in developing countries: Lessons from Asian success stories, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 1(4), 2000, 1– 9. [3] Dada, D., The Failure of EGovernment in Developing Countries: A Literature Review, The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 26, 7 (2006)
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Measuring Organizational Interoperability in Practice: The case study of Population Welfare Department of Government of Sindh, Pakistan Devender Maheshwari
Marijn Janssen
Technical University Delft 2628 BX DELFT The Netherlands Tel. 0031152783284
Technical University Delft 2628 BX DELFT The Netherlands Tel. 0031152781140
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
General Terms Measurement, Documentation, Design, and Theory
Government organizations use technology to interoperate with each other in order to provide effective and efficient services to the citizens. Interoperation between these organizations is challenging due to the organizational differences among different types of public organizations. Measuring organizational interoperability of government organizations using technological advancements is difficult and often remains at the technical level and do not measure the organizational level. Existing interoperability models and frameworks focus on different aspects of organizational and technical interoperability independently; but there is hardly any single measurement instrument addressing both. Though the interoperability models and frameworks describe the layers, levels, and stages; they do not identify any assessment constructs for measuring and benchmarking the organizational interoperability. This paper investigates interoperability maturity models to identify assessment layers for measuring and benchmarking the interoperability, and propose the measurement instrument that will allows government organizations to effectively measure organizational interoperability. We develop a list of measurement constructs for the sub-layers of organizational interoperability layer to assess the maturity of organizational interoperability. Finally, we conduct a case study at Population Welfare Department Government of Sindh, Pakistan to investigate the applicability and usefulness of the organizational layer and its measurement constructs in the proposed interoperability measurement instrument for assessing the maturity of organizational interoperability.
Keywords E-government, Interoperability, Measurement, Benchmarking, Public Service Organizations.
1. INTRODUCTION Interoperability is described to have significant impact on public organizations to advance the processes, procedures, operations, and effective service provision to the citizens [30-31, 37-38]. Maturity of public organizations is often characterized by the interoperability as a key element for e-government integration, new connectivity creation among networks, information sharing, and collaboration [13, 21, 27]. Measuring interoperability is not only a technological challenge, but a sociotechnical matter since both technical as well organizational capabilities reflect the maturity of public organizations [16, 38, 48]. This means that the aspects of organizational interoperability are equally important for interoperability measurement. Hjort-Madsen [21] describes that the complexity of organizational aspects of interoperability may surpass the technical as the public organizations move toward inter-organizational governance. Van der Veer and Wiles [50, p-6] describe the organizational interoperability as “the ability of organisations to effectively communicate and transfer (meaningful) data [7] even though they may be using a variety of different information systems over widely different infrastructures, possibly across different geographic regions and cultures”, whereas the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) IDABC [23, p-16] describes it as "defining business processes and bringing about the collaboration of administrations that wish to exchange information and may have different internal structures as well as aspects related to requirements of the user community”. Recently, this bias has been criticized by many as the public organizations interoperate more and more with each other for information sharing to provide effective and efficient services. Hence, the need of disparate back-office systems to interoperate and collaborate with each other requires enhanced interoperability among different back-offices. Interoperability in literature is mostly described from technical viewpoint as a capability of different systems to exchange and share information in useful manner [2, 24, 33, 41]. Many definitions of interoperability can be found in literature [10, 24-25, 33, 41]. It is easily ascertained from the literature that several authors and organizations discuss technical aspects of interoperability standards e.g. [3, 9, 11, 34, 46, 49]; whereas the organizational
Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.12 [Interoperability]: Distributed objects; H.1.1. [Information Systems]: Models and Principles –Systems and Information Theory; H.4 [Information Systems Applications]: Miscellaneous; J.1 [Administrative Data Processing]: Government
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address these issues in different layers, levels, and steps; there are hardly any guidelines to incorporate these aspects into a single measurement instrument. This paper proposes the measurement instrument that incorporates both technical and organizational aspects of interoperability. In order better understand the interoperability measurement layers, we investigate the selected interoperability maturity models and frameworks that are commonly discussed literature and utilized by national and international organizations:
aspects are hardly discussed as they are messy. Goldkuhl [16] describes that the interoperability is not only a technical subject, but there is a need to conceptualize the organizational aspects as well. He further explains that the interoperability is also about what people do for information systems to interoperate. Scholl and Klischewski [41] describe that the assessment of interoperability is still unclear and faces many challenges, the evaluation and measurement methods need to be investigated properly. They also identify nine major constraints that affect the interoperability: 1) constitutional, 2) jurisdictional, 3) collaborative, 4) organizational, 5) informational, 6) managerial, 7) technological, 8) cost, and 9) performance. Some of these constraints also reflect the organizational aspects of interoperability and need to be included in interoperability measurement process. Aspects of organizational Interoperability can be measured within an organization between two or more information systems as well as between different organizations with multiple information systems. This paper presents a measurement instrument and a set of measurement constructs to assess and benchmark organizational aspects of interoperability. Section 2 discusses the interoperability maturity models and frameworks to investigate the organizational aspects of interoperability. Section 3 proposes the interoperability measurement instrument and derives the measurement constructs for each sub-layer of the organizational interoperability layer. In section 4, a case study is conducted at the population welfare department government of Sindh, Pakistan using the developed organizational layer and its measurement constructs for assessing the organizational interoperability. Finally, section 5 discusses the results of the outcome of case study.
Levels of Information Systems Interoperability (LISI): The LISI model developed by the US Department of Defense (DoD) comprises of five levels i.e. isolated systems, connected systems, functional distributed, domain integrated, and enterprise universal. These levels of LISI are centrally focused on the technical interoperation of the systems [18, 35, 43, 46]. NC3TA Reference Model for Interoperability (NMI): The NMI model also mainly focuses on the technical aspects of interoperability while including the interoperability degrees i.e. unstructured data, structured data, seamless data sharing, and seamless information sharing to classify the content type of the exchanged data and information flows. The model aims to improve the functional efficiency by introducing the structured data interpretation and exchange [35, 46]. Organizational Interoperability Model (OIM): The IOM model is an extension of LISI model that includes the organizational aspects of interoperability. Although the model only focuses on the organizational interoperability, the levels of OIM i.e. independent, ad-hoc, collaborated, integrated, and unified are closely aligned with the environmental description of levels of the LISI model. OIM model provides some information in each level for shared value systems, shared goals, and common structures but does not provide any guideline to achieve the desired organizational interoperability [9, 18, 35].
2. BACKGROUND Interoperability maturity models described in literature mostly focus on the technical aspects of public organizations [3, 9, 11, 22, 28, 34, 46]; whereas the organizational aspects are parsley discussed with little emphasis on the measuring and benchmarking perspective. Measures to assess organizational interoperability are hardly indicated in these interoperability maturity models. Maheshwari et al. [32, p-2] discuss ten different interoperability maturity models and related measurement approaches to investigate the interoperability measurement issues and challenges in public service organizations. Only a handful of maturity models [16, 22-23, 28] discuss the aspects of organizational interoperability, whereas the majority remains centrally focused on technical interoperability. Furthermore, they argue that the measuring and benchmarking the interoperability of public organizations is challenging as it encompasses a widespread array of diverse areas and dimensions. In a similar vein, Shahkooh et al. [43] investigated some generic (e.g. INTEROP NoP, NEHTA, and IDEAS) and country specific (e.g. Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom) egovernment interoperability frameworks. They, after investigating different frameworks describe interoperability as:
Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model (LCIM): The LCIM model in [18, 35, 46] describes five levels of conceptual interoperability i.e. system specific data, documented data, aligned static data, aligned dynamic data, and harmonized data. The model shows that the interoperability is not only subjective to the technical capability of the systems but also the composability on the conceptual levels. The levels of LCIM conceptual model were later extended and reproduced [47, 49] as i.e. no-interoperability, technical interoperability, syntactic interoperability, pragmatic interoperability, dynamic interoperability, and conceptual interoperability. The LCIM conceptual models also centrally focus on the technical interoperability of the systems [18, 35, 4647]. European Interoperability Framework (EIF): The EIF 1.0 framework by Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC) was first introduced in 2004 [23]; which was later upgraded to EIF 2.0 in 2008 [22]. The version EIF 1.0 comprised of three layers i.e. organizational, semantics, and technical; which were extended to five layers in EIF 2.0 i.e. organizational, semantics, technical, political, and legal interoperability. Unlike other models and frameworks (LISI, NMI, OIM, LCIM), the EIF focused not only on technical interoperability but also other organizational aspects of the interoperability [15-16, 22-23, 30, 43].
“a set of policies, strategies, standards, guidelines, and instructions to connect different governmental organizations in order to facilitate fast and easy information exchange to deliver services to the citizens, businesses, and employees” [43, p-65] Thus, the interoperability on the whole is a combination of technical as well organizational aspects that affect the information exchange and sharing between any two or more entities. Though the existing interoperability models and frameworks sparsely
European Interoperability Maturity Model (EIMM): The EIMM by Advanced Technologies for interoperability of
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Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications (ATHENA) comprises of five levels i.e. performed, modeled, integrated, interoperable, and optimizing. ATHENA intended to assess the interoperability in enterprise domain using EIMM. The model specifically focuses on both organizational as well technical aspects of interoperability in enterprise domain [3, 18].
represents technology and tasks. Measurement aspects of the technical and organizational interoperability as shown in Figure 1 are derived based on the literature review interoperability maturity models and frameworks. Janssen and Scholl [28] describe that the settlements should be reached among various involved partners to avoid unwanted situations regarding the quality, compatibility, and extent of information collaboration and interoperation. The arrows shown in the Figure 1 from top to bottom and bottom to top of each layer shows that implementation of interoperability layers is non-linear, which means that each layer can be implemented independent of each other. Hence, the interoperability measurement aspects of each layer are relative, but can be measured independently.
Though the maturity models are developed by different individual researchers [9, 46], national [11], and international [22, 34] organizations; none of these models or frameworks discuss measures to assess the organizational aspects of interoperability. The stages, levels, and layers are sequentially numbered without any further guideline about the measurements method or the measures themselves. Literature reviews of interoperability maturity models and frameworks suggests that the maturity of technical interoperability is somewhat achievable due the established standards and policies, but the aspects of organizational interoperability e.g. policies, business processes, financial, and governance are important and need to be addresses carefully. In other words, some of the organizational aspects are often described as the barrier of interoperability adoption and implementation [1, 12, 41].
The explanation of technical sub-layers is already clear and well defined by many organizations as well as individual authors [e.g. 22-23, 28, 32, 49], whereas the organizational interoperability and the measurement aspects of its sub-layers are hardly discussed in literature. Therefore, this paper briefly discusses the measurement aspects of organizational layer and derives the adequate measuring and benchmarking constructs for each sub-layer.
3.1 Organizational Layer
3. MEASUREMENT APPROACH
Organizational factors (e.g. technology adaption, economic constraints, openness, and back-office cooperation) and organizational issues (e.g. collaboration, business process, and coordination) that impact the performance of information systems are used to describe interoperability [14, 16-17]. Organizational layer places the foundation for functional infrastructure of public organizations for collaboration, exchange, and sharing of information. Table 1 gives short description of each organizational sub-layer as depicted in Figure1. Interoperability sub-layers explained in Table 1 are sparsely described in literature, but there is hardly any discussion about the measures to assess them.
Literature review of maturity models and frameworks discussed in Section 2 gives insight about the importance of organizational aspects of interoperability, but does not provide sufficient guideline to measure organizational interoperability. The maturity models describe interoperability levels in a linear fashion, whereas these levels are implemented on top of each other in practice. Although some authors [e.g. 50] argue that the successful implementation of technical, syntactical, and semantic interoperability is necessary for organizational interoperability, whereas others [e.g. 28, 32] suggest that both organizational as well technical interoperability can be implemented on top of each other. This paper proposes a two layered measurement instrument where each layer can be implemented on top of each other.
Tolk, Turnitsa et al. [47] describe that the pragmatic interoperability can reflect the maximum maturity if the information sharing by the sender as well receiver is translucent, clear, and truthfully interpretable. Policy sub-layer analyzes the maturity of organizational aspects and helps to avoid the adverse effects by identify the limitations. This layer also envisages personal, environmental, standardization, and policy aspects to distinguish the types of communication, and embraces the information exchange intention of sender [28, 39].
Organization Layer • • • • • •
Policy Enterprise architecture Business process Judicial Governance Economical
For the public organizations aiming to facilitate citizens and businesses with seamless service delivery, the enterprise architecture can perform the essential role and provide guidance to address organizational issues [19]. Enterprise architecture of a public organization provides systematic understanding of basic elements describing existing and anticipated environment [5]. Thus, enterprise architecture is useful to measure the basic information about organizational elements. Tough enterprise architecture encapsulates majority of organizational aspects, we only focus on interoperability related measures. Thus, the sublayer enterprise architecture is used to measure the basic information about human resource and formal communication.
Technical Layer • • •
Syntactic Semantic Physical infrastructure
Figure 1 Interoperability Measurement Instrument.
Interoperability in public organizations aims to improve the service provision by advancing the business processes and procedures for citizens, business, employees [32]. The business process sub-layer in this context measures the processes and procedures alignment, whereas the processes and procedures for information exchange and sharing between the collaborating and interoperating information systems are often reflected by the
Proposed measurement instrument as shown in Figure 1 is based on the methodology of architecture layers of interoperability by [28], whereas the selection of layers based on the socio-technical design approach. Bostrom and Heinen [6] argue that the success of the organizations depend socio-technical system (STS), where social system represents people and structure and technical system
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service level agreements. The interoperating information systems desire comprehensive, understandable, and coherent re-adaptation of business processes.
law and regulation and constitutional restrains that affect the maturity of interoperability. Goldkuhl [16, p-4] describes the judicial interoperability as “congruence between different laws and regulations”. According to Janssen and Scholl [28] the governance in public organizations is differentiated by the wellorganized and cogent interoperation among organizational mechanisms, as long as these mechanisms guide in the correct direction. Table 1 Organizational sub-layers and measurement constructs
Judicial aspects of interoperability are sparsely described by many [3, 8, 22-23, 28, 41, 49] as an important factor affecting the Sub-layers Description Constructs
Policy
This layer deals with back-office procedures and processes between the interoperating systems from policy perspectives for clear, transparent, and truly interpretable exchange of information by sender as well as receiver [41, 47].
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architecture represents wide-spread areas of public organizations that can be effective to resolve interoperability conflicts [40] as a mean to measure the basic information.
Business Process
Business process deals with the alignment of business processes and procedures, valuecreation, monitoring, controlling, and long and short term agreements.
Judicial
Governance
Judicial layer reflects the organizational laws and regulations, constitutional and legal restraints, and organizational safety and security issues that affect the interaction of information systems. Governance mechanisms determine how communication, responsibilities, and decision-making structures are formalized [26, p.2307].
1.
Context and demarcation s
2.
Collaboratio n
3.
Policies
4.
Standards
5.
Formal communicat ion
6.
Human resource Formal
7.
Janssen and Joha [26, p-2307] explain that the “governance mechanisms determine how communication, responsibilities, and decision-making structures are formalized”. Measures to assess the maturity of judicial sub-layer of organizational interoperability include political commitment, jurisdictional regulations, and change management. Finally, we define the economical sub-layer of interoperability, which is discussed quite often in literature but rarely incorporated in maturity models and frameworks. This sublayer describes the financial issues of organization interoperability that restricts the overarching purview and affects the maturity e.g. return on investment. Based on the literature review of organizational interoperability and interoperability maturity models and frameworks in Section 2 we derived the sub-layers of organizational interoperability as discussed in Section 3. In order to briefly understand the importance and classification of these sub-layers of organizational interoperability, we will discuss each measurement construct shown in Table 1 in details.
3.2 Measurement Constructs Organizational Interoperability
Processes and procedures alignment
8.
Service level agreements
9.
Laws and regulations
In this subsection the constructs are further detailed and refined to enable the assessment in real-life situations. 1. Context and demarcation. Interoperability requires clear and distinctive interoperation between information systems, processes, organizations, and employees. According to Strang, LinnhoffPopien et al. [44, 45], clear and distinctive contextual interrelationship and specifics help to assess the interoperability compatibility and substitutability. Although there is an informal consensus about the context and demarcations of technical interoperability, the contextual definitions, goals, objectives, ontologies, and demarcations of organizational interoperability is hardly discussed in literature. This measure gives a reflection of the level of to-the-point clearness and distinctiveness of organizational interoperability [32].
10. Constitution al restrains
2. Collaboration. Inter and intra-organizational interactive and willing full working relationship in public organizations [32], where the shared goals, and roles and responsibilities are recognized to support organizational interoperability [9]. Although the organizational framework can be distinct in nature, the collaboration is essential for organizational interoperability. This measure determines the level of organizational collaboration.
11. Political commitment 12. Jurisdictiona l regulations 13. Change management
3. Standards. Although policies and standard are two separate measures, their description and implications are somewhat interrelated. Standards are necessary for organizational interoperability as majority of maturity models and frameworks are still conceptual. In our view, standards are essential to advance organizational interoperability. They can describe the conceptual settlements between the concerned interacting quarters in subtle agreed documented format in consultation with recognized standardization bodies [52].
14. Environmen t and ethics
Economical
Economic layer concerns the issues that limit the overarching scope of interoperability.
15. Financial constraints
overall maturity of interoperability. This sub-layer discusses the
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4. Policies. This is also a necessity of pubic organizations to ensure the effective implementation of the organizational interoperability as per the standards. Depending on the size, scope, and type of organization (local, regional, or national), the policies for organizational interoperability is required for business process alignment among the interoperating quarters with regional and national policies and regulations [52].
11. Political commitment. Pardo and Burke [37] describe that political commitment is necessary for public organizations to continue with their objectives for implementation of long-term projects in case of the changes in political administration. Political commitment is a need for consistency to ensure the success of organizational interoperability. This measure evaluates the political commitment for organizational interoperability.
5. Formal communication. Communication of information in public organizations using pre-defined proper channels is important for interoperability. Weedman [51] describes the formal communication as a core for any established field as it offers opinions, discoveries, suggestions, improvements, experiences, and ideas. For example regular meetings between the responsible authorities and employees will help both to resolve issues with mutual cooperation and understanding. The measure determines the frequency of formal meetings and communication channels for information exchange and sharing at the organizational interoperability level.
12. Jurisdictional regulations. Public organizations at different levels (national, regional, and local) follow distinct patterns of business processes and information handling. They operate independent of each other [42] and have the liberty to interoperate or share the information only if they volunteer [20]. To avoid illuse of this liberty, jurisdictional regulations are essential to engage public organizations for information sharing and interoperation. This measure determines the implementation of jurisdictional regulations for organizational interoperability. 13. Change management. Organizational leadership and management are responsible for execution different task and assignments. Leaders are responsible guidance, motivation, creativity, innovation, and resource mobilization to achieve the organizational objectives [36]. In the context of organizational interoperability, Maheshwari, Veenstra et al. [32] describe the leadership responsibilities as “smooth execution of tasks by assigning right-job-for-right-person”. Hence, the organizational interoperability requires effective change management.
6. Human resources. Unlike other layers, the interoperability at organizational layer is also subject to the capability of the effective human resources. Adaption of new technological advancements, policies, agreements, procedures, and processes not only requires willingness but also skills and knowledge. This measure determines the maturity of human resources for implementation of organizational interoperability.
14. Environment and ethics. Organizational culture and ethics has direct influence on the interoperability. Working environment free of rivalries and inimical behavior allows employees to interoperate easily for information exchange and sharing among different stakeholders. Though hardly discussed in literature, this aspect of organizational interoperability can be useful for assess the internal working environment.
7. Processes and procedures alignment. Interoperability is often related to business processes and procedures, IDABC [22-23] refer to organizational interoperability as describing business processes and procedures. Janssen and Scholl [28] state that business process layer derives the attention to process-driven integration. Alignment of processes and procedures helps public organizations with business transitions, integration, control and monitor, value-creation, and management of interoperability related issues.
15. Financial constraints. Financial aspects have greater importance in practice over others concerning the quality and maturity of interoperability. Dos Santos and Reinhard [12] infer that financial barriers limit organizations to procure resources based on lower price than better quality. Interoperability initiatives by public organizations face challenges of major resistance for change acceptance, which can also result in financial turmoil. Therefore, the overarching return on interoperability investments not only reflects the financial success, but also the level of change acceptance.
8. Service level agreement. Interoperability at organizational level is subject to agreements, negotiations, and compliance of service related terms and conditions for effective information sharing and exchange. Thus, the quality of service (QoS) requirements is agreed between the concerned stakeholders to ensure the minimum service delivery. Service level agreements are strictly bound for implementation and incompliance is rewarded with heavy penalties. European interoperability framework [23] discusses that several service level agreements can be made for organizational interoperability based on the demand and business process connections [29].
4. A CASE STUDY OF POPULATION WELFARE DEPARTMENT GOVERNMENT OF SINDH
9. Laws and regulations. Organizational interoperability is still at the conceptual level [38, 41, 48]. There is a desire for new laws and regulations for effective and efficient information sharing and exchange at organizational level. This measure illustrates the need for new laws and regulations for organizational interoperability on top of the existing laws and regulations.
As an illustrative case study research case, the proposed measurement instrument and constructs were applied to assess the organizational interoperability of Population Welfare Department (PWD) Government of Sindh, Pakistan in January, 2012. The research method was based on open-ended interviews with the top management followed by a survey session with the experts from different sub-departments to test the applicability and usefulness of organizational measurement constructs. The purpose of conducting the open-ended interviews with the top managmenet was to refine the proposed measruement model before conducting the structured survey session. Furthermore, a survey session not only allowed selected participants to fill-in the questionnaire but also inteactive discussions, reflections, suggestions, and feedbacks about the survey itself and measurement instrument. With
10. Constitutional restrains. Scholl and Klischewski [41] explain that the interoperability objectives are not aligned with the democratic government’s constitutional power distribution at national, regional, and local levels etc. Though the constitutions limit the organizational interoperability objectives to certain boundaries, the objectives have not yet reached the desired maturity within those boundaries. This measure determines the maturity of organizational interoperability objectives within the constitutional boundaries in public organizations.
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The interviews were conducted with the top management that included the director general PWD Sindh and four assistant directors; who are responsible for the respective functional wings i.e. Admin & Finance (A & F), Monitoring Evaluation and Planning (ME & P), Communication, Training, Logistic and Supplies (CTL & S), and Medical wing of PWD Sindh. Each interview lasted for approximately an hour and half (90 minutes), in which a total of sixty selected questions were asked from each interviewee. The questions were put together to measure the organziational interoperability as per the list of measruement constructs described in Section 3.2. Though the number of questions per construct were uniformly distrubuted, it was understood from the discussion with interviewees that some constructs i.e. Service Level Agreement, Laws and Regulations, and Juristictional regulation required less questions than the others i.e. Collaboration, Change Management, and Human Resources. Although the management is responsbile for provincial administrative setup; they had clear vision and knowledge about the processes, procedures, and services as they were quite flexible while answering the questions. The management was fully aware of the importance of organizational interoperability as the major objectives of PWD focus on coordination and collaboration among local and district back-offices; integrated services; enhanced interaction with businesses, citizens, NGOs, and government organzitions; ensuring maximum public participation; and improving quality of family planning services delivery. The interviews of the top management provided further insight and understanding of the PWD Sindh to ask more relevant, precise, and in-depth questions about the organizational interoperability.
concensus of all participants, the technical interoperability was pusposefully excluded from the survey session as the maturity of the technical interoperability was already available and documented. The case study was designed specifically based on the relationship among the open-ended interviews and the sturctured survey session from the measuring and benchmarking pespectives. The open-ended interviews allowed us to not only ask the indepth questions but also the opportunity to have better understanding of the back-office infromation sharing, handling, and gathering. Which in result helped us to recrusively update and improve the structured survey questionnaire. Though the management was well aware of the overall processes and procedures; a participative session was necessary to confirm the findings from the interviews of the top management to the findings of the operational employees from the different departments. Furthermore, the session allowed us for immediate reflections and discussion about the applicability and usefulness of measruement constructs and the instrument. Population welfare program Sindh is an integral part of Federal Population Welfare program Pakistan. In 2010 the Ministry of Population Welfare Pakistan was devolved and the functions were completely transferred to the province creating Ministry of Population Welfare, Government of Sindh. PWD Sindh has approximately 24,00 employees, most of them operate in small villages and remote areas where the literacy ratio is very low. PWD aims to provide family planning services ensuring high quality service delivery at the doorstep of people. PWD facilitates its services at District, Town, and Tehsil level through Family Welfare Centers (FWCs), Mobile Service Units (MSUs), Provincial Line Departments (PLDs), Registered Medical Practitioners (RMPs), Labour, Local Government, and NonGovernmental Organizations (NGOs).
To be able to compare and benchmark the current marutiy levels, each interviewee was also asked to rate the desired maturity for each described construct from level-0 to level-9. The dotted-line in Figure 2 shows the desired maturity level for each oncstruct. Following the knowledge gained from the interviews, a comprehensice list of 75 structured questions was prepared for the survey session comprising on 25 technical and non-technical employees lower down the hierarchy at PWD Sindh. Participants of the survey session were also briefed about the measurement approach and constructs before providing them the questionnaire. Therefore, along with the survey questionnaire, a separate evaluation form was also provided to the participants for discussion at the end to reflect upon the applicability and usefulnes of the proposed measurement approach.
Figure 2 Outcome of illustrative case study
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Table 2 Measurement outcomes of interoperabiltiy constructs
1
Measurement Constructs Context and demarcations
2
Collaboration
6,11
7
7,89
3
Policies
5,32
6,04
6,76
4
Standards
6,11
7
7,89
5
Formal communication
6,08
6,92
7,76
6
Human resource
5,21
6,12
7,03
7
Processes and procedures alignment
6,08
6,92
7,76
8
Service level agreements
5,21
6,12
7,03
9
Laws and regulations
6,11
7
7,89
10
Constitutional restrains
6,47
7,12
7,77
11
Political commitment
7,03
7,92
8,81
12
Jurisdictional regulations
5,34
6,08
6,82
13
Change management
6,25
7
7,75
14
Environment and ethics
5,18
5,92
6,66
No.
There were 25 participants in the survey session, who filled in the structured questionnaire about organziational interoperability by categorically specifying the maturity value for each of the related questions per construct from level 0 (lowest) to the level 9 (highest). For the participants lacking the knowledge about particular measruement construct, an option of ‘don’t know’ was also added to each question. As the participants were from different sub-sections of the functional wings; some participants did not answer the particular set of questions, of which they were least knowledgeable. Approximately 20 percent values per question (5 out of 25) were asnwered with the option ‘don’t know’. The average value of the total number of answers per each question was assigned to the ‘don’t know’ answers. Furthermore, the mean of the average values of questions for each construct was calculated as maturity level. Figure 2 shows the outcome of survey session where the dotted line represents the desired maturity level and the plane line represents the measured maturiy level. For better understanding of the case study findings, we further investigated and analyzed the outcomes of the measurement values from the survey questionnaire; the values of standard deviation and mean for each construct were derived as shown in Table 2. The lowest and highest standard deviation values of the measurement constructs in Table 2 explain that though the average calculated maturity levels for some contructs shown in Figure 2 are close to the desired maturity levels, the low and high standard deviation values determine that some participants had different opinions than others.
SDLow 6,22
Mean
SD-High
7,04
7,86
15 Financial constraints 6,09 7,12 8,15 filled the questionnaire, provided positive feedbacks about the applicability and usefulness of the measurement instrument and constructs. Participants suggested that although some of the constructs e.g. human resources, change management, and financial constraints are very important for organizational maturity; they were hardly included in the measurement process. Some participants quoted in the feedback form that the policy sublayer is very important for organizational interoperability and must be part of measurement process. Another major finding of this case study is the outcome of the architecture layer constructs i.e. human resources and formal communication. Majority of participants highly recommended these constructs as they constitute the basis for enhanced interaction, collaboration, and training programs for the back-office employees. Participants also highlighted that technology alone cannot resolve organizational interoperability problems if the human resources in the backoffice are not skilled and trained. Participants discussed the example of old age employees who hardly speak English and use ICT enabled software and systems.
The case study of PWD shows that the measurement of organizational interoperability can help policy makers in design and development of interoperability maturity models. The differences in the desired and measured maturity levels clearly indicate that moer focus is needed on the organizational aspects of interoperability. We also conclude from the case study that the selection of measurement constructs for organziational interoperability is difficult and depend on the complexity, size, and scople of the back-office information gathering, sharing, and handling. Finally, the case study using the proposed measurement instrument shows that the mearuement constructs for organizational interoperability can be implemented on top of each other.
5. DISCUSSION Interpretation of the organizational measurement constructs and maturity levels is quite difficult and complex as there is hardly any existing literature, but we realize that this can be dealt to a greater extend by extensive discussions with concerned experts. The discussion with the participants in the case study shows that the total numbers of questions designed for the measurement were relevant, but there was consensus among all the experts that measurement of organizational interoperability is complex and requires large amount of questions. It is, however, questionable if it is desired or feasible to have hundreds of questions for measuring all the details about the measures. The challenge is to measure with a limited number of questions that can be filled in within a short time frame.
The outcome of the case study as shown in Figure 2 and Table 2 reveals that the measurement of organizational interoperability layers is possible, but for some measurement constructs mixed reviews were found by the participants about the maturity levels. For example, the interpretation of measured maturity levels is difficult as it partly depends on the type, complexity, and scope of organizational functions, operations, and processes. Some experts had the consensus about the understanding of measures, whereas others had different views. This can be observed by looking at the variations in values of standard deviation compared to their averages. For example two constructs of policy and economic measures i.e. collaboration and financial constraints have an average of 7 and 7.12 but standard deviation values (6.11 - 7.89) and (6.09 – 8.15) respectively, which means that some participants partially disagree with the average maturity level assigned by others.
Though our structured survey questionnaire included 75 selected questions, the focus was to better assess the level of abstraction that is required to measure interoperability at a satisfactory level. The participatory discussions with the participants, after they
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organization. Furthermore, we conducted a case study of the population welfare organization government of Sindh to illustrate the operationalization of developed measurement instrument and test the applicability and usefulness of selected constructs. The case study shows that the measurement constructs and the instrument provides considerable insight into organizational aspects of interoperability. The case study entails that the measurement constructs can be implemented on top of each other. We found that our approach using measurement layers and constructs is seen as helpful, but further research is recommended to investigate the applicability of the measurement instrument while selecting and applying the measurement constructs to the different types of public organizations. Finally, we conclude that the target group of this case study was limited, whereas more respondents should be included for further evaluation of proposed measurement instrument and measures.
Furthermore, it is understood from the highest standard deviation values for political commitment (8.81) and financial constraints (8.15) that though some participants were extremely positive about the consistent political will and funds, whereas others were not satisfied and had ambiguities. They believe that political commitment and financial constraints need further improvement. The discussions with experts revealed that the highest average (7.92) of political commitment does not necessarily represent the successful organizational interoperability as some commitments did not produce fruitful outcomes. Hence, despite of effective measurements outcomes, the benchmarking can be a disguise if the interpretation is not correct [4]. Furthermore, they argue that the policy makers should coordinate directly with back-office for feedback about these constructs. Selecting interoperability measures for benchmarking is difficult as the organizations vary in scope, objectives, and complexity. The measurement instrument and the constructs described in this paper are the first step towards advancement of organizational interoperability. Satisfaction shown from Population Welfare Department, The case of Sindh is a positive indication that the instrument is applicable and useful, but there is a need of further extension of this research to generalize the usefulness of in different types of public organizations.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to director general Population Department, Government of Sindh for granting us permission to conduct interviews and survey session for case study. We specially thank the participants of PWD Sindh for interactively participating in questionnaire based survey on measuring and benchmarking the organizational interoperability.
Finally, the participants were asked to discuss the applicability of the proposed measurement instrument and the measurement constructs for organizational interoperability. The overall feedback from the participants during participative discussions about the measurement instrument and constructs was quite satisfactory, whereas some participants had different views about some measurement constructs e.g. constitutional restrains and financial constraints. Though they agree upon the importance of including these constructs in assessment of organizational interoperability for the reasons of creating awareness that they’re important, the measuring and benchmarking of these constructs at the provincial, district, and local level requires further investigation. The discussion also concluded that more focus is required on the aspects of organziational interoperability as it is equally important to the technical interoperability.
8. REFERENCES [1] Andersen, D.F. and S.S. Dawes, Government information management: A primer and casebook. 1991: Prentice Hall. [2] Archmann, S. and I. Kudlacek, Interoperability and the exchange of good practice cases. European Journal of ePractice, 2008. 2(1): p. 3-12. [3] ATHENA, C., Enterprise interoperability maturity model (EIMM) ATHENA IP (Advanced Technologies for interoperability of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications Integrated Project) IST-507849 accessed from: modelbased.net/aif/methodology/eimm.htm, 2004. [4] Bannister, F., The curse of the benchmark: an assessment of the validity and value of e-government comparisons. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 2007. 73(2): p. 171.
6. CONCLUSIONS Measurement of organizational interoperability is still a major challenge for public organizations as there is hardly any promising, tested, and validated measurement instruments. Although the organizational aspects of interoperability have recently proven themselves equally important as technical aspects, they are still sparsely described in conceptual maturity models and frameworks. There is hardly any available literature describing measurement methods and measures to assess organizational interoperability. There is a definite need of improvement in organizational interoperability as there are no existing benchmarks due to the lack of adequate measurement methods and measures. This paper proposes a measurement instrument focusing both organizational and technical interoperability. Based on the literature reviews of existing interoperability maturity models and frameworks, we developed a list of 15 organizational measurement constructs in 6 sub-layers of the organizational layer. Though the proposed measurement instrument includes both organizational and technical interoperability measurement layers, our focus was to assess organizational interoperability. The sub-layers of organizational interoperability provide the guideline for assessment, whereas the selection of relevant measures or measurement constraints can vary from organization or
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Ranking and Hotspot Detection Methods on Infant Health for Districts in Java, Indonesia: E-Governance Micro Tools Yekti Widyaningsih
Wayne L. Myers
Department of Mathematics Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences University of Indonesia
Penn State Institutes of Energy and Environment Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802 USA
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Statistics
As the Academia stakeholder, this paper shares the method and theory which extend the understanding of Electronic Governance. The purpose of this research is to obtain the ranking of infant health in Java based on five indicators and three indicators. These indicators or variables are number of infant deaths (infd), number of people in poverty (pov), number of infants with low birth weight (lbw), number of deliveries in absence of health personnel (abhp), and average education shortfall of women (avedsf). All variables are district level aggregates. Besides ranking, hotspots based on those indicators are also detected by ULS hotspot detection method, while rankings are computed based on ORDIT, implemented in R software. Rankings of the districts based on 5 (all) indicators and 3 indicators (infd, pov, lbw) are obtained. Also, ranking is obtained based on salient scaling of 5 indicators and salient scaling of 3 indicators. According to those results, the most severe districts are districts 87 and 90, while the least severe districts are districts 73, 31, and 35. There are many districts in the hotspot area as the results of the ULS hotspot detection. Districts 87, 90, 47, 58, 83, 44, and 45 are the worst areas of infant health. This result is important information for the government, especially the Health Department to make decisions for the improvement of health programs. The methods can be used as a micro tool to extend the function and understanding of egovernance.
1. INTRODUCTION Governments around the world wrestle with a wide range of social and political challenges and look for innovations in technology, not only in the government institutions of, but also in the interactions between the government and citizens to help them meet these challenges. Serving citizens efficiently and effectively, engaging interested parties in decision making, and creating sustainable economies, are among the many ways innovations in policy and practice can directly impact the public value created by any Electronic Governance investment. To justify continued or new investments in Electronic Governance, decision makers must increasingly provide evidence that the innovations they are supporting create public value. Decision-makers play a very important role in the management of a country. The decisions made will have an impact, both at present and in the future. As the Academia stakeholder, this paper shares the methods and theories which extend the understanding of Electronic Governance. Hopefully, this paper can contribute concrete solutions for specific challenges faced by governments, especially in making a decision about infant health improvement. To achieve effective decision making, it is important to know the areas or districts most in need of improvement. For a problem like this, ranking methods are necessary. To meet these social challenges, it is important for the government to plan and arrange budgets at the districts level that are appropriate to its need for improvement in particular matters. This paper focuses on districts ranking based on infant health indicators. Many researches about infant health have been done. Some of them are as follows. A research has shown that persistence of poverty and continuing unequal distribution of health care resources to pregnant women and young mothers render relative risks of neonatal and post-neonatal mortality 1.5 times greater than that experienced by infants not born in poverty [1]. In addition, ‘poverty is infant health risk’ is a theoretical proposition according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [2]. OECD reported that the correlation between percentage of low birth weight infants and infant mortality rates is stronger in emerging countries [3]. Other research showed that adding a maternity clinic to a village decreases the odds of infant mortality by almost 15 per cent, in comparison to the risk before the clinic was added. An additional doctor reduces the odds by about 1.7 per cent [4]. Furthermore, the final model of Desai and Alva, shows that maternal education has a statistically significant impact on infant mortality and height-for-age in only a handful of countries [5]. According to those findings, an abstract concept, infant health relates to the six measurable indicators: poverty, infant mortality, low birth weight, health personnel, and education
Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.4 [Software/Program Verification - Statistical method]; G.3 [Probability and Statistics – Correlation];J.2 [Physical Sciences and Engineering - Mathematics and statistics]; J.4 [Social and Behavioral Sciences – Sociology]; K.6 [Management of Computing and Information Systems]
General Terms Measurement, Performance, Theory, Legal Aspects, Verification
Keywords Ranking, Infant
Health Indicators, ORDIT, R Software, Computational Complexity, Hotspot, Upper Level Set Scan
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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of mothers. Based on this reason, we decided to use these indicators to obtain the ranking of districts. The objective of the current research is to find which districts are the worst districts for infant health. Infant health is an important factor to be discussed because this factor is the result of many other factors related to socio economic components [6]. This research focused on five indicators to be investigated.
Table 1. Leading lines of the dataset with infant health indicators as column criteria and districts as cases district 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...
Ranking methods based on multiple indicators using R open source software and hotspot detection using ULS software are introduced here as tools to support the Ministry of Health. This concept can be used as a micro tool in e-governance and is available to support e-health governance in implementing the full range of government activities, internal processes, the development of policy and services for citizens. The possible systematic process is as the following: idea -- algorithm – (implementation on R software) -- subroutine on C ++ (program language) – online user friendly interface display.
infd 61 112 78 97 83 298 ...
pov 125.6 157.9 149.1 170.5 171.2 267.4 ...
lbw 145 187 130 252 250 401 ...
abhp 20.02 14.63 16.19 2.95 0.51 11.56 ...
avedsf 4.4 4.6 3.7 3.4 3.6 3.5 ...
4° S
6° S
The study area of this research is Java, one of the five biggest islands in Indonesia. The Capital city of Indonesia is located in the west area of Java. The percentage of population on this island is about 60% of the total population of Indonesia [7]. This is one reason why this island is interesting to be studied.
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100
Latitude
79 95
80
93 90
91 92
63 89
101 97 82
96
88
87 98 86
81 83
102 103 85 84
72
44
78 71
45
70
77 69 68
46
47 48
8° S
62
49
61
60
64 67 66
50
76
73 51 42 39 43 40
23 59
58
65 75
24 22
52
57
41
20 3619
55
17
18 306
2 1
4
3
26
25
27
29
28
37
21
74 56 53 54
315
35 15 16 38 32 7
34 14
33 13 8
12 11 9 10
The method of this research is prioritization based on partial order theory. Through this method, a ranking of the districts based on five and three indicators will be found. The present purpose is to provide convenient computational capability and visualizations for progressive or partial prioritization based largely on concepts of partial order theory and implemented in R [8] as illustrated in a context of infant health as a complex multidimensional domain that must be placed in public and private perspectives in pursuit of public health management. One of the practical perspectives in the health status of a district is concerned with infant health which has multiple indicators [9]. Here the focus is on placing the multiple dimensions of infant health in a professional and public perspective to support district improvement policy. Furthermore, a hotspot of these indicators is detected using ULS method.
10° S
106°E
108° E
110°E
112° E
114°E
116° E
Longitude
Figure 1a. Map of Java (without Banten Province and Kepulauan Seribu District) with district id as mapped by the R sp package [11],[12]. Some districts have a capital city located in the centre with its own data. As an example, district 73 is in the middle of district 51, district 31 is in the middle of district 5, district 35 is in the middle of district 16, and there are 19 other city-type districts as well.
3. DATA COLLECTION The data used in this study is secondary data derived from Data and Information Centers, Health Department of Indonesia [10]. This secondary data is obtained from the reports of public health centers and hospitals in every district. The data are indicators of infant health in every district, i.e. the number of infant deaths, the number of babies with weight below normal, the number of births without any medical personnel present, and maternal education, while the number of people in poverty was obtained from Indonesian Statistics [7].
2. DATA As an abstract measure of a district, infant health is supported by five indicators as mentioned in section 1. Table 1 shows the data for this purpose consisting of five indicators of infant health [7][10]. They are the number of infant deaths (infd), the number of people in poverty (pov) in thousands, the number of infants with low birth weight (lbw), the percentage of deliveries in absence of health personnel (abhp), and average education shortfall of women (avedsf) in years. All variables are aggregates of district. The value of avedsf is computed by subtracting average duration of education in a district from maximum in all districts.
The number of people in poverty is the population that is under the poverty line. The poverty line is used as a boundary to determine whether or not a person is poor. In 2007, the definition for the poor are the people who have an average per capita expenditure per month below the poverty line of Rp 211.726 (about U.S. $ 20) [7].
The district column is the id for districts, infd is the number of infant deaths, pov is the number of people in poverty (in thousands), lbw is the number of infants with birth weight less than 2500grams, abhp is the percentage of deliveries (births) without health personnel presence, and avedsf is average of women education shortfall as explained earlier.
4. DATA PROCESSING The steps of data processing in this research are (1) preparing the data set for ORDIT into k+1 columns as shown in Table 1, where k is the number of indicators, first column is the case id, (2) obtaining the scatter plot and correlation coefficients of the indicators, (3) transforming the values of indicators to the ranks, (4) obtaining the ranking of the districts based on 5 indicators, 3 indicators, and 2 indicators (salient5 and salient3, the ranking results of 5 indicators and 3 indicators, respectively) using ORDIT
The study area of this research is Java in Indonesia but omitting Banten province and Kepulauan Seribu districts because of incomplete data in those areas. Figure 1a is the map of Java (without Banten province and Kepulauan Seribu district) with district id, mapped by the R sp package [11][12].
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particular pairs [7]. There are three possibilities in comparing pairs of cases, where one case is denoted by Г and the other by θ. “Г aa θ” wherein Г has ascribed advantage over θ. Г has subordinate status to θ which implies “θ aa Г”. “Г ii θ” whereby these are indefinite instances without ascribed advantage and without subordinate status, which implies “θ ii Г”. Thus the protocol either designates one member of a pair as having ascribed advantage and the other subordinate status, or that pairing as being indefinite. ff(aa) is the frequency of number of occurrences for the ascribed advantage. ff(ss) is the frequency of number of occurrences for the subordinate status. ff(ii) is the frequency of number of occurrences for being indefinite. Each of the N cases can be compared on this basis to all others in the deleted domain DD=N–1 of competing cases with the percent occurrence of these relations being tabulated as follows, AA = 100 × ff(aa)/DD, SS = 100 × ff(ss)/DD, II = 100 × ff(ii)/DD. Clearly, AA + SS + II = 100%; and for later use let us define CCC = 100 – AA as the complement of case condition relative to ascribed advantage (AA) [8].
method, (5) preparing the data set for ULS process (hotspot detection) into 4 columns: id, number of cases, population size, and adjacent districts (6) detecting the hotspot area for each indicator, (7) comparing and summarising the results. In step (4), ranking is carried out for 5 and 3 indicators because those 3 indicators, i.e. infd, pov, and lbw have stronger correlations than the others. These results will be compared. Computations for steps (2), (3), and (4) use R open source software and computation for step (6) using ULS software. Figure 1b presents the flowchart of data processing.
5.1.2 Subordination Schematic and Ordering Dually in Triangles (ORDIT) Subordination can be symbolized diagrammatically [8] in a triangle depiction, where the point representing a district makes a triangle divided into two parts, ‘trapezoidal triplet’ (of AA, SS, and II) and a topping triangle (of CCC and II). The combination of these two parts forms a right triangle with the ‘tip’ at AA = 100% in the upper-left and the toe at SS = 100% in the lower-right (see Figure 5). The hypotenuse is a right-hand ‘limiting line’ of plotting positions because AA+SS+II=100%. Topping triangle provides the basis for an ‘ORDIT ordering’ of the districts or instances.
Figure 1b. Flowchart of data processing
5. METHOD
An idealized district has AA = 100% of the deleted domain (DD) of other districts, that is the frequency of ascribed advantage being equal to the number of competing districts, so if the ideal actually occurs, then the trapezoidal triplet becomes a triangle.
The methods used in this research are ordering dually in triangles for ranking, and upper level set scan statistics for hotspot detection.
The numbers for ORDIT can be coupled as a decimal value ccc.bbb. The ccc component is obtained by rounding CCC to two decimal places and then multiplying by 100. The bbb component is obtained by dividing SS by CCC, and imposing 0.999 as an upper limit. Then add these two values as ccc.bbb. This ordering is assigned the acronym ORDIT for ORdering Dually In Triangles. It preserves all aspects of AA, SS and II except for the actual number of districts. Simple rank ordering of ORDIT values becomes salient scaling of the district [8].
5.1 Ordering Dually in Triangles Ordering Dually in Triangles (ORDIT) is a method for ranking purposes based on several indicators. Many objects can be ranked, such as persons, districts, schools, universities, and many others. ORDIT method in this research is used to rank the districts based on 5 and 3 infant health indicators. To obtain the ranking of the objects, this method uses mathematical concepts related to the partial order set (poset). The following subsubsections describe the ORDIT theory.
5.1.3 Product-order Rating Regime A general relational rule for ascribing advantage is product-order whereby advantage is gained by having all criteria at least as good and at least one better. Conversely, subordinate status lies with having all criteria at least as poor and at least one poorer. This relational rule is applicable to all kinds of criteria as long as they have the same polarity (sense of better and worse). Scheme 2 in [8] Function Facilities gives an R function called ProdOrdr that determines ORDITs and salient scaling according to productorder. This function takes as its inputs a vector of IDs for instances and a data frame of same-sense criteria. All indicators are either positive sense or negative sense. Indicators in this research are negative indicators which means that the larger the value of the indicators, the more severe the district. The output is a data frame of ORDITs and salient scaling values
In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (or poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a set. A poset consists of a set together with a binary relation that indicates that, for certain pairs of elements in the set, one of the elements precedes the other. Such a relation is called a partial order to reflect the fact that not every pair of elements need be related: for some pairs, it may be that neither element precedes the other in the poset. Thus, partial orders generalize the more familiar total orders, in which every pair is related. 5.1.1 Rating Relations/Rules for Ascribing Advantage This subsubsection describes the protocols for comparing cases or collectives of cases via ratings, rules and relations that ascribe advantage to some cases over some others or fail to do so for
3 228
5.1.4 Precedence Plots Based on computation of AA and SS for a particular district, the structure in the lower part of the subordination schematic can be used to prepare a ‘precedence plot’ for visualization (Figure 5). The precedence plot is a plot for AA (ascribed advantage) as Yaxis and SS (subordinate status) as the X-axis. The prominent position declines from top (upper-left) to toe (lower-right). Primary prominence varies vertically showing that there is a larger percentage of ascribed advantage (greater severity) with increasing height. Horizontal variation on a given level shows clarity of comparison. Farther to the right is greater clarity as more definite (less severe) with a larger percentage of subordinate status versus indefinite instances among the couplets where ascribed advantage (greater severity) is lacking. In other words, more indefinite instances constitute increased lack of clarity (incomparability in the usual parlance of partial ordering). Scheme 3 in [8] Function Facilities gives an R function named PrecPlot which accepts the output of the ProdOrdr function and produces a precedence plot.
a unique node in the ULS tree, the ULS tree has at most N nodes. Hence |ΩULS| ≤ N, the equality holding if and only if m = N. [13]
5.1.5 Representative Ranks Representative ranks show descriptive order statistics of indicator rankings for each district. Representative ranks are concerned with the rank distribution for any particular district. The rank numbers received by a given district across all criteria can be placed in a single array and sorted in ascending order. The minimum, median, and maximum ranks for the district are conveniently informative.
Paired scatter plots make a simple way to see and get information about the strength of the relationship between two indicators. Scatter plots of pairs of infant health indicators are shown in Figure 2. If the observation points tend to be in a straight line, there is a correlation (relationship) between two variables (indicators). Table 2 shows the correlation coefficient between two indicators. Through this table it can be seen how strong the relationship between the two indicators is. According to Figure 2, there are tendencies of linear relationship between indicators infd and pov, infd and lbw, and pov and lbw. Table 2 shows that the correlation between infant death and poverty is 0.567. It can be said that there is a positive statistical association between those two indicators because it has p-value of 1.621e-10 (less than 0.05). In statistics, if a parameter estimation (in this case is the coefficient correlation) has p-value of less than 0.05, it means the error probability of making conclusion is less than 5 percent. This is also true regarding infant death and low birth weight (r = 0.4163; p-value = 7.425e-06); and for poverty and low birth weight (r = 0.399; p-value < 0.0001). There are positive relationships between infant death (infd) and absence of health personnel (abhp) and also between infd and average education shortfall (avedsf), even though both relationships are weaker. The relationship between infant death and births without health personnel (abhp) is stronger (r = 0.319; p-value = 0.0007531) than the relationship between infant death and average education shortfall (r = 0.290; p-value = 0.002375).
Several geometric properties should be satisfied by a collection of cells from tessellation of study area before it could be considered as a candidate for a hotspot cluster 1)
the union of the cells should comprise a geographically connected subset of the region R. Such collections of cells will be referred to as zones and the set of all zones is denoted by Ω. A zone Z∈Ω is a collection of cells that are connected.
2)
the zone should not be excessively large. This restriction is generally achieved by limiting the search for hotspot to zones that do not comprise more than fifty percent of the region. [14]
6.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
6.1 Correlation Analysis and Descriptive Statistics
5.2 Upper Level Set (ULS) Scan statistics By definition, a hotspot is a zone characterized by a high response rate, it makes intuitive sense that ULS method search for a hotspot begin with a cell with the highest response rate and annex to it other cells with high response rates. The need to bring a definite order for the search leads one to the concept of the ULS scan tree or just the ULS tree. Denoting for cell a the response rate ga = ya/na, a ∈ T over the connected region R, we define the ULS tree as follows: Let G = {ga | a ∈ T} Suppose r1 > r2 > … > rm are all distinct members of G. Define for i = 1, 2, …, m, Ti = { a ∈ T | ga = ri }, and the upper level sets as unions of Ti’s, Ui = T1 ∪ T2 ∪ … ∪ Ti = { a ∈ T | ga ≥ ri }. Let Ci = set of connected components of Ui, i = 1, 2, …, m, and the reduced parameter space ΩULS = C1 ∪ … ∪ Cm. The ULS tree = (ΩULS) is a tree whose nodes are members of Ω ULS. The root of the ULS tree is Um = R. Let Z be a node belonging to the ULS tree. If all cells belonging to Z have the same response rate, then Z is a leaf node. Thus, members of C1 are leaf nodes. If not all cells in Z have the same rates then let e = min{ ga | a ∈ Z} and connected components of Z – {a ∈ Z: ga = e} are members of Z. [13]
Variability of the infant health indicators is shown by Figure 3a and 3b. Figure 3a shows boxplots of infm, pov (in thousands), and lbw. Thus, lbw is more variable than the other two indicators and contains outliers. Figure 3b shows boxplots of births without health personnel (%) and education shortfall.
Since our search for a hotspot is based on cellular response rates, we assign a unique level to each node of the ULS tree in terms of its response rate and then scan the tree by level starting with nodes level 1 down. Members of C1 are level 1 nodes. The root is the level m node. In general, for 1 ≤ i ≤ m, the level of a zone Z is i if and only if min{ ga | a ∈ Z } = ri. Since each cell is introduced in
4 229
0 10
30
50
600
50
600
30
0
infd
40
200 400 600
0 200
50
0
0
lbw
10
1000 2000
20
0 200
pov
30
abhp
abhp
4
6
0 10
6.2 Ranking Process
0
2
avedsf 0
200 400 600
0
1000 2000
0
2
4
Better results of the ORDIT method will be obtained if the correlations between indicators are sufficiently strong. Based on Table 2, correlations between infd, pov, and lbw are higher with each other than the correlation between abhp and avedsf. For this reason, ranking of districts will be carried out based on 5 (all) indicators and 3 indicators (infd, pov, lbw). A comparison of the results will give a broader view of the ranking. Theoretically, rank results will be more representative, if the variables (indicators) have stronger relationship or higher coefficient correlation where infant health is an abstract concept and unable to be measured.
6
Figure 2. Scatter plots of five indicators of infant health
Table 2. Correlation matrix of five indicators of infant health pov
lbw
abhp
avedsf
infd
1.000
0.567
0.416
0.319
0.290
pov
0.567
1.000
0.399
0.317
0.559
lbw
0.416
0.399
1.000
0.304
-0.005
abhp
0.319
0.317
0.304
1.000
0.299
avedsf
0.290
0.559
-0.005
0.299
1.000
Table 3 shows the place rank of each infant health indicator for the leading lines of the data sets by Function Facilities of R [8] function called PlacRank in Schema 1. The first column of the data frame to be ranked is assumed to contain case identifiers, and this column remains unaltered.
2500
infd
avedsf
Figure 3b. Parallel Boxplots of infant health data (births without health personnel, average education shortfall) in Java, 2007
0
500
1000
1500
2000
Table 3. Head (first 6 lines) of the data frame in ranking obtained by applying the PlacRank function to place ranks of infant health indicators via the R commands [8]
infd
pov
lbw
Figure 3a. Parallel Boxplots of infant health data (Infant deaths, poverty, low birth weight) in Java, 2007
No.
district
infd
pov
lbw
abhp
avedsf
1
1
85.5
77
82.0
30
28.5
2
2
53.0
71
71.0
44
22.5
3
3
75.5
72
86.5
41
54.0
4
4
62.0
67
55.0
92
65.0
5
5
72.0
66
56.5
98
57.5
6
6
12.0
40
38.0
59
61.0
Tables 4a and 4b show the head (first six lines) of the data frame obtained by applying the ProdOrdr function to the place ranks of infant health measurement. In the current content, the idea of ‘better’ from reference [4] is replaced by ‘more severe’. Table 4a and 4b are the results of ProdOrdr for 5 indicators and 3 indicators respectively. Figure 4 is a scatter plot of these two salient scaling (rankings) based on 5 and 3 indicators. It shows that there is a linear tendency between those two ranking results with correlation 0.82 (p-value < 2.2e-16). This means the rankings based on 5 and
5 230
87, 81) is in West Java, while one district (47) is in Central Java and district 58 is at the border of Central Java and East Java. Table 6b shows the 5 least severe districts based on 5 indicators and Figure 6b shows the map of these districts. Location of the 5 least severe districts (city type) is in the central of its main district and almost cannot be seen from the map on Figure 6b; district 73 is in the middle of district 51 in Central Java; district 31 is in the middle of district 5; district 106 is a small area in the west area of the island; district 35 is in the middle of district 16; district 36 is in the middle of district 19. The three districts (31, 35, 36) are in East Java area.
3 indicators are similar but not the same. In this case, the ranking process may use only 3 indicators, especially if the principle of parsimony is applied.
Table 4a. Head (first 6 lines) of data frame obtained by applying the ProdOrdr function to place ranks of infant health measurement for 5 indicators via the R commands [4] ORDIT
Salient
7.48
8692.086
46.5
2
13.08
7.48
8692.086
46.5
3
12.15
19.63
8785.223
52
4
5.61
30.84
9439.327
71.5
5
3.74
28.97
9626.301
80
6
21.5
6.54
7850.083
28.5
90
60
SS
13.08
47
ORDIT
77 30
Salient
1
13.08
57.94
8692.667
79
2
19.63
38.32
8037.477
58
3
14.02
53.27
8598.62
76
4
24.3
35.51
7570.469
51
5
20.56
37.38
7944.471
57
6
46.73
7.48
5327.14
22
34
0
SS
0
20
36 75 106 35
40
60
80
SS as %DD (Deleted Domain)
(a) 44 83 45 61
20
40
AA as %DD
100 80
90 79 81 9
60
58 47 72
95 77 30 101 34 7536 106 96 31 103 78 43 7338
0
60 40
salient3
31
43 73
80
AA
58 84
20
Table 4b. Head (first 6 lines) of data frame obtained by applying the ProdOrdr function to place ranks of infant health measurement for 3 indicators via the R commands [8] CaseIDs
87
40
AA
1
AA as %DD
CaseIDs
0
20
40
60
80
SS as %DD (Deleted Domain) 20
15
(b) Figure 5. Precedence plot (based on place ranks) of districts labeled with district numbers for 5 indicators (a) and 3 indicators (b), from R commands [8]
93 64
0
61 45 0
20
40
60
80
100
salient5
Figure 4. Scatter Plot of salient with 5 indicators and 3 indicators as generated by R [8] Precedence plot of districts by product-order is shown in Figure 5a and 5b. The labels on plotted points in Figure 5 are district numbers in the data file. These lines must be retrieved to determine identities of the respective districts. Table 6a shows the five most severe districts based on 5 indicators and Figure 6a shows the map of these districts. Location of the 3 districts (90,
6 231
Table 6a. Five most severe districts based on 5 indicators according to ORDIT ordering and salient scaling, as retrieved by R commands [8] CaseIDs
AA
SS
ORDIT
90
74.77
0
2523
1
87
58.88
0
4112
2
47
51.4
0
4860
3
58
45.79
0
5421
5
81
45.79
0
5421
5
Figure 6b. Five least severe districts based on 5 indicators, mapped by the sp package of R [11],[12]. Table 7a and 7b present the 5 most severe districts and the 5 least severe districts, respectively, based on 3 indicators. Five most severe districts are shown in Figure 7a. Two districts (83 and 87) are located in West Java, and 2 districts (44 and 90) are located in the border area between West Java and Central Java, and district 45 locates in Central Java, this district adjacent to district 44. Figure 7b shows five least severe districts. District 43 is a city in the south area of Central Java, district 73 is in the center of district 51 as mentioned before, district 38, district 31, and district 35 are districts in East Java. All these districts are city type districts.
Salient
6° S
5° S
Table 7a. Five most severe districts with 3 indicators according to ORDIT ordering and salient scaling, as retrieved by R commands [8]
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100
CaseIDs
7° S
Latitude
90
91 92
63 89
101 97 82
96 80
AA
SS
ORDIT
Salient
44
90.65
0
935
1
83
87.85
0
1215
2.5
87
87.85
0
1215
2.5
45
84.11
0
1589
4
90
76.64
1.87
2336.08
5
93
79 95
88
87 98 86
81 83
102 103 85 84
72
44
78 71
61
62 77 70
69
46
47
45
67 66
50 49
8° S
48
60
64 68
23
76
59
58
65 75
73 51 42 39 43 40
24
57 52 74 56 53 54
20 36 19
17
18
34 14
38 32 7
315
4
3
29
28
35 15 16
306 2 1
27
37
21
55
41
26
25
22
33 13
12 11
8 9
10° S
9° S
10
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
Longitude
Table 7b. Five least severe districts with 3 indicators according to ORDIT ordering and salient scaling, as retrieved by R commands [8]
Figure 6a. Five most severe districts based on 5 indicators, mapped by the sp package of R [11],[12]
CaseIDs
Table 6b. Five least severe districts with 5 indicators according to ORDIT ordering and salient scaling, as retrieved by R commands [8]
AA
SS
ORDIT
Salient
43
0
79.44
10000.794
104
73
0
88.79
10000.888
105
ORDIT
Salient
38
0
91.59
10000.916
106
0
63.55
10000.6
104
31
0
93.46
10000.935
107.5
31
0
71.03
10000.7
105
35
0
93.46
10000.935
107.5
106
0
71.96
10000.7
106
35
0
81.31
10000.8
107
36
0
82.24
10000.8
108
73
6°S
AA
5°S
SS
CaseIDs
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100
5° S
7°S
Latitude
79 95
80
93 90
91 92
63 89
101 97 82
96
88
87 98
83
102 84
103 85
72
44
71
77 70
69
46
47
45
8°S
6° S
60
64 68
67 66
48
50 49
23
76
59
58 65 75
73 51 42 39 43 40
24
26
57
20 36 19
18
17
306 41
55
3
4
35 16
15
38 32
2 1
29
28
37
21
74 56 53 54
27
25
22 52
31 5
7
34 14
33 13
12 11
8 9 10
7° S
9°S
90
91 92
63 89
101 97 82
96 80
93
88
87 98
83
102 84
103 85
72
71
77 70 46
44
69 47
45
60
64 68
67 66
48
8° S
61
62
78 86
81
50 49
23
76
59
58 65 75
73 51 42 39 43 40
24 22
52
57
20 36 19
18
55
38 32
2 1
3
27
29
28
35 15 17 16
306 41
26 25 37
21
74 56 53 54
10°S
108 107 106 94 104105 99 100 79 95
4
31 5
7
34 14
33 13
106°E
12 11
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
Longitude
8 9 10
9° S
Figure 7a. Five most severe districts based on 3 indicators, mapped by the sp package of R [11],[12].
10° S
Latitude
61
62
78 86
81
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
Longitude
7 232
5° S 93
80
90
91 92
63 89
101 97 82
96
88
87 98
83
102 84
103 85
72
44
61
62
78 86
81
77
71
70
69
46
47
67 66
45
50 49
8°S
48
60
64 68
23
76
59
58 65 75
73 51 42 39 43 40
24
26
18
20 36 19
17
306 41
55
4
3
35 16
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100
15
38 32
2 1
29
28
37
21
74 56 53 54
27
25
22 52
57
6° S
7°S
Latitude
79 95
31 5
7
34 14
79 95 33 13
93 90
91 92
63
12 11
8 9 10
7° S
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100
Latitude
6°S
5°S
indicators (salient5 and salient3), respectively. The fifth column is a mark for a district as a member of all results.
80
89
101 97 82
96
88
87 98
83
102 84
103 85
77
71
72
69
46
47
50
42 39 43 40
8° S
59
58
26
24
57
52
17
18
20 36 19
35 15 16
306 55
41
31 5
4
3
34 14
38 32
2 1
29
28
37
21
74 56 53 54
27
25
22
65 75
73 51
49
23
76
67 66
48
9°S
60
64 68
70
45
44
61
62
78 86
81
7
33 13
12 11
8 9
9° S
10°S
10
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E 10° S
Longitude
Figure 7b. Five least severe districts based on 3 indicators, mapped by the sp package of R [11],[12]
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
Longitude
Figure 8a. Five best districts based on salient 5 and salient 3 as indicators, mapped by the sp package of R[11],[12] 5°S
Ranking of districts is continued based on salient scaling of 5 indicators (salient5) and salient scaling based on 3 indicators (salient3) as indicators for new ranks.
6°S
Table 8a shows the five least severe districts; and Table 8b shows the five most severe districts. Here sal5 and sal3 (salient result of 5 and 3 indicators) used as indicators to obtain ranking of the districts. It has positive sense, so smaller number of the salient result means least severe of districts.
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100
7°S
Latitude
79 95
93 90
91 92
63 89
101 97 82
96 80
88
87 98
83
102 84
103 85
72
71
77 70
69
46 44
47
45
60
64 68
67 66
48
8°S
61
62
78 86
81
50 49
23
76
59
58 65 75
73 51 42 39 43 40
26
24
53
20 36 19
18
17
35 16
306 41
55
3
4
15
38 32
2 1
29
28
37
21
74 56 54
27
25
22 57
52
31 5
7
34 14
33 13
12 11
8 9
9°S
10
CaseIDs
AA
SS
ORDIT
Salient
99.07
0.00
93
1
31
97.2
0.93
280.332
2
36
95.33
0.00
467
3
73
95.33
1.87
467.4
4
43
94.39
2.80
561.499
6
35
10°S
Table 8a. Five least severe districts with salient5 and salient3 as indicators according to ORDIT ordering and salient scaling, as retrieved by R commands [8]
106°E
AA
SS
ORDIT
Salient
47
1.87
91.59
9813.933
104
83
0.93
96.26
9907.972
105
44
0
92.52
10000.925
106
90
0
96.26
10000.963
107
87
0
98.13
10000.981
108
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
Longitude
Table 9. Five worst and five best districts as the result of ORDIT rankings Worst District 90 87 47 58 81 44 83 45 Best District 73 31 106 35 36 43 38
Table 8b. Five most severe districts with salient5 and salient3 as indicators according to ORDIT ordering and salient scaling, as retrieved by R commands [8] CaseIDs
108°E
Figure 8b. Five most severe districts based on salient 5 and salient 3 as indicators, mapped by the sp package of R [11],[12].
salient5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
salient3 Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes
salient53 Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No
Mark √ √
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes
Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No
√ √ √
6.3 THE RESULTS OF ULS HOTSPOT DETECTION
Figure 8a and 8b shows the districts of Table 8a and 8b, respectively. Table 9 is a resume of all results of ORDIT rankings. The first column is the ids of districts, second, third, and fourth columns indicate whether the district is a member of 5 least or 5 worst severe districts based on 5 indicators, 3 indicators, and 2
The districts in the hotspot area as the result of ULS hotspot detection based on each indicator are shown in Figure 9. It shows that for the first three indicators hotspot area (a,b,c) is dominant in Central Java, but for the forth indicator (d), the hotspot area is
8 233
The Hotspot of Non Health Personnel Assisted (in percentage) in Java Island, 2007
dominant in West Java, while for the fifth indicator (e) the hotspot area comprises some districts of East Java
6° S
5°S
The Hotspot of Number of Infants Death in Java Island, 2007
0 8.9 0 6.3 12.6 14.6 3.2 26.6
7° S
Latitude
174 28
Latitude
22108 6 190 196 2665489 115
328
170
86
43.8
11.7 21.9
18.5 43.3 39.7
21.6 29.7 33.9
18.7 37.3
345
134
413 85
312
173
10 107
189 104 69 347 340
44
169 78 170
96
186 663 392
270
13.5
47.6
22.8 25.8 29.6 41.1
62
125
329
177 25
2 100
83
31
96 18111
5.9
25.9
66 24 298
17 174
683
97
78
14.2
4.8 9.5
6 21.2
22.6 9
27.3
28.2 8.7
0 18.9
0.2
4.5 12.4 6.2 0 2.4 7.3 9.8 10.4 6 7.2 14.5 4.6 14.6 17.6 20.2 16.2
9.1
20.6
8.9 5
10.6 0.2 15.8
0 4.5 14 0.2
11.9 4.6 11.6
0.9 19.7
9.9
19 11.3
21.3 12.6
0 2.4 0.5
3
22.2
5.4 19.3
14 372 260 101
112 61
56
117
69
96
47 133 63 253 46 37 32 50 131 84
72
223
147 142
217
22.7 24.1 12
3.2 9.9
22 8.8
20.3 162
83 208 115
141
13.6 2.5
7.6 4.8 18.3 18.5 17.8 15.1 2.3
178
145 210
8°S
100
392
22.5 10.5
48.9
244
60134 114
39 109
0
8° S
6° S
30.3 14.5
13.9
61 66
142
85 187
82 172
77 285
10°S
9° S
139
10°S
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
Longitude 106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
ULS hotspot detection, mapped with R
116°E
(d)
Longitude
ULS hotspot detection, mapped with R
(a)
The Hotspot of Average Education Shortfall in Java Island, 2007
6°S 398 28.3 49.1
187.7
394.6 435.5
400.4 111.7
54.5 12.9 213.1 302.4
70.3 371.6 701.6 267.5 319 258 203.7 215.4260.5 328.2 361.5 780 550.2
8°S
420.6
178.5 270.5
297.8 283.9
519.1
288.3 338.9 257.4
297.6 273.6 321.5
229.5 26.2 300.4 270.4
325.5
203.7
188.7 11.5 223.3 261.6143.8 74.9214.9 130.6 230.5 21.3 102.212.1 203 161.5380.1230.9 278.7 34.9 131.5 60 35.3 267.4 15 277.1 201 273.3 157.9 56.6 301.2 170.5 15.2 125.6 365.3 199 171.2 149.1 375.6 20.1
93 92
80
63 89
101 97 82
96
90
91
231.2
7°S
7°S
Latitude
352.3
229.6 161.8 234.4
43.7 87.2 365.3
22.6
108 107 106 94 105 104 99 100 79 95
361.7
235.8
114.5
Latitude
171.8 94 70.7 141.7 122.6 35.4 106.9 294.4 35.9 519.5 91.4
88
87 98 86
81 83
102 103 85 84
78 72 71
44
45
62 61 70
77 69 68
46
47 48
93.9 165.7
8°S
6°S
5°S
5°S
4°S
The Hotspot of Number of People in Poverty (in thousands) in Java Island, 2007
67 66
50
73 51
76 65 75
60
64
23 59
58
24 22
52
57
306 2 4
3
27
29
28
35 15 17 16
18
20 3619
1
26
25 37
21
74 56 49 42 53 54 39 43 40 55 41
315
38 32 7
34 14
33 13 8
417
12 11 9 10
10°S
9°S
9°S
227.3
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
116°E
106°E
Longitude
108°E
110°E
(b)
5° S 6° S
Table 10 shows the five worst districts for salient5, salient3 and salient53 and information whether the district is a hotspot or not a hotspot. There is no district of the first column as the hotspot based on indicator avedsf (average education shortfall), so this column is omitted. Districts 90 and 87 are strong enough to be considered as the worst districts of infant health.
7° S
238 478
149 788 172
752
1085 238 295
580 2464
111 105 572 616
113 60 483 931 300 522 445 228 507 815
1003
8° S
422
172
208 476
490
299
768 9
606
137
262 83 357
68 204 5 530
130
345
436 644 62
413
274 43131
36 971 556 295
214 66 401
176
383
187 145
130
252
164
144
1307
271
209 238 40 350
85
125 189 208
276
11 250
86 156
164 409
19 164 668
220 250
573 388 184
Table 10. Five worst districts for salients and ULS hotspot districts for each indicator
9° S
Latitude
386
814
540 212
96
116°E
(e) Figure 9. ULS Hotspot districts of infd (a), pov (b), lbw (c), abhp (d), and avedsf (e) as generated by the R commands [11],[12].
1456 610 129 261 1962 392 947 215 154
114°E
ULS Hotspot Detection, mapped with R
The Hotspot of Low Birth Weight in Java Island, 2007
815 90
112°E Longitude
ULS hotspot detection, mapped with R
106°E
108°E
110°E
112°E
114°E
Distr 90 87 47 58 81 83 44 45
116°E
Longitude
ULS hotspot detection, mapped with R
(c)
sal5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
sal3 Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes
sal53 Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No
hinfd Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
hpov No No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
hlbw Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
habhp Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No
9 234
[4] Frankenberg, E. The Effects of Access to Heath Care on Infant Mortality in Indonesia, Health Transition Review 5, (1995), 143 – 163. [5] Desai, S. and Alva, S. Maternal education and child health: Is there a strong causal relationship? Demography, 35, 1 (Feb. 1998), 71-81. [6] Braveman, P., Cubbin, C., Marchi, K., Egerter, S., Chaves, G. Measuring Socioeconomic Status/ Position in Studies of Racial/Ethnic Disparities: Maternal and Infant Health, Public Health Reports: September–October 2001, Vol.116. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC1497365/pdf/12042609.pdf [7] Biro Pusat Statistik, Indonesia Population by Province 1971, 1980, 1990, 1995, 2000 dan 2010. http://www.bps.go.id/tab_sub/view.php?tabel=1&daftar=1&i d_subyek=12¬ab=1, 2010 [8] Myers, W. and Patil, G.P. Preliminary Prioritization Based on Partial Order Theory and R Software for Compositional Complexes in Landscape Ecology, with Applications to Restoration, Remediation, and Enhancement. Environmental Ecological Statistics. 17, 4, 2010, 411-436. [9] Jahan, S. Poverty and infant mortality in the Eastern Mediterranean region: a meta-analysis. J Epidemiol Community Health 2008, 62, 745–751. [10] DEPKES RI. Bank Data Pusdatin-DepKes RI. 2009. http://www.bankdata.depkes.go.id/nasional/public/report/cre atetablepti [11] Roger,S.B., Pebesma, E.J., Rubio,V.G. Applied Spatial Data Analysis with R, Springer, Washington. 2008. [12] Moore, C. Mapping with R: Choropleth of 3rd grade reading proficiency in the Twin Cities, Article. April 19, 2008. [13] Patil, G.P., Joshi, S.W., Koli, R.E. PULSE, Progressive Upper Level Set Scan Statistics for Geospatial Hotspot Detection. Environmental Ecological Statistics. 17, 2, 2010, 411-436. [14] Patil, G. P. and Taillie, C. Upper Level Set Scan Statistic for Detecting Arbitrarily Shaped Hotspots. Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 11, 2004, 183 – 197. http://www.stat.psu.edu/~gpp.
7. CONCLUSION According to ORDIT analysis with five and three indicators and sal5 & sal3 as indicators, the most severe districts of infant health are districts 90 and 87. The least severe districts are district 73, 31, and 35 (all are cities). The most severe districts are in West Java. The two least severe districts are cities in Central Java and one least severe (best) district is a city in East Java. The least severe areas are city type districts. The most severe districts (90 and 87) are also confirmed by the ULS method as the worst districts for infant health. These districts are in the hotspots area of three indicators. To improve infant health in Java, the government, especially the Health Department should give more attention to districts 90 (Indramayu) and 87 (Cirebon) which are the worst districts for infant health. Hopefully through this study, ORDIT ranking and ULS hotspot detection methods will be recognized to be useful micro tools to support decision makers in the e-governance.
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the valuable guidance of Prof. G.P. Patil, Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics, Department of Statistics, the Pennsylvania State University. Many thanks to the Directorate General of Higher Education Indonesia for financial support through the Doctoral Sandwich Program that I received.
9. REFERENCES [1] Gortmaker, S.L. Poverty and Infant Mortality in the United States. American Sociological Review, 44, 2 (Apr. 1979), 280-297. [2] Frieden, T.R. CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report – United States. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 60. 2011 [3] OECD. Health at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/health_glance-‐ 2011-‐en
10 235
Technological Assessment of e-government Web presence in Nigeria Awoleye, O. Michael
Ojuloge, Blessing
Siyanbola, Willie O.
National Centre for Technology National Centre for Technology National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), An Agency Management (NACETEM), An Agency Management (NACETEM), An Agency of the Federal Ministry of Science & of the Federal Ministry of Science & of the Federal Ministry of Science & Technology, P.M.B. 012, Obafemi Technology, P.M.B. 012, Obafemi Technology, P.M.B. 012, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, 20005, Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, 20005, Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, 20005, Nigeria Nigeria Nigeria +234-(0)7069197823
+234-(0)8035762207
+234-(0)8033449687
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
General Terms
ABSTRACT Government bringing innovation into its activities is a good gesture but innovation that constitutes peril due to inadequate technical capability necessitates re-assessment, hence this investigation.This study investigated susceptibility of some chosen government websites to infiltration due to flaws in the design of their websites. Sixty four websites of some organizations were randomly selected using an advanced feature of google to sieve organization’s websites that have adopted the use of country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) i.e. the “.gov.ng”. The research was based on some major measuring parameters which are: Cross Site Scripting (XSS), Structured Query Language injection (SQLi), Cookie manipulation (CM), unencrypted password (UP) and broken links (BL). The sixty four (64) government websites chosen span 8 categories of sectors with a view to evaluating their immunity against cyber attacks. It was found that 27 (42.2%) of the websites are vulnerable to XSS, while 20 (31.3%) to SQLi. Also, 24 websites which represents 37.5% of the websites examined are having the password inputted by the user unencrypted while a high percentage (70.3) have informational issues, like broken links which in itself may not constitute high vulnerability but could create susceptible platform which could permit infiltration. Thereafter, some appropriate policy directions which provide technical advice as to protect government resources available through the Internet were advanced. This tends to also increase citizens’ confidence on the adoption of the government web-presence initiative.
Management, Security, Performance
Keywords Web presence, e-government, management, vulnerability, policy, cross site injection, SQL injection, security, performance, cyber security
1. INTRODUCTION Advancement in Internet and its services has culminated into many applications and it provides information gathering platform for citizens and opportunities for businesses to thrive [1]. Organizations and government bodies have leveraged severally on these facilities provided by the web for improved efficiency in service delivery, transparency, increased revenue, cost-saving and global competitiveness. The art of online administration of government activities is referred to as e-government [2]. By this, the government can reach more citizens without boundary irrespective of their locations at any point in time. And in turn, the citizens can also reach the government without the bureaucracy barrier [3]. The understanding of these facts most especially the benefits, prompted the Nigerian Government to suggest to all its bodies at all levels (federal, state and local) to make their presence known on the Internet, by creating websites to deliver their services and for effective information exchange. It also mandated them to use the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), knowing the benefits derivable from such as well as its security implications. Using a ccTLD, the users are guaranteed genuineness of the domain since the registration of such domain is supervised. It is worth noting to state that Nigeria Internet Registration Association- NIRA (a non-government organisation) is responsible to managing the ccTLD for Nigeria, while National Information Technology and Development Agency (NITDA) has been saddled with the responsibility of managing the government sub-domain (.gov.ng) as a part of the entire ccTLD. The requirement for the registration processes of the domain is quite stringent and hence the likelihood of domain hijack or misrepresentation is remote. This is important because of the services that some of these organisations provide online which
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4.6. [Security and Protection]
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dangerous and easily found web application security issue that can cause varieties of issues which may include defacement of web sites, insertion of hostile content, phishing attacks and allow hackers to take over a user’s browser. Details of these attacks shall be discussed in following sections.
include but not limited to: payment of tax, record keeping (financial records, medical records, intellectual property information, trade secrets and other citizens’ personal data) etc. Making some of these services available online presents a better and easy way of government-citizens’ relationship, most especially on discharging obligations within and across the parties. However, the concern now is the fear of adequate technical capability or awareness of susceptibility of the design of such platforms (websites) without given cognizance for avoidance of common programming errors which may jeopardize successful operation of the websites. A website is said to be vulnerable when it has the propensity for infiltration which may be as a result of flaws within the codes that made up the website, this is referred to application level [4] or server side attacks. Other issues of concern have to do with some underlying technicalities that can prevent unforeseen circumstances that may befall the successful operation of the websites.
2.1 Cross site scripting (XSS) Cross site scripting is a vulnerability that allows an attacker to bypass client-side security mechanisms normally imposed on web content by the browsers. By finding ways of injecting malicious scripts, usually in the form of JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX, HTML or Flash into a vulnerable application, an attacker may gain privileges to sensitive page-content of the web pages [19] Because a browser cannot know if the script should be trusted or not, it will execute the script in the user context and give attacker access to cookies or session tokens retained by the browser. Common attack vectors are search applications which reflect the search string, and parameters supplied in the URL.
It has been reported in literature that dynamic web applications contain a wide range of input validation vulnerabilities such as cross site scripting [5][6][7][8][9] and SQL injection [10][11][12][13][14]. Because of the web popularity relative to the number of millions of Internet users, the internet has become prime targets for attackers [15] and today they are motivated by financial gains rather than just being destructive, Symantec (2007) as cited in [1]. Attacks against web applications constitute more than 60% of the total attack attempts observed on the Internet as showed in a report [16]. Also, in the study carried out by [6] it was reported that 82% of the e-government websites around the globe were vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and Structure Query Language injection (SQLi). It was further discovered in the study that 90% of European, 85% of Asian, 76% of the North American and 49% of African government websites are vulnerable to common web application attacks [6]. Apart from the specified web application attacks earlier mentioned, denial of service (DoS), unauthorized access to networks, theft of employee or customer information, online financial fraud etc are also known prevalent attacks [1].
2.2 Structured (SQLi)
query
language
injection
An SQL injection attack consists of insertion or "injection" of a SQL query via the input data from the client to the application without proper filtering of dangerous script characters. A successful SQL injection exploit can read sensitive data from the database, modify database data (Insert/Update/Delete), execute administration operations on the database (such as shutdown the DBMS), recover the content of a given file existing on the DBMS file system and, in some cases, issue commands to the operating system [18][19].
2.3 Cookie manipulation A cookie is a small piece of information usually created by the web server and stored in the web browser. Each time the user access the web server, this data is passed back to the server. The cookie contains information used by web applications to persist and pass variables back and forth between the browser and the web application. Client-side cookies can be persistent i.e. files stored on the client computer until an expiry date; or session i.e. files kept in the memory of the client computer until the session is ended. As a result of the cookie structure and their usage, all data stored in a client-side cookie could be easily read and manipulated.
Furthermore, SQL injection and cross-site scripting may be used by attackers to alter back-end tables from databases and to launch phishing attacks on vulnerable servers. Most website owners fail to validate their application for common flaws and until now, there is no study that has provided empirical data on how vulnerable the Nigerian government websites are. It is in this context that this research is necessitated in order to create awareness for the government and its bodies on vulnerability level of their websites and the need to take necessary action. It also presents some policy suggestions to safeguard possible occurrences and to present measures to avert continued susceptibility.
2.4 Unencrypted password One of the security features employed in a web application is password. Sensitive data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers sent into the server without using encrypted connection such as secure socket layer (SSL), can be intercepted by hackers. Encrypting the transmission of data makes it difficult to intercept sensitive information as it travels between two parties.
2.0 WEB APPLICATION SECURITY Web applications have become fertile ground for cyber attackers, attempting to penetrate systems and misuse private data. Cenzic, a web security firm, reported that almost 90% of web-related flaws were caused by web application vulnerabilities with the three most common types being: SQL injection, Cross-site Scripting, and Authentication vulnerabilities. The SAN Institute, a worldwide security organization, reported cross-site scripting, SQL injection and cross site forgery as major web vulnerabilities in 2007 [18]. It was further reported that, XSS is the most
3.0 METHODOLOGY The research was carried out on 64 Nigerian e-government websites randomly selected to determine their common web security issues. An advanced Google search feature was employed to elicit websites with a sub-domain of ‘.gov.ng’ and with a ‘php & html’ extension [6] Google retrieved a number of results but priority was given to the websites with the highest page rank, this
237
is with a view to using websites which files has been highly populated in the search engine database.
by web developers because of the possibility of creating high vulnerabilities. The sites tested were categorized into Agencies, Judiciary, Law Enforcement/Defence, Media, Ministries, Parastatals, States and Others categories.
3.1 Testing tool
4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The second phase was to choose a software testing tool to scan for web vulnerabilities. Several criteria were part of the decision in choosing the testing tool. First, the testing software must be compatible with the windows operating system since the test was carried out on the researchers’ personal computer systems (PC). Secondly, the software must have specific vulnerability testing options to scan web sites, as opposed to common server-based scanning products. After review of different web scanners, Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner was employed. This is noted to be in the same category with Nmap, which has been widely used [1]. Acunetix was used to test different web application vulnerability issues including: Cross-Site Script (XSS), SQL injection (SQLi), cookie manipulation (CM), unencrypted password (UP) and broken links (BL) of the web pages, which are main targets here. The choice of these parameters is premised on the high impact of its severity compared to others. In addition to this testing tool, manual testing was also carried out on some few websites in a way as not to leave footprints on the website. This is necessary in order to confirm the results generated by Acunetix web vulnerability scanners.
Out of the 64 Nigerian government sites tested, 27, which represent 42.2% were vulnerable to XSS while 31.3% are vulnerable to SQLi. It was also discovered that 37.5% and 70.3% were vulnerable to unencrypted password and broken links respectively. These findings are represented and summarized mathematically in algebraic expressions using set theory as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Algebraic representation of e-government vulnerabilities in Nigeria Algebraic Expressions
Interpretations
U = 64
3.2 Procedure After launching the web scanner, the desired Universal Resource Location (URL) is entered in the wizard box provided and the ‘go’ button is fired. If the Internet connection on the computer is available then the scanner will begin the process. The scanner (Acunetix), thus virtually crawl the website of any given URL and presents the analysis of the vulnerability for every run. The Internet connection used for the exercise is a 3.5G on a High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSPDA). The scanning process took on average 25 minutes, although the times varied from 15 minutes up to 1 hour depending on the size of the entire given website. The manual test for XSS as well as SQLi was carried out to confirm the results generated by the vulnerability scanner. This is possible when such scripts as alert (‘This website is vulnerable’) is inputted into any available input field such as: the search, feedback and form fields within the website and the action button is pressed thereafter. If the web page is vulnerable, a Java script enabled browser will show a java script pop-up alert window containing the text in the parenthesis, ‘This website is vulnerable’. Also to manually test for SQL injection vulnerabilities, a single quote ( ' ) can be used as input. The single quote is a special character in SQL, and if it is included in the SQL query it will most likely generate an SQL statement error. All the 64 Nigerian government websites were tested over a period of two weeks within the month of August 2011 and technical report was produced for each site, listing the types and numbers of specific vulnerabilities. Each report was divided into several sections listing four levels of security vulnerability: High, Medium, Low and Informational. High level – these are critical problems which could cause high risk damage to the website e.g website defacement [1], database manipulation and modification [6], phishing, identity theft [1] amongst others. Medium and Low level – these are problems that could pose some level of risk to users of the web application. Informational – these are messages that probably have little risk to users, but still should be analyzed
the universal set, i.e total sample tested.
n(XSS) = 27
the number of websites vulnerable to XSS.
n(SQLi) = 20
the number of websites vulnerable to SQL injection
n(UP) = 24
the number of websites vulnerable to UP
n(BL) = 45
the number of websites vulnerable to BL
n(SQLi ∪ XSS) = 34
the number of websites vulnerable to both SQL injection & XSS
n(SQLi ∩ XSS) = 13
the number of websites exclusively vulnerable to both SQL injection & XSS
n(SQLi ∩ XSS1) = 7
the number of websites vulnerable to SQL injection but not XSS
n(SQLi1 ∩ XSS) = 14
the number of websites vulnerable to XSS but not SQL injection
n(U - (SQLi ∪ XSS)1) = 30
the number of websites vulnerable to other parameters under test but not XSS nor SQL injection
Legend: SQLi – Structured Query Language injection XSS – Cross Site Scripting UP
– Unencrypted Password
BL
– Broken Links
Table 2 shows the distribution of vulnerability in each category, for example apart from other categories which constitute the highest percentage of XSS vulnerability; the judiciary followed by one out of every four being vulnerable 25% relative to the participation in the test.
238
Table 2: Distribution of vulnerability in each category. XSS and SQLi Analysis Categories
Only XSS (%)
Only SQLi (%)
XSS & SQLi (%)
XSS
None
or SQLi(%)
(%)
CM & UP
BL (%)
(%)
Agencies (n=10)
20 (2)
0 (0)
20 (2)
40 (4)
60 (6)
30 (3)
70 (7)
Judiciary (n=8)
25 (2)
12.5 (1)
25 (2)
62.5 (5)
37.5 (3)
37.5 (3)
50 (4)
Law Enf./Def (n=5)
20 (1)
0 (0)
40 (2)
60 (3)
40 (2)
40 (2)
80 (4)
Media (n=2)
0 (0)
50 (1)
0 (0)
50 (1)
50 (1)
0 (0)
100 (2)
Ministries (n=6)
16.7 (1)
16.7 (1)
33.3 (2)
66.7 (4)
33.3 (2)
33.3 (2)
66.7 (4)
Others (n=7)
42.9 (3)
0 (0)
28.6 (2)
71.4 (5)
28.6 (2)
28.6 (2)
85.7 (6)
Parastatals (n=13)
23.1 (3)
15.4 (2)
15.4 (2)
53.8 (7)
46.1 (6)
46.2 (6)
76.9 (10)
States (n=13)
15.4 (2)
15.4 (2)
7.7 (1)
38.5 (5)
61.5 (8)
46.2 (6)
61.5 (8)
* Please note that the values in parenthesis represent the actual number of the vulnerability found. XSS- Cross Site Scripting, SQLi- Structure Query Language injection, CM- Cookie Manipulation, UP- Unencrypted Password, BL- Broken Links Table 3: Type and magnitude of website vulnerabilities across categories Level of Severity/
Highly Severe
Less Severe
Category
XSS
SQLi
CM/UP
BL
Agencies
14.8
10.5
12
15.6
Judiciary
14.8
10.5
12
8.9
Law Enf./Def
11.1
10.5
8
8.9
Media
0.0
5.3
4
4.4
Ministries
11.1
15.8
8
8.9
Others
18.5
10.5
8
13.3
Parastatals
18.5
21.1
24
22.2
States
11.1
15.8
24
17.8
25.0 20.0 15.0
XSS
10.0
SQLi
5.0
CM/UP
0.0
BL
Figure 1: Pictorial representation of vulnerabilities across sectors
239
(22.2%) and States (17.8%) categories have broken links in their websites.
In Figure 1, the parastatals have the highest percentages of vulnerability in all the four parameters used in the research. Parastatals and Others categories have the highest vulnerability to XSS with 18.5% each. Ministries and States websites are more vulnerable to SQLi behind Parastatals with 15.8% each. Media houses category has the lowest percentage (5.3) of vulnerability to SQLi. Parastatals and States categories have the highest percentage of vulnerability to cookie manipulation and unencrypted passwords with percentages 24% each. Most of the categories had informational issues with their websites, Parastatals Agencies
Table 3 gives the percentages of vulnerable websites for each category. ‘Others’ category has the highest ratio of vulnerability to either XSS or SQLi, followed by Ministries. More than 70% of ‘Others’ category has vulnerability, while 38.5% of state government websites are vulnerable. Figure 2 illustrates the sectoral percentages representation of vulnerability to some parameters under test using pie charts.
Only XSS 20%
Judiciary None 38%
Only XSS 25%
None 60% XSS & SQLi 20%
Law Enforcement/Defence XSS & SQLi 40%
Only SQLi 12%
XSS & SQLi 25%
Media
Only XSS 20%
Only SQLi 50%
None 40%
None 50%
Ministries Only XSS 17%
XSS & SQLi 33%
Others XSS & SQLi 29%
Only SQLi 17%
None 28%
None 33%
Parastatals None 46%
XSS & SQLi 15%
Only XSS 43%
States
Only XSS 23%
None 62%
Only SQLi 16%
Only XSS 15% Only SQLi 15% XSS & SQLi 8%
Figure 2: Pie charts showing vulnerabilities for categories of Government websites
240
services are offered on a daily basis to the public through the portals and the number of government databases connected with these services are increasing, the risk of malicious data, identity theft and manipulating the integrity of the databases increases. It is therefore important that government take preventive measures now to prevent any eventualities, some of these are articulated in the policy recommendation in the next sections.
From table 3, it can be deduced that the website from the ‘Others’ and Judiciary categories have the highest percentage of vulnerability to only XSS, while the Media category has the highest vulnerability to only SQLi. Out of the 8 categories examined, State category has the highest percentage (61.5) of websites that are not vulnerable to XSS or SQLi, use fewer technologies and have fewer numbers of pages in their websites, hence decreasing the possibility of introducing vulnerability in their web application. Table 3: Vulnerability Test Results Agencies
Judiciary N=8
Law Enf./Def N=5
Media N=2
Ministries N=6
Others N=7
Parastatals N=13
States N=13
214(4)
249(5)
69(3)
1(1)
64(4)
76(5)
196(7)
380(5)
6
3
2
1
2
2
6
8
18(3)
26(3)
3(2)
0
3(2)
2(2)
40(6)
24(6)
7
5
3
2
4
5
7
7
Total warning
38(8)
34(4)
25(4)
3(2)
31(4)
69(6)
117(10)
58(8)
Site with warning
2
4
1
0
2
1
3
5
N=10 High Level Total Errors Site with Errors
no
Medium/Low Level Total Errors Site with Errors
no
Informational
no
* Numbers of websites are enclosed in parenthesis Table 3 shows overall vulnerability test results of 64 Nigerian websites. There was a wide range of total errors for each category. Within the ‘high level’, which relates to critical problems found in the sites, the 13 ‘States’ web sites had a total error count of 380 (out of which a particular State Government website had 339), followed by Judiciary category with total error count of 249. Media and Ministries web sites had lower numbers of 1 and 64 error counts respectively at this level. Results in the ‘medium/low error level’ showed that Parastatals websites had 40 errors while Law enforcement/defence, Ministries and Others categories had 3, 3 and 2 errors respectively. Most of the sites did possess medium intensity issues, and only 2 Media websites did not have them, while a good number of 3 Law enforcement/defence, 4 Ministries and Others websites were free of problems at this level. Most sites across the categories did have informational warnings. There were a total of 117 warnings in Parastatals website, 3 in Media and 69 in others websites.
6.0 POLICY RECOMMENDATION It is expedient that different organizations take necessary steps to close all possible loop holes that may be detrimental to their resources available on their websites. This may involve website validation or possibly an entire re-design. Before launching a website, it is a good practice to cross-check and validates all aspects of the design either by hosting it on a local server or on a test bed. By this procedure, software development cycle principles would have been followed, which the application is not out of order in this context. This involve: planning, requirements analysis, design & development, implementation (coding), testing & integration, evaluation (validation), release (launching) and support (maintenance). The government also has vital roles to play, this involve setting web standards as well as monitor and evaluate compliance. This standard will be for all the government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and could also extend to non-governmental bodies and private firms with a web presence activities within the country or are planning to have one. This standard should cover all areas of the website cycle which will not leave out: (i) The domain itself. First, this must be appropriate and must comply with country code top level if serious transactions involving ecommerce (for example) are to be allowed on it. (ii) The design and development up to evaluation in that order must be ascertained. (iii) Deployment and hosting must be guided; the country of the hosting service provider may be localized. The
5.0 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION It was shown in this work that most Nigerian government websites across federal, state and local government are vulnerable to different forms of attacks. This is due to application errors and/or deficiency in the design especially as it relates to coding of the back-end. An average of 53.1 percent of sites contains critical vulnerabilities (XSS and SQLi), 37.5% have medium-low level issues (cookie manipulation and unencrypted password) and 70.3 percent contain informational issues (broken links) in their websites. This is an undesirable level of protection. As more
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Behaviour Monitoring. WWW2003, May 20-24, 2003, Budapest,Hungary. ACM 1-58113-680-3/03/0005. Available http://www2003.org/cdrom/papers/refereed/p081/FINAL_W AVES_WWW2003.htm
facilities (both hardware and software types, versions etc) in the premise of the hosting provider must meet a set security standard. (iv) General management, this includes updating, upgrading and entire re-design etc, open source could be encouraged but with caution in this instance. Apart from the fore, the government should also commission a unit of an agency like National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for example, to monitor and evaluate compliance to the standards from time to time. If all these could be dutifully observed, then there is likelihood that the challenge of web insecurity will drastically be minimized.
[12] Bandhakavi, S., Bisht, P., Madhusudan, P., & Venkatakrishnan, V.N (2007). CANDID: Preventing SQL Injection Attacks using Dynamic Candidate Evaluations. WWW 2010, April 26–30, 2010, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. ACM 978-1-60558-799-8/10/04. Available on http://cs.uiuc.edu/~madhu/ccs07.pdf [13] Lee, I. Jeong, S., Yeo, S. & Moon, J. (2011). A Novel Method For SQL Injection Attack Detection Based On Removing Sql Query Attribute Values. Mathematical and Computer Modeling, pp 1-11.
7.0 REFERENCE [1] Zhao, J.J. & Zhao, S.Y. (2010). Opportunities and threats: A security assessment of state e-government websites. Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 49–56.
[14] Xie, Y. & Aiken, A. (2006). Static Detection of Security Vulnerability in Scripting Languages. 15th USENIX Security Symposium, 2006. Available on http://theory.stanford.edu/~aiken/publications/papers/usenix 06.pdf
[2] Backus, M. (2001). E-Governance and Developing Countries: Introduction and examples. Report No 3, April 2001. Available on http://www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/reports/report3.pdf
[15] Balduzzi, M., Gimenez, C.T., Balzarotti, D. & Kirda, E. (2010). Automated Discovery of Parameter Pollution Vulnerabilities in Web Applications.
[3] Awoleye O.M., Oluwaranti A.I., Siyanbola W.O. and Adagunodo E.R. (2008). Assessment of e-Governance Resource Use in Southwestern Nigeria. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance Cairo, Egypt. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Pages 154-159
[16] SANS Institute (2009b). Top Cyber Security Risks Executive Summary” September 2009. Available on http://www.sans.org/top-cyber-security-risks/summary.php
[4] Ali, A.B., Shakhatreh, Y.I, Abdullah, M.S. & Alostad, J. (2010). SQL-Injection Vulnerability Scanning Tool for Automatic Creation of SQL-injection attacks. Procedia Computer Science 3, pp 453–458.
[17] SANS Institute (2009a). SANS Top-20 2007 Security Risks (2007 Annual Update). Available on http://www.sans.org/top20/#s1.
[5] Cook, S. (2003). A web Developer’s Guide to Cross Scripting.
[18] Halkidis, S.T., Chtzigeorgiou, A. & Stephanides, G. A Practical Evaluation of Security Patterns. Available on http://users.uom.gr/~achat/papers/AIDC2006.pdf
[6] Moen, V., Klingsheim, A.N., Simonsen, K.I.F. & Hole, K.J. (2006). Vulnerabilities in E-Governments. Proc.2nd International Conference on Global E-Security (ICGeS-06), ondon, England, April 20–22, 2006.
[19] OWASP Foundation (2007). The Ten Most Critical Web Application Security Vulnerabilities. Available on http:// www.owasp.org/images/e/e8/OWASP_Top_10_2007.pdf
[7] Christey, S., & Martin, R.A. (2007). Vulnerability Type Distributions in CVE. Document Version: 1.1, May 22, 2007. available on http://cve.mitre.org/docs/vulntrends/vuln-trends.pdf [8] Higgins, K.J. (2006). Cross Site Scripting: Attackers’ New Favourite Flaw. Available on http://www.darkreading.com/security/applicationsecurity/208804050/cross-sitescripting-attackers-newfavorite-flaw.html [9] Bates, D., Barth, A., & Jackson, C. (2010). Regular Expression Considered Harmful in Client-Side XSS Filters. WWW 2010, April 26–30, 2010, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. ACM 978-1-60558-799-8/10/04. Available on http://www.collinjackson.com/research/xssauditor.pdf [10] Halfond, W.G.J., Viegas, J. & Orso, A. (2006). A Classification of SQL Injection Attacks and Countermeasures. College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. [11] Huang, Y.W., Huang, S.K, & Lin, T.P. (2003). Web Application Security Assessment by Fault Injection and
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Session 9 Social Media in Government
Exploring Social Media Usage in Saudi E-Government Websites Hend S. Al-Khalifa, Muna S. Al-Razgan, Nora I. Al-Rajebah and Ameera M. Almasoud Information Technology Department College of Computer and Information Sciences King Saud University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
{hendk;ma;razgan;nrajebah;amma;masoud}@ksu.edu.sa the service they provide, for instance: Blogging services (e.g. Wordpress/Blogger), Media-sharing services, (e.g. YouTube "Video", Flickr "photos"), Social networking (e.g. Facebook and LinkedIn) and Micro-Blogging services (e.g. Twitter).
ABSTRACT Many governments worldwide have employed social media services to increase their openness and transparency. These services have played an important role in bridging the gap between governments and citizens and increase the interaction with each other. This paper explores the prevalence of social media services in Saudi e-Government agencies' websites and analyzes their patterns of usage.
Social media services are gaining popularity worldwide. Based on Alexa1 ranking for top visited sites in the world, we can notice that 50% of the top ten most visited websites are social media services, which includes: Facebook, YouTube, BlogSpot and Twitter.
Using a comprehensive analysis of 170 Saudi government websites, we found that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were the most commonly used social media services among e-Government agencies, and they were utilized as a one-way communication channel.
Recently social media websites have been used to improve the relationship between government agencies and their citizens and to increase interaction. They provide good means of eparticipation, which offers "the opportunity to achieve and satisfy the need to be heard by politicians and participate in the decisionmaking and policy formulation processes through the use of ICT" [2]. In this respect, social media services were widely adopted in e-Government websites because they created fast and readily available communication channels with the citizens.
Categories and Subject Descriptors J.4 [Computer Applications]: Social and Behavioral Sciences – sociology, psychology.
General Terms
Given the importance of employing social media services in today's e-Government websites; in this study we present the results of analyzing the prevalence and usage of social media services in Saudi Arabia e-Government agencies websites.
Management
Keywords Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blog, E-government, Saudi Arabia.
In order to explore the prevalence of social media services in Saudi e-Government agencies websites, we first need to know what are the widely used social media services in Saudi Arabia? According to Alexa website, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Blogspot, respectively are among the top ten most visited websites in Saudi Arabia2. Also the statistics presented in the "Internet World Stats"3 show that there are more than 4.5 Million Saudi Facebook users on Dec 31, 2011; with a penetration rate equal to 17.4%. Most of these users are under 30 years old. On the other hand, in September, 2011 the number of Saudi Twitter users has reached 127,457 users according to Arab Social Media Report [3]. The previous numbers show an increased usage of social media among young Saudi citizens.
1. INTRODUCTION With the proliferation of an array of different social media services such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter, people became more connected to each other. Social media services are defined as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. It is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue” [1]. In fact, there are many categories of social media sites based on
Knowing these facts about the usage growth of social media services in Saudi Arabia, this study will answer the following questions:
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
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The top 500 sites on the web by Alexa.com on March 26, 2012 Top sites in Saudi Arabia by Alexa.com on March 26, 2012: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/SA 3 http://www.internetworldstats.com/middle.htm, Date Accessed 26 March 2012. 2
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What kind of social media services do Saudi e-Government websites use?
six entities was not as expected. As a result they provided a set of recommendations to improve eParticipation on Social Media.
This research question is meant to address the combination of technology, telecommunication and social interaction between the Saudi government and its citizen, and which tools of the social media is more suitable for Saudi citizens. Knowing these information will help in improving the service and delivery of information through the correct channel.
In another study based on a three-tiered approach to eParticipation (Inform, Consult and Empower) [7], Inform: about the existing policy, consult: by sharing knowledge and opinions, and empower: by pursuing particular issues to the policy actors. The authors found that the main challenge to their approach was not the technological barriers; instead it was the socio-political barriers.
Which e-Government agency is using social media services and tools and to what extent?
In a wider context, Chua et al. [8] analyzed 200 international government websites using content analysis and multiple regression analysis. They found that the prevalence of seven Web 2.0 applications in descending order was: RSS, multimedia sharing services, blogs, forums, social tagging services, social networking, services and wikis. Finally, Gharawi et al. [9] introduced the perceived values and pressing issues which concerning practitioners that may complicate adoption of social media services in e-Government websites.
Since the aim of this paper is to know which government agency is actively using social media and to what extent? Identifying this government agency will help in delivering our recommendations and better improve their services. In what capacity in terms of announcement, discussion, consultation, seeking ideas have social media been used in Saudi e-Government websites?
From the previous research, we can see that many international government websites do use social media services; however their usage were very basic and did not fully utilize the potential and capabilities of social media. So, will this be the case with Saudi eGovernment websites? The answer will be addressed in the next sections.
Finding the answers to these questions will help in (1) providing recommendations to Saudi e-Government websites to better utilize social media services and (2) identify weaknesses in their current usage. Thus, this study provides the first comprehensive examination and analysis of 170 Saudi e-Government websites. The focus will be on top social media services used in Saudi Arabia, as mentioned before.
3. METHODOLOGY 3.1 Collection of Saudi e-Government Websites
In the following section, we present some related work on the usage of social media in e-Government context. In section 3, we describe the methodology we followed in order to collect Saudi government agencies websites. Then in section 4, we discuss our findings and answer the three posed research questions. Finally section 5 provides recommendations and future directions for this research.
One hundred ninety four Saudi government agencies websites listed in the Saudi e-Government Portal (saudi.gov.sa) was considered in this study. These websites were visited to make sure that their addresses are correct. From the 194 websites only 170 were working properly. Table 1 shows the number of collected websites based on their category type. Table 1. Number of e-Government websites in each category
2. RELATED WORK In the past few years, we have witnessed the utilization of social media services by many governmental websites worldwide. The aim of the utilization was to provide a two way interactive communication channel with the citizens and to relate the government with their constituencies. Among the previous studies on the adoption of social media service in government agencies websites, is a study by Alam et al. [4] on the usage of Facebook in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). They found that ATO used Facebook as a one-way communication tool to provide information about their e-Tax service. Similarly, Upadhyay and Ilavarasan [5] studied Facebook pages of three government agencies in Delhi, India. These include Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Delhi Traffic Police and Planning Commission. Based on the agencies usage the authors offered suggestions for policymaking to facilitate a wider and more effective reach of social media in the developing countries.
3.2 Methods of Data Analysis
On the other hand, Rojas et al. [6] studied the interaction of six territorial public entities in Colombia through Facebook and Twitter. They found that the usage of Twitter and Facebook by the
During the period between 2ed and 28th March 2012 three experts in social media domain were involved in the analysis. The first step was to count the appearance of four social media services,
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namely: Twitter, Facebook, blogs and YouTube for each website in the e-Government categories (e.g. funds, municipality, ministries, universities supported by the government, etc.). For each social media service the expert codes it with either “yes” or “no” to denote its presence or absence. We also noticed while visiting some e-Government agencies websites the usage of other types of social media services such as Flickr, Linkedin, Google+, etc. Thus, they were counted. The second step was to observe and distill the usage patterns for each social media type based on the criteria shown in Table 2. Table 2. Criteria used for exploring the usage patterns for eGovernment websites Social Media Type
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Blog
Criteria • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Number of followers Number of tweets Is it up-to-date? Is it interactive? Type of usage (e.g. news, announcements, answers, etc.) Number of likes Are user comments allowed? Is it up-to-date Is it interactive Type of usage (e.g. news, announcements, answers, etc.) Number of uploaded videos Number of subscribers Number of views Is it up-to-date? Type of videos Are user comments allowed? Is it up-to-date? Type of posted topics
Figure 1. Percentage of Social Media usage We can see from the figure above that Facebook is one of the highly used services with 37%, next comes Twitter with 35%, then YouTube with 25%, and finally Blogs with only 3%. The usage of Facebook and Twitter are the most popular among Saudi agencies due to the high engagement of Saudi community in using these services. We also noticed that since Facebook and Twitter are becoming popular among young Saudi citizens, the usage of blogs has started to diminish.
4. FINDINGS 4.1 Prevalence of Social Media Services Figure 2. Percentage of Other Social Media usage
To address our first research question "What kind of social media services do Saudi e-Government websites use?" Figure 1 shows the breakdown of social media usage based on their types for the 170 different Saudi government agencies.
We mentioned previously that there are other social media services that have been used in Saudi e-Government agencies, such as Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, Forums, and Scribd. Figure 2 shows the distributions of these services. The highest percentage is for Flickr which equals to 46%, the second highest is Linkedin with %21, the third one is Forums which equals to 15%, and the rest has been used in low percentage as shown in the figure above.
4.2 Uses of Social Media Services To address our second and third research questions "Which eGovernment agency is using social media services and tools and to what extent?" and "In what capacity in terms of announcement, discussion, consultation, seeking ideas have social media been used in Saudi e-Government websites?" an in-depth inspection was carried out on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, since they were the highly used social media services in Saudi e-Government websites.
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In our analysis we found that there were 64 out of 170 government agencies which have Twitter accounts. From Figure 4, it can be clearly seen that the highest Twitter usage among the 64 government agencies was present in the University category with a percentage of 72%. Municipality category comes second, with a percentage of 67% followed by Ministry, Principality, Fund, Council and other agencies categories that have a usage range of 38% to 43%. While Directorate, Commission, Presidency, and Establishment categories have a usage ranged from 17% to 22%. Similar to the findings of Facebook usage, College, Diwans, and Department categories were not using Twitter.
4.2.1 Facebook Usage
Furthermore, among the 64 agencies which used Twitter, 77% were up to date with recent tweets. In general, utilizing Twitter to communicate with citizens is roughly a new trend in Saudi Arabia as many agencies created their accounts between 2010 and 2011. Figure 3. Percentage of agencies that use Facebook per category
In terms of the different themes of usage, Twitter accounts were mainly used for disseminating news and announcements. Overall, Twitter is used as a one way channel to broadcast announcements and news benefiting from the growing interest in Twitter inside the Saudi society. Small amount of interaction was encountered, among all agencies, i.e. 22% were interactive. The Ministry and University categories have good interaction with their followers which appears in terms of Q&As and replies. Other Agencies like Saudi Arabian airlines and the National Center for Assessment in Higher education are very active as well. It seems that these agencies allocate enough resources (human and time) to interact with the citizens.
Figure 3 shows the usage of Facebook among Saudi government agencies; we noticed that the highest usage in descending order was in universities (80%), municipalities (56%), councils (51%) and funds (40%). The rest ranged between 33% and 14%. The high usage of Facebook among universities websites explains the popularity of social media services among the young Saudi generation. Also, we noticed that some agencies did not use Facebook, such agencies include: Diwans, Colleges, and Departments. This can be attributed to the fact that the number of agencies' websites under these categories was low, i.e. they usually consist of three websites in each category.
4.2.3 YouTube Usage
Regarding the usage patterns of Facebook, we can find that news and announcements dissemination were the most commonly used patterns. To be more specific, Funds and Presidencies were so active in terms of updating their pages with news. However, all eGovernment agencies interaction with the citizens via their Facebook pages used one direction without any discussion, which can be considered as poor interaction. This way of interaction might be attributed to the recent establishment of government agencies Facebook pages or the absence of a clear usage policy of such a media.
4.2.2 Twitter Usage Figure 5. Percentage of agencies that use YouTube per category Figure 5 shows the usage of YouTube among Saudi government agencies. The highest usage was in: universities (31%), municipalities (19%), ministry (13%), other agency (10%), and the rest were below 8%. The agencies who do not use YouTube were Colleges, Diwans, Department, and Council. Their lack of usage might be attributed to the fact that videos are not needed in their line of business. Regarding the usage patterns of YouTube, we found that announcements, interviews, how-to's (direction) and events broadcasted in TVs were the most commonly used patterns. Moreover, in most agencies channels viewers’ comments were allowed. Finally, we can notice that most of YouTube channels
Figure 4. Percentage of agencies that use Twitter per category
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Finally, it is worth mentioning that since the usage of social media in Saudi government is very recent, there is no deep involvement yet between policy makers and Saudi citizens. Therefore, the recommendation was given to help improve the usage of the current services, and hopefully in the near future we reach the ultimate goal which is “inform-consult-empower” between policy makers and Saudi citizens.
were recently established and they usually have less than 200 videos uploaded.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Social media is newly introduced in Saudi e-Government websites given the creation date of their accounts in different social media services. In this paper we have explored the prevalence of social media services among Saudi e-Government agencies and the attitude towards their usage.
6. REFERENCES [1] “Social media - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” [Online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. [Accessed: 25-Mar-2012].
Our findings show that the use of Facebook and Twitter were admirable, given the small number of Saudi e-Government agencies officially using them. In fact, the usage of social media services was most common in Universities and Municipalities websites. Our analysis also showed that most e-Government agencies publish the same content on both Facebook and Twitter.
[2] K. Ergazakis, K. Metaxiotis, and T. Tsitsanis, “A State-ofThe-Art Review of Applied Forms and Areas, Tools and Technologies for e-Participation,” International Journal of Electronic Government Research, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1–19, 2011.
In terms of their usage trends, we have noticed that either the agencies’ website was up-to-date and participated in more than one social media service, or the website is so simple, with no participation in any service. The apparent usage pattern, as we have stated previously, was for disseminating news and announcements, i.e. only as a one way communication channel.
[3]
[4] S. L. Alam, J. Campbell, and R. Lucas, “Using Social Media in Government: The Australian Taxation Office e-Tax Facebook Page,” in 2011 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing (DASC), 2011, pp. 1002–1009.
In order to overcome the problems found in current usage of social media services we provide the following recommendations for Saudi e-Government agencies: •
Create a clear social media strategy that prevents any misunderstandings or misuse of the service and defines the overall goals of its usage.
•
Clarify the purpose of each social media service to the citizens i.e. whether it is for discussions, Q&As, or news/announcement channel.
•
Verify social media accounts to give them more trust and credibility.
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For agencies from the same category or interest, it is advisable to get connected with each other, this will help service the Saudi citizens.
•
Allocate enough resources (personnel and time) in each government agency for moderating and managing social media channels.
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Learn which social media is popular among Saudi citizen and engage and focus on that service.
•
Improve the current usage of social media services by adopting an interactive two-way communication channel with the citizens.
•
“Arab Social Media Report,” Dubai School of Government. Available: http://www.dsg.fohmics.net/en/asmr3/. [Accessed: 25-Mar-2012].
[5] J. M. Rojas, C. J. Ruiz, and C. Farfán, “e-participation and egovernance at web 2.0 in local governments of Colombia,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, New York, NY, USA, 2011, pp. 301–304. [6] A. Upadhyay and P. V. Ilavarasan, “Social media, egovernance and developing countries: insights from India,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, New York, NY, USA, 2011, pp. 351–352. [7] Lee D., Loutas N., Sanchez Nielsen E., Mogulkoc E., Lacigova O., Inform-Consult-Empower: A Three-tiered Approach to eParticipation. In Proceedings of 3rd ePart Conference, Delft, The Netherlands, 2011, pp. 121-132. [8] A. Y. Chua, D. Goh, and R. Ang, “Web 2.0 applications in government websites: prevalence, use and correlations with perceived website quality,” Online Information Review, vol. 36, no. 2, p. 2–2, Apr. 2012. [9] M. Gharawi, N. Helbig, J. Hrdinová, and D. Werthmuller, “An exploratory study of social media adoption in government,” in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, New York, NY, USA, 2010, pp. 359–36
Consult and seek knowledge from the citizens about how to improve the agency social media service.
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Government Crisis Communication on the Microblog: A Theory Framework and the Case of Shanghai Metro RearEnd Collision Xiao Liang Department of Informatics University at Albany, SUNY 1400 Washington Avenue Albany, NY 12222
[email protected] Shanghai Metro’s official microblog 2 . The response messages were widely spread, and both the responses and the Shanghai Metro received considerable acclaim.
ABSTRACT Crisis brings various damages including a tarnished reputation. To protect and restore its reputation is an important task for a government agency in times of crisis. A microblog, which is attracting more and more public attention, can be used as a platform for the government to communicate with the public in order to manage its reputation in times of crisis. However, there is not enough research done in this area. In this paper, the author develops a general framework for a government agency to conduct crisis communication on the microblog. At the end of the paper, the case of a Shanghai City Metro rear-end collision is introduced to show how the government can use the framework to respond to a crisis.
On one hand, this indicates that the public would like to see government agencies appear on a microblog in times of crisis; on the other hand, it raises the question of how a government agency could use microblogs in a crisis to facilitate crisis communication.
1.2 Introduction of the Problem Crisis is the “perception of unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes” [6]. One of the negative outcomes of a crisis is a tarnished reputation [10], which is the source of negative attitudes towards an organization [26]. Therefore, to protect their reputations becomes an important task for all organizations in times of crisis.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4.m [Computer and Society]: Miscellaneous.
General Terms Management, Measurement, Performance, Theory
Crisis communication is the approach aimed at maintaining and repairing reputation during a crisis. This approach, by definition, is “the dialogue between the organization and its public prior to, during, and after the negative occurrence. The dialogue details strategies and tactics that are designed to minimize damage to the image of the organization” [12].
Keywords Microblog; Social Media; Public Relation; Crisis Communication, China
1. INTRODUCTION
As a channel of communication, the media is an unneglectable constituent. Scholars assert that, according to different characteristics of the media, an organization should apply different strategies in order to achieve the best result [4]. The microblog, as a type of new media, is attracting more and more public attention. Many organizations have begun to use it as a platform to communicate with their publics during crises [31]. However, there has not much research done in this area [31].
1.1 Background On September 27, 2010, a rear-end collision occurred at Shanghai City’s Metro in China. This accident was first reported by a microblogger on Sina Microblog [42], a popular Chinese microblog website1. What makes this affair different is the responses made by the Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
This paper aims to provide government agencies with a general framework for harnessing the microblog to communicate with the public during a crisis. However, there is no one size-fits-all model; the general framework functions as a basic guideline allowing government agencies to develop specific strategies in different situations shaped by factors such as the responsibility of the crisis, the information required by the public, and the social value in which the organization is embedded. The model takes a stage approach, which views the crisis as a process composed of
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different phases. Four theories of crisis communication are discussed, and the common issues that the theories focus on are used to build the framework. Finally, the author uses Shanghai Metro’s crisis communication to show how a government agency can employ the microblog to communicate with the public in times of crisis.
o Image Restoration o
2. PREVIOUS STUDIES In this section the author first talks about the stage approach. The author then discusses four common issues affecting crisis communication strategies concerned by primary crisis communication theories. Finally, the author discusses some features of the microblog.
o
SCCT
2.1 Three Stages of a Crisis According to the stage approach, the development of a crisis can be divided into phases, according to which different tasks are assigned [14]. There are many stage models, among which the three-stage model is the most used [32]. The author will also use three-stage model due to its simplicity.
o o Organizational Renewal Theory
Simple as the three-stage approach is, scholars try to assign various definitions to the phases [15, 30]. Coomb summed up the previous studies and proposed a summarized three-stage model. His model includes a pre-crisis stage, crisis event stage, and postcrisis stage [7].Specifically, the pre-crisis stage is when a crisis has not happened yet. In this phase, the tasks are to detect crisis signs, prevent possible risks, reduce the potential harm, and prepare for possible responses [7, 30]. The crisis event stage is when crisis has occurred and brought damages. The organization should recognize the crisis as soon as possible and make responses to the crisis so as to mitigate negative impact [7, 15]. The post-crisis stage is when the immediate effect of a crisis is over [7]. In this phase the organization should learn from the crisis, monitor the public’s impression, and make sure that the crisis is truly over [7, 27].
2.2.1 Crisis situation The responsibility for a crisis and the level of damage are two aspects of crisis situations [2, 5]. First of all, the responsibility for a crisis could affect the public’s attitude towards an organization. This phenomenon is explained by the attribution theory, which argues that audiences always search for the cause of an event and try to form attributions for the responsibility [41]. Various emotions, such as sympathy and anger, are experienced by audiences after they attribute the responsibility [41]. For example, if an organization is a victim of the event, audiences are likely to develop sympathy towards the organization [5]. Thus, the responsibility becomes an issue one should consider when designing a crisis communication strategy.
In this section, the author discusses four common issues examined by primary crisis communication theories, namely the corporate apologia theory, image restoration theory, situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), and organizational renewal theory[1, 38].The corporate apologia theory focuses on the apology strategy in a crisis. The image restoration theory is concerned with strategies for repairing the reputation under attack. Apology is included in this theory as a general strategy. The SCCT argues that an organization should apply strategies according to the situation of the crisis. Lastly, the organizational renew theory encourages the organization to emphasize the positive side of the crisis. These four theories fall in the research area of public relations and recommend strategies for repairing and retaining organizational reputation in a crisis. Table 1 shows the features of each theory.
The corporate apologia theory and image restoration theory stress the importance of crisis responsibility. Depending on whether the organization is responsible for the crisis, the corporate apologia theory suggests strategies such as denial, counterattack, excuse, promising not to do it again, and seeking a legal solution which is considered as a no-public-relation approach [16]. The image restoration theory proposes denial and evasion of responsibility [2]. The SCCT sums up the work of the previous two theories. It identifies three clusters of crises according to the crisis responsibility taken by an organization: victim cluster, accidental cluster, and prevention cluster [13]. Strategies, such as denial, diminishing, and bolstering, are suggested by the theory [5].
Table 1. Crisis Communication Theories Main Arguments o o Corporate Apologia
o
o
The theories mainly focus on four factors that an organization should consider when designing its crisis communication strategies. These four factors are the crisis situation, the stakeholders, the values, and the further view. In the following part of this section the author discusses the four factors one by one.
2.2 Communication Strategies
Theory
o
This theory focuses on restoring organizational image when the image is under attack. Two elements of an attack: -‐ The accused is held responsible for an action. -‐ The action is considered to be offensive. Strategies: -‐ Denial and evasion (to the first element). -‐ Reducing offensiveness, and corrective action (to the second element). -‐ Mortification (general strategy). Crisis strategies depend on the history of the crisis, previous reputation, and the responsibilities for the crisis. Crisis clusters divided by the responsibility: victim cluster, accidental cluster, prevention cluster. Strategies applied accordingly: denial, diminishing, and bolstering. The theory is more prospective than retrospective. It emphasizes rebuilding. Four facets of the theory: organizational learning, ethical communication, prospective vision, and effective organizational rhetoric.
The theory focuses on apology strategies. Depending on the responsibilities for the crisis, five strategies are suggested. Strategies: denial, counterattack, excuse, promising not to do it again, and seeking a legal solution which is not a public relation stance.
The perceived level of damage is another factor of a crisis situation. It is argued that if the crisis manager lessens the perceived harmfulness of the crisis or shows some control over the damage; then the reputation damage can be reduced [2]. The level of damages is thoroughly discussed by Benoit in the image
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Being honest means to be truthful and sincere [18]. Accepting responsibilities is considered ethical [40]. Openness requires the organization to make the information accessible to the public in order to reduce uncertainties and increase transparency [40, 43]. Humanistic care is about offering help to the public physically, psychologically, and financially [40].
restoration theory. He termed it as “offensiveness of the wrongful doing” and took it as one of the components of an attack to the organization [29]. Benoit argued that the perceived offensiveness of an action is more important than the reality. In other words, the wrongful action might not be as heinous as it is perceived by the audience [2]; thus, the crisis manager should deliver information that will help the public to objectively assess the damage. The image restoration theory suggests some message options that can reduce the perceived offensiveness of wrongful actions, such as bolstering, minimizing the negative feelings (diminishing), differentiating the crisis from other similar crises, transcendence, attacking the accusers, and the compensation [2].
2.2.4 The future That an organization should seek opportunities in a crisis and help the public to see the future is the core argument of the organizational renewal theory [39]. To correct wrongdoings and to learn from the crisis are two important aspects discussed by the four theories.
2.2.2 Stakeholders
Correcting the wrongdoing is regarded by the SCCT and image restoration theory as part of the diminishment strategy [2, 5]. The corporate apologia theory also values making statements to correct wrongdoings as a part of an effective apologetic strategy [16]. Moreover, the SCCT considers the history of similar crises to be a factor that can negatively affect crisis communication [5]. To correct the wrongdoing is also a necessary action to renew the organization’s reputation and to prepare for a future crisis.
Stakeholders are vital elements in crisis communication because they are the ones who are affected by the crisis and who form attitudes towards the organization. Specifically, the previous reputation among stakeholders and the needs of the stakeholders are two important elements which the organization ought to pay attention to. Research shows that a negative reputation can lead to additional damage during crises [21]. The SCCT takes the previous reputation as an important factor that affects the choice of crisis communication strategies [5]. Hence, instead of suffering the negative impact which results from a ruined reputation, an organization is better to build a sound relationship with the stakeholders before the crisis.
Learning from a past crisis plays an important role in rebuilding an organization. An organization can learn from the crisis by evaluating its crisis response strategy as well as investigating the reason for the crisis. To improve the crisis response mechanism, to correct the reason for the crisis, and to rebuild the organization are some of the aims.
Besides managing the organization’s reputation, to meet the needs of stakeholders is the first and foremost task during crises [5]. Different stakeholders have different concerns and expectations. The paper only discusses some general needs in the crisis event stage and post-crisis stage respectively.
3. FRAMEWORK 3.1 Microblog In this section, the author discusses two important activities on the microblog and some techniques that can help an organization organize the information on a microblog.
The first need is to reduce uncertainties. A crisis usually breeds uncertainties [28]. On one hand, people need information to reduce uncertainties and thereby to make the right decision in order to minimize the damage [26]. On the other hand, people need information to diminish the pressure brought by uncertainties [5, 36].
The microblog as a new meda is attracting more and more public attention [25]. Research shows that people react less negatively to crisis communication strategies on the microblog (twitter), and the public tries to seek and share information on the microblog in times of crisis [31]. Although there is research that has focused on using social media in crises in general, there is little research that specifically investigates the usage of the microblog in crises [31]. In order to understand how the microblog can help with crisis communication, there is a need to first understand its major activities and how to handle the information on it.
Secondly, in the post-crisis stage, stakeholders need compensation and emotional reparations. The corporate apologia theory stresses that an appropriate apologetic message should acknowledge all the stakeholders and express empathy to the injured individuals in the crisis [17]. The image restoration theory recommends the organization to compensate for the losses of the victims. If the compensation is accepted by the stakeholders, the image of the organization might be improved [2].
Two major activities on the microblog are collecting and disseminating information, which are supported by the information processing capability of the microblog. First, the large user group provides the organization with a resource for collecting information about stakeholders’ attitudes and expectations [35]. Secondly, the large number of users also enables the organization to broadcast information to the relevant audiences. Third, information spreads quickly on the microblog. Due to mobile devices, such as smart phones, people can share information whenever they use their mobile devices. Moreover, the microblog is interactive. By using functions, such as “@”, comments, and private chats, the organization could both give feedback to and receive timely feedback from the public. Finally, people might argue that the blog is also interactive. However, since it is easy to create and share information on the microblog, the microblog is
Finally, it is worth noting that sometimes the organization does meet the expectations of its stakeholders. However, the action is not very well expressed. Hence, it is crucial to fill the gap between the expression and the action [9].
2.2.3 Values Failing to meet social values, such as being dishonest, will hurt the organization’s reputation [11]. During the crisis, an organization faces different interest groups that have a variety of values. An effective solution is to stress some core values of the society [32]. Honesty, addressing responsibility, openness, and humanism are important values identified as by the literature [18, 40].
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The public’s concerns and attitudes, and the suspicious phenomena reported are the information a government agency should pay attention to.
more suitable for information disseminating within a limited time frame [34]. Besides collecting and disseminating information, handling information on the microblog is another issue. Two major problems in terms of handling information are information overload [19] and the length limitation of each message. In Table 2, the author suggests some techniques to assist in organizing and retrieving information, as well as breaking length limitation.
The second task is to reduce potential harm. One of the ways to reduce the harm is to educate the public so that they can make the right decisions when a crisis hits. On the microblog, the government can post educational messages enriched by pictures, videos, and external articles. However, posting educational messages is just one way to reduce the potential harm. The type of information delivered in order to degrade the potential harm depends on the crisis that an agency anticipates. In other words, a government agency should analyze the potential crisis and systematically design the microblog messages that will be helpful in reducing the harm.
Table 2.Information Overload and Length Limitation
Thirdly, in order to prepare possible crisis responses, a government agency should consider the four factors that affect the strategies of crisis communication, namely the crisis situation, stakeholders, social values, and the future view. Accordingly, in the preparation stage, an agency should build sound informationsharing mechanisms on the microblog, establish a good reputation among stakeholders, understand the needs of stakeholders, comply with social values, and stress the future view. Build information-sharing mechanisms before the crisis has been discussed by scholars for a long time [20]. The public can be one of the grids that provide information about a crisis. The public can even spontaneously provide assistance during a crisis. A government agency may empower the citizen to become involved in such activities on the microblog. The microblog can be used as a platform to build a sound relationship with the public. Few studies have been done on how an organization should communicate with the public on the microblog in order to build a good relationship. However, we can use the studies on general online communication as a source of reference. Two major strategies to maintain good relationships have been suggested by scholars: communicated relational commitment and conversational human voice [23].The former requires the organization to show willingness to maintain a relationship with the public; the latter highlights the importance of the human voice of the people who form the organization [23]. On the microblog, to enhance relational commitment can be reflected in the agency’s involvement in the public’s affairs. Besides, to show openness in organizational affairs can also help to maintain commitment [34]. The humanity of a government agency can be reflected in microblog posts that use a personal voice instead of an official tone. The person in charge of the official microblog can also show personal opinions, which can help with expressing a human voice [23, 34, 37].
3.2 The Framework The framework is arranged by Coomb’s three-stage model. The stages are pre-crisis stage, crisis event stage, and post-crisis stage. Coomb also gives the tasks of each stage. The author will discuss each task in detail with respect of Coomb’s descriptions as well as the four factors that the author generalizes from primary crisis communication theories. Accordingly, the author then discusses what types of messages could be delivered and collected by the organization.
3.2.1 Pre-crisis stage In the pre-crisis stage, the crisis has not happened yet. The task of this stage is to detect crisis signs, prevent possible risks and reduce potential harm, and prepare for a possible crisis response. Firstly, there are usually signs that indicate a possible crisis [8]. However, it is not easy to detect those signals; therefore, it requires the organization to collect information systematically from both internal and external sources [8]. A government agency could take advantage of the large user group of the microblog [24].The general public and the opinion leaders [8, 22] are both sources of information [24]. The general public could express their concerns as well as report suspicious phenomena through comments, “@”, private messages, and so on. Moreover, opinion leaders and experts, who have knowledge on particular issues and the power to affect the public’s opinion, should not be neglected by government agencies [8, 22]. Besides, the comments on messages that an opinion leader has posted are also an information resource. Overall, the information for detecting crisis signs can be collected from both the public and the opinion leaders and experts.
Information about the public’s expectations (needs) will assist the government in coping with a crisis. Such information can be collected directly from the public’s comments, “@”, and private messages. Again, the opinion leaders and experts play a role as well. The fourth requirement is to deliver messages fitting with social values. The posts and discussions on the microblog can reflect some social values as well as rules in the world of the microblog. A government agency should continuously monitor the public’s values on the microblog. Table 3 shows strategies for the precrisis stage.
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Third, the response messages on the microblog should also be in accord with the core values of stakeholders. The public’s perception of social values and the rules of messages on the microblog should be collected and analyzed in the pre-crisis stage; thereby, the organization can deliver appropriate information in legitimate formats.
Table 3. Strategies for Pre-crisis Stage
Ultimately, to stress the future can be another task in this stage. The government agency can inform the public that they are correcting the wrongdoing as well as learning from the crisis. The rhetoric used in the posts underlining the future view should be positive [39]. Table 4 shows the strategies in the crisis event stage. Table 4. Strategies for Crisis Event Stage
3.2.2 Crisis event stage In the crisis event stage, the tasks are to identify the crisis and to launch appropriate crisis responses. A crisis usually hits suddenly, leaving the organization and the public little time to respond [3]. Consequently, to identify the crisis at the first moment becomes vitally important. Online information dissemination is fast; thus, online media can be used as a channel to report the crisis. A good example for this is the Shanghai City Metro accident, which was first reported on a microblog by an ordinary citizen [42].
3.2.3 Post-crisis stage
After identifying a crisis, an organization should respond to it as soon as possible. In rest of Section 3.2.2, the author discusses the response strategy according to the four factors covered by popular crisis communication theories: the crisis situation, the stakeholders, the social values, and the future view.
In this stage, the tasks are preparing for the next crisis, making sure the stakeholders are left with positive impressions, and checking that the crisis is truly over. Preparing for the next crisis includes activities such as evaluating the crisis response strategy and learning from the most recent crisis [7, 39].On the microblog, feedback is the material for evaluation and learning purposes. The public’s attitude displayed in each message can be used to evaluate whether the strategy was favored. The public’s needs in the crisis as expressed in their posts and comments can be used to adjust the crisis strategy during and after the crisis.
First of all, public-generated messages might contain clues of a crisis situation, such as the crisis responsibility/perceived crisis responsibility and the level of damage/perceived level of damage. Thus, the government agency can pay attention to both the factors involved in the crisis as well as the public’s attitude on the microblog. Moreover, the government should design crisis communication strategies according to the crisis situation.
Besides the evaluation and learning purposes, feedback can also be used for the purpose of investigating the public’s impression of the organization.
Secondly, the response messages posted on the microblog should meet the needs of stakeholders. On one hand, a government organization can make use of information that is collected in the pre-crisis stage; on the other hand, the organization can deliver information that meet the general needs of stakeholders, such as decision-making needs, the need to reduce emotional uncertainties, and the need for reparations and compensation. Importantly, if an organization meets the needs of the public, then it should be reflected in its messages.
Sometimes after the end of the immediate effects, the long-term impact of a crisis can last months or even years. For instance, even after physical and financial losses are compensated for, people still need time to seek emotional relief and rebuild confidence [5, 7]. Another example is that the organization needs time to investigate the responsibility for the crisis as well as the level of damage. In both cases, the organization should continue
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September 29, 2011 were examined. The author classified the messages by their main purposes. For instance, the official microblog apologized in many posts; however, the main purpose of only two posts was to apologize.
collecting information about the crisis. On the microblog, the public’s feedback and the experts’ opinions should be monitored so as to help evaluate whether the crisis is truly over. If the crisis is not completely over yet, the organization should continue to apply response strategies depending on the crisis situation and the needs of the public. Table 5 shows the strategies for the post-crisis stage.
Eight categories are identified. The apology category contains messages only expressing an apology. The human care messages show that the organization cares about the victim’s feelings. The future view category stresses what the organization is going to do. The responsibility category contains messages related to the responsibility for the crisis and the investigation into the responsibilities. Both the “current situation” and the “help information” help with reducing uncertainties. “Positive tone” tries to view the crisis from the positive side, such as how people have helped each other. Figure 1 shows the classification of the posts. Other relevant posts were searched by using the search function and keywords such as “passenger education,”“Metro safe,” etc.
Table 5. Strategies for Post-crisis Stage
4. THE CASE In this section, the author will introduce the Shanghai City Metro’s crisis communication on the microblog.
4.1 Introduction, Method, and Questions The rear-end collision happened at Shanghai City Metro’s Route No.10 on September 27, 2011. This accident was first reported by an ordinary microblogger on Sina Microblog [42].The first report appeared on the microblog website at 14:47 [42]. Before this post occurred, on the same day from 14:17 to 14:20, the Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog had posted three messages reporting that the equipment on Route No.10 had malfunctioned, and the train was required to slow down. At 14:40, five minutes before the first report of the collision, the official microblog made a post informing the public that they were controlling the amount of passengers connecting to Route No. 10. At 15:03, the official microblog informed the public that Route No.10 between Yili Road and Sichuan Bei Road was closed, and no passengers were allowed to access the train. Two minutes later, the official microblog made another post that repeated the content of the previous post, as well as provided information to assist the passengers in choosing other vehicles for transportation. In the next 48 hours, the official microblog responded to the crisis. The response was widely spread by the public and received many compliments.
Figure1.Classification of the Posts These crisis responses will be discussed within the framework that the author proposed in Section 3. The author will especially focus on the crisis event stage.
4.2 Pre-crisis Stage In the pre-crisis stage, the tasks are detecting crisis signs, reducing potential harm, and preparing for crisis responses.
4.2.1 Detecting crisis signs First, in order to acquire external information for possibly detecting signs of a crisis, a government agency should have many followers and the concerned public on the microblog. The Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog has millions of followers, including individuals, relevant organizations, and even the news media. In the meantime, the official microblog follows various microbloggers such as individuals, experts, other organizations, and the news media, which is helpful in acquiring information from experts and opinion leaders. Besides, there is evidence indicating that the official microblog is aware of external information on the microblog. For instance, in August 2011, among 229 messages relating to Metro affairs posted by the official microblog, there were 82 messages from external sources. The messages were from comments, the accounts followed by the official microblog, and the people who “@” Shanghai Metro in their messages. In fact, during the crisis the official microblog posted 8 messages based on information provided by other
In this section, the crisis response made by the official microblog will be discussed. The questions are: 1)
How did the official microblog respond to the crisis?
2)
How does the response fit the framework proposed in this paper?
The data was collected in December 2011. The 52 crisis-related messages posted and reposted between September 27, 2011 and
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human voice is about showing personal opinions on organizational affairs [23, 34, 37]. One example of this is that the official microblog forwarded the news that the ticket department of Metro Company visited a rest home for the elderly. Along with the “thumbs up” picture, the Metro made the comment that “to love old people is to love ourselves”. Moreover, the official microblog also displays Metro employees’ working lives along with pictures and explanations. For instance, the official microblog once forwarded a message with a picture of the dinner of a train operator who also used a microblog. The author understands that it is sensitive to express personal opinions on certain organizational affairs. Thus, such less sensitive affairs can be a good place for the official microblog to show the human voice.
accounts, among which seven messages were from external resources and 3 help messages were generated by individual microbloggers.
4.2.2 Reducing potential harm The second task in the pre-crisis stage is to reduce potential harm. The Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog tries to reach this goal by offering educational information so that the passengers could understand safe and dangerous behaviors on the Metro. The official microblog has two groups of messages under the tag of “To teach you how to take the Metro” and “safe Metro”. However, there is little information on what to do when collisions and other disasters happen.
4.2.3 Preparing for crisis responses To prepare for possible crisis response is the third task of the precrisis stage. Three sub-tasks here are preparing to collect information on crisis situations, understanding the needs and core values of the public, and building a sound relationship with the public.
4.3 Crisis Event Stage In the crisis event stage, the tasks are recognizing a crisis and responding to the crisis. The rich information resources on the microblog can help with recognizing the crisis. In this section, the author only focuses on the strategies that the Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog has used to cope with the crisis.
In order to prepare for collecting useful information during a crisis, an organization should encourage the public to share information on the microblog. There is no evidence showing that the Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog is deliberately promoting such an information-sharing system; however, it does actively reply to and appreciate those who report suspicious behaviors and items. For instance, on August 29, 2011, a microblogger found a suspicious bag on the train and reported it to the official microblog. The official microblog informed the Metro staff to check the train and posted the result on the microblog. Another example is that a passenger complained about the Metro staff at the station asking him for his personal information. After investigation, the official microblog told the passenger that those people were not Metro staff and warned other passengers to stay alert. Such communication assists in managing the Metro and could be a strong beginning to building an information-sharing system.
4.3.1 Crisis situation Firstly, crisis communication strategies should cope with the situation of the crisis; that is, the responsibility for the crisis and the level of damage. There were two messages made on September 28 that related to the responsibility for the collision. One message explained the reason for the accident and admitted that there were “relevant individuals” violating the “relevant rules” which led to the collision; the other message indicated that the “relevant department” and “relevant agency” had tested the “relevant equipment” of the Metro, and punishment would be applied to those responsible for the accident. The public’s attitudes towards these two messages were varied. For instance, the first message received 395 comments. There were 78 messages doubting the investigation result, among which 35 messages criticized the wording “relevant individuals” and “relevant rules” for the vagueness. People also complained that the message was too simplistic and gave no detailed information or systematic analysis. To the second message, people still had problems with the word “relevant”.
Another two sub-tasks in terms of collecting information to prepare a crisis response are to understand the needs of stakeholders and to investigate their values. As the author has argued in Section 3.2.1, such information can be collected from comments, “@”, private messages, messages produced by opinion leaders and experts, and so on. The Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog firstly has rich information resources, as is argued in Section 4.1; it also displays awareness of user-generated information by replying to comments and reposting messages. The author suggests the official microblog should also pay attention to the public’s opinion of social events and the way people communicate on the microblog in order to learn the rules of the microblog and values of the public/stakeholders.
According to the crisis situation, the official microblog apologized twice. The first apology was made during the crisis (at 20:18 on September 27): “This is the worst day in the history of Shanghai Metro. No matter what the reason is and who should take the responsibility, we regret the loss and the hurt experienced by the citizens and the passengers. We will help the injured and return to normal option as soon as possible. We will also assist in the investigation and accept the possible responsibility. We will learn from the accident and do better in the future. Although the apology is so powerless, we have to profoundly apologize.”Another apologetic message was posted at 14:52 on September 28, saying, “We appreciate all the criticisms…We will work hard…We apologize again”. The former message received 9945 comments; while the latter received 112 comments. Some comments concerned the reason of the crisis. One comment was: “What we need is the reason and the responsibility for the accident instead of apology…” There were also voices of support. A microblogger commented, “I feel …this message expresses the good attitude and the willingness to take responsibilities…” Another comment said, “The communication is good. The Metro
The final sub-task of preparing crisis responses is to build a good relationship with stakeholders. Two techniques are suggested by the author in Section 3.2.1, namely to show willingness to maintain the relationship and to communication with a human voice. The Shanghai City Metro’s official microblog engages in maintaining the relationship by involving the public in Metro affairs. It also shows enthusiasm to those who need help. For instance, a person lost the ID card on the train. The Metro broadcasted this information on the microblog so that this person could get the card back. Besides, the official microblog tries to respond to the public’s suggestions on the management issues of the Metro, which indicates the open attitudes of the Metro. The
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is better than those government agencies that will never accept their faults.”
for the issues of who or what was responsible for the crisis. Other citizens were worried about safety issues.
The level of damage was also addressed. Four messages published information about the number of injured and their situations in the hospital. In a message posted at 17:43 on September 27, the official microblog claimed that according to the information from the hospital, 212 people were injured. It was also claimed that most of the victims were slightly injured. The wording “slightly injured” could be seen as fact information as well as a diminishing strategy. However, the audience showed suspicion of the data. For instance, one comment was: “How do you define the phrase ‘slightly injured’?” Moreover, there were more than one comment indicating doubt about the number of injured persons. For instance, one microblogger claimed that the number of injured reported by Japanese TV (at 22:00 on September 27) was 271. However, the official microblog failed to respond to these different voices.
4.3.3 The social values The messages posted during the crisis should meet the requirements of social values. Some core values identified by scholars are honesty, responsibility, openness, and humanism. Many of the messages posted by the official microblog were with pictures from the scene of the accident, which increased the reliability of the Metro Company. What is more, the official microblog also cited posts from other microbloggers. However, the Metro failed to respond to the fact information that was different from the information posted by the official microblog, which hurt the trustworthiness of both the messages and the Metro. Moreover, there was no clear statement regarding the responsibility for the collision. We can see from the comments that people were angry about the vague descriptions of the responsible parties. However, the official microblog did express the willingness to release information. Messages tagged “the latest information” were used to release information about the crisis situation.
Bolstering is also suggested by crisis communication theories [2, 5]. This aims at increasing positive feelings towards the organization in order to reduce the offensiveness of the crisis [2]. The official microblog tried to show concern for the passengers and the efforts they were making to mitigate the negative impact of the collision. For instance, the official microblog reposted a message (9:01 on September 28) with a picture of volunteers helping passengers. The official microblog commented: “We appreciate the citizen’s support. Watching the passengers living the station, we feel very sorry. Now we will do our best to check the route and return to normal option as soon as possible. Please trust us.” This message showed concern for passengers who were affected by the collision. It also showed people were helping each other. This message received 210 comments. There were 17 comments indicating that what the public needs is the investigation into the responsibility for the collision and the reason of the accident, 10 comments concerning the future safety of the Metro, 13 messages blaming the Metro for trying to turn the bad event into a good one, and 8 comments blaming the Metro for talking rather than doing. However, there were still 26 comments supporting this post. One comment was: “The government does not usually speak in such a tone. The Metro’s public communication is praiseworthy. In my opinion, this crisis communication is acceptable and even touching. ” Interestingly enough, some of the microbloggers expressed their love of the city and the volunteers other than the Metro. One comment was “This is the spirit of Shanghai City (to help each other).” It seems that the official microblog successfully related the accident to the whole city.
For humanism, in their apology the Metro Company showed their regrets. They used the words “we regret the loss and the hurt experienced by the citizens and the passengers”. Besides, in one message it was shown that volunteers, police, and bus drivers were there to help passengers enthusiastically. In a message saying, “Watching the passengers leaving the State, we feel so sorry…”, the Metro showed concern to those who were involved in the accident. However, the official microblog did not particularly show sympathy for the injured.
4.3.4 The future view The future view should stress the positive side, the future, rebuilding, and correcting mistakes. The official microblog did meet this requirement. In more than one message, the Metro use the words “We will”. For instance, in the apology messages, “We will learn from the accident…” and “We will work hard…” were used. In some messages, the official microblog cited pictures of people helping each other to remind the public of the positive side of the accident. Although the messages received support, such as “cheer up!” and “touching,” there were people who wished the Metro would act instead of only speaking.
4.4 Post-crisis Stage In the post-crisis stage the tasks are preparing for the next crisis, namely learning from the crisis as well as evaluating the crisis response strategy; checking the public’s impression; and checking that the crisis is truly over.
4.3.2 Meet the public’s needs The general public’s needs in the crisis event stage are the need for the organization to make decisions and reduce the negative emotions caused by uncertainties.
First, the organization showed its intention to learn from the crisis, at least in its apology. Moreover, the comments made by the public during the time of the crisis can be a good resource for the organization to evaluate its crisis communication strategies.
The official microblog posted 18 messages with alternative bus transfer information. Pictures and tables were appropriately used here in order to bypass the limitations of the length of the text message. Moreover, the official microblog attempted to report the current situation of the crisis, including how many people were injured and the status of the train involved in the collision. Such information contributed to reducing uncertainty about the crisis. The reactions of the public were varied. Some were appreciative, saying, “The reaction of the Metro is quick and efficient.” However, there were still microbloggers showing their concerns
Secondly, there was evidence indicating that the official microblog did try to follow the public’s comments and monitor the public’s impression. The official microblog replied to one citizen’s comment, “We appreciate all of the comments; even some of the comments are criticisms”. Finally, strategies such as apology, bolstering, and compensation can all be used in the post-crisis stage due to the lack of full
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agency should collect and analyze the information on the microblog to understand and learn from the public.
information in the crisis event stage. In the apology message, which appeared in the crisis event stage, there was no clear statement of responsibility. This vagueness could be due to the lack of information in the crisis event stage. However, at the postcrisis stage, there was no further statement about the responsibility for the accident. Instead, the official microblog posted one message which expressed the future view. The message (18:48 on September 29) received 52 comments. Other than support, the major issues as seen by the public were still the reason and the responsibility for the accident and the real actions taken by the Metro.
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5. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
[3] Claeys, A., and Cauberghe, V. Crisis response and crisis timing strategies, two sides of the same coin. Public Relations Review. 38, 1 (2012). 83-88.
In this paper, the author develops a general framework for a government agency to develop crisis communication on the microblog. Coomb’s three-stage model is used, and four issues concerned by primary crisis communication theories are discussed. The four issues are the crisis situation, stakeholders, the values, and the future view. In each stage of a crisis, the crisis manager should take into account both the tasks of each stage and the four issues when designing crisis communication strategies.
[4] Coombs, W. T., and Holladay, S.J. Further explorations of post-crisis communication: Effects of media and response strategies on perceptions and intentions. Public Relations Review, 35 (2009), 1-6. [5] Coombs, W. T. Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10, 3(2007), 163-176.
The author also uses the Shanghai City Metro rear-collision as an example to show how a government can use the framework to communicate with the public on the microblog. The case enriches the framework in the following aspects.
[6] Coombs, W.T. Ongoing Crisis Communication. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006, 2-3.
First, the primary concern of the public is the reason and the responsibility for the crisis. The statement of responsibility should not be vague and lacking in detail; otherwise, the public will be unsatisfied and may even develop a negative impression of the organization.
[7] Ibid. 17-20. [8] Ibid. 21-31 [9] Ibid. 41.
Secondly, the strategies aimed at lessening the perceived level of damage should be based on facts. The organization should be able to convince the public; otherwise, such strategy will only lead to untrustworthiness. The microblog is interactive, which is an advantage when dealing with third-party information. When confronted by third-party information which is different from official information, the organization should actively respond in order to avoid the impression of being dishonest.
[10] Coombs, W. T., and Holladay, S. J. Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial tests of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Management Communication Quarterly, 16 (2002), 165-186. [11] Curtin, P. A., and Boynton, L. A. Ethics in public relations: Theory and practice. In R. L. Health (Eds.), Handbook of Public Relations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2001, 411-421.
People would like to see the organization admit responsibility and seek forgiveness. However, the apology as well as other strategies, such as positive tone and human care, should be accompanied by effective action taken by the organization.
[12] Fearn-Banks, K. Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 2002, 2. [13] Fediuk, T. A., Pace, K. M., and Botero, I. C. Exploring crisis from a receiver perspective: Understanding stakeholder reactions during crisis events. In T. Coombs, and S. J. Holladay (Eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication. Wiley-Blackwell, New York, 2010, 635-656.
6. LIMITATIONS AND FURTUER RESEARCH First, evidence indicating that at least two crisis-related messages posted by the official microblog was deleted. Thus, there is no way of knowing whether the messages were consistent with the crisis communication strategy.
[14] Gonzalez-Herrero, A., and Pratt, C. B. How to manage a crisis before – or whenever – it hits. Public Relation Quarterly, 40, 1 (1995), 25-29.
Secondly, the four theories employed in this paper are mostly developed in business settings. Although scholars have applied them to government agencies, a thorough comparison and contrast of business and government settings will improve the effectiveness of these theories.
[15] Health, R. L., and Millar, D. P. A rhetorical approach to crisis communication: Management, communication processes, and strategic responses. In Dan P. Millar, and Robeert L. Health (Eds.). Responding to Crisis. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mahwah, NJ, 2004, 1-17.
Finally, in the paper, it was asserted that an organization should learn from the public by listening to their opinions on the microblog. A further study could be done on how a government
[16] Hearit, K. M. Crisis Management by Apology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 2006, 15-17. [17] Ibid, 68.
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communication via twitter, blogs and traditional media. Public Relations Review, 37 (2011), 20-27.
[18] Ibid, 64-66. [19] Hemp, P. Death by information overload. Harvard Business Review, (September 4th 2009), Retrieved from http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/09/death-byinformation-overload/ar/pr
[32] Seeger, M. W., Sellnow, T. L., and Ulmer, R. R. Communication and Organizational Crisis. Praeger, Westport, CT, 2003. [33] Seeger, M. W., and Ulmer, R. R. A post-crisis discourse of renewal: The cases of Malden Mills and Cole Hardwoods. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 30, 2 (2002), 126-142.
[20] Jaeger, P. T., Shneiderman, B., Fleischmann, K. R., Preece, J., Qu, Y., and Wu, P. F. Community response grids: Egovernment, social networks, and effective emergency management. Telecommunication Policies, 31 (2007), 592604.
[34] Smith, B. G. Socially distributing public relations: Twitter, Haiti, and interactivity in social media. Public Relations Review.36 (2010), 329-335.
[21] Jeong, S. Public’s Responses to an oil spill accident: A test of the attribution theory and situational crisis communication theory. Public Relations Review, 35 (2009) 307-309.
[35] Stelzner, M. A. Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 2010, Retrieved from http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/SocialMedia MarketingReport2010.pdf
[22] Kaiser, C., Schlick, S., and Bodendorf, F. Warning system for online market research – Identifying critical situations in online opinion formation. Knowledge-Based Systems. 24 (2011), 824-836.
[36] Sturges, D. L. Communicating through crisis: A strategy for organizational survival. Management Communication Quarterly, 7 (1994), 297-316.
[23] Kelleher, T. Conversational voice, communicated commitment, and public relations outcomes in interactive online communication. Journal of Communication. 59 (2009), 172-188.
[37] Sweetser, K. D., and Metzgar, E. Communicating during crisis: Use of blogs as a relationship management tool. Public Relations Review, 33 (2007), 340-342.
[24] Kelleher, T., and Miller, B. M. Organizational blogs and the human voice: Relational strategies and relational outcomes. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11, 2 (2006), 395-414.
[38] Ulmer, R. R., Sellnow, T. L., and Seeger, M. W. Effective Crisis Communication. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2011, 1620.http://www.google.com/books?hl=zhCN&lr=&id=bC3J1C0BXQwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=effec tive+crisis+communication&ots=kxQvzSFyyt&sig=uAhAU NczYbXa7ZuZdMpb1UlTgw#v=onepage&q=effective%20crisi s%20communication&f=false
[25] Lovejoy, K, Waters, R. D., Saxton, G. D. Engaging stakeholders through Twitter: How nonprofit organizations are getting more out of 140 characters or less. Public Relations Review, 38 (2012), 313-318. [26] Maxwell, T. T. The public need to know: Emergencies, government organizations, and public information policies. Government Information Quarterly, 20 (2003), 233-258.
[39] Ulmer, R. R., Seeger, M. W., and Sellnow, T. L. Post-crisis communication and renewal: Expanding the parameters of post-crisis discourse. Public Relations Review, 33 (2007), 130-134.
[27] Mitroff, I. I., Crisis management and environmentalism: A natural fit. California Management Review, 36,8 (1994), 101-113.
[40] Ulmer, R. R., Sellnow, T. L., and Seeger, M. W. Effective Crisis Communication. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2007, 170-174.
[28] Moyihan, D. P. Learning under uncertainty: Networks in crisis management. Public Administration Review, 68,2 (2008), 350-361.
[41] Weiner, B. An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychology Review, 92 (1985), 548573.
[29] Muraliadharan, S. Dillistone, K., and Shin, J. The Gulf Coast oil spill: Extending the theory of image restoration discourse to the realm of social media and beyond petroleum. Public Relations Review, 37, 2011, 226-232.
[42] XINHUANET. Ten Hours of Shanghai Metro Rear-end Collision on Microblog, 2011, Retrieved fromhttp://news.sina.com.cn/c/2011-0928/002423227102.shtml
[30] Richardson, B. Socio-technical disasters: Profile and prevalence. Disaster Prevention and Management, 3, 4 (1994),41-69.
[43] Yang, S., Kang, M., and Johnson, P. Effects of narratives, openness to dialogic communication, and credibility on engagement in crisis communication through organizational blogs. Communication Research. 37, 4 (2010), 473-4
[31] Schultz, F., Utz, S., and Goritz, A. Is the medium the message? Perceptions of and reactions to crisis
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Government Official Microblogs: An Effective Platform for Facilitating Inclusive Governance Xinping Liu and Lei Zheng Department of Public Administration, Fudan University 619 Wenke Building, 220 Handan Road, 2000433 Shanghai, China +86 13774260846, +86 13501838298
{081017039, zhengl}@fudan.edu.cn Nowadays, countries around the world take seriously to apply social media like microblogs, and high-level officials from US, Britain, and Japan has been microblog users. Applications of social media could bring some improvements aiming at providing feedback to agencies, and more citizen participation. Also, agency staff could use social media for improving formal cooperation [13].
ABSTRACT Applications of social media could bring more convenience to the government for getting public feedback, or more citizen participation, in order to provide more inclusive public services. Microblogs is one of those social media tools. Nowadays, all governments have begun to use government official microblogs to publish information, collect public opinions, and interact with the public. Based on current literature review and analysis, this paper first develops a theoretical framework on the effect that microblogs brings to public inclusive governance from the perspective of microblogs’ interaction object. Theoretically, this research indicates that microblogs have a positive impact on inclusive governance, but this effect remains to be tested by future practice. There are still some problems in current public interaction between governments and citizens through microblogs, and the government needs to change their musty ideas and guide the effective interaction actively. Finally, this paper further discusses limitations of this research and directions of future research.
By the end of 2010, Chinese microblog accounts have exceeded 75 million. With its network effect taking shape, microblogs is playing a more and more important role in Chinese social and political life. The year of 2010 was named as “China’s first year in microblog's era” by Chinese citizens. By taking advantage of the rapidly growing microblog community, government could run official microblogs to interact with citizens, enhance government information services, keep tracking with public opinion, help with emergency response, improve government credibility and further promote the development of e-governance. Nowadays, many Chinese governments and officials have opened official microblogs to interact with citizens. Microblog, to some extent, is becoming a more and more useful tool for the government. However, compared to the traditional channels between government and citizens, what are the new changes of microblogs? What meaning does it bring to government governance? These are the main research questions of this paper.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.6.1 [Management of Computing Information Systems]: Project and People Management-Management Techniques
General Terms
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Management, Measurement, Performance
As a new kind of social media and web2.0 tool, microblogs attracted much academic attention in recent years. The current studies are mainly focusing on the definition of microblog, its characteristics and its implications on government governance, especially on public participation.
Keywords Government Microblogs, Governance, Social Media, China
1. INTRODUCTION 2.1 Definition of Microblog
The development of ICTs has brought public governance new opportunities, as well as challenges. In the era of Web 2.0, a huge number of web-based applications have emerged. These applications rely on the concept of the user as a producer of information, which provide more possibilities for better governance [13], for example, government official microblogs.
Microblog as one kind of social media has increasingly become an effective way of information dissemination and personal communications. Social media is “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” [4]. With the help of social media, ordinary people have become producers of content as well as consumers so called “prosumers”, being capable of publishing their own contents on the Web. Microblog is one kind of social media using web 2.0 technologies, which make people communicate with each other without ant time and space constraints once the Internet is available. The users send message on these websites to interact with other people, and the maximum length of one message should be less than 140 words.
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When it comes to the characteristics of microblog, it is commonly believed by the scholars that microblogs is a new kind of social media and Web 2.0 tool, with the main features include timeliness, simplicity, economy, grassroots, interactive, pluralism, autonomy, the original ecology, fragmentation, group polarization, and at the same time it could weaken the role of opinion leaders. Zhao and Lai [15] also argued that microblogs have 4A characteristics, including Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime, Anything, that is, anyone can become the microblog communicators and can transmit any information at any time and any place.
2.2 Microblogging on Government Inclusive Governance With the development of international electronic public services, new information technologies has contributed a lot on the promotion of inclusive governance and improved the level of public participation. Governments has been increasingly paid more attention on providing diversified, personalized, ubiquitous, and high-quality public services, which has clearly showing the characteristics of e-inclusion" [5][6]. Also, in public participation area, successful public participation depends on diversification, inclusiveness and equality; and diversification means its participants are able to represent the view of people from different social fields, social hierarchy; inclusiveness refers to lowering the threshold of e-participation; equality involves equal participation [1]. Microblogs provide a useful platform to improve public participation.
2.3 The Mechanism of Microblog’s Effects on Public Inclusive Governance
2.3.1 Different Types of Microblog’s Users: A MultiPerspective
2)
Age: Correa et al. [3] also found that it was particularly important among the young adult and extraversion was the most important predictor of social media use. Prensky concludes that many digital immigrants confront each change in technology as something new to be mastered. Generally, young adult, the elderly who are open to new things and digital technologies tend to be more active in microblogs and other social media tools [8].
4)
Social ranking: the low threshold of microblogs and the characteristics of the grass-roots has weakened the role of opinion leaders which enables people from different social class to participate in public governance, and promotes the exchange of social heterogeneity groups [12], namely, people from different social classes, departments, and other ethics.
5)
Education Level: since microblog is easy to use, users could come from different education levels. Technology is not a barrier any longer, which could give the government more kinds of public opinions.
6)
Special Target Group: taking the disabled as an example, Zhao & Qiu [14] examined the significance of social media to disabled students, and argued that social media tools are vital to the lives of teenagers today because microblogs removes physical distances and can significantly expand the living space of youth who otherwise are confined by their disabilities. The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) identified that social media like microblogs could provide more service channels for the disabled [2].
7)
Space-time dimensions: Microblogs has 4A characteristics, that is, Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime, Anything [15], which expand the scope and depth of interaction and participation both vertically and horizontally.
2.3.2 Governance in Microblog Era: Inclusive and Targeted
Microblogs has significant differences from the traditional government portal, blogs and other forums. Their users on these websites overlap a lot, but still not the same. The characteristics of different website applications involve different active citizens. Personality. Previous research has proved that in the increasingly user-generated Web, users’ personality traits may be crucial factors leading them to engage in this participatory media [3]. The former researches established three personality traits that are central to social media use: extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience [3][10].
Gender: Gender presented another difference among personality traits. While extraverted men and women were both likely to be more frequent users of social media tools, only the men with greater degrees of emotional instability were more regular users. No significant relationship existed between women and emotional stability [3].
In summary, microblogs has not only expanded the scope of public participation, so that different personality traits, age, sex, social class, education level could have equal interactions with the governments, but also expanded the channels for participation. Moreover, it vertically breaks the time limit of interaction and weakens the barriers of geographic isolation to promote participation any time at anywhere.
As mentioned earlier, public participation requires people from different social fields, social hierarchy to participate equally [1], and microblogging reduce the threshold of public participation, so people could participate in anytime and anywhere. Therefore, microblogs expand the scope of public participation, and could provide more feedback to citizens.
1)
3)
Based on the literature review above, with the help of microblog platform, government expands their service scope effectively, and brings more G2C participation and interaction, which give great impetus to inclusive governance. Due to the particularity of online participation, more introverted people could participate more, which could also strengthen the interactive effects of other active users. Those digital immigrants like the elderly who are open to new things and digital technologies, and the digital natives, that is, young people, and can participate public affairs online, while they have limited channel to participate before. So microblogs can make up the general public participation. From the social level, citizens from varied levels can participate equally, and this could impel the government to promote public decision-making more democratization and deliver more equal public services effectively. Microblogs also enables those vulnerable groups to participate in the process of governance. From the space-time dimension, it brings more possibilities for the government to provide cross-regional (or even cross-border) services ubiquitously, and extends depth of inclusive governance.
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mainly active on the website of Sina or other open microblog platform, how to promote the interaction between governments and the public if governments open their microblogs on other website like Xinmin or Eastday.
It is worth mentioning that, while expanding the breadth of interactive citizens, microblogs could also strengthen the interaction more targeted. Interactive citizens could have a significant difference depend on different government departments or various events. For example, from gender perspective, women may mostly participate in microblogs for expressing their views, or expanding their social networks and social activities, while men may be for strengthening their relationship with others, learning about current political events. Therefore, education, tourism, food and other related government departments may be more favored by women, while transportation, defense, and public security will be paid more attention by men.
2) The analysis of “Concern” subject of government official microblogs: for governments, microblogs is not only a platform for issuing information, but also to collect public opinions. According to a cursory analysis of governmental official microblogs “concerns”, different governments have various kinds of “concerns”. Most government microblogs has few “concerns”, and even many government official microblogs concerned no more than ten other microblogs. Those “concerns” are mainly from the mass media, government agencies or departments of the same level, other government agencies, government branches at lower levels which have business contact, government officials, corporate high level executives, academics and other citizens. Government official microblogs pay more attention to the mass media, government agencies (all levels), and government officials, while less on citizens’. Microblogs provide a more convenient and efficient platform for the government to collect public opinions, but its active attention to the practical needs of ordinary citizens is still relatively lack.
3. METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH PLAN This research will take an analysis on secondary data, including research reports, thesis and research papers. In order to ensure the impartiality of the findings, the reports selected in this article are not only from universities or other research institutes, but also those from enterprises and social organizations. There are many microblog platforms, like Sina, Sohu, Tencent, and so on. It could be a great challenge to discuss all the government official microblogs. Therefore, this paper simplifies the data collection and chooses Sina as an example. According to the DCCI survey in 2010, Sina is the most preferred microblog platform, which has the highest number of users or potential users, with the selection rate 69.7%. So I believe the status quo on Sina could reflect the reality of microblogs in China.
4.2 The Main Characteristics of Sina Microblog Users Currently, many scholars have conducted lots of analyses on the characteristics of the user of the microblogs multi-dimensionally. On the segmentation of individual users, taking "behavioral loyalty" and "emotional loyalty" as two standards, Zheng [16] divided all the Sina individual users into three types, mild, moderate, and extreme, and she further analyzed the user difference in terms of gender, age, education, and income. Report from Beijing Online Media Association analyzed the characteristics of the early users of the microblogs, and find out that the microblog users can be divided into four categories, namely, self-expression type (46%), socially active (16%), discuss and participatory (16%) and diving-prefer type (21%).
4. ANALYSES ON STATUS QUO OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL MICROBLOGS In theory, microblog brings opportunities to the governments for inclusive and targeted governance by expanding the range of public participation. However, due to the development of China's microblog is not mature enough, so evaluation and discussion on the current status quo can provide recommendations for the development of the governmental official microblogs.
Specifically, microblogs has opened up the possibility of expanding interactive citizens or organizations, which could enhance inclusive governance. According to Sina’s White Paper on Chinese First-year microblog, among all the active users of Sina microblog, women occupy 65 percent, while men accounting for 35% [11].
4.1 The Existing Government Official Microblogs and its Populations of Concern
On the dimension of age, users from different ages use microblog on different purpose. Mainly of them are 20-30 years old, with main purposes to maintain contact with their friends, or to record their feelings, and to learn the social hot issues, while people from 30 to 40 years old is more focus on learn the social issues and expanding the circle of friends; however, users over the age of 40 pay more attention to understand the social hot issues, expressing their opinions, and expand their network; on the contrary, users under the age of 20 is more emphasis on recreation and leisure, recording their feelings, and making new friends [7]. Studies have shown that the younger age groups from 18-30 years old has a greater level of participation on microblogs, accounting up to 67%, which means microblog users tend to be younger [16].
1) Governmental institutions start opening microblogs: according to “2011 China Administrative microblog research report” (conducting by “Public Opinion and Communication Research Laboratory”, Fudan University), till March 20, 2011, 1708 governmental agencies have opened real-name authentication microblogs, and the distribution of the government's official microblogs are not balanced either geographically or institutionally, including governmental level, institutional, and sectoral distribution [9]. The report further found that most Shanghai government officials registered there microblogs on the Xinmin Net (http://t.xinmin.cn), with the proportion up to total more than 84 percent, followed by Eastday (http://t.eastday.com/), which accounts for 15 percent account, while only 1 percent of them has registered on Sina or other microblog platforms. This situation is worthy of consideration, microblog is the interactive platform of government and the public, while most citizens are
From the view of income, occupation and education, data from Beijing Online Media Association shows that more than 63% microblog users has got a bachelor degree at least. Moreover, there is no significant income difference between microblog users
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and non-microblog users. The number of microblog users with income of more than 5000 RMB per month is a little bit higher than those of non-microblog users, by 3 percent. Zheng [16] argued that current Sina microblog extreme users have lower education level and relatively low income.
6. REFERENCES [1] Brasier, K.J. Planning for citizen engagement. USGSA, Engaging Citizens in Government. Fall 2009, Retrieved October11, 2009 [2] Center for Technology in Government. Exploratory Social Media Project: Phase I: Identifying benefits and concerns surrounding use of social media in government, 2010.
5. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS The most important reason for government to use social media is to move closer to the users, in other words, “go where the mass go” [8]. Given the breadth of microblog users, government could achieve a more effective interaction and communication with the public by opening official microblogs. Theoretically, this research indicates that microblogs have a positive impact on inclusive governance, but this effect remains to be tested by future practice. It could expand the channels for vulnerable groups to participate more in public affairs, and it breaks the time and space isolation, and enables ubiquitous participation. With the help of microblog platform, government expands their service scope effectively, and brings more G2C participation and interaction, which give great impetus to inclusive governance. Upon the participation of different groups, government could conduct more targeted governance.
[3] Correa, T., Hinsley, A. W., and Zúñiga, H. G. Who interacts on the Web? The intersection of users’ personality and social media use. Computers in Human Behavior, 26 (2010): 247253. [4] Kaplan, A., and Haenlein, M. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 2010, 53(1), 59–68. [5] Liu, X. The trends of EU e-government development. Chinese e-government E-government Blue Book (2010) , Wang Changsheng Xu Xiaoping (ed.) , Social Sciences Documentation Publishing House, 2010. [6] Liu,X., and Zheng, L. New trend of international egovernment: the inclusive public services. E-government Journal, 2010(12).
Overall, microblog makes interaction between governments and citizens more easily accessed in terms of geography, time, gender, age, occupation, income, and education. The assessment results are consistent with the theoretical framework, but still need further discussion and verification. Government concerns on microblogs are still in a narrow range, and they needs to pay more attention on ordinary people. Although governments conduct more interaction on government official microblogs, the degree of participation still needs to be improved. Theoretically speaking, one can access to the Internet with a mobile phone, but microblog is still a new thing. The current use of it is still very limited, and it will take more time to develop microblogs and to promote its implications in public governance.
[7] Ma, X. The value and development of China 's microblogs. Master's thesis from Nanchang University. December 2010. [8] Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. [9] Ren, Y. The status quo Research on Chinese government's official microblogs. Undergraduate dissertation from Fudan University. June 2011. [10] Ross, C., Orr, E.S., Sisic, M., and Arseneault, J.M. M.G. Simmering, & R.R. Orr. Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 2009, 25(2), 578–586.
According to DCCI's estimates, the annual growth rate of the various microblog accounts will be 140%-200% in the following three years, and the outbreak year of growth will appear in the years 2012, 2013 [11]. Government should pay close attention on the implications of microblogs continuously. Meanwhile, microblog is a grassroots media with no information “gatekeeper”, so government also needs to correct and clarify information timely.
[11] Sina. Sina’s White Paper on Chinese First-year microblog, September 2010. [12] Tang, L., and Liu, H. Understanding Group Structures and Properties in Social Media. Yu, et al.(eds.), Link Mining: Models, Algorithms, and Applications. 2010. [13] Traunmüller, R. Web 2.0 Creates a New Government. K.N. Andersen et al. (Eds.): EGOVIS 2010, pp. 77–83, 2010.
The limitations of this study are very obvious. Since the practical development of microblogs in China is still in its infancy stage, the discussions in this study are only a theoretical analysis. There are many other problems which need to be further solved, such as who are relatively active on what on microblogs, the public are concerning about what kind of topics, viewpoints on what kind of topics can be collected through the microblogs, what are the differences between microblog users and users of traditional media. The discussion on the status quo is mainly based on the assessment of current report, and lack of further empirical data validation. All these problems provide direction on further expanding and sublimation of this study.
[14] Zhao, Y., and Qiu, W. The Potential of Social Media for Students with Disabilities. Gray, T., and Silver-Pacuilla, H. (eds.), Breakthrough Teaching and Learning: 2011: 71-86. [15] Zhao, Z., and Lai, X. Analysis of the implications of microblogs on the dissemination of news and information: based on Twitter.com, Socialist Theory Guide, 2010 (4): 93 95. [16] Zheng, Y. The development of Sina microblog. Master's thesis from Beijing Jiaotong University. June 2010. [17] Zhou, C. Microblog: the implications of new network platforms on government affairs. E-commerce Journal, 2010 (10): 39- 40.
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Managing Chinese Government Microblogs: Enablers and Barriers Lei Zheng Fudan University NO.220,Handan Road, Shanghai, China +86-21-55665676, 200433
[email protected] barriers. This study employs two methods for data collection. One is focus groups carried out from April through June, 2011, with 78 civil servants from Shanghai Municipal Government agencies and county governments, using brainstorming method to collect various viewpoints. The other is in-depth interviews conducted from July through October, 2011, using semi-structured questionnaires with managers of nine popular and influential government microblogs in Shanghai, as well as managers who are responsible for government customers, in the two major microblogs operating companies in China. The author records and transcribes the data collected, and analyzed the data with qualitative approach under the guidance of grounded theory by using Atlas.ti software. The research findings are as follows.
ABSTRACT This paper examines the enablers and barriers for the effectiveness of Chinese government microblogs with regard to government information disclosure, public service and citizen participation, and then builds a theoretical framework.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4.2 [Information Systems Applications]: Type of systems – egovernment applications
General Terms Management, Human Factors, Theory
Keywords Social Media, Government, China, Enablers and Barriers
2. FINDINGS 2.1 External Enablers for Government Microblogs
1. INTRODUCTION Since 2010, a great number of government microblogs accounts have been opened and run by Chinese government agencies to foster government information disclosure, public service and citizen participation. According to the Chinese Government Microblogs Assessment Report of 2011, the total number of Chinese government microblog accounts have exceeded 50 thousand by the end of 2011 [1]. This paper examines the enablers and barriers for the management of Chinese government microblogs with an empirical study, and attempts to identify the social, economic, political, organizational and technological factors that could influence the effectiveness of government microblogs. It also explores the relationship among these factors and builds a theoretical framework. Based on the findings of the study, the paper also makes some recommendations to Chinese government agencies in order to improve the effectiveness of government microblogs.
2.1.1 Growth in the Living Standards In recent years, Chinese people’s living standards have been greatly improved. The ownership rates of home computers and mobile phones are rising continuously, so is the rapid growth in microblog users. As interviewees mentioned, the increasing income of citizens has provided a basic foundation for the development and pervasiveness of microblogs.
2.1.2 Rising Citizen Participation The rising intention of Chinese citizens to participate in public affairs in China has created favorable conditions for the development and management of government microblogs. Microblogs have gained wide public attention as a new tool of communication and interaction. Citizens use this platform actively to read news, express their opinions and participate in public affairs, which also propel government departments to open institutional microblogs to interact with the public. Therefore, some interviewees believe that it is the high time for government to operate microblogs.
As part of a research project on government microblogging in China [2], this paper conducts an empirical study on the factors influencing the effectiveness of Chinese government microblogs, and explores the interrelationship among these enablers and
2.1.3 Policy Support Some civil servants pointed out that the existing national policy environment is also favorable for Chinese government to run microlbogs. In recent years, the government attaches importance to build a service-oriented government and harmonious society, and to achieve social management innovation. The central government introduces corresponding policies and regulations to promote government information disclosure. Overall, this policy environment promotes the disclosure of government information and citizens’ interaction with government.
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government agencies, there wouldn’t be large additional equipment investment to run government microblogs.
2.1.4 Technological Maturity of Microblogs The microblog applications and platforms continue to mature, which guarantees the sustainable operation of government microblogs. Some interviewees pointed out that microblog platforms such as Sina and Tencent are easy to operate, stable in technology, and mature in functionality with friendly user experience. Therefore, the technological risks for the government to run microblogs have been minimized.
2.2.5 Adequate ICT infrastructure in Government Interviewees indicated that after years of e-government development, most government agencies has now possessed adequate ICT infrastructure, equipped with computers, servers, networks and other hardware facilities and software applications. The government's information security capabilities have also been greatly improved in recent years, and all these have provided a strong guarantee for the government to run microblogs effectively and safely.
2.1.5 International Influence In recent years, employing social media by government has become a global trend and has created huge impacts. In many countries, government agencies and senior officials use social media for political elections and political communication. Some interviewees in this research believed that this international trend has also influenced China to some extent, and propelled Chinese government agencies to run microblogs to interact with the public.
2.3 External Barriers for Chinese Government Microblogs 2.3.1 Hackers and “Water Army” The ecological complexity of Internet society barricades the development of government microblogs. There are both angels and devils on the Internet. Some interviewees pointed out that hackers were hard to defend on the Internet. Government microblogs are especially threatened by hacking. Once the accounts were broken through, the negative impact would be very serious. A microblog manager stated: "Although Sina and Tencent claimed that they would ensure the security of government microblogs, these accounts are still at the risk of malicious intrusion. The account security is difficult to be guaranteed. Recently, one government microblog in Dalian City has just suffered a hacker attack.”
2.2 Internal Enablers for Government Microblogs 2.2.1 Leadership Attention and Supports The rapid development of microblogs has gained great attention from many government leaders. Some government microblog accounts were opened at their direct requests. One interviewee mentioned, “The leaders in our bureau placed serious emphasis on government microblogs. The project was fully funded and staffed, while trainings and working sessions were held regularly. Leaders in various offices and institutions opened their own personal microblogs to interact with our institutional microblog.”
“Internet water army”, a group of Internet also composes a challenge. The “army” refers to ghostwriters who are paid to post online comments with particular commercial or political intentions. These comments could manipulate, mislead and cover up public opinions for the benefits of special interest group, and make it hard for government to tell the true opinions of citizens and interact with citizens.
2.2.2 Abundant Information Resources in Government At present, government possesses a wealth of information resources to support the operations of government microblogs. As many civil servants mentioned, government is now the largest reservoir of authoritative, reliable and timely information in society, with strong potential to disseminate information, deliver targeted information services, and respond promptly to the public response.
2.3.2 Low trust in government and disinterests In addition, citizens’ low trust in government and disinterests to politics also exist on the Internet. Some interviewees acknowledged that citizens’ trust in government declines in recent years, and the government was facing a huge challenge. As for the posts published on government microblogs, “the public would hold a skeptical attitude. Thus government microblogs would not only have difficulties to play their roles, but also become the public laughingstock in some occasions, which couldn’t worth the candle.”
2.2.3 Advantages in Human Resources Some civil servants pointed out that the government had considerable advantages in human resources, which could contribute to the operation of government microblogs. The advantages are generally twofold. One is the human resources within the government. “China has a large number of civil servants”, an interviewee pointed out, “many of them are young and mastered with network technologies. They are potential microblog managers.” The other is the human resources outside the government. “Government can also use external human resources, such as experts, scholars and overseas returnees. These people could be invited as trainers and researchers to enhance the operational capability of government microblog managers.”
Due to either low interests in public participation or suspicion of the government’s intention, some citizens don’t have much interest in interacting with government microblogs. Some people believe that government microblogs were opened up just for a “show”.
2.2.4 Secured Funding
2.3.3 Lack of Regulations
The daily operation and management of microblogs require a certain amount of financial investment to cover personnel costs, training costs, equipment costs and communication costs. Many civil servants said, as long as the leadership paid attention to government microblogs indeed, funds would not be a big problem. Moreover, government microblogs are usually running on existing microblog platforms maintained by private companies. Given that ICT infrastructure had been considerably invested in many
Meanwhile, the ambiguity and absence of Internet regulations and policies also affect the performance of government microblogs. One interviewee pointed out: "The low threshold of posting information on microblogs and the inadequate review process make it hard to authenticate the information on microblogs. And there may be some ‘Internet Water Army’. Thus, the effectiveness of the government microblogs would be undermined. “Another civil servant mentioned: “At present, speech on the Internet is relatively free in China. Without a sound regulatory mechanism,
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Besides, the interviews discovers that Chinese government agencies now mainly adopts two forms—part time jobs and shifts — to assign staff to the daily operation and management of government microblogs. The size of the operating teams ranges from one person to as many as ten members, and few departments introduce full-time posts for the management of government microblogs. A microblog operator mentioned, “We do our job in shifts. From Monday to Friday, the one who has spare time can post service tips or something at his or her convenience.” And due to the special nature of microblogs, the peak time of usage are the 30 minutes before work in the morning, the lunch break and the evening session, while most civil servants work from nine to five, some of the microblog managers have to work overtime.
due to their tremendous influence, government microblogs may become the target of malicious attacks.”
2.3.4 Digital Divide Some interviewees worried that the users of microblogs were mostly young people in middle class, while the elderly and poor could rarely use microblogs, not even use computers. This situation is unlikely to change in short term. After the opening up of government microblogs, non-users of micorblogs would be further marginalized and their interests might be ignored, which would exacerbate the digital divide.
2.3.5 Fast Technological Upgrading and Substitution Some civil servants also doubted about the sustainability of microblogs and worried that they wouldn’t be popular for long due to the rapid IT advancement and upgrading. “Government websites, mayor’s mailboxs and the official blogs which were once hot for a time perhaps could be the lesson for government microblogs.” “What if microblogs have been abandoned by Internet users after the government had put a lot of manpower and material resources on microblogs? Wouldn’t it be worthless?”
Owing to the feeling of uncertainty towards government microblogs, some civil servants worried that once they worked on government micorblogs full time, their original jobs would be affected. Therefore, workers in some departments take shifts for the daily operation of microblogs. The shift lasts from three months to six months. The shift is temporary for a specific operator so that their original post won’t be influenced, and the operatoe on the shift is not required to work on other tasks until the shift is over. With this arrangement, the experience that a certain government microblog operator accumulated during his or her shift would hardly pass on to his or her successors. With their varied personal styles of different operators, the management stability of government microblogs is also jeopardized.
As the future of government microblogs still lies in uncertainties, consequently, microblog management has not yet become a routine work in government agencies with designated and fixed posts. Some civil servants worried that if they were assigned to a full-time job on microblog management, once their superiors shift their attention on government microblogs, their positions will be removed. One microblog manager gave a vivid description: “No one wants to work full-time on the microblog, because no one wants to ‘die’ on it”.
2.4.2 Low Attention from Leadership Some government microblog managers mentioned that although their leaders requested them to open and run government microblogs, they didn’t pay attention to them fundamentally. That is to say, they just stress the importance orally, but do not provide matching personnel, financial and material resources. Some leaders did nothing more than coping with a task assigned by leaders in higher levels. In addition, the attention of the leadership frequently shifts, which would also affect the stable and sustainable operation of government microblogs.
2.3.6 Technological Risks Some civil servants also worried that, as a new phenomenon, microblog was not yet mature, and some risks were still unknown. For example, some interviewees said that “government microblogs were operated on external platforms, and the platform’s operation faults may lead to system errors and even crashes, resulting in unexpected consequences.”
In particular, many civil servants pointed out that under the existing Chinese administrative system, the attention and support of superior leadership is extremely important to the development of government microblogs, and is the key to success. “The reason why some government microblogs are abandoned was that they didn’t earn full attention and support from the leadership.” Therefore, a lot of microblogs have become an object of “display” of the government, a microblog manager mentioned, "Currently, what concerns us most is the support of higher authorities."
2.4 The Internal Barriers for Chinese Government Microblogs 2.4.1 Lack of Institutions and Guidelines Because microblogs are new tools for government, some interviewees indicate that the government still lacks adequate institutions for the operation of government microblogs. In addition, in lack of effective and specific guidelines, microblog managers are confused with conflicting issues and hesitate to take measures. As results, the effectiveness of government microblogs is seriously affected.
2.4.3 Lack of Resources Many government departments reported that in spite of the increasing tasks and workload of government microblogs, the necessary funds and resources still fell behind. As mentioned above, a good support of human, financial and material resources mainly depended on the attention earned from the leadership. At present, most government microblogs have no specifically allocated funds. The facility investment, daily operation expenses, communication costs, training fees, and personnel expenses (work allowances and bonuses) are not secured financially. Some departments stated clearly: “Our human and material resources are limited. We lack funds, equipment and professional supports.”
With regard to which department within the government should be responsible leading and managing government microblogs, there are no existing policies or regulations to follow in most government agencies. Nowadays, most leading departments of government microblogs are in the charge of Party Committees or publicity departments, and specific management teams and coordination teams for microblogs are quite different. In most occasions, government microblogs are operated by either the Internet Management and Publicity office, or General Administrative Office, or the Communist Youth League, or related functional departments. Both advantages and disadvantages are found with these different arrangements.
Without secured specially allocated funds, the expenditures on government microblogs in many departments were mainly
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not satisfy the public needs; if you put aside questions, people would feel ignored. So it is quite a dilemma.”
appropriated from the budget for general administrations or other purposes. A government microblog manager illustrated: “The Bureau of Finance said that they haven’t listed this item in their budget in advance, so they could not allocate any fund for us. Therefore, this year we used the overhead cost, which is from the General Administrative Office’s expenditures.” “Other costs such as training and activities are not funded at all. Even our own finance staff wouldn’t approve them, not to mention the Bureau of Finance. ”
Therefore, many government microblog managers reflected their urgent need to receive professional trainings, particularly in the skills of attracting attentions and response in emergencies. “If you want to attract public attention, professional media packaging or trainings are very much needed to improve our management capabilities.” “I hope there are regular trainings, and show us how to deal with unexpected things. In addition, when a government microblog is just opened, it is actually our own staff who initiates the participation in the microblog. Therefore, these people must also be trained in dealing with complex situations.”
2.4.4 Conservative and Closed Organizational Culture The study finds out that many government agencies shows apprehension towards external barriers and attacks. The government microblog managers worried that when the Internet users and opinion leaders questioned the contents on government microblogs, the government's authority would be directly challenged. “Government microblogs might be taken advantage of by interest groups, resulting in social discord. They may also give a vent for disadvantaged groups to show their angers and be threatened by malicious comments, which would pose negative impacts on the image of government.”
Many government microblog managers also mentioned that the original workload for some civil servants was already very heavy. In microblog management, they felt hard to balance their new task with the old one. They were unable to response quickly or manage government microblogs at any time. A government microblog manager pointed out clearly: “there are only six people in our office. In order to take care of all the tasks, we could only take turns to work part-time on microblogs. Gradually we feel exhausted.”
2.4.7 Lack of Cross-boundary Collaborations
Besides, the current messages and posts in government microblogs are too official, formal and rigid, and present themselves as government “bulletin boards”. “In the long run, government microblogs would inevitably lose their attractiveness and vitality, and ultimately become useless things.” a civil servant noted, “The current ‘leader first’ culture prevails within the government, forming an arrogant attitude of government on the Internet as well. It would inevitably intensify the tension between the government and the public, which would worsen the communication between them.”
The study has found that most government microblogs are unlinked with each other, without information sharing or operational collaborations. Especially in dealing with emergencies, there are no joint efforts among institutions and individuals to enhance information dissemination and interaction. A microblog manager from the railway station cited an example: “our services are information-based. The source of information is rather important, but very often in emergencies the information from other transport units is way beyond our grasp. The customers were very confused and failed to receive information from our service counters. The truth is that we didn’t know the information they asked either, because we didn’t have any sources of information. Talking about this accident on high-speed railways, we didn’t receive any notifications from the dispatch center and other transportation partners. Actually, we knew about this accident by searching content by ourselves through other microblogs. Without any information provided by our partners in transportation, it is not surprising that we couldn’t serve the passengers well. All complaints are pointed to the front desk, because we are the service terminal. However, we have no partnership with other units.”
2.4.5 Bureaucratic Review Process As a novelty, government microblog is however restrained by the traditional bureaucratic review process currently. In fear of making mistakes when posting information and interacting with citizens, some government microblogs still adopt traditional review process and thereby reduce the speed and effectiveness of response. A government microblog manager pointed out: “the review process is also where the contradiction lies. If we response every microblog in accordance with the full-process review, timeliness will be hurt. With this process, we then could only take official and diplomatic phases to answer them.” Moreover, the leadership often lacks a thorough understanding of the features of microblogs and the way of managing them. Some leaders still adopts old ways to superintend government microblogs, and some of them are even blind commanders. Under their improper leadership, some microblog managers are very confused and frustrated. A government microblog manager mentioned “The leader who is responsible for government microblogs doesn’t have a good knowledge of them. He views operating microblogs as the same way as publishing a newspaper, and holds editing assemblies every morning and night.”
2.4.8 Information Confidentiality The government has considerations for security and confidentiality towards the information published by microblogs. Some microblog managers worried that “Once the government's confidential information was revealed on the Internet, the situation would be difficult to restore”. This would make the government hesitate to publish information on microblogs.
2.4.9 Information Accuracy Besides, some interviewees also worried that the limitation of 140 characters for each message may result in information inaccuracy and ambiguity. “Different people have different interpretations of the contents, which would affect the accuracy and authority of the information published by government microblogs.”
2.4.6 Inadequate Personnel Capabilities Since managing government microblog is a fresh new task for agencies, many managers still lack management experiences and capabilities. For an instance, some civil servants worried about answering questions in specialized field raise by the public. “If you respond with insufficient or inaccurate information, you could
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3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This research is funded by the Shanghai Pujiang Plan and the Education Innovation Project by Education Committee, Shanghai Municipal Government.
4. REFERENCES [1] China National Academy of Governance (2011). Assessment Report on Chinese Government Microblogging. [2] Zheng, L., et al (2011). Studying the Management Mechanism of Government Microblogs in China: A Research Plan. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ACM Press.
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Study on Social Media Applications by Government in Hong Kong Huina Xu and Qian Chen Department of Public Administration Fudan University 220 Handan Road 200433, Shanghai, China
{11210170057, 10210170073}@fudan.edu.cn using social media tools in recent days. David Landsbergen (2010) studies the use of social media by several departments within the city of Columbus, USA and discusses how social media provide the government a way to do things in way that government haven’t done before[1]. Enrique Bonson et al. (2012) find out that most EU local governments are using social media tools to enhance transparency[2]. Sergio Picazo-Vela et al. (2012) present the perceptions of risks, benefits and strategic guidelines about social media application in Central Mexico[3]. John Carlo Bertot et al. (2012) indicate how governments promote transparency and accountability through ICTs, social media, and collaborative egovernment[4]. Chinese scholars also have done some researches on government using social media. The 2011 China government microblog research report generally introduced the current situation of government moicroblogs development in China[5]. Yan Su (2011) introduces several examples of the internet and social media communication by Hong Kong government[6].
ABSTRACT In the Web2.0 Era, social media is playing a more and more important role in government affairs. This paper conducts a research based on 44 accounts opened by Hong Kong government on five social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SinaMicroblog and Blog. The authors identify fourteen observation contents of those accounts in order to give a general picture of the current situation of Hong Kong government social media application. Finally, give some suggestions to mainland China social media application practice.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.6.1 [Project Techniques
and
People
Management]:
Management
General Terms Management, Measurement, Performance
Since Chinese government social media application is now facing many challenges, this study aims to analyze the current situation of Hong Kong social media application and give some suggestions to Mainland China.
Keywords Hong Kong, Government, Social Media, Application
1. INTRODUCTION
3. RESEARCH METHOD
Chinese government agencies and officials have set up microblog accounts since 2008 and are facing many challenges. Even though western countries start early in government social media application, it’s hard to copy their experience due to China’s unique national contextual. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, on one hand, shares the same language and culture origin with Mainland China. On the other hand, it started social media application in government earlier. Its experience will have a great reference value to Mainland China. Through observing 44 social media accounts of Hong Kong government agencies and officials, this essay studies the current situation of social media application by Hong Kong government and gives suggestions for the future social media practice of mainland government.
On the basis of non-participant observation and secondary data analysis, this article studies the current situation of Hong Kong government social media application from the public management perspective. This study conducts both quantitative and qualitative analysis by observing fourteen contents of Hong Kong government social media accounts. This study selects the research objects by applying the data provided on Hong Kong Government portal (www.gov.hk) which has set "social media links" that lists Hong Kong government agency and official social media accounts. According to the data updated on the website in April 2011, a total of 44 social media accounts have been opened by 14 Hong Kong government officials and 16 government agencies on five social media platforms including Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and SinaMicroblog. In reference to western countries’ social media application handbooks while considered the actual situation in Hong Kong, this study identifies the following fourteen observation contents.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW Many scholars have contributed a lot in the field of government Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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1)
Account owner: to distinguish whether the social media account is owned by government official or government agency;
2)
Social media types: to specify which social media platform the account belongs to: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or SinaMicroblog;
3)
Established year: to specify the established year of the social media account;
4)
Account introduction: to find out whether the social media account identifies itself as government agency or official clearly;
5)
Account images/photos: whether the Hong Kong government social media account has its own account image or photo;
6)
Amount of followers: refers to the amount of followers who subscribe the government social media accounts;
7)
Amount of followings: refers to the amount of social media accounts that government social media accounts have subscribed;
Figure 2. Number of social media accounts each Hong Kong government agency and official opens.
8)
Type of followings: refers to the type of accounts that Hong Kong government agencies and officials subscribe;
4.2 Established Year and Newly-Opened Social Media Accounts by Year
9)
Amount of posts: refers to the amount of posts that released from the established date till April 20, 2011;
Figure 3 shows that Hong Kong government has opened social media accounts as early as in 2006 (Since the web design of Facebook is difficult for researchers to find the established year, Facebook is not included in this statistical analysis.). The annual amount of the newly-opened government social media accounts has raised up since 2009. Seventeen new social media accounts were established in year 2010, which seems to be the peak year of Hong Kong government social media application development.
10) Posting frequency: refers to how often Hong Kong government agency and official accounts post one piece of information; 11) Content of posts: such as work-related information, entertainment information, personal views, etc.; 12) Posting forms: to find out whether government agency and official accounts use pictures, video or other forms in posting; 13) Language: refers to the type of language used in posting, including English, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese; 14) Interaction: to find out whether there is interaction between government social media account owners and netizens.
4. RESEARCH FINDINGS
Figure 3. Newly-opened HK government accounts by year.
4.1 Account Owners, Social Media Types and Amounts
Among seventeen newly-opened social media accounts in 2010, fourteen are opened by government agencies while three by government officials (Table 1). Government agencies social media applications appears to develop faster than government officials. Furthermore, most newly-opened accounts in 2010 open on YouTube and Twitter.
The figure 1 shows that the most widely used government social media types are Facebook and YouTube. The data also shows that Hong Kong government agencies and officials have different preference on social media types. Government agencies prefer opening accounts on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, while government officials prefer Facebook and Blog.
Table 1. Newly-opened Hong Kong government social media accounts in 2010 on different social media platforms
Figure 1. The number of Hong Kong government agency and official accounts on different social media platforms.
Hong Kong government officials
Hong Kong government agencies
Percentage
Twitter
0
4
24%
SinaMicroblog
1
2
18%
YouTube
0
8
47%
Blog
2
0
11%
Total
3
14
100%
4.3 Account Instruction Ninety-five percent of the Hong Kong government social media accounts clearly identify themselves as government agencies or officials. All of those accounts not identifying themselves are Hong Kong government official accounts opened on Facebook.
The Figure 2 shows that nine out of thirty HK government agencies and officials have opened more than two social media accounts, among which seven are government agencies. Government agencies, compared with government officials, seem to open two even more social media accounts.
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4.4 Account Images/Photos All the government social media accounts have their own images or photos. In terms of the consistency of images/photos of the same government agency/official on multiple social media platforms, this study finds out that three Hong Kong government agencies (Chief Executive's Office, Hong Kong Observatory and the Investment Promotion Agency) and one government official (Kenneth Chen, Deputy Secretary of Department of Education) use the same images and photo on different social media platforms. Another four government agencies, each of which has opened more than three social media accounts, use partly the same image on different social media platforms. One government agency, the Hong Kong Government, use different images on its Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Figure 4. Cross analysis of amount of posts and social media types.
4.5 Amount of Followers and Followings
4.7 Posting Frequency
The amount of followers of government agency and official accounts indicates the coverage and effectiveness of accounts among the netizens. The analysis of the amount of the followers of 36 Hong Kong government social media accounts (Since Blog doesn’t have the function of following, it is not included in this statistics.) shows that 78% government social media accounts have 100 to 10000 followers. Only a few accounts have either less than 100 or more than 10,000 followers.
Posting frequency is calculated as follows: P (frequency) = (the total number of days from the established date to April 20, 2011) / (Amount of posts). The authors have classified the calculation result as follows: (0-1) represents that on average, posting one piece of information costs less than one day. (1-7) represents that on average, posting one piece of information requires one to seven days. (7-30) represents that on average, posting one piece of information costs more than one week (7 days) but less than a month; (30-50) represents that the average posting frequency is more than one month but within two months. Figure 5 shows that more than half of government accounts post information every one week. The average highest posting frequency is nine times a day while the slowest is every 40 days.
Compared to the large amount of followers of Hong Kong government social media accounts, most government agencies and officials follow only several accounts. Seventy-five percent government accounts only follow other government accounts, while 25 percent follow other government accounts as well as non-government accounts such as news and media, celebrities, companies, ordinary netizens, etc.
4.6 Amount of Posts The amount of posts is calculated from the established date to April 20, 2011. Most Hong Kong government accounts post fewer than 1000 pieces of information till April 20, 2011. Only four accounts including Hong Kong Radio on YouTube, Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on YouTube and Government Information Services on both Twitter and YouTube have posted more than 1000 pieces of information. (Since the lack of data of the amount of posts on Facebook, accounts on Facebook are not included in the statistics.)
Figure 5. Posting frequency of HK social media accounts.
4.8 Content of Posts
A cross analysis of amount of posts and social media types indicates a significant difference among each platform. The amount of posts of 75% government accounts on Blog is less than 100 while amount of posts on Twitter and SinaMicroblog is mostly between 100 and 1000. The amount of posts on Blog is smaller than that on other social media platforms (figure 4).
Based on observation, most information released by government accounts is related to the work of agencies and officials. Government official accounts release information not only related to their own work but also related to their after-work life and personal points of view. However, government agencies only release information related to the agencies themselves.
4.9 Language Figure 6 shows traditional Chinese is the most widely used language in Hong Kong Government social media accounts. The study also finds that some government agencies (such as Hong Kong Observatory) launched one Chinese version account and one English version account on the same social media platform. Those two accounts update synchronously and the content of the posts are almost the same. Tracing back to the origin of those two accounts, the information is released in both Chinese and English in one account. After a period of time, this account is separated into two accounts, Chinese one and English one.
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Government should match their own characteristics with the social media platform to achieve the best results.
5.3 The Normalization of Government Social Media Application Should be Strengthened This study has found out that there are still five percent government accounts not identify themselves. In addition, half of the government social media accounts, which open more than two accounts on different social media platforms, don’t share the same image or photo. Account identification and the same image would help to enhance the authority of government accounts and make it easier for citizens to recognize the government accounts.
Figure 6. Language used in Hong Kong social media accounts.
5. INSPIRATION AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Government Social Media Applications and Effects are Influenced by the Characteristics of Social Media Platforms
5.4 Followings Amount Should be Enlarged Compared with the great amount of followers of government accounts, the followings should be enlarged. It would help the government agencies and officials get close to the ordinary people and know what the people are thinking.
Based on the different characteristics of different social media platforms, the amount of posts, posting frequency and posting forms on different social media platforms vary a lot. Both the amount of posts and posting frequency on Blog are the lowest, compared with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In addition, the social media openness to the public has influence on the government social media applications. The study indicates that even though the established date of SinaMicroblog is later than other social media platforms, the amount of followers on SinaMicroblog is larger than that on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. One possible reason is that SinaMicroblog mainly targets Chinese which have the largest population in the world. At the mean time, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in Mainland China.
6. CONCLUSION With the social media playing a more and more important role in public affairs, government using social media has become inevitable. Mainland china can learn from the experience of social media applications by HK government. First, mainland china can take advantage of different types of social media platforms to reach different netizens and realize the equalization of services supply. Second, mainland government agencies and officials should choose one or more suitable social media platforms and maximize the advantages of the platform. Third, government agencies and officials should follow more non-government agency accounts in order to hear the voice of the people. Finally, multiple languages should be used in social media applications to meet the needs of different people working or traveling in China.
Each social media platform has its own characteristics which would attract different user groups. Government agencies should choose suitable platform to provide service to its target citizens.
5.2 Government Social Media Applications and Effects are Influenced by the Characteristics of Government Agencies and Officials
7. REFERENCES [1] Landsbergen, D. (2010). Government as Part of the Revolution: Using Social Media to Achieve Public Goals. Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on EGovernment, pp. 243-250.
This study has shown that the functional difference of government agencies and officials would affect their performance on social media applications. For example, Government Information Service and Hong Kong Observatory are two different agencies. They vary in the command of information resources, posting techniques, and allocation of human resources and funds. As a result, their performance on social media applications differs a lot.
[2] Bonsón, E., Torres, L., Royo, S., & Flores, F. Local egovernment 2.0: Social media and corporate transparency in municipalities. Government Information Quarterly, pp.123132 [3] Picazo-Vela, S., et al., Understanding risks, benefits, and strategic alternatives of social media applications in the public sector, Government Information Quarterly (2012)
Furthermore, the study has shown that government agencies open more social media accounts than government officials. Government agencies have professionals to manage accounts and funds to support the daily account maintenance. On the contrast, most government officials have to manage account by themselves. Each additional account would put extra burden on the officials. That may be the reason why government agencies seem to open more accounts than government officials.
[4] Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., & Grimes, J. M. Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies. Government Information Quarterly, 27(3), 264–271. [5] China official microblog research report. (2011). Public opinion and transmission laboratory. [6] Yan Su. Internet communication analysis of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. Journalism Lover, 2011(11), pp.74-75
In general, different government agencies and officials have different command of posting techniques, human resources and funding, which would result in the performance difference.
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Session 10 ICT & Governance Transformation
E-Government and Transformation of Governance and Service Delivery in Bangladesh: A Developing Country Perspective Noore Alam Siddiquee Department of Politics & Public Policy Flinders University Adelaide 5001, Australia + 618 8201 2302
[email protected] rigidities, among others. Decades of public sector reforms appear to have done little either to improve the delivery of public services or to brighten the image of service providers. Inefficiency, lack of accountability and transparency, inflexibility, red-tape and corruption are among the multitude of problems that characterize public bureaucracies and service delivery systems. This is particularly the case in developing countries. The advent of e-government has offered real prospects of making a difference in this regard. E-government promises not only to improve efficiency in service delivery but also to promote transparency and accountability thereby reducing corruption and mismanagement in public governance [4; 16]. In addition, it is believed to promote innovation in delivery of public services, offer increased flexibility in the service use and foster people’s participation and empowerment [18]. In developing countries e-government has assumed an additional significance: it is expected to help eradicate poverty, boost national economic growth, reduce bureaucratic complexity and establish good governance [7].
ABSTRACT As elsewhere around the world, lately e-government has become a major component of governmental policy in Bangladesh. It has received a particular push with the launch of ‘Digital Bangladesh’. The twin pillars of the campaign - ‘connecting citizens’ and ‘offering services to their doorsteps’ - are considered key to fighting poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. While enthusiasm for e-government is widespread and a variety of programs are currently underway that offer endless opportunities for the future, in a developing country like Bangladesh road to e-government is not without pitfalls and challenges. This paper sheds lights on the trajectory of egovernment in Bangladesh with a particular focus on its current status and future goals. More specifically, it seeks to highlight some innovative e-government schemes and their impacts on service delivery processes and mode of interactions between government and citizens. The paper focuses on some key constraints that undermine and frustrate governmental drives for realizing the vision of Digital Bangladesh. It also comments on their policy implications.
Thus it is nothing surprising that of late e-government has become a key component of public sector reform across the globe. So popular is the e-government today that it is hard to find a country that has not embraced it in recent years. As elsewhere, Bangladesh has followed the global trend. Since the adoption of e-government as a policy issue in late 1990s, the government of Bangladesh has initiated and implemented variety of measures seeking either to improve internal efficiency of the government agencies or to enhance external delivery of services to the citizens or both. Egovernment is seen as strategy for transforming public governance and service delivery, it is also viewed as a tool for fighting poverty and achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While enthusiasm for e-government is widespread and a variety of programs are currently underway as part of governmental aim of developing an efficient, accountable and citizen-centric public administration, in a developing country like Bangladesh the road to e-government is anything but smooth and straightforward. In fact, a large number of countervailing forces and barriers act to thwart and frustrate governmental drives in this regard. This paper reviews the trajectory of e-government in Bangladesh. Based mainly on secondary sources the paper seeks to highlight the roles of e-government in transforming governance and service delivery system and some of the constraints and challenges involved.
Category General Literature
General Terms Management, Human Factors, Performance, Reliability and Security
Keywords E-government, Digital Bangladesh, ICT Information Service Centres, Digital Divide
Policy,
Union
1. INTRODUCTION Public governance around the world has long been subjected to widespread criticisms for poor performance and procedural Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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e-government in Bangladesh. The Digital Bangladesh agenda involves a digitised government, ICT enabled services, nationwide internet connectivity, high-tech parks for businesses and IT trained professionals. It consists of four pillars: (i) developing human resources suitable for 21st century demands; (ii) connecting citizens in a meaningful ways; (iii) taking services to the doorsteps of the people and (iv) making private sector more productive and competitive through the use of ICT [10]. The Digital Bangladesh campaign has led to a more comprehensive, sustained and robust approach to e-government with emphasis on citizen-centred service delivery. Although the drives for infrastructure development continue in view of country’s overall e-government development index currently emphasis is placed on fostering integration and expansion of scopes for transactional services. Numerous programs and projects (as shown later) are being implemented towards realizing the vision.
2. THE EVOLUTION OF E-GOVERNMENT IN BANGLADESH Even though development of an efficient, transparent and accountable system of administration has been a recurrent theme of all reform initiatives since Bangladesh gained her independence in the early 1970s, e-government has not found expression in the governmental policy discourse until the late-1990s. In fact, the ICT revolution and growth of e-commerce etc. elsewhere did not generate much interest among the Bangladeshi policy makers. Thus, the initial period was characterised by what could be termed as a combination of lack of interest, confusion and neglect on part of political and administrative leadership. After initial periods of confusion and inaction the first concrete step towards egovernment was made by the Awami League government following its assumption of power in 1996. It agreed to connect the country with the information superhighway, designated ICT as a thrust sector, waived taxes on computers and computer accessories and allocated US $6 million in 1997-98 annual budget towards supporting the development of ICT sector in the country. It also formed a Task Force with the Prime Minister as its head. Composed of representative of the government ministries, the private sector, academia and NGOs the Task Force was responsible for providing overall direction concerning the application of ICT in government in order to improve operational efficiency, enhance quality of services and advance public welfare by extending public services even to most remote areas. All this marked the beginning of Bangladesh’s journey towards egovernment.
3. INSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK E-government is a relatively new phenomenon in Bangladesh. Hence, the institutional, legal and regulatory framework for egovernance is still evolving. At the apex of the institutional framework for e-government in Bangladesh is the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that provides stewardship of the Digital Bangladesh program. The E-Government Cell established within the PMO provides policy directives and guidelines for the implementation of e-government programs including oversight and coordination of such initiatives. The National ICT Task Force (NTF) chaired by the Prime Minister is responsible for mainstreaming ICT throughout the public sector. Renamed recently as the Digital Bangladesh Task Force it is represented by stakeholders from the government, the private sector and the civil society. It is responsible for monitoring milestones in the implementation of Digital Bangladesh agenda and advising the government on policy matters and means of achieving goals identified. A number of government ministries have been given significant roles to play. The Ministry of Science and Information Communication Technology (MoSICT) is responsible for the development of infrastructure and human resources for successful application of ICT in the society. It also formulates ICT policies and oversees the implementation of such policies. Given that one of the responsibilities of the Ministry is to support the overall socio-economic development of the country through research, development, extension and successful utilisation of science and technology including ICT, it has undertaken and implemented variety of programs including the establishment of computer training centres throughout the country to impart ICT related knowledge and skills to government employees as well as members of the public. The Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC)- an autonomous agency established in 1990 provides technical assistance to the MoSICT.
Following the political change in 2001 the new government continued the drives initiated by the previous regime. The formulation of ICT Policy, 2002 was among significant moves made during 2001- 2005 period. However, in the absence of coherent vision and well-designed strategies various agencies initiated and implemented e-government programs in isolated and uncoordinated fashion. With the launch of the Access to Information (A2I) programme in 2006 a new phase of egovernment development began. Located in the Prime Minister’s Office and supported by the UNDP the A2I program has played a catalysing role in promoting people oriented to e-government. Series of workshops and seminars organised under the A2I program have led to identification of a large number of citizen services for implementation at various levels. This has also encouraged various ministries and divisions of the government to initiate and implement a range of e-government programs aimed at offering enhanced services to their respective clients. The military backed care-taker government that was in power during 2007-2008 was highly supportive of the e-government agenda: it played a vital role in successfully implementing web-initiatives and augmenting capacity and awareness at various levels. This may have marked a shift from infrastructure building towards delivery of services using ICT, still programs remained largely isolated and limited in scope.
The development of telecommunications infrastructure is the responsibility of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MoPT). It lends critical support to the e-government by promoting the growth of telecommunications sector commensurate with emerging demands and needs. While the ministry is responsible for the overall development of the telecommunications sector, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) – a public limited company under the ministry has been mandated to provide basic telecommunications services throughout the country. It provides landline telephones
The incumbent Awami League government having assumed power in 2009 made e-government a priority and initiated comprehensive measures to this end. In line with its election manifestos the new government introduced a charter of change with ‘Digital Bangladesh’ as an integral component of its Vision 2021. Conceived and implemented under the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) –funded Access to Information (A2I) program –Digital Bangladesh represents the cornerstone of
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Source: Based on [14] & other sources
and domestic as well as international call services. Likewise, the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) - an autonomous body established under the Ministry in 2002 is the licensing authority that regulates telecommunication service providers – both fixed line and mobile phones throughout the country. It is also responsible for promoting ICT application through, among others, oversight of the VSAT operators and internet service providers, the development of digitisation schemes and regulation of tariffs and standards. Table 1 lists major agencies involved along with their primary responsibilities.
Likewise, a set of policies and laws have been formulated and enacted in order to provide a legal framework for e-government in the country. The National ICT Policy formulated in 2002 represents the first concrete measure that provides a comprehensive outline of the vision of e-government. The ICT policy 2002 presented e-government as a strategy for improving efficiency of the government, reducing wastage of resources and enhancing planning and raising the quality of public services. It also envisaged, among others, the establishment of telecommunication infrastructure nationwide, connecting to submarine fibre optic cable network, extending internet facility to rural areas, establishing cyber kiosks in post offices, Union Parishad and Upazila (sub-district) complexes, setting up an internet exchange and increasing the bandwidth capacity and availability [9]. Thus it had underscored the spread of ICT in governmental agencies across the country. The policy required each Ministry/Division to have an ICT unit comprised of ICT professionals and websites with policy documents and updated information.
Table 1: Important Public Sector Actors in E-Government Government Ministry/Agency
Responsibilities
Prime Minister’s Office (E-Government Cell)
Overall policy directions
Ministry of Science & Information and Communication Technology
Policy formulation and mainstreaming ICT in the public sector
Bangladesh Computer Council
Support MoSICT and provide training as well as advisory services to government and citizens.
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications
Develop telecommunication infrastructure and services
Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC)
Regulation of the telecommunications industry & licensing
Ministry of Information
Dissemination of information
Ministry of Planning
Support DBTF to realize its goals
Ministry of Finance
Support the e-government programs with appropriate allocation of funds
Ministry of Education
Development of curriculum for ICT education; computerisation of schools
Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs
Review of ICT related laws and policies
ICT Task Force/Digital Bangladesh Task Force
Mainstream ICT in the government, advise ministries/agencies and monitor progress
National Information Management Committee (MoP)
Development of citizen identification card for service delivery purposes
National ICT Education Task Force
Advancing educational skills and quality through ICT
However, the implementation of the policy was anything but satisfactory. Among others, the lack of ownership and coordination among implementing agencies and absence of leadership have contributed to the failure of the policy. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act was adopted in 2006. The Act was also intended to help prevent cybercrimes and safeguard online transactions so as to promote ecommerce. However, the Act could not be implemented in its true spirit as necessary rules and regulations were never introduced [9]. Following the launch of the Digital Bangladesh as the flagship project the government has promulgated a new ICT policy. The ICT Policy 2009 envisions the ICT as a tool to bring about ‘transparent, accountable and responsible government’ [11]. It is fairly comprehensive for besides outlining specific objectives and priorities it has identified over 300 action items for implementation in key sectors of the economy in order to improve the delivery of services. It also seeks to develop human resources, enhance social equity and ensure cost-effective delivery of governmental services to support the national goal of becoming a middle-income country within 10 years and joining the ranks of developed nations within 30 years [11]. Another major legislation is the ICT Act 2009. This is, in fact, a slightly modified version of ICT Act 2006 which remained unimplemented. The Act provides legitimacy of the electronic records and digital signature. While it is true that the current legal framework of e-government is largely driven by ICT Policy 2009 and the ICT Act, 2009 a number of other tools and policy documents as listed in table 2 have had a significant bearing on e-government. Collectively, they provide a broad framework of e-governance in the country. Table 2: Major E-government Policies and Laws
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Policy/Legislation
Objective(s)
Telecommunications Act, 2001
Facilitate liberalisation of telecommunications sector
ICT Policy, 2002
Provide guidelines for development of the ICT sector
Internet Connection & Usage Policy, 2004
Provide a framework for the use of internet facilities
Copyright (Amended) Act, 2005
Protect intellectual property rights and legalise electronic communication
ICT Act, 2006
Provide legal basis of the ICT
Right to Information Act, 2009
Provide legal entitlement to citizens to seek public information and demand transparency & accountability of public institutions
ICT Policy, 2009
Provide an up-to-date and comprehensive framework for the development of ICT with action plans consistent with Digital Bangladesh vision
ICT Act, 2009
Improve legal structure of ICT by incorporating necessary amendments to ICT Act, 2006
Broadband Policy, 2009
Facilitate the growth of high-speed internet services at an affordable price
Telecommunications Act (Amended), 2010
Update Telecommunications Act, 2001
International Long Distance Telecommunication Services Policy, 2010
Facilitate low-cost ILDTS including VOIP services
agencies and departments. Governmental websites and portals have begun to offer services beyond information dissemination. The Prime Minister’s Office has launched a website (www.forms.gov.bd) which has made virtually all government forms accessible online. This is a significant development in that the citizens and businesses are now able to access variety of forms without having to visit respective offices. This saves time and helps them avoid the hassle associated with visiting various agencies.
4.2 Digitisation of Land Records System This involves digitisation of country’s complex and age-old land ownership records that are source of huge corruption and litigations. Following several successful pilot projects the government decided to spread the benefits of such experiments throughout the country. Currently in progress, this project would drastically reduce the complexities and corruption associated with land administration. This would greatly simplify land administration and put an end to the current practice where citizens need to visit more than 10 different agencies to obtain their records and/or to have them updated.
4.3 Online Hajj Information Management System The Online Hajj Information Management system of the Ministry of Religious Affairs is an example of innovation in area of G2C service. In place since 2002 the portal serves as a source of information to thousands of pilgrims who go to Mecca to perform Hajj every year. Besides allowing verification of information like their location, health condition and flight details etc. the interactive features of the portal allow easy and reliable communication between pilgrims and their relatives.
4.4 Land Resources Information System The Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) database of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) contains information on country’s land resources including geography, soil, and climate, hydrology, cropping system and crop sustainability. This is used to generate readily accessible information of the physical land resources of the country for use by researchers, extension workers, and decision makers in land and agricultural resource management as well as for agricultural planning. This has served as the basis for the development of a more comprehensive and multi-scale GIS-based Land Resources Information System which helps deal with the intricacies of land resource planning under complex environmental conditions.
Source: Based on [14] and other sources
4. TRANSFORMATION OF GOVERNANCE AND SERVICE DELIVERY: SELECTED EGOVERNMENT PROGRAMS Although a late starter, the government of Bangladesh has initiated and implemented a large number of schemes with the aim of realizing the visions and goals as outlined above. More specifically, these programs seek to transform governance and service delivery system offering citizens with improved services. In this section of the paper we focus on selected e-government schemes that portray the current state of e-government in Bangladesh and the progress made to-date in various spheres. These are some well-known programmes and they capture G2C, G2B and G2G dimensions.
4.5 Electronic Birth Registration System, RCC The Electronic Birth Registration Information System (EBRIS) introduced by Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) with technical assistance from the UNICEF has earned award as an innovative egovernment at the local level. It allows registration of birth electronically, generates birth certificate and immunisation card for each newly born babies and list of babies due for vaccination on a particular day. The EBRIS has replaced the manual process of registration where multiple agencies were involved thus helping remove duplication of entries and other problem. Also, it has contributed to achieve near 100 % immunisation coverage in RCC area [1].
4.1 Web-Presence of Government & Forms Concerted governmental drives during recent years have resulted in a considerable progress towards making government information and services available online. One clear indication is that most government agencies including ministries, divisions, departments and statutory bodies have web-presence with useful information and contact details. The national web portal of the government of Bangladesh (www.bangladesh.gov.bd) serves as a one-stop access to information and services offered by various
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electronically. It will not only reduce time required in completing tender procedures, it will also reduce corruption leading to improvement in quality of government purchases. While the government plans to bring the entire public procurement system under e-procurement in phases, initially four government departments/agencies that handle lion’s share of government contracts - the Directorate of Roads & Highways, Local Government Engineering Department, Bangladesh Water Development Board and Rural Electrification Board - have been selected for the first phase of e-tendering pilot project (Daily Inqilab, 3 June, 2011).
4.6 Computerisation of Railway Ticketing System Under one of the early e-government projects the Ministry of Communication computerised the railway seat reservation and ticketing system nationwide. In operation since 1996 this is now being expanded to e-ticketing where the passengers of inter-city trains will be able to purchase electronic ticket using mobile phones and other devices. This would help rail users to avoid hassle of travelling all the way to train stations and waiting in long queues for collecting tickets.
4.7 Automation of Internal Processes: The Bangladesh Bank
These alongside many other similar schemes in various spheres of public administration indicate a new trend where ICT is applied to improve internal efficiency of the government agencies at the same time making sure that the citizens and businesses get fast, reliable and hassle-free services. Clearly, e-initiatives cover all possible dimensions (G2C, G2B and G2G) of e-government and offer enormous prospects to redesign governance and service delivery in future. Progress already achieved, limited though compared to other similar contexts, like online presence of government agencies and interactive features is no less significant. When considered against e-government maturity models, it is evident that Bangladesh has progressed from information stage to permit online interaction and transactions with government agencies [for more on this, see 12, 3 & 4]. Such features allow citizens to download various government forms, policies and regulations and a range of other useful services at their own convenience. Also there are cases where people are able to pay utility bills, buy train tickets, register for admission into public universities and get results of public examinations using mobile phones. However, still benefits of e-government are limited due mainly to factors like insufficient infrastructure development and connectivity, inadequate interactive and transactional features and widespread digital divide in the society.
While the drives for process automation can be found in virtually every public entity, the Bangladesh Bank is among the handful of agencies that have been successful in integrating ICT in its core business processes. As such all aspects of its operation including internal management, export receipts and import payments and monitoring and supervision of commercial banks have been automated. It has also made a significant progress with electronic banking through the introduction of automated check clearance and e-payment gateway, online money transfers and payment of utility bills via the internet.
4.8 HRM Database, Ministry of Public Administration The Ministry of Establishment - recently renamed as the Ministry of Public Administration was among the first to computerise part of its internal operation. The Personnel Management Information System (PMIS) is an online database that covers information of all class I officers of the government of Bangladesh. It has shown immense benefits for the ministry as well as the concerned officials. The supervisory authority uses the database for personnel management functions including the management of their annual confidential reports (ACRs). The respective officer can access his or her personal data sheet (PDS); it also allows him/her to request updating personal information to reflect changes to situation such as completion of a training program. This also helps them to track their career development and provide regular information on career opportunities.
5. BRIDGING DIGITAL DIVIDE: EGOVERNMENT AT LOCAL & COMMUNITY LEVELS
4.9 Process Automation, NBR
Such problems however have not escaped attention of the policy makers and other actors. This is evident in various efforts made to find innovative solutions to such problems thereby ensuring the benefits of e-government are widely shared. The Union Information & Service Centres (UISCs) are cases in point. Driven by the desire of achieving twin goals of Digital Bangladesh, i.e., connecting citizens and delivering services at their doorsteps UISCs have been established throughout the country (Daily Star, 1 Nov, 2010). Conceived and implemented under the UNDP funded A2I program, UISCs in fact represents a bold attempt at bridging digital divide and connecting the rural communities to the Internet. Equipped with computers and internet UISCs are now functioning in all 4501 unions – the lowest tier of local government offering useful services to citizens. The services offered in UISCs range from email, word processing, printing and scanning to access government forms, birth and death registration information, passport and visa support and information on public examinations to health, education and disaster management. Modelled on the successful Gyandoot project of Uttar Pradesh, India the UISCs are housed in in the local Union Parishad office and managed by local entrepreneurs. While the initial funding and hardware support came from the A2I
As a result of the successful implementation of a number of donor-funded projects like Customs Administration Modernisation Project, Excise, Taxes and Customs Data Computerisation Project and Modernisation and Automation Project, much of the core businesses of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) have already been automated. Thus NBR has recorded a considerable success in its operations and objectives. For example 90% of country’s trade are now fully automated which reduces the cost of doing business on the one hand and facilitates trade and commerce on the other. This has also contributed to reduce tax evasion raising governmental revenue considerably. Significant progress has also been made with regard to e-taxation especially filing of tax returns by individuals and small businesses.
4.10 E-Procurement Currently under active implementation the eGP project seeks to make public procurement system efficient, transparent and accountable. This would allow the entire cycle of procurement decisions and actions from the opening of tender to evaluation of bids and authorisation and final payment could be done
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government. Wide variety of measures undertaken and implemented in various spheres has helped raise country’s eprofile and readiness. However, still the overall progress is rather modest when considered against other countries around the world. The 2010 e-government survey ranks Bangladesh at 134position out of 185 nations globally [19]. Although Bangladesh has advanced from the earlier position of 142 in 2008 and placed herself ahead of Bhutan and Pakistan, on the whole this progress is far from satisfactory given the fact that compared to many other countries around the world and some of her neighbours (e.g. India, Sri Lanka and Maldives) this rank is abysmally low and the level of preparedness is far from what is required to provide integrated services to the citizens. Table 3 shows the current state of ICT infrastructure in Bangladesh and the nation’s overall position in World E-government Index. Currently, governmental drives for expanding the benefits of e-government are handicapped by a range of challenges and constraints:
program and the Ministry of Local Government is responsible for coordinating the overall activities and building capacity by training relevant personnel [14] the sustainability of the scheme has been taken care of by involving local youths who run the centres and charge a modest fee for the services rendered. It is pertinent to note that a number of non-governmental initiatives have already laid the foundation for schemes like UISCs. NGO initiatives have demonstrated success in reaching out to the unreachable in the countryside. The GramenPhone Community Information Centres (GCIS) and Pallitathya Kendra (Village Information Centres) are among the leading nongovernmental initiatives in this area. GrameenPhone has set up over 500 information centres in remote locations seeking to enhance the rural communities’ access to internet and multi-media services. Managed by local entrepreneurs, who receive training and initial support from GrameenPhone, these centres offer wide range of off-line and on-line services. Usual GrameenPhone services (e.g., payphones and electronic recharge for prepaid mobile accounts services) aside, these centres provide internet surfing and emailing, chatting, computer composing, scanning and printing and information on health and education. Plans are underway to expand the range of services available via such centres. Similarly the initial success of the Pallitathya Kendra project of Development Research Network (D.Net) has led to its subsequent expansion. Currently, there are over 100 Pallitathya Kendras around the country that provide IT skills, training in computer operations, advanced IT courses, ancillary services and livelihood information. Citizens use these centres to access variety of information from common agricultural problems, socio-legal advice and financial services to medical issues [14]. An important feature of the PK is that mobile InfoLadies help make services available to those who cannot physically reach the centres. These Infoladies on their bicycles carry notes, phones and medical equipment thus making the services to those most disadvantaged and in the remotest corners of the country.
Table 3: Bangladesh’s Position in World E-Government Development Index, 2010
World E-Government Development Index Rank Online Service Component (Rank 60) a. Points for emerging information service b. Points for enhanced information services c. Points for transaction services d. Points for connected approach Telecommunication Infrastructure Component (Rank 161) a. Estimated user per 100 inhabitants b. Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants: c. Mobile subscriber per 100 inhabitants d. Personal computers per 100 inhabitants: e. Total fixed broadband per 100 inhabitants: Human Capital Component (Rank 167) a. Adult literacy rate: a. Combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools: E Participation index (Rank 102)
The other initiatives that seek to address digital divide and make the benefits of ICT available to the disadvantaged groups include e-huts and Tathya Toris. BracNet - an affiliate of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) established e-huts with the aim of making internet accessible to those living in rural areas at an affordable price. Currently e-huts provide technological solutions for small businesses and local people. BracNet aims to expand the scope and reach by multiplying the number of e-huts to 1000 - each serving as a one-stop shop for various types of digital services including internet browsing, basic computer training, broadband internet services, photocopying and scanning [6]. Likewise, Tathya Tori (information boat) project of the GrameenPhone is an innovative scheme that seeks to educate and empower river-based people with information and services [15]. Under the support from CARE Bangladesh Tathya Toris are equipped with digital content and serve as mobile centres to provide internet and associated services to the people living in haor areas. Besides the provision of periodic medical services and computer training, Tathya Toris also make available information on agriculture, fisheries and other livelihood matters.
2010
2008
134 out of 190
142 out of 192
48 44 05 15
NA NA NA NA
0.32 0.84 27.90 2.25 0.03
0.31 0.79 13.25 2.42 0.00
53.50
47.50
48.46 0.1000
56.01 Rank 78
Source: [17: p. 117]
6.1 Infrastructural Challenges The infrastructure serves as the backbone of e-government. It encompasses computers and telecommunications capacity in terms of wireless and broadband networks. In order to avail the fruits of ICT revolution compatible ICT infrastructure must be in place. Viewed from this perspective, the overall situation in Bangladesh is hardly satisfactory. Computer Ownership per 100 people is
6. MAJOR CONSTRAINTS & CHALLENGES It is obvious from the preceding discussions that Bangladesh has made slow but steady progress towards implementation of e-
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poverty and inequality, illiteracy and widespread corruption contribute to widen the gaps further under of e-government.
abysmally low (2.25). In addition to those presented in table 3 other evidence indicates a poor state of affairs. Internet penetration rate has been very low: there are only 204 internet service providers (IPS) 80% based in Dhaka, and the number of regular internet users is 3 million. Tele-density per 100 people is 32.04; number of fixed phone lines in 2007 of 1.12 mil and mobile phone users of 76.43 million (2011). In fact, inadequate infrastructure is a huge challenge for the government as well as the citizens. Despite very many efforts made to build strong ICT infrastructure still most government agencies operate with manual systems and procedures making digitisation of data an enormous task. The ratio of personal computers to staff of government offices has improved –but still low. This means that many of those junior officers and those working at the field levels are without much needed computers which hamper the delivery of services online. Also, government departments and agencies are not interconnected between themselves and with their field offices; the networking infrastructure is weak outside capital and major cities [12].
6.3 Inadequate Human Capital Low levels of literacy among the general masses and lack of efficiency among the government servants responsible for implementing e-government initiatives frustrate governmental drives. It is ironical that despite being one of the most populous countries in the world, inadequate human capital continues to be a major barrier to e-government in Bangladesh. First, lack of literacy poses a formidable challenge to the development of a competent user group in the country. Currently Bangladesh’s Human Capital Index is only 0.5182 with adult literacy rate of 53.5% and the combined gross enrolment of primary, secondary and tertiary schools being 48.46% [19]. This low level of literacy makes it difficult for nearly half of the population fails to understand any meaning of e-government. Second, though projects are underway to promote IT literacy among the students the use of those equipment, especially in rural areas, is far from optimal because of such setbacks as interrupted power supply, poor location, unavailability of trained personnel, low motivation and awareness among those involved.
Given the fact that ICT penetration in Bangladesh is still low, people having no or limited access to Internet are unable to enjoy the benefits of e-government, even if services are available electronically. Evidence shows that despite recent improvements in ICT infrastructure, Bangladesh is still at the bottom of network readiness index and ranked 118 among 133 countries [8]. The proportion of households with computers increased from 0.8 in 2002 to 1.9 in 2007 and the proportion of households with internet has increased from 0.1 in 2002 to 1.3 in 2007. The problem is exacerbated by inadequate supply of electricity and the concentration of PC and Internet users in major cities and towns. Majority of the population in Bangladesh are without electricity and those having access to it also experience regular blackout and disruptions without notice. Likewise, computers are still too expensive for most Bangladeshi households and the Internet remains costly on the one hand and unreliable in most parts on the other. Even the introduction of mobile Internet and WiMax technology that promises to break the barrier of reaching the unreachable has recorded limited success given that very few users are currently prepared or trained to use such devices to access government information and services.
Third, the current level of skills and expertise available in the public sector is inadequate. A recent study shows that 52% of the officers of the Bangladesh who are IT literate do not find their skills sufficient to perform daily work and only 38.7% use ICT in official activities. A vast majority of the officers (82%) felt that they needed training to be able to discharge their duties [13]. Training programs run by government and private institutions have generally failed to keep pace with the developments and growing demands; whatever training is available rarely need-based and carefully planned to allow application in the workplace. The Bangladesh experience also shows disconnects between high level policy development and lower level engagement and commitment, between infrastructure capacity and field level operations. Many public officials have access to computers and internet but they rarely make appropriate use of such facilities. It merely suggests that the potential of such tools remains mostly underutilised; they are used primarily for purposes other than service delivery for example word-processing, browsing the internet and for preparing presentational materials.
6.2 Digital Divide
6.4 Financial, Legislative and Regulatory Constraints
Bangladesh is a country of extreme disparities. Such disparities seem to be widening in recent times as the vast majority of the population remain unaffected by the ICT revolution, notwithstanding the governmental drives to bridge the divide by making the ICT services to those who cannot afford them. Without doubt, the existing programs are steps in the right direction- but they are grossly inadequate to tackle the massive gaps created by the ICT revolution. The government is faced with an enormous challenge to ensuring that people of various socioeconomic strata have equitable access to services and benefits. As noted, access to Internet and ownership of PCs are disproportionately concentrated in Dhaka and major cities. It is true that the internet users and broadband networks are growing, however this appears to create further divide between the cities and rural areas, between the educated and affluent segments of the population and the poor and ordinary masses. Although data on gender, age of ICT users are unavailable, it is conceivable that the vast majority of those using ICT in Bangladesh are male and young – not female and elderly. Prevailing problems like massive
E-Government in Bangladesh is still in its infancy. Despite the recent drives and programs, the vision of using ICT to improve governance and quality of life of citizens has not been fully embedded in the legal and regulatory framework [14] As indicated, the current legislative and regulatory framework of egovernment driven mainly by two important documents - the ICT Policy 2009 and the ICT Act 2009 has addressed many of the inadequacies and concerns, yet it fails to provide a comprehensive and robust basis for e-government. While the government aims to provide greater public access to ICT and facilitate transactions and services, the existing laws are insufficient in terms of privacy, security and intellectual property rights [14]. In the current context there is a feeling that a far more comprehensive legislative framework is required than at present, not just for tackling cybercrimes and for electronic certification and authentication purposes but also for standardisation of government data and information, security of shared services platforms and the like [2]. Needless to add that poor legal and regulatory framework along with insufficient ICT infrastructure serves as a fundamental
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success’, International Journal of Electronic Governance, 1(1): 3851 [2] Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) (2010). Realizing the Vision of Digital Bangladesh through E-Government, July. [3] Bhuiyan, M.S.H. (2010). E-Government Applications in Bangladesh - Status and Challenges, Paper presented at Fourth International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance October 25-28, Beijing China. [4] Bhuiyan, S.H. (2011). ‘Modernizing Bangladesh public Administration through e-governance: Benefits and challenges’, Government Information Quarterly, 28: 54-65 [5] Bhatnagar, S. (2004). E-Government: From Vision to Implementation, New Delhi: Sage Publications [6] Ebrahim, A. Pirson, M. and Mangas, P. (2009). ‘Brummer and the bracNet Investment’, Harvard Business School, April. [7] Faroqi, M.G. and Siddiquee, N.A. (2011). ‘Limping into the Information Age; Challenges of E-Government in Bangladesh’, Journal of Comparative Asian Development, 10(1): 33-61. [8] GITR (2009). The Networked Readiness Index & Ranking 2009-2010, The Global Information Technology Report 2009-10, World Economic Forum. [9] Government of Bangladesh (GoB) (2002). National Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Policy 2002, Dhaka: Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology. [10] GOB (2009a). E-Government Bulletin January: Access to Information Program, Dhaka: Prime Minister’s Office [11] GOB (2009b). National Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Policy 2009, Dhaka: Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology. [12] Hasan, S. (2011). E-Government in Bangladesh Public administration: Impact on the Procedure of Interaction, PhD thesis submitted to the University of Sydney, August. [13] Hoque, S.M.S. and Zaman, F. (undated). ‘E-Government: Preparedness of the Bangladesh Civil Service’. Unpublished paper. [14] Institute of Governance Studies (IGS) (2009). Digital Bangladesh: The Beginning of Citizen-Centric E-Government? IGS: BRAC University. [15] Islam, M.A. and Tsuji, K. (2009).’Bridging digital Divide in Bangladesh: Study on Community Information Centres’, The Electronic Library, 29(4); 506-522. [16] OECD (2003). The E-Government Imperative, OECD EGovernment Studies. [17] Rahman, T. and Khan, N.A. (2012). ‘Reckoning Electronic Government in Bangladesh’, International Journal of Public Administration, 35: 112-121 [18] United Nations (UN) (2008). E-Government Survey: From EGovernment to Connected Governance, Ney York. [19] UN (2010). Global e-Government Survey, 2010, UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
constraint on online and integrated services. Also, a key challenge of e-government in Bangladesh is limited funding from the government and its heavy reliance on donor support. Budgetary allocation for e-government has remained inadequate; although it has increased in volume it continues to remain very low as a percentage of total developmental spending. The planned target of increasing governmental spending for ICT sector to 2% of the annual development plan (ADP) has remained far way off. In 2009-10 budget the government allocated $ 20.83m to ICT development which represents a mere 0.43% of the total ADP.
7. CONCLUSION It is obvious that Bangladesh has made slow but important progress towards implementation of e-government. Although initial drives began in the late 1990s, the e-government campaign received a major push in recent times which paved the way for the development of key ICT infrastructure – both hardware and software - and some important initiatives. Variety of schemes initiated and implemented since the early years have raised Bangladesh’s eprofile and e-readiness. Currently virtually all public agencies including those at the field level have their web-presence; they also offer informational and in limited cases, interactive and transactional services. Bangladesh has also seen the introduction of a number of innovative schemes that promise to transform nature of governance and pattern of interaction between the government and citizens and deliver significant gains in terms of efficiency, convenience and accountability, among others. Attempts are currently underway to expand the range of services that could be offered online and to ensure that those without access to new technology are able to enjoy the benefits of ICT revolution. Taken together they have marked the beginning of citizen-centric public administration: members of the public are now provided with alternative channels of accessing services in a more hassle-free environment. However, it must be emphasized that e-government has yet to bring about a fundamental change in public governance as most programs have not gone beyond informational and interactive stages and the vast majority of services continue to be provided through traditional channels. The expansion of e-government benefits has been handicapped by a range of constraints and limitations. As shown, the barriers and challenges that Bangladesh faces are complex and multi-dimensional which must be overcome in order to achieve radical change to the process of governance and service delivery. In fact, the experience of e-government around the world shows that there is no quick fix to such challenges. It requires robust leadership, continuous drive and innovation in different spheres where the government, the private sector, NGOs and members of the community all have important roles to play. Perhaps the most critical in this regard is the commitment and conviction on part of political and administrative leadership to carry this task forward. Without such commitment and sustained efforts the vision of Digital Bangladesh is unlikely to be realized.
8. REFERENCES [1] Akther, M.S., Onishi, T. and Kidokoro, T. (2007).’ Egovernment in a developing country: citizen-centric approach for
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Evaluating and Assessing a Typology of Ubiquitous City Services by Classifying and Assigning Actual Services from an Inventory of Identified Services in Practice Jungwoo Lee
Hyejung Lee
Taesung Kim
Yonsei University Yonsei University IT Policy & Strategy Research Institute Seodaemungu, Yonseiro 50, NMH 412Seodaemungu, Yonseiro 50, NMH 412 Seodaemungu, Yonseiro 50 120-749, Republic of Korea, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea, Seoul +82-10-5398-7751 +82-2-2123-4526 +82-2-2123-8308
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
administrators. Many cities are developing and implementing uservices using U-technologies, positioning themselves as u-city or smart city [1], [2], [17].
ABSTRACT Two trends are obvious in urban management. Urban areas are increasing in scope and population worldwide, and ubiquitous services(u-services) are becoming critical in urban management worldwide. Though many u-services are under development, no consensus seems to be made concerning common typology, though a number of frameworks are suggested. In this study, efforts are concerted to heuristically validate a rather comprehensive typology of u-city services. Using 228 u-services, inventoried and presented in u-Eco City projects in Republic of Korea, classifying exercises are conducted, by three experts in the field, against a most popularly quoted typology. Findings indicate that the selected typology is high on comprehensively exhaustiveness and empirical applicability while low on mutual exclusivity, simplicity and theoretical contribution. Implications for improving the typology are suggested followed by limitations and directions for further research.
U-services are (1) available to a large number of beneficiaries as they cover almost every dimension of human life and municipal administration; (2) likely to develop into convergence services by combining with many different functions; and (3) expected to help enhance efficiency through inter-service interactions unlike the existing unit services which are typically walled by functions. In reality, local governments are developing u-services independent from each other due to current institutional walls. This seems to lead into inefficiencies in u-service operations as well as overlapping investments [3], [4], [5]. To overcome these problems, it is important to standardize uservices. Relevant authorities’ service systems which have been separately managed should be connected and talk to each other using a bit standardized definitions and technical details, enabling us to build integrated operations centers for different u-cities and services [17].
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4.0 [COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY]: General
These integrated operation centers may play a critical role in providing efficient u-services to its people and enhancing their convenience of living and quality of life by using state-of-the-art IT infrastructure and ubiquitous information services to make the urban environment more sustainable. For connection and expansion of u-services, it is necessary to classify the services first so that their types and interrelationships can be identified, theoretically and practically. For this purpose, previous studies have attempted to develop and synthesize a u-service typology. However, most of these typologies are based on theoretical or normative point of view. The appropriateness of these typologies is scarcely put into empirical verification.
General Terms Design, Standardization
Keywords U-City Services, Service Classification, Classification, Validation, Service Typology, Typology
1. INTRODUCTION With the advances in ubiquitous technologies, attempts were made to change the paradigm of urban development by introducing those technologies into city planning and management. These attempts are attracting attentions from city
In this regard, this study selected a relatively comprehensive typology of u-services presented in a academic literature, and evaluate this typology, heuristically and intensively, using 228 uservices inventoried and identified in U-Eco City projects [1]. Results of the study are presented at the end with suggestions for enhancements.
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2. RELATED WORK 2.1 U-service typology Table 1 list the previous studies in which any type of u-service typology are presented. In studies conducted before 2008, the u-
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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for applying in a variety of combinations. In addition to Jeong, others also have proposed u-service typologies. However, no efforts have been concerted minimum level of evaluation of such typologies.
services were mainly classified in terms of service providers, urban activities/functions and special differences. Many of those studies failed to depart from the patterns of classifying the services by pre-defined administrative functions. Moreover, they have a limitation in understanding inter-service relationships, due to the lack of view on bigger goals such as objectives, and methods of classifications [9], [10], [13], [15]. K. S. Jeong claims to propose an integrated typology combining and merging existing typologies [6]. His typology uses four larger categories, nine medium categories and thirty four small categories, covering physical space, electronic space, service types, and aspects of service providers, element technologies and values. It is claimed as a flexible, comprehensive and multi-dimensional typology that may allow components and elements of a city, providing criteria
These typologies seem to be not much based on empirical evidence but formed from a theoretical or normative perspective. The ideal typology of any kind in scientific research is based on empirical induction from corroborative data, but actually in social science research it is difficult to derive such an inductive model [13], [16]. Therefore, in social sciences, models of intentional classification are commonly used as alternatives, which are difficult to evaluate in terms of validity because they have not been verified with empirical evidence.
Table 1. Previous Typologies of U-Services Type
Service category Personal Life
Industry classification, Industrial Economics KETI 2006 [15] Public Administration Public sector Service provider, Jung (2007)[9]
Corporations Private sector Individuals
Industry support City activities and Community support features, Lee (2007) Life support [10] Construct city Life City component‧ Industry features, Lim (2008) Public [12] Environment Laws Spatial unit Space factor
Spatial facilities
Comprehensive By whom typology for U-city Human factor For whom service, Jeong (2009) Goals [6] Activities Function factor Behaviours Commonalities
Service areas Culture/Entertainment, Health/Welfare Business/Commerce, Communications/Broadcasting/Publishing, Construction, Finance/Insurance, Logistics/Transportation, Information General Administration, Social Security Administration Facilities management, Environmental, Security /Police/Safety, Transportation, Complaints/Administrative Business/Commerce,Communications/Broadcasting/Publishing,Finance/Ins urance, Logistics/Transportation, Construction, Information Dwelling-houses, home, health/welfare, education, culture/recreation/tourism U-work, U-convention U-government, U-administration, U-tourism, U-office/business, U-learning U-home, U-health, U-Prevention/Police Administration U-Port, U-underground facility, U-Traffic, U-Facilities Management, UEnvironmental Management U-Dwelling-houses, U-Education, U-Broadcasting/Communication, UPrevention/Police Administration U-Production, U-Business, U-Logistics, U-security U-Defence, U-administration, U-health/welfare, U-Culture/Tourism, UTraffic/Transportation U-environment, U-disaster Regulations Building, street, district, facility, city, broadband media facilities, Unit Space control facilities, Community complex, integrated control center Public, private, public-private partnership Public agencies, citizens, Company Life support, business support, industrial support Living healthy, Security and Safety, Community, Education, Economy, Leisure, Culture Living, Working, Moving, Playing, Cybering Common-based services, Specialized services, Potential service typology in view of the five conditions suggested and to suggest a way to build a better typology.
Also, there are not many studies of the criteria that can be used to evaluate the social science models of classification. Since it is difficult to verify the social science models empirically, a theoretical evaluation must be involved, but there have been few attempts to study the criteria by which to verify them theoretically. Recently, in order to resolve the problem, Y. H. Chun suggested five conditions under which to evaluate the fitness of a typology [13]. This study aims to make clear the ambiguous definitions of u-services by empirically and theoretically evaluating Jeong’s
2.2 General Conditions to be a Good Typology Chun suggested that the classification model for a desirable typology should meet five general conditions: 1) exhaustiveness, 2) mutual exclusiveness, 3) parsimony, 4) empirical workability, and 5) theoretical fruitfulness [13], [16].
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human behaviors, and function-implementing methods), exclusive of laws/institutions.
Exhaustiveness indicates that all categories should be included within a typology. For U-services, exhaustiveness has an important significance in that the U-services are not fixed or static but highly likely to develop into convergence services according to their necessity. If a U-service typology lacks exhaustiveness, it may be meaningless as a typology because it will not cover all of the U-services that can be created or terminated depending on environment.
3.1 Procedure The medium category of “laws/institutions,” unlike other classification criteria, represents which laws include U-servicerelated provisions, rather than a set of actual services. This category was excluded because it was not fit for the purpose of this study, and eight other medium categories of actual services were used in this study.
Mutual exclusiveness can be a good condition for typology in that confusion may be caused if there is a logical overlap between categories or if a single concept simultaneously falls into different categories, but actually it is difficult to meet in social sciences where each classification target does not have a rapid discontinuity between categories. In particular, the condition of mutual exclusiveness is difficult to satisfy in U-services that include many convergence services, and thus if this is taken into account, it will end up just in enumeration, not in classification.
In the classification of U-services into eight medium categories, the 228 unit services were verified through in-depth interviews with three experts selected from those who participated in the UEco City project for two or more years. As the first activity of service classification, each expert reviewed a list of 228 Uservices and classified the U-services appropriately into one of the given categories. The second activity was to compare the Uservice classifications with those by two other experts. In the coherence of service classification, 195 (85.5%) of 228 unit services were consistently classified by all the three experts as “culture, tourism or sports” but the classification of 11 services (4.8%) was completely inconsistent among the experts who categorized them as “transportation, health care, facility management or labor/employment.”
Parsimony is the concept that when other conditions are the same, the simpler classification model the better and the more complicated the worse. However, the parsimony a typology has is commonly against the practical value of the classification model. Accordingly, if a category becomes too wide for parsimony, the classification may be made simpler than necessary and thus not be of help in empirical studies or practical applications. For U-service classification models, it is difficult to ensure parsimony due to the complexity of U-services themselves. However, if the principle of parsimony is not met, the U-service classification models can end up merely serving for enumeration, not as typology, due to the complexity of services themselves.
3.2 Heuristics Used Table 2(Fig. 1-8) shows how the services were categorized. The classification of 228 unit services by the given criteria revealed the following limitations: (1) the definitions of some small categories were unclear to use for classification purposes; (2) there was a preponderance of certain categories in the classification of Uservices; and (3) there were similar items overlapping between medium-categories.
Empirical workability indicates that operations for measurement should be possible when verification is conducted with an involved person’s arbitrary decisions limited to a minimum in classification. However, the lack of such empirical workability is a troublesome problem which is present in most classification models available in social sciences and can be considered as an inherent limitation of social science research that takes advantage of abstract concepts.
First, some classification criteria were unclearly defined. Two examples are the definition of information media facility services as types of “services provided from fixed facilities” and the definition of unit-space control facility services as types of “services limited to facilities and their attached facilities.” Both of the definitions reflect the concept of “services provided from facilities,” and accordingly this causes confusion when services are actually classified. For instance, the “traffic signal violation enforcement service” working on the road can be recognized as being provided from fixed facilities and at the same time viewed as that limited to attached facilities. Moreover, if it is unclear whether service beneficiaries are the public or business entities, the human behavior forms of moving and cybering can be considered for service classification. Second, when the 228 unit services were classified in terms of their names, some classification criteria were found to play only a nominal role rather than serve as typology. For example, in the service classification by urban activities, the category of “security/safety” represented 95% of transportation services, 100% of crime/disaster prevention services, and 93% of facility management services; and the category of “leisure” included 94% of culture, tourism and sports services. This typology does not seem to reflect service types in a balanced way, and therefore further studies need to focus on reducing the uneven distribution of classification items and making classification criteria more practical. Third, there were similar items overlapping between medium categories. Especially,
Theoretical fruitfulness is that it will be good if eventually a typology itself presents a generally acceptable theory. As mentioned above, this theoretical fruitfulness commonly conflicts with empirical workability. The reason is that due to the abstractness of classification criteria it is very uncommon that the classification models making theoretical fruitfulness actually extend to empirical studies. In this study, we selected Jeong’s typology and heuristically classified 228 unit U-services being currently developed in Korea after their application to the selected system. The results of classification were empirically analyzed in terms of whether they are compliant with the five conditions. Through the analysis this study identified the shortcomings of the total U-service typology and other things that need to be made up for in the system.
3. ANALYSIS In evaluating the appropriateness of Jeong’s U-service typology, this study examined the distribution patterns and characteristics of current services by assigning 228 unit services to eight medium classification categories (i.e., spatial units, spatial facilities, service providers, beneficiaries, service objectives, urban activities,
281
study, both of the two services were thought to take not only a form of life support—for example, making life more convenient or helping the ambulance crew save a patient’s life—but also a form of activity support—for example, helping skiers improve their performance. As a result, they overlapped between two different areas.
such overlapping was prominent between the medium categories of urban activities and human behavior. In this study, urban activities were subdivided into life/health, security/safety, community, education, economy and leisure, and human behavior was classified into living, working, moving, playing and cybering. In the human behavior category, living, playing and working seem similar to life/health, leisure and economy, respectively, in urban activities. Actually, these similarities were found in the classification of U-services as well. In the medium category of “service objectives” with three small categories (i.e., life support, activity support and industrial support) thereunder, life support and activity support can be considered as corresponding to life/health and economy, respectively, in the urban activities category, and likewise they are also similar to living and working, respectively, in the human behavior category. Consequently, there are semantic overlaps not only between the three medium categories of service objectives, urban activities and human behavior under the large category of “functional elements” but between their subcategories as well. A solution to this overlapping problem is to develop different types of medium categories or provide small categories directly under the large category of “functions.” More studies will be needed on the way to improve the classification of functions by removing overlaps from small categories [Supplementary table 1].
3)
Parsimony: Jeong’s typology consists of 9 medium categories and 34 small categories. It was a good attempt to try to cover all possible things on a categorical basis, but his typology is bad in terms of parsimony because it involves too many subdivision levels and thus takes a very complicated form. This low parsimony is also associated with overlaps between medium categories founded in the empirical analysis. It should be noted that it is somewhat inevitable to sacrifice parsimony for comprehensiveness and practicability, but if any typology does not maintain a certain level of parsimony, it may end up just enumerating or listing things, not analyzing them as intended.
4)
Empirical workability: This is that operations for measurement should be possible at acceptable level. Some of classification criteria were found unclear or ambiguous, but experts who participated in this study showed consensus in 85.5% of the 228 unit services they categorized using the present typology. This indicates that the system has high empirical workability. In general, empirical workability is low in social science studies as abstract concepts are used, but Jeong’s typology ensures high empirical workability because his suggested classification criteria are based on substantial concepts.
5)
Theoretical fruitfulness: The primary purpose of developing a classification model is to discover a certain pattern and regularity from real-world information which appears messed up, scattered and diverse. In this sense, theoretical fruitfulness is an important principle for evaluating a classification model. In view of the current level of contribution, the U-service typology used in this study seems limited as it just takes a combination of other typology rather than advances a new theory. This limitation resulted in a preponderance of certain categories in the empirical analysis. For example, in the service classification by urban activities, the “security/safety” category represented 95% of transportation services, 100% of crime/disaster prevention services and 93% of facility management services; and the “leisure” category included 94% of culture, tourism and sports services. In short, the services were unevenly distributed among given categories, like a set of services entirely belonging to a single category. This indicates that the present typology failed to play its role properly.
3.3 Analysis Results The present study analyzed a U-service typology empirically through the categorization of U-services. In light of the study findings, we can assume that Jeong’s U-service typology is high in exhaustiveness and empirical workability and low in mutual exclusiveness, parsimony and theoretical fruitfulness. 1)
Exhaustiveness: Unlike the previous studies which analyzed services from a single or two points of view, Jeong attempted to explain his typology from nine different points of view. In the process of analyzing 228 unit services, his typology covered all the services as classified. These facts indicate that Jeong’s typology is highly exhaustive.
2)
Mutual exclusiveness: Even though Jeong’s typology satisfies the condition of exhaustiveness, it is difficult to say that it is faithful to the principle of mutual exclusiveness, because of cases where a single unit service falls under more than one category simultaneously. Emergency medical service and U-ski service can be taken as examples of this. Emergency medical service is to give first aid to a patient while he/she is being carried in an ambulance, reviewing patient data with a doctor in hospital. U-ski service helps users to use ski equipment rentals and lifts conveniently and provides supports for skiers to monitor their movements and routes in play and check their achievement records. In this
Summarizing all the findings above together, relevance of Jeong’s typology can be described as shown in Table 3.
Table 2. Relevance of Jeong’s classification
Suitability
Exhaustiveness
Mutual exclusiveness
Parsimony
+
-
-
282
Empirical workability Theoretical fruitfulness +
-
Table 3. Service Classification Results
Fig. 1 Spatial Unit
Fig. 2 Spatial facilities
Fig. 3. By whom
Fig. 4. For whom
Fig. 5. Objectives
Fig. 6. Activities
Fig. 7. Behaviour
Fig. 8. Commonality
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[3] H. J. Roh, "Analysis on the u-City Conceptual Design Factors from Ubiquitous Computing Technology", Master Thesis, Yonsei University, 2005
4. CONCLUSION This study empirically evaluated the appropriateness of a Uservice typology by applying 228 unit U-services to Jeong’s typology for the categorization of the services. As compared to the previous studies of u-service typologies which regarded it as meaningful to develop a theoretical framework for classification of U-services, it is important to note that this study found the problems with the present typology via empirical heuristic application and identified problem areas. Jeong’s typology was found to have high exhaustiveness and empirical workability when the system was analyzed from empirical and theoretical points of view. Since u-services are variable according to service categories, they can be newly developed or combined when the needs for them increase in future with technological or environmental changes. The high empirical workability of the typology used in this study can be explained by the fact that there was a consensus of 85.5% among experts in U-services when they categorized the services using the typology. High empirical workability helps reduce confusion in a process of service development as it allows U-services to be accurately classified. The results from an empirical analysis suggest that the classification criteria should be defined more clearly so that empirical workability is enhanced.
[4] J. C. Kwon, "A study on Law and Institution environment for Development of U-city", National Information Society Agency (http://www.nia.or.kr/), 2006 [5] H. M. Oh, A study on Service Convergence Roadmap for Ubiquitous Environment, National Information Society Agency (http://www.nia.or.kr/), 2006 [6] K. S. Jeong, T. H. Moon, S. Y. Heo, "A Study on U-City Service Classification and the Service Framework for the Standardization of U-City Service", Korea Planners Association ,V.44, N.3, 2009 [7] Gu Kim, "A study on U-City service priorities and the spread strategy", JOURNAL OF KOREAN ASSOCIATION FOR REGIONAL INFORMATION SOCIETY, V11 No. 1, pp 127-148, 2008 [8] S. J. Ahn, D. H. Oh, "A Study on the Classification Criteria of U-city based on the Characteristics of U-city Services", Journal of The Korean Urban Management Association v.23 n.3, 2010
However, Jeong’s U-service typology needs to be improved in terms of mutual exclusiveness, parsimony and theoretical fruitfulness. Such typology provides a foundation in building a UEco City and must be organized for extension to broadband services. This study is significant in that it attempted empirical and theoretical analyses of a U-service typology and came up with ways to evaluate and improve the typology, but on the other hand its research methodology was limited to qualitative approaches. In order to recover this limitation, future studies will need to build an improved typology through a quantitative analysis of contents.
[9] W. S. Jeong, B. S. Cho, "A Study on Priorities of u-City Services Using Weighted Model", Korea Spatial Planning Review, V52 N.3,pp 93-214, 2007 [10] J.I. Oh, "Concept, Vision, and Vitalization Strategies of UCity", Journal of the Korean Information Science Sociaty, V.23. N.11, pp 21-26, 2005 [11] J.G. Lee, H.S. Uk, "A Study on the diffusion and advancement of U-city service model", National Information Society Agency(http://www.nia.or.kr), 2006
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
[12] C.S. Leem, E.J. Yu, B.G. Kim, N.S. Baek, Y.D. Son, "u-City PIPE Model", ITR report, IT Research & evaluation, 2008
This work was partially supported by Office of Research Affairs (2010-7-0571) at Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Authors also appreciate help and support of Ms. Hahyun Kim and Dr. Minjung Lee in preliminary analysis of this study.
[13] Y. H. Chun, "The Diversity of Policy Tolls: Issues and Evaluations of Tool Classifications", Journal of Governmental Studies, V.13 N.4, pp. 1-37, 2007
This research was partially supported by a grant (07High Tech A01) from High tech Urban Development Program funded by Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs of Korean Government. Preliminary results of this study have been reported, in Korean, in the Journal of Korean Society of IT Services, 11(1), pp. 325-340, in March 2012.
[14] K.S. Jeong, T.H. Moon, S.Y. Heo, "A Study on U-service Pool Evaluation and SRM Template for Development of UCity SRM", korea Planners Association, V.45 N.13, 2010 [15] W.S. Jeong, B.S. Jo, H.S. Jo, “U-City Industry and Service Classification Trends”, Korea Electronics Technology Institute, http://www.eic.re.kr, 2006.08,
6. REFERENCES
[16] Yong-Sik Lee, "Policy Instrument Typology and Applicationon Sports for All Policy , Korea Sport Science Institute, Korean Journal of Sport Science, , Vol. 21, No. 3, 1431-1440 2010.
[1] Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, U-Space Construction Technology, 2010 [2] H.J. Woo, J.H. Lee, S.Y. Park, "Proposing User-Oriented uService Classification by Ubiquitous Characteristic", Journal of the Korea Society of IT Services, V.10 N.2, pp.119~139, 2011
[17] J.W. Lee, S.H. Baik, C.H. Lee, "Building an Integrated Service Management Platform for Ubiquitous Ecological Cities", IEEE Computer Society, pp.56-63, 2011
284
Traffic
Health & welfare
Environment
Crime & Prevention
Facilities Management
Education
Tourism & Sports
Logistics
Labor & Employ
Other
Service total
Building
2
0
8
1
3
2
6
7
7
7
9
52
Street
5
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
4
10
District
1
0
3
1
1
0
0
0
2
0
0
8
Facility
2
8
2
3
2
8
3
4
0
0
3
35
City
7
22
12
7
9
1
6
3
2
4
1
74
broadband
0
12
3
5
6
2
2
4
9
6
0
49
Information media
11
13
19
8
6
1
9
4
9
10
4
94
Spatial unit control
3
10
6
5
3
11
4
8
7
7
11
75
Community management facility
0
0
2
0
0
0
4
4
0
1
2
13
Integrated control center
1
19
1
6
12
2
0
2
4
1
0
48
Public
14
29
8
16
20
13
1
11
0
2
4
118
Private
0
4
10
0
0
0
1
4
19
7
7
52
Public-private partnership
1
9
10
3
1
1
15
3
1
8
6
58
Public Agencies
8
3
1
11
12
10
0
2
0
0
0
47
Citizens
7
39
22
8
9
3
17
16
6
6
16
149
Businesses
0
2
5
0
1
1
0
0
14
11
1
35
Life support
7
31
20
10
8
5
16
16
4
2
15
134
Business support
8
11
9
9
13
9
1
3
12
11
2
88
Industrial support
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
4
0
8
Healthy living
0
1
16
14
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
35
Security and safety
3
40
3
1
21
13
0
0
0
2
2
85
Community service
11
1
9
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
27
Education
0
0
0
0
0
0
16
1
0
1
0
18
Economy
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
17
14
0
36
Leisure and culture
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
17
3
0
7
28
Living
0
1
17
3
13
3
1
1
0
0
5
44
Working
15
7
10
15
8
11
16
3
19
17
4
125
Moving
0
34
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
34
Playing
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
15
1
0
6
24
Cybering
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
2
Common services
15
29
9
15
17
10
5
0
1
5
0
106
Specialized services
0
13
19
4
4
4
17
13
19
12
17
119
By whom For whom C/S
Behavior
Functions
Activities
For what
Human
By function
Space
By spatial unit
Domain
Total
Administration
SUPPLEMENTARY TABLE 1. RESULT OF SERVICE CLASSIFICATION
228
230
228
231
230
229
231
228
285
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Explaining the eGovernment Paradox: An analysis of two decades of evidence from scientific literature and practice on barriers to eGovernment Alberto Savoldelli
Cristiano Codagnone
Gianluca Misuraca
Independent Consultant C/ Via Piolti de Bianchi, 48, Milan, Italy +39 335 1309287
Milan State University Via Conservatorio, 7, Milan, Italy +39 02 50321247
European Commission, JRC-IPTS C/ Inca Garcilaso, 3, Seville, Spain +34 954 480 572
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Communication Technology (ICT) usage in public administration service delivery. First evidence of this can be found in the “reinventing government” movement launched in 1992-1993 through the well-known writing of Osborne & Gablear [1-2]. As a result, a large body of inter-disciplinary scientific literature has accumulated and been critically reviewed [2-6]. Alongside this scientific literature, there is also a growing body of institutional and policy-oriented reports [7-12] and of practitioner-generated analysis, case studies, and measurement efforts [13-27].
ABSTRACT Despite the plethora of research, policy analysis and practice works produced in the last two decades for explaining the potential of eGovernment and its impact on society, there is still very limited evidence that the promised productivity gains have been achieved. To date, its potential remains hypothetical. This eGovernment paradox contrasts the level of investments with the little impact produced and/or demonstrated so far. In this paper we attempt to provide an interpretation of this paradox, looking specifically at the sharp mismatch between the supply of online public services (deployment) and their usage (adoption), which we define as the “Adoption paradox”. The paper on the bases of a systematic review of the adoption barriers uncovered by almost twenty years of scientific and practitioner-generated analysis and evidence, rises the conclusions that, in most mature governments, the key barriers to real take up of eGovernment are those related to the lack of both a structured policy evaluation process and an effective stakeholders' engagement. The paper suggests that the critical success factor for eGovernment adoption is a transparent and trustworthy policy decision making process and that its key prerequisite is the definition and implementation of a well organized and fully participatory evaluation framework.
As yet, however, there is very limited evidence that these gains have been achieved and eGovernment’s potential remains hypothetical [7]; [13]; [14]; [28]; [29]. Not surprisingly, some authors have started to talk about the “eGovernment Paradox” [30]; [31]. This follows the more famous “IT Productivity Paradox” summarised in Robert Solow’s quip that “you can see computers everywhere but in the productivity statistics” [32]; [33]. It was not until the mid '90s that the large investments made by firms into ICT produced productivity gains. The reasons for this paradox were mainly: a) measurement error (input and output not properly measured); b) lag time (ICT take time before having an effect); c) redistribution of profit (the effect can be positive for some and negative for others leading to a zero sum where no aggregate effect can be demonstrated); d) mismanagement of ICT (ineffective deployment not matching ICT with complementary initiatives such as re-organisation).
Categories and Subject Descriptors J4 Social and behavioural sciences; K.4 Computers and Society; K.6 Management of Computers and Information Systems
General Terms Management, Evaluation.
Measurement,
Performance,
In the case of eGovernment, the paradox can be seen in the contrast between the level of investments and the little impact produced and/or demonstrated so far [30]. It may also be due to the fact that delivering citizen-centric eGovernment does not necessarily reduce costs [29]; [34]. Our view is that the most evident and straightforward “eGovernment Paradox” is the sharp mismatch between the supply of online public services (deployment) and their usage (adoption). In Europe, for instance, the traditional benchmarking of eGovernment services shows that supply has reached saturation for most common online services in a majority of countries [14]. Yet, citizens (and to a lesser extent companies) are still more likely to use traditional methods (e.g., phone calls or in-person visits) than the Web to interact with the government [14]; [35].
Economics,
Keywords eGovernment adoption, Barriers, Drivers, Participation, Trust, Public Value, Policy Making, Digital Society
1. INTRODUCTION We are now well into the second decade of Information and Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
For Europe, a simple description (both longitudinal and crosssectional) of eGovernment benchmarking data and a look at Eurostat statistics about usage of eGovernment services clearly show this mismatch, The supply-side index stands at 70% on average and the average usage percentage is below 30% of the
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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adult population. A recent more sophisticated statistical analysis of this data concluded that there is no statistically significant correlation between the level of supply of eGovernment services and the level of usage [29]; [36]. The “Adoption Paradox” encompasses, in our view, several of the reasons cited by the authors who introduced the concept of the “eGovernment Paradox” and those who explained the more famous “IT Productivity Paradox”. It is almost self-explanatory that if adoption does not reach significant levels then the financial resources invested in eGovernment simply creates a stratification of costs and no benefits, either internal or external (as was the case at the beginning of Internet banking). So, it is strategic to investigate in depth the reasons for non-adoption, as they will include related issues such as the lack of restructuring of policy making and implementation processes, measurement problems, all of which explain the excessive time lag between the implementation of eGovernment and the delivery of its promises.
integration within each single public administration [42]; b) level of integration across public administrations, in jargon “joined-up government” [40]; [42]; [44]; and c) degree of processes’ outcomes orientation [16]. •
In Section 2, we illustrate the method and conceptualisation used and in Section 3 we report the results of the systematic analysis of the adoption barriers uncovered by about twenty years of scientific and practitioner-generated analysis and evidence. In Section 4, we discuss in depth the key findings of our analysis. These show that in the most mature public administrations, the key barriers to a real take up of eGovernment are those related to the lack of a structured policy evaluation process and a lack of stakeholders' participation in the decision making process. Finally, Section 5 offers the conclusions and directions for future research.
Figure 1 – eGovernment Maturity Model Source: Authors elaboration on [38]; [39]. In the space defined by the two axes, as illustrated in Figure 1, the Maturity Model is shaped by two key drivers:
2. METHOD AND CONCEPTUALISATION The systematic and diachronic analysis of eGovernment adoption barriers is based on an extensive literature review of a wide range of scientific journals and papers published in the last two decades, as well as practitioner-generated analysis1. The results of the literature review have been classified by re-elaborating the model proposed in [37], to which we have added one more dimension of analysis that we have called “Political/Institutional”. This has been done in order to highlight specific barriers related to the public policy management process. In order to make the results of our analysis more intelligible and also actionable in terms of future redesign of the eGovernment policy design and implementation processes, we have further developed from the original and well known work of Layne & Lee, [38, further improved by Andersen [39] in 2006], our own version of the Maturity Model (MM) against which the barriers have been mapped. This re-elaboration integrated the original model with key characteristics of eGovernment that have been identified by several scholars in literature [6]; [13]; [16]; [18]; [40]; [41]; [42]; [43]. Our conceptualisation of the MM is illustrated in Figure 1 and it is explained here below. It must be stressed that this model is a hybrid conceptual mix of empirical and prescriptive elements in that the later stages of the model are based on very rare best practices rather than widely observed empirical experiments.
•
People and Organization driver. This driver concerns: a) the depth of the cultural changes in relation to eGovernment both inside the administration and among citizens; and b) the level of digital divide within which eGovernment is embedded.
•
Technology and Information driver. It helps to determine which technological stage has been achieved by a given public organization and the level of integration and openness of public information and data to civil servants and citizens.
As a result of combining the two dimensions and the two drivers, the following six stages of maturity can be identified: •
•
•
The Maturity Model has two conceptual dimensions: •
Citizens centricity. This dimension is defined as a combination of the following variables: a) degree of civil servants acceptance of, and support to, eGovernment [45]; and b) level of citizen involvement in eGovernment services design and development [18]; [46]; [47].
Process orientation. This dimension is defined as a combination of the following variables: a) level of
1
The literature review includes journals such as Government Information Quarterly; Strategic Information Systems; Business Process Management Journal; Journal of Global Information Management; Information Polity; International Journal of Public Sector Management; International Journal of Public Information System; Public Administration Review).
•
288
Stage 1 – Web presence through a simple online transposition of administrative processes without a clear orientation to outcomes. Typical eGovernment initiatives at this stage focus on infrastructural projects aimed at bundling the territory with ICT networks. Stage 2 – Communication backbones are laid down and wide local area networks are completed. At this stage integration initiatives at both organizational and technological level are promoted within (among departments) and across public administrations. Stage 3 – At this stage, transaction services are deployed together with privacy and security solutions to support these transactions. Dematerialization initiatives are largely adopted together with significant back office simplification. Management changes are introduced inside public administrations. Civil servants’ and public managers’ performance evaluation is largely based upon their capability to achieve simplification targets. Stage 4 – Outcome-oriented processes are widely implemented thanks to ICT adoption. Actions aimed at reducing digital divide and stimulating adoption of
•
•
of observing the eGovernment phenomenon of mature public administrations in their evolutionary pathways that were quite slow at the beginning as mainly related to deployment of ICT infrastructures and awareness actions (see MM in Figure 1) and faster as much as the pathways were related to deployment and take-up of eGovernment services:
eGovernment services to a large extent of the population are also deployed. Some significant examples of information, data sharing and data integration among public organizations are also evident. Measurement systems of public values of eGovernment services are significantly implemented even if not fully integrated with policy decision-making processes. The evaluation of public administration managers is largely based on their capability to achieve outcome related objectives. Stage 5 – A large extent of data and information are made available for all and some significant business initiatives based upon public sector information usage are in place. Cloud computing infrastructures and cloud repositories for public administrations data are also largely available and empowering actions aimed at stimulating citizens and civil servants towards ICT and eco-sustainability of eGovernment services are conducted. Measurement systems are fully implemented and linked with policy decision making processes. Stage 6 – ICT is not anymore a barrier to the take up of eGovernment services and the behaviour for continuous improvement is pervasive in public administration also unleashing social innovation [48] is widely diffuse in designing and developing public services.
•
It is clear that the MM applied to eGovernment is not independent from the broader level of maturity of the Digital Society [49] within which eGovernment deployment and adoption is embedded [29]. Yet, the process of digital maturation of a given society or local community is never as linear as the MM would suggest [6]; [50]; [51]; [52]. Therefore for a long-term sustainability of eGovernment services we have also to understand the needed efforts that each public administration has to make for reaching the required level of maturity suitable for deploying and rollingout a given eGovernment product/service and, then, supporting its effective adoption and long-term sustainability [29]; [52]. However in most mature administrations neither the level of digital divide nor the lack of ICT infrastructures seem to be among the most constraining barriers to eGovernment adoption. It is rather the lack of a structured and trustworthy decision making process, effectively involving citizens and stakeholders that slow down adoption, which in turn weaken the capability to effectively and timely absorb and use public funds [53]. In this respect the lack of formal methods for managing and monitoring eGovernment initiatives further compound the challenges of successful adoption of eGovernment services [37 - 54]. These barriers are more and more evident at local level [4], where there is still an high variance in performances as commented for instance in [14]; [55]. At the same time the local government represents the most favourable ground for enhancing citizen centred eGovernment services with a real engagement of stakeholders and beneficiaries and an effective empowerment of the local community [13]; [19]; [43]; [47]; [56], [57] as discussed in the next chapters.
•
3. RESULTS In this section we first apply a synchronic perspective to better interpret the evolution of adoption barriers and then extract the key lessons learned. The synchronic perspective we adopted, foresees the following three periods of implementation of eGovernment: 1994-2004; 2005-2009; 2010-2012. The choice of analysing time periods that have different length is due to the need
•
289
1994-2004: this period ranges from the start-up of the “reinventing government” [1]; [2]; movement, to the first review of the Lisbon Strategy [58] launched by the European Union in the year 2000 with the aim to promote ICT in all competitive domains, including public administration. The optimistic view on ICT performance and the Internet diffusion has led to emphasize the lack of telecommunication infrastructures [8] and their communication capacity [38] as key barriers to eGovernment adoption. Both of which in turn have been associated to the lack of institutional support and standards [8] as a source of “Political/Institutional” barrier. The concept of “trust in eServices usage by citizens” is often associated with the concept of “security in transactions” and “trust in government in preserving personal data privacy, once the citizens provided them for using an eService” [38]; [59]. “Managerial/Organizational” barriers were also important to overcome with particular reference to “shortage of ICT skills” in public administration [41], while [8] sees as important barriers the “information mismanagement and reluctance to share information among departments”. 2005-2009: the period of implementation of the i2010 strategy in the European Union [60]. ICT infrastructural problems are still considered relevant and in particular operational costs and maintenance of eGovernment systems are considered as crucial obstacle [4]; [9]; [20]; [40]; [44], especially at the local level where the lack of financial resources is more evident [4]; [9]; [42]; [55]. Technological and operational barriers are still mentioned, and the most noteworthy are the “lack of integration across government systems”, the “lack of knowledge regarding eGovernment interoperability”, together with the “lack of citizens’ trust about eGovernment services privacy and security”. Lack of ICT skills in governmental organization and lack of cooperation amongst departments together with resistance to change of the civil servants are also still mentioned [4]; [9]; [40]; [42]; [43]. During this period, however, the most important barriers affecting eGovernment adoption are the lack of “evaluation and measurement of eGovernment services” [4]; [10]; [39], the “difficulties in establishing a firm connection between ICT innovation, benefits and outcomes” [3]; [9] and the “digital divide” [9]. Even if still in embryonic terms, during this period start to be considerd important barriers the “lack of demand side involvement in the eGovernment decision making process” [10], the “lack of trust on government and on government reform” [45] and the “cost of the services for the users and their perception of benefits” [4]; [62]; [63], together with the “lack of eGovernent policy framework that can be applied at local level” [4]; [42]. 2010-2012: this period starts from the launch of the so called: “Digital Agenda for Europe” [66] until today. Most recently the “political/institutional” barriers have been seemingly singled out as the most important obstacle for the full take up of eGovernment services, with particular reference to “lack
eGovernment adoption in mature public administrations is affected by the lack of trust on both government behaviour and on possible misuse of digital information provided by citizens to civil servants. These two aspects of the problem are more related to the stakeholders’ and citizens’ perception of the policy making process and their expectation on eGovernment services [28]; [71]. As Van de Walle [54] says: “achieving good performances in public services by governments is only a partial way to achieve citizens satisfaction and to improve trust in government”, only a transparent and participative policy making process can close the gap [10]; [47]; [65], as shown in Figure 2, where only a well structured policy planning process fully integrated with a performance management system and truly participated by stakeholders and citizens, can support a wide adoption of eGovernment services and creating a well established Digital Society.
of citizens' participation to the policy making process” and “lack of measurement system on eGovernment process performances and outcomes” [7]; [51]; [64]; [65]. According to the authors discussing them, these barriers have the side effects of producing a “lack of transparency and trust on political decisions” [64]; [65]; [66], together with a “lack of trust and empowerment of the citizens” [13]. Such authors suggest a possible way for overcoming these barriers by both tackling the “lack of eGovernment policy framework that can be applied at local level” [14] and the “lack of formal methods for supporting eGovernment decision making process” [5]; [52]; [53]; [65]; [67]. An initial attemp of analising barriers related to the “lack of sustainability of eGovernment initiatives” is presented in [51]. At the same time “technological/operational” barriers seem less important for the scientific community except for the “lack of open sources and open data standards” [67] and the “shortage of financial resources in public sector organizations” [14]; while the “managerial/organizational” barriers are considered still important with particular reference to the behaviour of policy makers and civil servants in supporting actions enhancing trustworthiness of the citizens, by reducing “lack of trust in the government willingness to allow citizens to have their say if their views contradict official policy”, “lack of transparency and trust in government” and “lack of personalized and secure services” [18].
But, what does it mean “better Policy Planning Process”? Which are its key components? Which are main barriers to its adoption and which are the real benefits gained by its use in public governance? Possible answers to these questions are discussed in the following section, where we have gone deeper in understanding the meanings and usefulness of Policy Planning Process in eGovernment adoption.
In coherence with the MM (Figure 1), if we make a cross-analysis of the evolution of the barriers to eGovernment, we can say that in the last twenty years for the most mature public administrations, the technological barriers have been significantly reduced but eGovernment services adoption is far to be effective and there is no clear evidence of which benefits ICT offer to citizens. This situation is not so different from what private organizations met at the early stages of ICT introduction - between the ’80s and the ’90s - where ICT has produced significant expectations. Also in the private sector at the very beginning of the technological revolution, ICT possibilities were overestimated [68], and the “manifesto” of Hammer and Champy [69] in 1993 was considered the ultimate solution for improving performance and competitiveness in any private organization. Just few years later (see [51]; amongst several other authors) ICT assumed the role of enabling factor for supporting organisational changes and business process integration [70], and the role of both “change management” and “customer satisfaction” became central for competitiveness. No more than fifteen years later similar ICT adoption pathways and pit-falls have been followed by the public sector, unfortunately without learning too much from mistakes and failed experiences occurred in the past in the private sector [42]; [45]. An evidence of such argumentation can be found by a comparison of the position papers that Accenture has written on eGovernment services adoption at the beginnings of the years 2000 and what the same organization has recently considered as the best approach to the take up of eGovernment services. In the Accenture’s position paper of 2001 “multichannel delivery and CRM” were identified as “the key issues government had to consider to improve the level of online services provided to citizens and business” [15]; ten years later the same organization recognized that “only cultural changes in public sector workers and collaborative learning between citizens and civil servants, together with ICT as enabling factors, could support an effective eGovernment adoption” [21]. Therefore it seems now evident that
Figure 2 – eGovernment services adoption virtuous cycle
4. DISCUSSION From the findings of our review as presented in the previous section we identified the Policy Planning Process as the core area where public administrations must make improvements in order to support eGovernment adoption and the overall development of the Digital Society. In this section we go a step further discussing key barriers that hinder an efficient and effective Policy Planning Process. Before doing that we have to define such process and its main components. The Policy planning process. As Heeks [10] says: “Policy Planning Process has a circular lifecycle”. It starts from needs arising from the community where the policy makers have been elected and it follows several stages that describes a policy cycle as shown in Figure 3, that we have adapted from [10]; [72]. •
290
Step 1 – Policy Strategy Formulation. It is the key step because it provides motivations and justifications of why a certain Policy Programme has to be implemented. Unfortunately, policy makers often begin to formulate a
technical and administrative specifications. Selected providers cooperate with beneficiaries and stakeholders for achieving the expected objectives and for producing the agreed project’s outputs. Project management capabilities of Civil servants are required together with good ICT skills and organizational knowledge [54]; [74]. Once more a key success factor of this step is the effective involvement of stakeholders and beneficiaries in project development and deployment [42]; [67]. To this regard some scholars believe this involvement would be more effective if anticipated at the initial stage of Planning Process (“Step 1”), thus citizens’ trust [65] is increased and co-production initiatives [44]; [47] could have better chances to succeed. More common barriers are “the resistance to change of the civil servants” [64] and the “lack of motivation of public managers in sharing and opening data amongst organization and to the public” [7].
policy agenda, as Heeks [10] says, based on “poor comparative benchmark performances” and “scarcely quantified good news/benefits” of previous eGovernment initiatives done by the same administration and/or others in previous Policy cycles. Lack of impact evaluation of past policies [4]; [39] is certainly one of the main reasons justifying difficulties of policy makers in defining correct long-term strategic plans. Another negative effect of lack of impacts evaluation of past policies is the scarce public confidence in the results of policy decisions. Citizens perceive this as lack of transparency of Policy Planning Process, thus the distance between policy makers and civil servants on one side and citizens on the other increases [29]; [57]; [65]. In this regard, it is common opinion among several authors [10]; [13]; [42]; [47] that Policies have serious difficulties in being adopted without an effective engagement of beneficiaries and stakeholders since the very beginning of the Policy Planning Process. •
Step 2 – Policy Guidelines Definition and Approval, where Policy makers define the strategic objectives of their policy agenda. To be effective, these objectives, more commonly called “Outcomes” [6], should be based upon both citizens’ expectations and needs of stakeholders and beneficiaries. Unfortunately, often policy makers and public managers have serious difficulties in linking decisions on policy strategy (Step1), with outcomes definition (Step 2) [3]; [9]. On the contrary this link is very powerful for Public Administrations. Once more this problem is due to a Policy Planning Process scarcely supported by quantified data and information on previous policy impacts [21]; [42]. The consequence of this lack of information is that Policy Plans are driven by contingencies and constraints, rather than midlong term strategy and well grounded digital policy.
•
Step 3 – Policy Implementation Plan Design and Approval. Public managers, together with stakeholders, produce an Implementation Plan of possible eGovernment initiatives that should be coherent with Policy Guidelines defined in “Step 2”. Usually such initiatives take the form of a “Project Idea”, subjected to budget constraints and targeted project objectives. Often risk assessment actions, together with possible countermeasures, are also provided at this Step [11]. The most common problem that usually affects Policy Implementation Plan design and, then, the success of the entire Policy Planning Process, is the mismatch between policy outcomes (as defined in “Step 2”) and project objectives [12]; [73]. More often civil servants in charge of Policy Implementation Plan and Stakeholders interested to promote a given “project idea” are used to describe it in a quite optimistic way, overestimating challenges and without considering budget constraints that could reduce the breath of the project’s impacts. Another important barrier is the lack of a preventive sustainability assessment of the eGovernment service to be deployed [46], which quite often mines eGovernment project's uptaking.
•
Figure 3, Policy Planning Process Cycle (our elaboration from Heeks [10].
Step 4 – Policy Implementation through Projects. eGovernment projects are selected in coherence with the Implementation Plan and then deployed on the territory through Projects. Starting from the “project ideas” approved in the previous “Step 3”, public administrations in charge for funding the projects launch procurement processes based on
291
•
Step 5 – Policy and Projects monitoring. This is a fundamental stage for a successful policy cycle implementation. Unfortunately, quite often this step mainly addresses the in-itinere evaluation of on-going eGovernment initiatives, with a very limited and superficial evaluation of the outcomes/impacts produced by the policy plan [17]. This is because eGovernment projects, as all other public investments, need to demonstrate that the public money produced the output specified in the legal documents signed with providers. Usually no specific legal constraints are agreed between administrations and providers in relation to impacts on beneficiaries that a given project should obtain. Moreover, the cost of an effective measurement system of the impacts of the Policy Plan and the long time frame when these should be achieved, discourage administrations, especially local ones, to emphasize this step [7]; [51]. On the contrary this has to be considered a fundamental step of the Policy Plan, without which the level of trust between citizens [65] and Public Administration would be significantly reduces, further penalising eGovernment adoption.
•
Step 6 – Gap Analysis of the Policy Implementation Plan. This step is aimed at supporting policy makers to move on to a new cycle, with a new policy based upon key results of the previous one [10]. However, more often the importance of this step is underestimated because usually
very poor impact assessment activities are made by public administrations in the previous “Step 5” [4]; [39]. In theory, policy makers can start policy planning life cycle once a policy cycle is completed and move on to a new one with new strategic objectives [10]. In practice this might not happen because the Policy Planning Process is highly context-dependent and extremely affected by contingencies and needs that might be present on the territory and that have a high degree of urgency. Unfortunately cases from unsuccessful adoption of eGovernment tell us how difficult it is to define a structured and comprehensive implementation of such process and its maintenance over time [60]. Table 2 shows the key barriers to an effective execution of a Policy Planning Cycle. This is particularly true at the local level where Policy Makers and Civil Servants are very close to citizens and stakeholders [13]; [76], and the presence of a well organized Policy Evaluation Process could produce more direct and trustworthy effects on eGovernment adoption [4]; [14]; [42]; [55].
•
• Policy and Projects monitoring and Gap Analysis
•
5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH Our analysis underlines how in the mature government (see the MM described in Figure 1) technological barriers to eGovernment adoption have been significantly reduced, but eGovernment services are far away to be adopted and there are no clear evidences of which benefits ICT can offer to citizens. Resistance to change by civil servants and policy makers are now considered the most important barriers, causing an evident lack of trustworthiness in the citizens towards political institutions. The consequences of these barriers is an unstructured and untrustworthy decision making process, that slow down adoption, which in turn weaken the capability to effectively and timely absorb and use public funds.
Barriers
• • Policy Strategy Formulation
Policy Guidelines Definition and Approval
• • • •
• • • • •
Policy Implementatio n Plan (∑ i-n= Project ideas) Design and Approval
•
• •
• •
Policy implementatio n through Projects
• • • •
•
•
Table 2 – Barriers to eGovernment Policy Planning Cycle execution eGovernment Policy Planning Cycle
•
[9]; Lack of motivation of public managers in sharing and opening data amongst organization and to public [7]; project monitored on achieved outputs and not on achieved outcomes [17]; Lack of evaluation and measurement procedure [4]; [39]; Lack of measurement system on eGovernment process performances and outcomes [7]; [52]; [65]; [66]; Lack of involvement of citizens and stakeholders in monitoring projects and policies and for supporting their sustainability [23]; Lack of transparency of the monitoring process and its results on project impacts [23]; [66].
lack of evaluation and measurement of policy strategy [4]; [39]; lack of stakeholders and beneficiary involvement in needs identification [10]; [13]; [43]; [47]; lack of comprehensiveness and continuity of policies and programmes [8]; lack of clear vision [42]; [44]; lack of exAnte evaluation approach [12]; lack of a structured evaluation process circle with an effective engagement of stakeholders and beneficiaries [22]; [46]; difficulties in linking policy decision with outcomes objectives [3]; [9]; [76] lack of stakeholders and beneficiary participation in policy objectives definition [10]; [7]; [43]; unclear policy management strategy [42]; [44]; mismatching between policy outcomes (if defined) and project objectives [12]; [74]; project selected on expected outputs and not on expected outcomes [17]; lack of stakeholders and beneficiary involvement in projects design and specification [13]; [43]; [47]; lack of coordination and/or strategic planning [8]; lack of coordination and cooperation between departments and among administrations [40]; [42]; [44]; lack of structured risk management procedures [11]; lack of stakeholders and beneficiary involvement in project development [18] [43]; [47]; [54]; [66]; [68]; lack of project management expertise [54; [74]; lack of knowledge and skills for assessing the risk and making contingency plan [7]; [68]; resistance to change [65]; Government departments failing to agree and implement common procedures and standards to provide shared networked eGovernmnet services
Two fundamental barriers emerge from our study:
lack of full involvement of stakeholders and beneficiaries since the very beginning of the Planning Process;
lack of an evaluation process that should be conducted in parallel with each step of the Policy Planning Process itself.
This is especially true at the local level that on the contrary might benefit more thanks to the proximity among Policy decision makers, civil servants and citizens [14]; [55]; [57]. However as [65] and [71] clarify, the two key barriers to an effective Policy Planning Process are not independent from each other, but rather, they are the two faces of the same coin: Good Governance implies stakeholders and citizens participation that cannot be guaranteed without transparency in the decision making process; high level of transparency cannot be achieved without a trusted and robust evaluation process. Figure 4 shows the circularity of both planning and evaluation processes and their interaction with the stakeholders and beneficiaries. As described in the figure, the inner circle represents the Policy Planning Process, while the outer one describes the Evaluation Process where the ex-Ante evaluation receives as input the results of the ex-Post evaluation of the previous Policy Planning Cycle and then, it produces as output the objectives of the new Policy Planning, that will be subject to both an in-itinere evaluation and a new ex-Post one. The middle circle defines the links between the two other circles. The two processes run in parallel and the key aspect of both is the active involvement of stakeholders [23]. Moreover the evaluation process that has the aim to assess the Public Value of a given Policy Strategy, by measuring the degree of achievement of the Policy
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Implementation Plan’s outcomes and the quality2 of eGovernment products and services, in the most transparent and participatory way as possible [11]; [24]; [86], presents the still unresolved problem of measuring these values in each step of the Policy Planning Cycle, maintaining the coherence of each measure and preserving the characteristics of transparency and reproducibility of the measurement. In this regard, scientific literature provides several examples of metrics which can be utilized for quantifying public value to a given eGovernment Project [81 - 82]. Some of them have been defined also by the authors of this article in the EU funded eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) [83 – 85]. However the majority of them have been developed to benchmark eGovernment initiatives once they are already in place and none of them has the capability to evaluate a Policy Implementation Plan and, at the same time, the eGovernment projects it underlines. Finally in Figure 5 we have defined the key drivers for eGovernment adoption that in our opinion have to be considered to overcome the barriers identified in our analysis.
A higher level of public participation in the decision making process can improve the quality of the product and services and their public values and thus it can increase both citizen’s positive perception and trust of policy makers and public administration [20]; [26]. The scientific community has already proposed several approaches to assess citizens perceptions on a given policy making process [13]; [43]; [65]; [87]; and many have attempted to explore how to stimulate public participation for a better quality of eGovernment services and their adoption [39]; [22]; [26]; [27]; [57]; [66]. There are also some examples of practical usage of citizens satisfaction surveys for create better eGovernment Policy Programmes, like the “Common Measurement Tool” developed by the Canadian Government that defined specific guidelines for assessing the citizens’ satisfactions on eGovernment services performances [88]. However several authors agree that still exist a lack of measurement systems in eGovernment process performance and outcomes [7]; [29]; [51]; [64]; [65]; [87].
Figure 5 – Key drivers of eGovernment adoption: authors' adaptation from Parasuraman&Grewal [87]. This is particularly true at local level where there is little evidence of Policy Evaluation Frameworks suitable for supporting Policy Making Processes [14]; [29]; [55]; [56]; [88]. The scope of this paper was therefore to contribute closing this gap and identifying the key barriers and drivers aimed at supporting the full adoption of eGovernment services towards the realisation of a well established Digital Society. In future research we aim at further enhancing the findings of this analysis contributing to the development of policy evaluation methodologies, frameworks and related models that can effectively assess the policy planning process and the impact of eGovernment, including in particular the ''openness dimension'' that underlines a transparent and trustworthy participatory policy-planning process.
Figure 4 – Circular nature of the Evaluation Process and its relationship with Policy Planning Circle Figure 5 defines the relationships among key drivers of eGovernment adoption, starting from the Parasuraman & Grewal model [87]: eGovernment adoption depends on both high service and product quality, together with a meaningful Public Value of a given service [17]; [44]; [61]; [73]; [85]. However, these drivers are filtered by public opinion’s perceptions on both the value of service/product deployed and the level of transparency of the related decision making process [65]; [66]; [76]. Positive perception of value of both the eGovernment initiatives and transparency of the decision making process, increases the citizen’s trust in policy makers and public administration and it stimulates eGovernment adoption.
Disclaimer The views expressed in this paper are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.
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Investigating the Relationships between Accountability and Governments’ Transformation to eGovernment M. Sirajul Islam and Åke Grönlund Örebro University School of Business (Informatics) Fakultetsgatan 1, SE-70182, Sweden +46 76 17 17 193, +46 70 58 51 790
{sirajul.islam, ake.gronlund }@oru.se influence of technologies and human values are unavoidable, accountability is treated as not only a moral obligation or sense of responsibilities [3][4] but also as one of the key indicators for performance measurement which is very evident in the contemporary public administrations. The United Nations (UN) defines accountability in public administration as an obligation of the government officials regarding handling of public resources and answerability on deviating from any stated performance objectives [5]. According to this definition, the key responsibilities of the public administration include not only to work for operational efficiency and effectiveness, but also to ensure operational transparency and establishing trust internally and externally. In a democratic environment, the government officials are held accountable explicitly as well as implicitly for their deeds and actions to the society in general and the citizens in particular. Appropriate use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the public administration is expected to enhance operational efficiencies and thus paves the way for improved accountability and administrative effectiveness.
ABSTRACT Many countries are moving towards eGovernment for ensuring higher efficiency, transparency and accountability in the public administration. Accountability, the obligation to justify one’s conduct, has been widely discussed in the social, public and political spheres. However, it is not so well understood how and to what extent Government’s accountability is affected with the transformation to eGovernment. This paper focuses on this aspect by means of literature review and analyzing indexes related to eGovernment and the factors associated with accountability available during the period 2005 -2010. The findings show that the relationship between accountability and eGovernment among the countries as whole is not straightforward as it depends on the characteristics of the individual governance. However, evidence in general shows that strong accountability, which is measured here through a level of integrity, influences the government to adopt eGovernment as it helps to open up the government and its policy process to its citizens and other stakeholders.
The World Bank [6] defines eGovernment as the use of ICTs by the government agencies “that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions.” Supplement to this definition, the UN [7] describes eGovernment as a powerful tool for enhancing the public sector together with citizens that can address particular development issues in a transformative society. Nowadays, eGovernment has been a way of realizing the vision of a global information society as “many countries are experiencing its transformative power in revitalizing public administration, overhauling public management, fostering inclusive leadership and moving civil service towards higher efficiency, transparency and accountability” [7]. Therefore, governments of those countries are inclined to transform their governance to eGovernment gradually. However, research shows that considering eGovernment as an automatic means of dramatic change in the public sector accountability is a ‘myth’ [8]. In fact there is a lack of clarity regarding to what extent and how the transparency, accountability and eGovernment are associated to each other [9]. This paper therefore aims at investigating ‘how is accountability affected when governments transform to eGovernment?’ by means of literature review and analyzing
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4 [Computers and Society]: General, Public Policy Issues
General Terms Management, Measurement, Performance, Human Factors
Keywords eGovernment, Democracy, Accountability, Integrity
1. INTRODUCTION Accountability is a distinct feature of social life [1] that refers to that “an actor feels an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct to some significant other” [2]. Accountability has been much talked in sphere of our lives especially for ordered social, public and political conducts. In this contemporary knowledge based society where the Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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Within the systems [10], the processes of accountability can be evident in three stages – (i) the information provision stage, (ii) the debating stage, and (iii) the judgment stage. The validity of information is enquired in the information provision stage, while it subsequently goes to debating stage for appropriateness of actions followed by rewarding or sanctioning of the taken actions in the judgment stage [4]. In this case, ICTs based communication has potential role over the information provision stage as such communication and data processing facilities can make the information easily accessible to wide audience. This explains that eGovernment is an essential enabler for enhancing or improving administrative integrity, transparency and accountability on an ethical dimension. However, there are some arguments that contradict the positive views on eGovernment in relation to accountability [8][9][11][12]. According to Kraemer and Dedrick [11], “In general, computing [in organizations] tends to reinforce existing tendencies, and by itself is not likely to affect organizational structure in significant ways”. In this regard, Wong and Welch [8] argue that the relationship between eGovernment and accountability is a conditional one as change in the accountability level depends on the context and characteristics of the public administration or the kind of bureaucracy.
available indexes and factors of eGovernment and accountability of the last five years.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW “Accountability is a fundamental but underdeveloped concept [...]” [10]. It comes through a sense of moral responsibility at both the supply (i.e. the government) and demand (i.e. the citizens) ends. According to Smith et al. [4], responsibility is a concept that emerges in a social relationship in the causes of actions and events, which in turns depends on the person’s knowledge, capacity, ability to act appropriately as well as access to the appropriate resources. In addition to human values and qualities, discretion is an inseparable element of accountability that ultimately decides whether a particular action from an agent will be exposed or not in a given situation [4]. Accountability in public administration is varied depending on the functional spaces and nature of relationships among the internal as well as the external stakeholders. Romzek and Dubnick [10] describe four alternative systems of public administration (Figure 1), each of which is based on two critical factors – sources of agency control and degree of control over agency actions.
3. METHOD This study relies on the arguments on accountabilities in relation to ICTs available through on-line reports and research papers. In order to determine the relationship between accountability and eGovernment, three kinds of indexes are used, these are – UN global eGovernment indexes, Global Integrity indicators and EIU’s index of global democracy. There are so far no explicit indicators that would explain a comparative accountability status of a country. The 2010 Global Integrity indicators (GII) [13] scorecard assesses the existence, effectiveness, and citizen access to key governance and anti-corruption mechanisms through more than 300 actionable indicators, including some indicators related to country level accountability. The indicators, which are associated with the major issues of accountability, are fairly related to the accountability systems as discussed by Romzek and Dubnick [10] in the literature study as above. For example, bureaucratic systems can be related to the third category of GII (i.e. Government Conflicts of Interest Safeguards & Checks and Balances), while legal and professional systems can be fitted to the sixth category of GII (i.e Anti-Corruption Legal Framework, Judicial Impartiality, and Law Enforcement Professionalism). ‘Public requests for government information’ is one of the indicators of GII that is close linked to the political accountability systems. As for an indicative comparison, a table (Appendix 2 available at http://tinyurl.com/cp8ua6m) has been formulated that shows various performance indications during the period between 2005 and 2010. The list of countries (40 in this study), as shown in the table, are chosen based on availability of Integrity data of the last three surveys covering 2006 to 2010 conducted by the Global Integrity [13].
Figure 1. Types of Accountability Systems [10] Among these alternatives (Figure 1), bureaucratic accountability systems are widely used mechanisms that depend on the organized and legitimate relationship between a superior and a subordinate as well as close supervision on a stated administrative rules and regulations. Legal accountability, which is closely related to bureaucratic accountability, is associated with frequent application of control to the administrative activities. Such a controlling application is depended on the relationships between the internal and external agencies, where external agency is considered as the ‘lawmaker’ and the internal agency (i.e. the public administrator) as the ‘executor’. Professional accountability involves an obligated responsibility of sincerely meeting the expected performance by the assigned employee with the expertise or special skills. Finally, political accountability is related to the democratic pressure that mainly concerns about the representation of the public administrator to certain constituencies, such as general public, elected officials, clients and heads of the agencies, special interests groups and future generations. Romzek and Dubnick argue that political accountability is seen on ethical dimension as such systems may promote favoritism and even corruption in the public administration. They further state that “the urge for political accountability, for example, is reflected in open meeting laws, freedom of information acts, and ‘government in the sunshine’ statutes passed by many states and local governments [in the US].” [10]
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The integrity indicator is closely associated with accountability systems of the respective countries. Accountability performance in an environment of transformative governance cannot only be understood by the various parameters of Integrity [13], but also by the structure of bureaucracy which can also be well perceived by the characteristics of a regime, such as full or flawed democracy,
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participation in the election, executive, legislative and budgetary accountabilities, audit institutions, anti-corruption, rule of law and law enforcement. On the other-side, they have weak presence over the national ombudsman.
hybrid or authoritarian regime. Bovens [2] in this regard contends that “public accountability is not just the hallmark of democratic governance, it is also a sine qua non for democratic governance” Several regression analyses (Appendix 1 available at http://tinyurl.com/cp8ua6m) have been done in order to find relationships among the three variables - eGovernment, democracy and integrity. Results show that there are positive correlations exist among these variables, although the strengths of coefficient of the correlation varied under certain situation. The multiple regression tests indicates that 37% change in country’s eGovernment initiatives can be explained by the changes of democracy and integrity. On the other side, simple regression shows that democracy and integrity are both strongly correlated. However, while it comes with eGovernment (Y), country’s levels of democracy (democratic, flawed, hybrid and authoritarian) are weakly related. Furthermore, integrity (Y) is strongly correlated with eGovernment (X).
The above results also indicate that we cannot draw a straight line among the countries as whole in order to determine the relationship between eGovernment and integrity (as a proxy to accountability) or eGovernment and democracy. A good conclusion can be derived at just by analyzing individual country level performance in those indicators. According to this study, we found that out of 40 countries, only 9 of them have same level of indicators irrespective of their eGovernment status. For example, USA is 4 in all indicators and Yemen is 1 in all. 22 countries (55%) have similar association between their integrity and democracy indicators (for example, Argentina and Nepal). However, the relationship between eGovernment and integrity or eGovernment and democracy cannot be generalized as it is interestingly varied among the countries. 17 countries (43%) have same level of eGovernment and democracy indicators; whereas 13 countries (33%) are with similar level of eGovernment and integrity (for example, Azerbaijan and Nicaragua).
According to data exhibited in Appendix 2 (available at http://tinyurl.com/cp8ua6m), determining relationship between the performances of country’s eGovernment (i.e. 40 countries in this study) and the other accountability indicators or vice-versa over the years (2005 to 2010) is not so straightforward. In general, USA, Canada and Japan demonstrate optimistic association among these three indicators – eGov, integrity and democracy. Bulgaria and South Africa have ‘strong integrity’ performance, but comparatively shown low rankings. One of the explanations could be that these two countries are quite new in converging to democracy in comparison to the latter three countries. Except Kazakhstan, countries with ‘moderate’ integrity either have flawed democracy or combination of both democratic and authoritative (i.e. hybrid) structures. According to eGovernment rankings, their status are highly diverged, for example – Colombia is the 31st, while Ghana is at the 147th position. The case of Kazakhstan seems interesting as the country is governed by an authoritarian regime [14], but ranks at the top 50 of global eGovernment index and holds a ‘fairly moderate’ integrity over the years. Kazakhstan’s integrity scorecards of the last three surveys [13] show that they have better performances in anticorruption measures, election integrity with voting and citizen participation, procurement process, government oversights and controls, and rule of laws. However, they are weak in facilitating public access to information and media, civil service regulations and ensuring government accountability at the executive, legislative, judiciary and budgetary processes. Except this, all the (forty) countries with authoritarian regimes have either ‘week’ or ‘very weak’ integrities and most of them are placed at bottom half of the eGovernment indexes. Countries like Cameroon, Nigeria, and Yemen are far away in the ranking of integrity, eGovernment and democratic representations. Moldova and Bangladesh are weak in democracy, but demonstrate linear progresses in both integrity indexes and transforming to eGovernment. Bangladesh is progressing in the eGovernment indexes within the ‘weak integrity’ and hybrid structure of regime.
According to the above discussions and as for the research question of this paper is concerned, this cannot be so certain as to how and to what extent the elements of integrity in general and accountability in particular determine governments’ transformation to eGovernment. Nevertheless, one thing is quite indicative that strong accountability provokes governments for strong transformation to eGovernment, whereas strong accountability depends on the strong democracy that at least comprises of congenial, transparent and result-oriented bureaucracy and strong judicial systems (for example USA, Canada and Japan). In this case, accountability is affected by the well-defined legal systems and the pressure coming from the open civil society due to strong presence of IC-based communications.
5. CONCLUSIONS This paper addresses apparently an unexplored issue as how is accountability affected when governments transform to eGovernment. In doing so, it discusses the notion and characteristics of accountability in a special reference to ICTbased public administration and communications. The paper uses indexes of UN global surveys on eGovernment [7], global integrity [13] and EIU’s global democracy [14] published during the last five years (2005 -2010). The major finding is that accountability does influence the governments for transformation to eGovernment as it helps to open up the government and its policy process to internal as well as external stakeholders. More the transformation to eGovernment is, better indication for a democratic environment and administrative integrity. The study also indicates that to determine the influence of accountability to eGovernment transformation or vice-versa requires individual country level analysis. In fact the answer is not straightforward. The major limitation of this paper is that it attempts to address a complicated issue within a brief discussion. However, the findings can be used mainly for indicative purposes by the government officials and the researchers concerned about modernizing public administration and eGovernment. There are many unexplored elements in the integrity indicators [13] that need to be thoroughly investigated in order to better understand about the relationship
Therefore, it appears that there is a relationship between the nature or characteristic of regimes and their transformation to eGovernment. But, how is the integrity affected that could determine accountability of a country? If we take USA as a bestcase example, we can see from their integrity scorecards that they have strong performance in some key areas of governments’ integrity. These are [13], media and access to information, citizen
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[7] United Nations E-Government Survey 2010. United Nations Public Administration Network (UN-PAN), 2010.
between accountability and eGovernment. This suggestion can be treated as a call for future research as well.
[8] Wong, W., Welch, E. Does E-Government Promote Accountability? A Comparative Analysis of Website Openness and Government Accountability. Governance, 17, 2, 2004, 275-297
6. REFERENCES [1] Willmott, H. Thinking Accountability : Accounting for the Disciplined production of Self. In R. Munro J. Mouritsen (eds.), Accountability: Power, Ethos and the technologies of managing. London: International Thompson Business Press, 1996.
[9] Orelli R.L., Padovani, E., Scorsone E. E-Government, Accountability, and Performance : A Comparative Analysis Between European Governments. EGPA 2009 Conference, Malta September 2-4, 2009.
[2] Bovens, M. Public accountability. In The Oxford handbook of public management, ed. E. Ferlie, L. Lynne, and C. Pollitt, Oxford University Press, 2005, 182–208.
[10] Romzek, B. S., & Dubnick, M. J. Accountability in the public sector: Lessons from the challenger tragedy. Public Administration Review, 47, 3, 1987.
[3] Johnssén, G. Accountability and Responsibility in eGovernment. Presented at the 1st Scandinavian Workshop on e-Government, Örebro, Sweden, 2004.
[11] Kraemer, K., Dedrick, J. Computing and Public Organizations. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7, 1997, 89–112.
[4] Smith, M., Noorman, M.E., Martin, A.K. Accountabilities, automations, Dysfunctions, and Values: ICTs in the public sector. London School of Economics, Working paper series 169, 2008.
[12] Heintze, T., Bretschneider, S. Information Technology and Restructuring in Public Organizations: Does Adoption of Information Technology Affect Organizational Structures, Communications, and Decision-Making. Journal of Public Administration Theory and Research, 10, 2000, 801–830.
[5] Armstrong, E. Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration: Recent Trends, Regional and International Developments and Emerging Issues. United Nations Public Administration Network (UN-PAN), 2005.
[13] Global Integrity Report- 2010. Global Integrity, Washington DC, USA, 2010.
[6] World Bank. Definition of e-Government. 2005 Available at http://go.worldbank.org/M1JHE0Z280
[14] Democracy Index -2010. Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), 2010.
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Technologies, Tools and Web 2.0 in Support of Public Administration Workplace Communications Milena Krumova Technical University – Sofia, Bulgaria Sofia 1000, bul. Kl. Ohridski 8 +359 899 283987
[email protected] increasing revenue or re-structuring of administrative processes. [27]. The use of ICTs reflects on: (1) simplify and improve the internal administrative operations of government and their relations with other bodies involved in public management and service delivery; (2) facilitate public service interaction between government, citizens and other stakeholders, thus enabling better citizen participation and overall monitoring and evaluation of decision-making processes and their implementation; and (3) ensure inclusiveness and equal opportunity for all [14].
ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to investigate which are the technologies, tools and web 2.0 applications that support public administration workplace communications. The paper begins with eAdministration and web 2.0 uses in the context of public administration 2.0. Then the attention is focused on workplace communications review and technologies, and tools, which influence their efficiency and effectiveness. For the purpose of detailing the used public administration technologies and tools, O*NET database is investigated in terms of the governance and public management and administration occupations. In order to determine, to what extent the identified technologies, tools and web 2.0 applications are used in practice, an empirical survey is developed and carried out in “Information services and technologies” Directorate at Sofia Municipality. The paper concludes with a proposed PA 2.0 workplace communications model.
According to M.Batorski and D.Hadden, e-Government did not achieve expected results because enabling technology was Web 1.0 oriented. Social networking provides governments with a new paradigm: knowledge release rather than knowledge control. Government software technology can be categorized with the following framework [1]: o
Internal: internal by governments
o
External: external involvement
o o
Structural: follow government structure and mandate Social: enable collaboration.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.5 [Online Information Services]: Data Sharing, Web-Based Services; H.4.1 [Office Automation]: Groupware, Spreadsheets, Time Management, Workflow Management; K.4.3 [Organizational Impacts Automation]: Computer-Supported Collaborative Work
to
government
with
government
ICT, Web 2.0, Public Administration, Communications
eGovernment, both in practice and in concept, has been one of the important developments in public administration. The dynamic changes within the e-government reflect on the public administration internal and external communications and the services. The changes are strongly related to the people - public administrators and working requirements to them. Are they prepared to use technologies, tools and web 2.0 at their daily activities and communications?
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1
General Terms Management, Performance, Economics, Human Factors
Keywords
“E-Government” refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management,
Research Objectives
Fundamental and vital to public administration (PA) workplace communications is the information transmitting and making oneself understood by another or others. Communications are one of major challenges because they are a key for providing information, which results in efficient and effective performance in PA. The main goal of this study is to examine what are the main technologies, tools, in particular web 2.0 applications that support PA workplace communication? It seeks to increase the understanding that the effective use of technologies, tools and web 2.0 (TTW2.0) possesses potential for communications improvement.
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1.2
Research Questions
What are the major characteristics of e-Administration and PA 2.0 in the context of TTW2.0?; How can PA workplace communications be improved by TTW2.0?; What are TTW 2.0
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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that the PA employees need to be well prepared for to work with?/How are TTW2.0 related to PA occupations according to O*NET?; In terms of workplace communications, is there a gap between TTW2.0 within O*NET and the used ones in it and a real working environment (Sofia Municipality “Information services and technologies” Directorate)?
1.3
being to improve productivity and performance. It expresses a mechanism that transforms: traditional offices into paperless offices, paper processes into electronic processes, internal communications with other offices and organizations and public organisms with initiative and transparency. e-Administration brings many advantages: interoperability, with the administration and citizens; integration of services that allow total and horizontal access to information; teleprocessing, telecommunications, official and administration communication is carried out electronically; bidirectional communications system; email, sending documents via email; electronic signature and validation. e-Administration brings the administration closer to citizens, integrates administrations, offers the private sector and associations complete electronic services. It offers citizens and public administrators1 new communication channels. A key purpose of the e-administration is to improve the internal workings of the public sector by cutting process costs, managing process performance, creating strategic connections within government bodies, and creating empowerment (Wikipedia). eAdministration can encompass both intra-office and inter-office communication.
Research Method
In order to meet the research goal, various methodologies were applied, such as, literature review, a desk-based review, interviews, web search and a web survey. The survey has been designed as a blend qualitative and in a small scale quantitative research technique.
1.4
Structure of the Paper
The paper i) starts with review about e-Administration and PA 2.0. The advantages of technologies usage are outlined. The workplace communications and the communication itself are presented in the context of PA. Then, ii) it continues with O*NET database research related to the Government & Public Administration occupations. iii) The identified TTW2.0s are summarized. iv) Based on identified TTW2.0, a survey has been designed and empirically applied at Sofia Municipality “Information services and technologies” Directorate. The survey aimed to identify: “Where are the TTW2.0 used at and how communications can be improved? Is there a gap between necessary knowledge, skills and competencies to work with TTW2.0 and a real working environment in regards to workplace communications“. The results are presented and discussed. v) The paper ends with TTW2.0 uses for PA and a proposed abstract PA 2.0 workplace communications model.
JRC study about ICT- driven models of eGovernment, including eAdministration, tried to provide input for longer-term strategic planning. A list of technologies was prepared, focusing on the disruptive potential of the technologies themselves: mobile devices (PDAs, wearable computers, MP3-players, mobile phones) intelligent agents (and robotics), sensors, language processing and semantic technologies, serious games, RFID and biometrics, ICT infrastructures (WiFi, WiMAX, Broadband), web technologies (social software) and GRID [8].
3. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 2.0
2. E-ADMINISTRATION
Social computing (also known as Web2.0) is spreading in all spheres of life including government and public administration. A research named “Web 2.0 in Government: Why and How?” addresses the general issues about web 2.0 applications relevance for the government context: what way web 2.0 is likely to have an impact on government; how significant could this impact be and how web 2.0 applications are implemented in the government context [19].
Electronic public administration or e-Administration is one of the main eGovernment domains: eSociety; eAdministration; eCitizens & eServices (Figure 1) [7]. e-Administration is the effective management of the coordination and control of processes and the electronic information they create. It has two fundamental objectives: to increase the efficiency of administrative processes within institutions and to lessen the administrative burden faced by all staff during this process [11].
Definition (Wikipedia): Web 2.0 is web application features that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, usercantered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. It has been also described as: “a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one-tomany) into dialogues (many-to-many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.” Web 2.0 is created to actively communicate and participate on the Internet, [16] not just to read a content, listen to or observe. Much of web 2.0 activities involve individual users coordinating with others, through many to many communication channels (Figure 2). Web 2.0 promotes many to many interaction
eGovernment domains
1 Building external interaction: eSociety 2 Improving government processes: eAdministration 1 Connecting citizens: eCitizens and eServices
Creating empowerment Making strategic connections in government Managing process performance Effective and efficient communication processes Improving time management Cutting process costs
1
Figure 1. eGovernment domains e-Administration is also viewed as an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and tools, with the goal
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Public administrators are public servants working in public departments and agencies, municipality, at all levels of government. A civil servant or public servant is a person in the public sector employed for a government department or agency.
n tive bora Colla ing it d e
on ve ar rsa en tio as n al
M sha edia rin g
Synd
g
gin Blog
Web 2.0 activities
Metadata creation Social graphing
Broadly discussed in e-Administration field, web 2.0 technologies enable communication, collaboration and content creation, individually or together, and then publish to a workplace community. PA 2.0 can link familiar productivity tools to intranet publishing and search capabilities, thus public administrators can communicate and collaborate more efficiently with greater flexibility and access to information [11]. There are three key characteristics of web 2.0 applicable to PA: open - accessible and transparent; social-based on people and contacts/communications between them and user-oriented [2].
icatio
Many to many communications channels
Collective estimation
Figure 3. Web 2.0 technologies
al Virtu s world
ng
ggi
Tagging, social bookmarking/ filtering, user tracking, ratings, RSS
Broad communication
Social networking, network mapping
C
kis
Prediction markets, information markets, polling
Broad collaboration
Category of technology
Blogs, podcasts, videocasts, peer to peer
Web 2.0 technologies
Wi
Ta
Wikis, commenting, shared workspaces
ma Med nip ia ula tio
ne So tw ci or al ki ng
bo S ok oc m ial ar ki ng
with resources, peers and experts within and beyond the organization area. Public servants can use blogs and wikis, participated in web conferencing and developed podcasts and videos and become more efficient in their workplace communications thus indirect influence over quality of public services.
n
r
nde mme Reco tems sys
Figure 2. Web 2.0 activities An important shift was seen not just as the use of particular tools or techniques, but to the fostering of digital engagement. This involves:
Many initiatives have adopted web 2.0 applications in the government context. There are relevant applications in the private sector, which could be transferred to the government context. According to “E-Government Survey 2012” there has been a drastic rise of social media at the public administration [26].
o dialogue: moving from broadcast to conversation; o not only listening but responding; o two-way collaboration sharing information, data, discussion; o opening spaces for peers to interact - facilitating communities; o moving audience from awareness to action.
Web 2.0 affects different domains of public administrators’ activities. While the debate is mostly focused on the impact in citizen-government relations (the so-called front-office) at present, analysis show that web 2.0 applications are also relevant for the back office activities of public administration [19].
4. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION WORKPLACE COMMUNICATIONS
Web 2.0 covers a range of technologies. The most widely used are blogs, wikis, podcasts, information tagging, prediction markets, and social networks [3] (Figure 3).
Definition (Wikipedia): Communication is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. According to Herbert A. Simon, who is known for his theory of administrative behavior “without communication there can be no organization”. In the context of internal communication, there are four tasks: categorize the types of information necessary to be communicated to employees for the effective functioning of the institution; identify the current delivery methods for communicating internal information; assess the effectiveness of the current methods, and recommend guidelines for effective communication [10]. The PA communications can be inter-relationship of public servants with the citizen and “extra-organizational”, communications with institutions [13]. There are a number of PA communications: formal and informal; vertical and lateral; verbal and non-verbal. They can be also viewed as occurring at intranet, extranet or internet environment [21] (Figure 4).
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Without any regards to the form of communication, the communication itself plays a very important role in the PA. A number of variables influence the PA effectiveness of communications. Some are found in the environment, intranet environment, extranet or internet in which communications take place, some in the personalities of the sender and the receiver, and some in the relationship that exists between sender and receiver. In the present context, PA communications are discussed within intranet environment. In the literature, there exist many studies concerning PA communications effectiveness and efficiency.
EXTRANET Communications
common language for defining and describing occupations. Its flexible design also captures rapidly changing job requirements. O*NET database can serve as the engine that drives value-added applications designed around core information. It provides the essential foundation for facilitating career counseling, education, employment, and training activities [18]. The database, is available to the public at no cost, is continually updated by surveying a broad range of workers from each occupation. The database also provides the basis for Career Exploration Tools, a set of valuable assessment instruments for workers and students looking to find or change careers. Content Model, is the conceptual foundation of O*NET (Figure 5).
INTERNET
INTRANET Workplace Communications
Figure 4. Intranet (workplace) communications
In his study, F. Petru examines the role of communication for the managerial process effectiveness of public administration [20]. D.Špaček and J.Špalek analyze the relationship between electronic public administration and the present public administration model as developed within the reform of public administration in the Czech Republic, which has a significant impact on the information flows (communication) and certainly on the electronic public administration in the Czech context. The authors argue that, the quality of communication can be significantly influenced by utilization of modern ICT [25]. “Digital Communities” study accent on wikis or similar tools, such as Microsoft’s SharePoint or others, that could be used to standardize business processes, functions and terms across an entire government. Web 2.0 and social networking preparedness is also discussed [5].
Figure 5. O*NET Content model The Content Model embodies a view that reflects the character of occupations (via job-oriented descriptors) and people (via workeroriented descriptors). The Content Model also allows occupational information to be applied across jobs, sectors, or industries (crossoccupational descriptors) and within occupations (occupationalspecific descriptors). These descriptors are organized into six major domains: worker characteristic; worker requirements; experience requirements; occupational requirements; workforce characteristics and occupation-specific information. It provides a framework that identifies the most important types of information about work and integrates them into a theoretically and empirically sound system. Figure 6 shows the occupations related to information: knowledge, skills, abilities, and interests, general work activities, work context, including technologies and tools. Figure 6 shows the investigation path of the current research.
In the next part of the current research, O*NET database will be investigated. O*NET is identified as a benchmark database for occupations [22, 23]. It contains information about hundreds of standardized and occupation-specific descriptors, including required technologies and tools for public administration related occupations.
The domains enable the user to focus on areas of information that specify the key attributes and characteristics of workers and occupations. Occupation-Specific Information is one of the domains. It consists of tasks - occupation-specific Tasks and tools and technology - Machines, equipment, tools, software, and information technology workers may use for optimal functioning in a high performance workplace. O*NET advanced search options allows users to browse by data or career cluster. Government and public administration career cluster includes: governance; national security; regulation; planning; revenue and taxation; public management and administration. In the current context, government and public management and administration career cluster are investigated. A number of occupations are included in each career cluster within O*NET. The investigated occupations within Public Management and Administration career
5. O*NET - TECHNOLOGIES AND TOOLS @ PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OCCUPATIONS Occupational Information Network (O*NET)2 is a comprehensive database of worker attributes and job characteristics [17]. O*NET is the replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). O*NET is being developed as a timely, easy-to-use resource that supports public and private sector efforts to identify and develop the skills of the American workforce. It provides a 2
Occupational Information Network, http://www.onetonline.org/
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cluster were: Court Clerks; Court, Municipal, and License Clerks; Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs; License Clerks; Managers, Municipal Clerks; Postal Service Clerks; Postal Service Mail Carriers; Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators; Postmasters and Mail Superintendents; Social and Community Service Managers. The investigated occupations within Governance career cluster were: Administrative Services Managers; Broadcast News Analysts; Chief Executives; Communications Teachers, Postsecondary; Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs; Emergency Management Directors; General and Operations Managers; Legislators; Managers; Mapping Technicians; Postmasters and Mail Superintendents; Public Relations Specialists; Reporters and Correspondents; Social and Community Service Managers; Storage and Distribution Managers; Surveying and Mapping Technicians; Surveying Technicians; Transportation Managers.
The summarized technologies, tools and web 2.0 applications within O*NET database are as follows:
o
Tools: Computer/laptop; Calculators, printers; USB flash drives; Personal digital assistants PDA; Mobile phones — smartphones; Scanner; Electronic charts or maps or atlases; etc.
o
Technologies: Spreadsheet software: Microsoft excel; IBM lotus 1-2-3; Word processing software: Microsoft word; Electronic mail software: e-mail; Microsoft outlook; Microsoft project; Presentation software: Microsoft PowerPoint; Map creation software: mapping software; etc.
Marketing, sales and services Skills
Education & training Bright outlook
Architecture & construction
Knowledge
Regulation Agriculture, food and natural resources
Job Zone
Business, Management & Administration
Education
National Security
Abilities
Art, audio/video technology & communications Job family
Public Management and Administration
Health services
O*NET
Career cluster
Government & Public administration
Tools and technologies
Governance Work values
Law, public safety, corrections and security Green economy sector
Interests
Human services
Revenue and taxation
Manufacturing
Work styles
Work context Transportation, distribution & logistics Industry
Planning Finance
STEM Discipline
Work activities Tasks
Hospitality & tourism Science, technologies, engineering and mathematics
Wages & employment
Information Technology
Figure 6. O*NET – Government & Public administration career cluster o
Web: Web page creation and editing software: Facebook; Social media software; Blogging software; MySpace; Podcasting software; Website management software; etc.
correspondence; keep fiscal records and accounts; prepare reports on civic needs, where no technologies and tools are used. The Web page creation and editing exists only in few governance and public management, and administration occupations, such as Public Relations Specialists or Reporters and Correspondents.
It can be concluded that even the fact that technologies and tools are in the core of e-governance and e-administration, in some governance and PA within O*NET database, there are no technologies and tools used. For example, the main activities of Municipal Clerks are: draft agendas and bylaws for town or city council; record minutes of council meetings; answer official
6. EMPIRICAL SURVEY Technologies, tools and web 2.0 used in the survey are based on O*NET investigation. The aim of the survey was to establish
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whether there is a gap and what Technologies, Tools and Web 2.0 (TTW2.0) are used in workplace and how they can support workplace communications. The methodology for empirical survey was as follows: 1)
and Communications (MTITC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, Road Infrastructure Agency and BULATSA, by sending and receiving documents electronically until today [12]. These administrations use the same document management system. The electronic exchange of documents today saves time, increases efficiency and reduces administration costs of departments. Sofia Municipality takes an active role in e-Government development projects, and it is planned to be a pilot Lot 3 beneficiary Municipality. Currently, Sofia Municipality use Document Management Software “АКСТЪР ОФИС” and most of workplace communications are done by electronic tools and technologies [24].
The questionnaire for the survey was designed. It includes four groups of questions regarding: (a) public administration workplace communications; (b) technologies, tools and web 2.0 usages within workplace; (c) benefits from better communications on the workplace; (d) willingness to learn, to improve knowledge, skills and competencies to work with new technologies, tools & Web 2.0. The Technologies and Tools which are used in the survey are based on the O*NET investigation. Web 2.0 applications are chosen as a result of the literary research and discussions with experts in the field. Particular focus is given to respondents` willingness to learn about Technologies and Tools and Web 2.0, in order to improve their knowledge, skills and competencies.
2)
Some meetings and interviews were done with representative from the Sofia Municipality Directorate “Information services and technologies” which is the main administrative and territorial unit in Sofia. Based on discussions with the representatives a decision about which directorate will best correspond to the goal of the research was made. Most of the occupations within the Directorate of “Information services and technologies” are strongly linked to the technologies and tools.
3)
PA staff, who work in the Sofia Municipality Directorate “Information services and technologies”, were asked to respond to the survey and about more than half of them agreed to give their responds. This questionnaire asked each respondent question about his/her subjective impression of the technologies and tools used at the workplace. The given responses were for more than 90% of the questions.
4)
The results of the study are presented into four parts: Part 1: PA workplace communications; Part 2: Technologies, tools and web 2.0 usage within workplace; Part 3: Benefits from better communications on the workplace; Part 4: Willingness to learn how to work with new technologies, tools & Web 2.0.
5)
Data collection period: March 2012 – April 2012. Responding to this survey was not mandatory. Data are collected directly from survey respondents. The gathering of responses was done by a free web based surveying tool. It allowed automatically responses collection and analysis. For some of the questions five point Likert scale was used.
6)
The results are discussed, summarizing the most important relations between the groups of questions. The study was conducted to find answers about: what is the usage of technologies, tools and web 2.0; are there link between communications efficiency and TTW2.0 usage; are there gap in TTW2.0 at the public administration workplace; how many public employees and professionals are ready and willing to learn for TTW2.0 for improving their knowledge, skills and competencies.
6.1 Part 1 - Better Communications at Workplace This part of the survey includes 18 questions. The starting point is to identify how each one of the staff communicates at work, what does he/she think about personal barriers and what does the information depend on. At the begging the questions are focused on indirect factors which influence workplace communications. The survey data showed that all of the respondents like their job, and about 69,3% of respondents like to be connected during working time. The data showed that the majority of the respondents (77%) agree that the communication itself depends on the Internet and the net and that two side of the communication, sender and receiver, are equally important (92,3%). Most of the respondents (84,6%) communicate more often when they are at work than when they are at home. The respondents who prefer to receive information in communication verbally are 46,2%, but those who prefers to receive information by mail are 38,5 %, no one prefers using Skype. Next question is about how do employees prefer to communicate. The responses are similar to the previous ones: 7,7% prefer to communicate online, 30,8% Face to Face (F2F), 46,2% F2F&online and 15,4% said that it doesn’t matter. This comes to the conclusion that most of the respondents prefer to receive information and to communicate by using electronic technologies. But, in regards to communication with some colleagues, 53,8% of the respondents said that they prefer to communicate more via mail than F2F, about 30,8% can`t say, 15,4% don’t prefer to communicate via mail more than via F2F. It can be concluded that the team working environment is not so good and there is a presence of bad workplace relationships concerning some of the staff. Most of the respondents (84,6%) agree that “Better communication will improve time to finish work, quality of work and his/her labor cost”. “How often do you contact someone daily?”, 72,7% of the respondents need to contact someone at least 5 to 19 times per day. About 18,2% of them need to contact someone at work more than 50 times, which leads to the conclusion that about ¼ of the respondents dependent on communicating with other colleagues at work. The survey data showed that 92,3% feel happy to take part in community events and are always ready to support someone in her/his work. 61,5% of respondents said that his/her competency of working with tool and technology is extremely important to communicate effectively and for 38,5% they are important. The result is that technologies have the potential to improve communications at the workplace.
Many initiatives are conducted for the e-government development on a national level in Bulgaria. In December 2011, a start was given to the electronic exchange of documents between five state administrations, Ministry of Transport, Information Technology
6.2 Part 2 - Technologies, Tools and Web 2.0 This part of the survey contains three subparts. The first subpart includes technologies (7 questions), the second one includes tools
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(8 questions) and the third subpart includes web 2.0 (10 questions).
6.3 Part 3 – Technologies, Tools and Web 2.0 Use at the Workplace Communications
6.2.1 Technologies
Third part of the survey (7 questions) point the effect of communications based on the technologies, tools and web 2.0 uses. 33,3% of respondents strongly agree, that better communications will improve mostly working community and team working (25%). 75% of respondents declare they agree that the information flows transparency will be improved, 83,3% agree that information exchange difficulties will be diminished. Out of the total, 58,3% agree that better communications affect personal fulfillment, 66,7% agree that misunderstanding along the communications channels will decrease. 50% of employees declare that team working will be improved. Only 8,3% of them strongly disagree that better communications will improve personal fulfillment.
The point is to identify whether the administrators are familiar with technologies or not. The data showed that the majority of the respondents are familiar with the technologies. Map creation software is the least one that is being used at work (no one uses it), Microsoft Project (9,1%). Word processing software is used at work (36,4%) and 66,7% of the respondents use it at work & at home equally. The most used at work is electronic mail software and spreadsheet software, out of total 63,6% use electronic mail software at work and 36,4% use it equally at work and at home.
6.2.2 Tools “How often do you use the tool in your work activities: during the whole day, half of the day, ¼ of the day, less than an hour or don’t use it?”. All respondents said that they use computer/laptop durind the whole day. 18,2% of total respondents said that they use mobile phones and Smartphones whole day, 9,1% of respondents use scaners actively. Less used are calculators, USB flash, electronic charts, map or attlases
6.4 Part 4 - Willingness to Learn Fourth part of the survey includes 8 questions. The survey data shows that the majority of the respondents strongly agree to learn in order to improve their knowledge, skills and competencies. The respondents agree that knowledge and competencies about new technologies, tools and web 2.0 will indirectly influence work efficiency. All respondents agree that they would spend time to learn, no negative response. Of the total, 16,7% are interested in learning about technologies, 8,3% are interested in tools, 8,3% are interested in web 2.0. Most of respondents (58,3%) would spend 6 hours weekly to learn, 16,7% would spend 2 hours weekly, 16,7% would spend 10hours, and only 8,3% would spend more than 10 hours weekly. “In case that you enroll in a learning course for technology, tools and Web 2.0, who will benefit from it?” 60% of respondents said that the benefit will be for him/her personally and the organization, 40% said that the benefit will be for him/her, organization and services.
6.2.3 Web 2.0 In this subpart of the survey, the questions are related to web 2.0. Are the employees familiar with web 2.0, do they use web 2.0 at work or do they not use it? The data shows that, some of them are well familiar, whereas others are not. 10% of respondent know about the Blogging, Online virtual games and worlds, Media sharing and social media software. Most of respondents are familiar with blogging and social media software but do not use them. Social networking (Facebook; LinkedIn; My space) is the most used by the respondents. Out of the total 41,7% use social networking at home. No one has blog. The survey data shows that most of the respondents are familiar with web 2.0 applications but, don`t use them at work. Despite that some of Web 2.0 applications are not allowed to be used at the workplace, the respondents know about them and used some of them for years. 33,3% of respondents declare that they have Skype account since 3 to 4 years, 33,3% have Skype account for more than 5 years. Out of the total, 16,4% of the respondents have Facebook account for more than 5 years.
7. CONCLUSION This research paper tried to identify technologies, tools and web 2.0 which support public administration communications, while focusing on the people in the process (Figure 7). Additionally to the eAdministration and public administration 2.0 literary review, an investigation within O*NET database was done. The paper looks at the key issue that the public administrators need not only to be knowledgeable, highly qualified, skilled and competent for doing their job, but much more to be familiar and prepared for using technologies, tools and mostly web 2.0 applications, relevant to his/her occupation at workplace.
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Figure 7. Public Administration 2.0 workplace communications model Based on the technologies, tools and web 2.0 investigated in O*NET, an empirical survey was conducted at “Information services and technologies” Directorate at Sofia Municipality. The survey showed that the employees apply in their daily communications most of the analyzed technologies and tools. But it is identified a little gap in the knowledge of web 2.0 applications. The employees agree that the efficient communications are a key gateway to success in their work. One of the most important conclusions is that there exists a potential for improving communications and that the staff is willing to learn in order to acquire new knowledge, new skills and develop competencies in the field of technologies, tools and web 2.0 related to his/her occupation. The survey results do not tend to be a representative for all public administration offices. The results are related only to a particular administrative office, “Information services and technologies” Directorate at Sofia Municipality, where it was held, but they are a good base for more complex study at a district or a national level.
8uXVfuOMwo8kjaOW9sascpHM*IkbLkhb9KchUvIe5gxyo GROF-CuU0b*SnPe/CivilServant2.0.pdf [3] Chui, M., A.Miller, and R.Roberts, McKinsey Quarterly: Six Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work, 2009, http://www.scribd.com/doc/12599205/McKinsey-QuarterlySix-Ways-to-Make-Web-20-Work-Feb-2009-Issue [4] Constantinides, E., The Web 2.0 as Marketing Tool: Opportunities for SMEs, The 16th Annual High Technology Small Firms Conference, 2008, http://proceedings.utwente.nl/96/1/Constantinides.pdf [5] Digital Communities, Government 2.0: Building Communities with Web 2.0 and Social Networking, 2008, http://media.govtech.net/Digital_Communities/assets/DC08_ PAPER_CIO_TASK_10.27.pdf [6] Dovey,T., W. Eggers, Deloitte Research – Web 2.0: The future of collaborative government, Discussion Summary Washington, DC, 2009, http://www.deloitte.com/assets/DcomUnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/us_ps_web20gove rnment_March2009.PDF
8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Research laboratory "Technologies and standards for elearning" TU-Sofia for support in this research. Thanks to Sofia Municipality, “Information services and technologies” directorate for support in the research implementation and respond to the request to participate in this study.
[7] eGov4Dev, "eGovernment for Development Information Exchange" Project, University of Manchester's Institute for Development Policy and Management, http://www.egov4dev.org/success/definitions.shtml
9. REFERENCES [1] Batorski, M., D.Hadden, Embracing Government 2.0: Leading transformative change in the public sector, Grant Thornton LLP, 2010, http://grantthornton.com/staticfiles/GTCom/Public%20sector /Gov20Jan2010.pdf
[8] Frissen, V., et al., The Future of eGovernment. An exploration of ICT-driven models of eGovernment for the EU in 2020, European Communities, Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, 2007, http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/eur22897en.pdf
[2] Berlo, D., Civil Servant 2.0 New ideas and practical tips for working in government 2.0, Civil Servant 2.0 beta Action steps towards government 2.0, Programma Ambtenaar 2.0, 2008, http://api.ning.com/files/j8isrYTD1gKgWBE7i2qmYhTXlW d45ExM*v7-
[9] Huijboom, N., et al., Public Services 2.0: The Impact of Social Computing on Public Services, 2009, http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC54203.pdf [10] Internal Communications Survey, Brookdale Community College, 2006,
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[12] Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Bulgaria, Available from: http://www.mtitc.government.bg/page.php?category=454
[21] Ruskov, P., Groupware, Edited by “UNWE” Sofia, Bulgaria, ISBN 954-494-324-2, p.16-17, 1998 (in Bulgarian)
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[22] Shoikova, E., M.Krumova, O*NET and Competency Based Education, Annual journal of electronics, ISSN 1313-1842, p.145-151, 2010 [23] Shoikova, E., M.Krumova, Overview of the Occupational Information Network, Annual journal of electronics, ISSN 1313-1842, p.152-156, 2010
[14] Misuraca, G., A. Reid & M. Deakin, Exploring emerging ICT-enabled governance models in European cities, Analysis of the Mapping Survey to identify the key city governance policy areas most impacted by ICTs, EU European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, 2011
[24] Sofia Municipality, http://www.sofia.bg/en/index_en.as [25] Špaèek, D., J. Špalek, Communication and Electronic Public Administration: Some Issues in the Context of the Czech System of Public Administration, http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/nispa cee/unpan027501.pdf
[15] Musaraj, A., Communication processes, public administration and performance evaluation, University Pavaresia, Albania, Academicus International Scientific Journal, http://www.academicus.edu.al/nr3/AcademicusMMXI-3-028-037.pdf
[26] United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 E-Government for the People, United Nations, 2012, p.3, p.29, Available from: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/un pan048065.pdf, p.7-8
[16] NETCOACH, http://www.netcoach.eu.com/index.php?id=233 [17] O*NET OnLine, http://www.onetonline.org/find/career?c=4&g=Go
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[18] Occupational Information Network, https://onetmxdev.rti.org/about.cfm [19] Osimo, D, Web 2.0 in Government: Why and How?, European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for
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Transforming City Government: A Case Study of Philly311 Taewoo Nam
Theresa A. Pardo
Center for Technology in Government University at Albany, SUNY
Center for Technology in Government University at Albany, SUNY
187 Wolf Road, Suite 301 Albany, NY12205, United States +1-518-442-3892
187 Wolf Road, Suite 301 Albany, NY12205, United States +1-518-442-3892
[email protected]
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Keywords
This paper describes the transformation of a city government led by a 311 program, which provides a consolidated channel for nonemergency services and information. The paper first discusses the concept of “smart city” as a foundation for the examination of the 311 program as a practice of government innovation. The paper then presents the details of the 311 program as instantiated in the City of Philadelphia. In-depth interviews with Philadelphia City government officials and managers responsible for creating and operating the City’s 311 system (Philly311) offer insights into the contributions the system is making to a more efficient, effective, transparent, accountable, and collaborative city government. Performance data provided by Philly311 enables more efficient resource allocation and informed decision making. Philly311 is credited with making the process of service delivery more transparent to the public, and providing traceability of requested services which imbues service departments with a sense of accountability. Service level agreements are providing measurable standards of municipal services and are used to support accountability in terms of service status. Regular reviews of service level agreements and content of the system are also recognized as promoting interdepartmental collaboration. 311 systems are broadly recognized as powerful tools to engage residents in improving their neighborhoods. Institutionalizing interdepartmental collaborations emerged from the interviews as a critical capability in advancing from the initiation stage of Philly311-like systems to operations and refinement.
311, Non-emergency service, Contact center, Customer service, Smart city, Service level agreement, E-government, City government.
1. INTRODUCTION The phrase “smart city” is used more and more regularly by elected officials, civil society, the private sector, and academia. Regardless of this emerging trend, there is no agreed-upon description of what “smart” implies in the context of a single city. Some recent conceptual studies have discussed a city’s smartness [1,4,6,17,20,21]. In these studies, a smart city is broadly understood as improvements in city infrastructure including information and communication infrastructures, and physical infrastructures such as roads, bridges, and buildings, services such as utilities, social services, and transportation, and a variety of resources such as natural resources, financial resources, cultural resources, and human capital. However, the concept of a smart city is still abstract and even ambiguous. There is another reason for the lack of agreement around the “smart city” concept. A smart city often comes across as a normative claim. People want the cities they are living in to be smarter; they want to close the gap between their current status and their expectations. Smart city strategies—e.g., integrating critical infrastructures and services, consolidating systems, and interconnecting networks—are emerging as responses to a variety of complex problems such as crime, health concerns, pollution, aging populations, deteriorating infrastructure, and traffic congestion, that cities are currently facing due to dense congregations of people in spatially limited areas [24]. The desirable status of being “smart” is an outcome sought by the public and city officials alike. In this sense, increasing attention is being paid to those city governments who are successful in transforming their cities through “smart city” initiatives. Discussions of and certainly research about smart cities must pay attention to the characteristics of the city governments that make their city smarter. Previous studies of smart cities emphasize smartness of government, administration, and public management as core factors in the creation of a smart city [6,20,21].
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4.2 [Information Systems Applications]: Type of systems — e-government applications.
General Terms Management, Performance, Human Factors, Theory.
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Adopting the view of a smart city as one that has more innovative, more efficient, and more effective government, this paper employs a case study of Philly311, the City of Philadelphia’s 311 non-emergency contact program, among a variety of current and best practice examples of government efforts to make cities smarter. The concept of “smart city” is used as a foundation for
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
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the examination of the 311 program as a practice of government innovation, based on a review of current thinking about the dimensions and components of smart cities. Philly311 is, according to the Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, one of his flagship initiatives being carried out to make the City smarter. A case study based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with the City’s executives, Philly311 staff, and managers of other related departments allows for a close examination of how the Philly311 service is helping make Philadelphia a smarter city.
Several working definitions of a smart city can be found in the literature (see Table 1). They share some features as well as have some unique aspects. For example, while Giffinger et al. [12] view a smart city as one performing in a “forward-looking” way, the Natural Resources Defense Council considers “smarter” as more efficient, sustainable, equitable, and livable. Harrison et al. [15] conceptualize a smart city in a technological sense as instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. Similarly, Washburn et al. [24] see a smart city as intelligent, interconnected, and efficient.
The remainder of this paper is structured into six sections. Section 2 draws on recent research to outline the characteristics of a smart city and a smart government. Section 3 presents the methodology used in the study and introduces the case. Section 4 presents the case analysis with a particular focus on changes observed in city management and service delivery in the City of Philadelphia and considered to be consequences of the implementation of Philly311. Section 5 discusses challenges the City is facing in operating Philly311 and also opportunities Philly311 offers. Section 6 further discusses the impacts made by Philly311 as one instance of smart city initiatives. Section 7 concludes this paper.
The definitions from Anavitarte and Tratz-Ryan [2], Harrison et al. [9], and Washburn et al. [24] each emphasize the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The technologies include smart computing [24] and a range of instruments such as sensors, kiosks, meters, personal devices, appliances, cameras, and smart phones [15]. In sum, a smart city is defined with some key elements including meanings of smartness in the urban context, the role of technologies in making a city smarter, domains that need to be smart, and infrastructures and services that are provided to the population. The definitions taken together provide a roadmap for cities seeking to become smarter. Washburn et al. [24] highlight seven key areas where cities are investing in becoming “smarter” including city administration, education, healthcare, public safety, real estate, transportation, and utilities. Giffinger et al. [12] identifies six key aspects of a city where smart cities are seeking to have an impact from their investments: economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living. Chourabi et al. [6] put forth eight components of a smart city: technology, management and organization, governance, policy, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment.
2. CONCEPTUALIZING SMART CITY AND GOVERNMENT Since we consider a smart city as transformation and innovation in city government, we use the “smart city” concept as a foundation to describe a practice of government innovation—in this paper, Philly311. This section introduces and discusses a set of working definitions of a smart city, followed by a review of the core components constituting the concept of a smart city derived from both academic and practical research. Finally, we discuss how a smart government is recognized as one of the core capabilities of a smart city.
The components of a smart city included in the definitions are further specified in both academic literature and practical reports. Recent studies discuss definitional components and conceptual dimensions of a smart city. Nam and Pardo [20] suggest three conceptual dimensions of a smart city—i.e., technological artifacts, people and communities, and institutional arrangements—by exploring a wide array of recent research focusing on a smart city and/or similar (often interchangeably used) labels such as an intelligent city, innovative city, information city, knowledge city, and creative city, among others. Nam and Pardo [20] consider a smart city as a more comprehensive concept comprising such diverse similar labels. Technology is central to defining a smart city, but a smart city cannot be built simply through the use of technology. Importantly, technology is a means to enable social, environmental, economic, and cultural progress. Smart cities thus must be capable of sustaining such progress across the diversity of components and conceptual dimensions [1,17]. Along with this view, smart city initiatives driven by municipal governments can be characterized as innovation in multiple dimensions—i.e., technology, management, and policy [21].
Table 1. Working definitions of a smart city
“An urban area functioning and articulated by modern information and communication technologies in its various verticals, providing ongoing efficient services to its population” [2].
“A city well performing in a forward-looking way in economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living, built on the smart combination of endowments and activities of selfdecisive, independent and aware citizens” [12: p. 11].
The foundational concepts are instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent city. “Instrumented refers to sources of near-realtime real-world data from both physical and virtual sensors. Interconnected means the integration of those data into an enterprise computing platform and the communication of such information among the various city services. Intelligent refers to the inclusion of complex analytics, modeling, optimization, and visualization in the operational business processes to make better operational decisions” [15: p. 1].
“A city striving to make itself ‘smarter’ (more efficient, sustainable, equitable, and livable)” [Natural Resources Defense Council: smartercities.nrdc.org]
Three smart city ranking tools and frameworks merit attention as comprehensive sets of components of smart cities. The ranking system to score European medium-sized (population between 100,000 to 500,000) cities (www.smart-cities.eu) includes six categories of smart city evaluation indicators: economy (competitiveness), people (social and human capital), governance (participation, transparent governance, the functioning of the
“The use of Smart Computing technologies to make the critical infrastructure components and services of a city––which include city administration, education, healthcare, public safety, real estate, transportation, and utilities––more intelligent, interconnected, and efficient” [24: p. 2].
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operational activities and coordination of service delivery provided by the city authority” (p. 5). In particular, smart service means “tailoring services to the needs of individual citizens” and “using technology to integrate the information systems of different service delivery agencies to enable better services for citizens [8: p. 11].
administration), mobility (transportation and ICT), environment (natural resources, environmental protection, sustainable resource management), and living (quality of life, cultural facilities, health, safety) [12]. IBM’s core city systems are categorized into three systems: operating systems (city services system comprising public service management and local government administration), user systems (citizens system comprising health, education and public safety, and business system), and infrastructure systems (transport system, communication system, water system, and energy system) [8,9]. In IBM’s framework, city governance and city strategy connect across the seven systems. Forrester Research’s white paper [24] suggests seven critical infrastructure components and services of a smart city including city administration, education, healthcare, public safety, real estate, transportation, and utilities.
In line to these concepts of management and service as smart government dimensions, many discussions of a smart government have been recently made. According to Chourabi et al. [6], management and organization of a city government and its governance with other actors are key success factors of smart city initiatives. The smart city model suggested by Giffinger et al. [12] underscores smart governance as a larger category including a smart government. The smart governance component comprises participation in decision making and transparent governance. In the model of Giffinger et al. [12], the quantifiable measure of transparent governance represents citizen satisfaction with transparency of bureaucracy and with fight against corruption.
Table 2 compares the comprehensive sets of smart city components suggested by Chourabi et al. [6], European mid-sized city evaluation tool [12], IBM [8,9], and Forrester [24]. While each includes technology and government as components (public service management and local government administration), each model also stresses unique components.
Washburn et al. [24] saw efficient management of city operations and effective delivery of city services as key to smart government: An efficient city administration that provides services to its citizens and fosters businesses is essential to today’s service-based economy. A smart government service is informed about its city’s condition and is able to reach its citizens effectively. A core component of this function is using communication and collaboration technologies to manage city operations. … Moreover, it uses data and scientific analysis in all phases of the decision-making process to improve the economy and quality of life. (p. 5–6)
Table 2. Components of a smart city Chourabi et al. [6]
European mid-sized cities [12]
IBM [8,9]
Forrester [24]
Technology
√
√
√
√
Management & administration
√
√
√
√
Governance
√
√ √
√ √
√
City services People and communities
√
Economy
√
Built environment
√
√
Natural environment
√
√
Thus smart city administration should contribute to greater efficiency, effectiveness, and the improvement in decision making. Dirks et al. [9] identify local government expenditure and staff as prerequisites of a smart government. Elements of the smart system for management and operation include coordinated service delivery, e-government application, and the use of ICT for service delivery. Outcomes of a smart government appear as increased efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery [9: p. 5].
√ √
Note. City services broadly include transportation, safety, heath, water, energy, housing, and culture.
To sum, a smart government is expected to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency in organizational management and service delivery. A smart government also may promote coordination and collaboration among city departments and with other external organizations and citizens. Thus a smart government can facilitate non-governmental entities’ participation in decision making and monitoring of service delivery. In this sense, a smart government should include governance with both internal (within government) and external actors.
As shown in Table 2, one of core components of a smart city is a smart government because a city government is a central actor that plays a pivotal role to lead and coordinate smart city initiatives and efforts. In the IBM core city system that Dirks et al. [9] suggested, the concept of a smart government comprises public service management and local government administration as key components. Thus city management and city services can be identified as two main dimensions of a smart government. Some previous conceptual studies defined the dimensions of management and service in smart city activities. Since a smart city is considered urban innovation, smart city initiatives can be characterized as government innovation in management and services [21]. Nam and Pardo [21] considered a smart city in the aspect of government management as enhancing efficient, effective management both in front-office and back-office operations of city government. They also defined managerial innovation of a smart government as “a mechanism to create managerial and organizational capabilities for effective use of technological tools and conditions” [21: p. 187]. On the other hand, Dirks et al. [8] defined a city services system as “the
Reflecting on this discussion, we create the metrics of assessing a smart government and will use it to the case of Philly311, as exhibited in Table 3. Table 3. Metrics for assessing a smart government Management Efficiency Effectiveness Transparency Governance
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Service
What are the barriers or challenges to using
3. CASE STUDY METHOD
technologies for Philly311?
This study uses case study methodology to understand why and how a social phenomenon of interest occurs [25]. The method helps develop preliminary understanding. Given the emerging nature of 311 contact centers and the paucity of academic research on the service centers, case study methodology is an appropriate approach to conducting this exploratory research [25]. This study is also inductive so that it contributes to building new understanding. This section describes data collection, data analysis, and the case of Philly311 non-emergency contact center.
Governance
Policy Context
In order to identify the relevant interview participants, purposive sampling was employed. Because of the relative newness of the research theme, the sampling technique is needed to identify and target individuals who could provide important information to understand the social phenomenon [11]. The director of Philly311 as an initial informant was asked to recommend others who have sufficient information and knowledge in various aspects of 311 operation. Interview participants were selected to avoid redundant knowledge and maximize new knowledge. Interviewees from different levels and functions include executive-level officials (the mayor, the managing director, and the deputy director), Philly311 staff members (director, operation manager, and technology expert), and representatives of other service departments (commissioner and chief of staff) related to 311 operations.
Smart city
What does it mean for a city to be smart? What are characteristics of a smart city?
Management and organization
How is Philly311 organized and managed?
How does Philly311 affect and is affected by the
Economy
What is the impact of Philly311 on the City’s
Natural environment
How does Philly311 affect the City’s natural
population and communities of the City?
environment?
3.2 Case Analysis Interviews were transcribed and analyzed following an inductive logic approach and using grounded theory techniques. Employing a qualitative analysis software tool (Atals-ti), we did a systematic iterative process of joint coding and analysis to minimize personal bias. Grounded theory refers to theory that is developed inductively from empirical data, and the grounded theory approach is a method of using empirical data without preconceived theories to generate or discover a theory [13,22]. For this research, coding refers to a process of labeling, separating, compiling, categorizing, and organizing qualitative data [5,7,18]. Descriptive codes are used so that interview transcripts were coded in sentence or multi-sentence chunks. Glaser and Strauss [13] suggested the four stages of grounded theory analysis as follows:
Questions
How did Philly311 start? What are the main goals of Philly311? What organizations are involved and how?
People and communities
The team also established criteria for case selection including a focus on service provision, transportation, and human services and selected cases must have a service integration component that crosses the boundaries of agencies within a city. Philly311 as a direct service delivery project and with a focus on city-level service integration met the selection criteria.
Table 4. Sample interview questions
Case description
How does the larger environment of Philly311
economy?
Data was collected using the protocol jointly developed by the multinational “Smart Cities Service Integration” research team, which aims to explore the processes of smart city initiatives and their impacts on cities, people, and city governments. The study of Chourabi et al. [6] provides a conceptual background of the interview protocol. Table 4 presents a summary of interview questions included in the interview protocol.
Technology
What is the relationship between Philly311 and the
influence Philly311? (e.g., cultural, social, political, economic, demographic contexts)
In December 2011, the authors conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with city government officials and managers with responsibility for managing and operating the City of Philadelphia’s 311 service center, Philly311. Each face-to-face interview lasted approximately one hour, and additional information was collected through follow-up email communication.
body, governance model, decision making process, and conflict resolution process) What’s the authority and role of staff, partners, and stakeholders? How are citizens and other organizations involved in Philly311? policy environment?
3.1 Data Collection
Categories
How is Philly311 governed? (probes: governing
• Codes: identifying anchors that allow the key points of the data to be gathered • Concepts: collections of codes of similar content that allows the data to be grouped • Categories: broad groups of similar concepts that are used to generate a theory • Theory: a collection of explanations that explain the subject of research
(probes: organizational structure, business process, workflow, progress tracking, staffing, training, funding, etc.) What organizational challenges is Philly311 facing in achieving its objectives? How are those challenges being overcome?
Corresponding to the research logic, Table 5 describes the scheme of this grounded theory analysis.
How is information and communication technology being used for Philly311? (probes: service channels, data analysis tools, system integration, social media use, etc.)
Table 5. The scheme for the grounded theory analysis Categories
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Concepts
Codes emergent from the data
Smart management
Smart service delivery
Efficient management
Efficient resource allocation; saving budget; saving human resource; business process change
in center), email, short message service (SMS), and social media (Twitter).
Effective management
Informed decision making; datadriven management; performance management; business process change
4. PHILLY311 AND TRANSFORMING GOVERNMENT
Transparent management
Anti-corruption; integrity; transparency; open government; service level agreement
Managerial governance
Interdepartmental collaboration; external partnership; service level agreement
This section shares some of the finding from the interviews with Philly311 officials. Overall we heard about two kinds of changes in resulting in part from the Philly311 initiative; changes in management and service delivery. The 311-driven changes discussed below are expounded first in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and governance (See Table 6). Table 6. Philly311: driving innovation
Efficient service Service integration; channel delivery consolidation; shared service capability
Management Efficiency
Effective service Customer-oriented service; delivery professionalism; internal customers; external customers
allocation of resources
Effectiveness
Transparency
Technological challenges
Governance
Organizational Organizational factors challenges
Limited funding; limited operation; limited staffing; cultural conflict; interdepartmental difference
Technological opportunities
Business process change; datadriven culture; performance-driven culture; customer-oriented culture
Governance challenges
Interdepartmental conflict; the lack of a formal governing body; informal interdepartmental collaboration; more burden for extensive data analysis
Governance opportunities
Relational governance; mutual understanding; citizen engagement
Governance factors
making Data-driven management
Anti-corruption and integrity
Under-equipping; cost of upgrading back-office technologies; timing of investment of the right technology at the right time; the digital divide Channel diversification; emerging technologies; smart phone
Informed decision
Governance in Citizen engagement; neighborhood service delivery engagement; community engagement; neighborhood liaison
Technological opportunities
Frontline service integration
Shared services
Transparent External accountability; internal service delivery accountability; service level agreement
Technological factors
Efficient use and
Service Delivery
Internal collaboration External partnership
Customer-oriented service
Professionalism Internal and external accountability
Citizen engagement Neighborhood engagement
4.1 311-Driven Changes in Management The 311 service center is recognized as helping other departments use their resources more efficiently and effectively. One of Philly311’s objectives involves allowing agencies and departments to focus on their core mission and manage their workload efficiently (see www.phila.gov/311). Just as Baltimore’s original motive for launching its 311 was to reduce the crush of calls flooding into 911, Philly311 allows Philadelphia’s 911 center to devote their resources to life-threatening and urgent situations. Philly311 also enables the City Council (the City’s legislative body) to use their resources more effectively, by saving their budget and staff time spent on facilitating constituent services. According to interviewees, this has freed Council resources, primarily the time of Council members, to other important needs of city residents.
3.3 Case Description
Furthermore, the information Philly311 provides to other departments is driving internal business process changes. One Philly311staff person gave an example of how Philly311 is contributing to informed decision making in the departments by helping them easily find hot spots.
Philadelphia is one of the last cities of its size to activate a 311 non-emergency toll-free number. On the last day of 2008, the mayor and the managing director of the City opened Philly311 as a concrete step toward the administration’s strategic goal of smarter, faster, and better government through customer service, government efficiency, and accountability. The basic idea— giving the public a direct way to request services or complain and using their feedback to hold government accountable—was not entirely new to Philadelphia. The City already had customer hotlines, but there was no single, consolidated contact point. The new 311 contact center absorbed the City Hall Switchboard, the Mayor’s Action Center, the Department of Licenses and Inspections’ customer line, and part of the Department of Streets’ customer line. Philly311 offers various ways to contact the City: phone, in person (Philadelphia is one of a few cities with a walk-
[XX department] had a fairly random process in how they prioritize replacement of street lights. Once we provide data, we are able to provide GIS map. That shows where the calls come from—hot spots. They can visually see the clusters. Now they have a data source. The data source actually gave them an opportunity to say “we need to do this.” Always right places.
Interviewees consider Philly311 as crucial to their larger citywide performance management efforts. Data pulled from Philly311 can expose what residents care about most. This data is used to
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and in turn the on-loan agents from private call centers learned more about how the City works. From the preparation period of Philly311 through its kick off to the present, the partnerships with the private sector has offered a mentoring opportunity for Philly311 agents and supervisors.
discuss departmental performance at PhillyStat meetings, where the mayor, the managing director, relevant deputy mayors, and representatives from the departments and agencies meet regularly to track and monitor operational performance. The City’s performance management program now relies heavily on data from Philly311 and this type of data-driven management changes the roles of public managers. With the data provided by Philly311, they act as data managers and process managers as much as direct problem solvers.
4.2 311-Driven Changes in Service Delivery The 311 service center serves both as a front-line contact center and as a shared service center. Not only does it integrate frontline services by providing quick and easy access to non-emergency municipal services and information through a single, consolidated channel, but it also creates capabilities for shared service, which denotes “a generic service that is jointly developed by public agencies and can be used many times in different business processes of various government agencies” [19: p. 32]. Services, including the development costs of such services, can be shared by multiple agencies to avoid the redundant investments in similar functionality. Philly311 provides shared services to city departments through its consolidated channel for service requests and complaints. Shared services promise chiefly three benefits: reduced costs, improved quality of services, and fewer distractions [3,10,23]. One interviewee addressed Philly311’s moderate (but not as much as expected) effect in saving the City’s administrative costs.
Philly311’s contribution to a smart government involves raising transparency and integrity in government processes. “[People] don’t need to know anybody anymore to get services,” said one of the executive-level interviewees. “Just call 311!” Other interviewees also agreed that Philly311 transforms the way the City does its business. Before 311, many citizens did not know where they should start to request a service. For service requests, some took advantages of contacting a council person as a representative of their community. Philly311 has become an equalizing strategy. Since its launch, citizens can see more clearly how their government works through Philly311. One interviewee said, People didn’t understand the process. The internal process was mystery. For example, we got a request— fix that property. We can say here is the process. Philly311 does that. That’s transparency. Now people can see what’s happening in the government.
Shared services strategies are based on service level agreements. The agreements stipulate service standards that are measurable and can be used to support accountability (e.g., response times). For instance, a residential property that is not being maintained must be investigated by the Department of Licenses and Inspections within forty-five days. A dead animal must be removed by the Department of Streets in three days and an abandoned vehicle within thirty days. Similar to this, if a department has agreed in its service level agreements to deal with a citizen’s service task in X number of days, the customer should be informed of that service standard. The department is held accountable to complete the service in that amount of time or provide information back to Philly311 as to why the service could not be completed in the agreed-upon amount of time. City agencies perform hundreds of tasks, but Philly311 only handles the ones for which it can hold an agency accountable to the previously agreed upon service standard and timing.
From a managerial perspective becoming a smarter city involves interdepartmental collaboration. In the case of Philly311, this takes the form of written service level agreements that codify each function of the City’s key service departments (i.e., Streets, Licenses and Inspections, Police, Water, Parks and Recreation, and Fairmount Park) with a specific timeframe for completion. A service level agreement refers to “an agreement between the provider of a service and its customers which quantifies the minimum quality of service which meets the business need” [16: p. 14]. It is also considered a formal contract between a service provider and its customers [14]. Philly311 staff collaborate on reviewing, updating, and revising both the formal contracts between Philly311 and other departments and the knowledgebase for readily available responses to service and information requests, through regular meetings with internal partners who are key to citizen service (the departments on service level agreements).
The 311 system serves for customers as an effective contact point. One of executive-level interviewees viewed Philly311 as an interaction tool, by saying “[Philly311] connects people to government as much as possible. It is interactive to see what’s on people’s minds.” Through integration of multiple channels for municipal services and information, Philly311 serves as a main gate to residents, businesses, and visitors of the City. As well, Philly311 becomes a front line of service agents reachable via the toll-free phone line and often digital media. One of the Philly311 launch project team members said:
The review and revision process allows those departments to learn about Philly311 operations and in turn allows Philly311 to learn about other departments’ jobs. Philly311 staff listen to them and work to understand their concerns. The partnership for the service level agreements increases transparency across city departments. “We get everybody’s input. People bring their concerns into the table,” said one Philly311 staff person. “We own the system and they own the content.” Hence the partnership of Philly311 with other departments is built, in part, on the integration of the departmental knowledge (content) into the 311 system.
311 is a front door. Before 311, Philadelphia had hundreds of front doors. Most were blocked, not open at all. The City created the best face of the front door for the City.
The management of Philly311 has been supported by strategic partnerships with external organizations. In the early stages of Philly311, private sector partners helped finalize a detailed strategy and implementation plan. They also contributed to relieving the burden on Philly311 caused by under-staffing, providing some of their experienced agents (on-loan call agents). Philly311 call agents benefited from private sector best practices,
The interviews highlighted the agreement among Philly311 staff that everybody is their customer—not just citizens, businesses and visitors to the City but other city departments as well. As evidence of this commitment, the mayor created a unique position among 311 programs; the Chief Customer Service Officer. This role is
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currently filled by Philly311’s Director. Given the Director’s dual roles, organizational responsibility for Philly311 extends to inspiring all city government officials to view themselves as city ambassadors who play a major role in building and maintaining the relationship with those who live in or do business with the City. Philly311 as a city agency also invests in building customer service skills through its Customer Service Leadership Academy, training customer service agents throughout city government. The program imbues them with customer service professionalism.
residents willing to participate in a two-hour training session, through which they are made familiar with various city departments and the electronic reporting system. Neighborhood liaisons have become important actors in the community by combining their new training with what they know about their neighborhoods and the wants and needs of the community more and better than outsiders. One Philly311 staff person said: The liaisons are community leaders. We train them to use our system. They have ability to put information directly into our system. That’s our strong connection in a different way of outreach. Multiple sources of information are embedded in neighborhoods.
Philly311, according to city officials, also serves an accountability role. For external accountability, callers, senders of emails and text messages, and walk-in customers receive a tracking number for their service request. This number allows requestors to followup either by calling back to the Philly311 Center or visiting the 311 homepage. One executive-level interviewee said, “People want to see government working in a more connected through technology.”
The neighborhood liaisons have become contact points for capturing and integrating service requests. They are critical to connecting the 311-enabled integrated services with the service needy, often poor, technology-illiterate, and living in distressed neighborhoods.
For internal accountability, data collected from Philly311 is used in conjunction with the PhillyStat process to track, evaluate, and, if necessary, correct service patterns in the departments. PhillyStat is the City’s performance review program in which the top leadership members participate. 1 During each regular meeting for performance management of PhillyStat, city leaders review departmental performance metrics and progress toward the mayor’s strategic goals, and each department has the responsibility to account for their performance in front of the City’s executives with respect to service standards put forth in the service level agreements. The guidelines described in the service level agreements and their use by departments, Philly311 and the PhillyStat process create a holistic accountability program that was noticeably absent before 311.
5. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Philly311 was established under a very tight timeframe—11 months from February to December in 2008. No other city of Philadelphia’s size launched a 311 center operation under such time pressure. The aggressive timeline itself was not a serious problem alone, but early challenges arose from unexpected global financial crisis. The subsequent budget crisis experienced by the whole city meant scaling back or postponing key elements of the project. The budget gap created two severe challenges: understaffing—six agents short of the operational goal of 57 agents and recruitment based on internal transfers of inexperienced agents from other departments—and under-equipping—the use of old Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
The consolidated channel for non-emergency service and information requests enables and empowers people to engage in their communities. As one Philly311 staff member said “311 enables citizens to become involved in their neighborhood by reporting a problem they see.” Respondents discussed how citizens are seeing how reporting a problem can impact the neighborhood—for example, requests for removing graffiti from a local park or clearing up a vacant property that can be potentially a place for crime—they are further inspired to become involved in improving the neighborhood they live in. They talked about the relationship between 311 services and citizen engagement in neighborhood environments around such issues as built infrastructure, public safety, and public facilities. With Philly311, according to city officials, citizens are seeing in a new way the connection between their efforts and the quality of life in their community.
These challenges continued through to the present, but according to interviewees, the first year of Philly311 still provided a set of practical lessons about how a city with similar challenges could launch and operate a 311 system. They spoke of the critical role of strong executive support, strategic partnership with external organizations, and adaptation and flexibility in staffing and equipping in mitigating these challenges. One Philly311 founding official noted: We clearly could not move forward with upgrading with our CRM, and we didn’t change our recruitment strategies. The budget crisis impacted us in a significant way, but we were still able to achieve a majority of outcomes.
These outcomes are the changes made by Philly311 in management and service delivery, as discussed in the preceding section. The major challenges and concerns faced in Philadelphia as they worked to transform their city government through 311 are introduced and discussed below followed by a discussion of new opportunities for change being uncovered in the current phase.
One of Philly311’s unique characteristics is its neighborhood liaison program. A neighborhood liaison serves their community by reporting issues directly to the Philly311 system (oftentimes on behalf of their neighbors) and provides the community with progress reports. Becoming a Philly311 liaison is open to any 1
5.1 Technology The technological challenges identified were primarily related to under-equipping. In particular, Philly311 wanted to upgrade back office software such as the CRM and database systems for information sharing. One Philly311 staff claimed, “We need the right technology at the right time.” Interviewees discussed how the City is recognizing an increasing number of Internet users accessing Philly311 through their smart phones instead of desktop
There are two types of PhillyStat meetings. PhillyStat Outcomes a high-level review of the Mayor’s goals and outcomes. PhillyStat Ops is an operational review of one department or agency, where performance targets are assessed in five key areas—operations, human resources, finance and budget, technology, and customer service within the individual department.
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dependence, trust, and interpersonal relationships [14]. Interviewees agreed the process has worked well so far, but recognized that the process needs to be formalized for expansion of the service level agreements and Philly311 functions.
or laptop computers. Internet connection through mobile phones is increasingly being viewed as a strategy for closing the digital divide in the City. The extension of the 311 system to smart phones was considered by interviewees as a way to further promote citizen engagement and active feedback of 311 services from citizens, while also reaching out to a new segment of the community.
On the other hand, the interdepartmental governance around Philly311 allows Philly311 and the departments in the service level agreements to create mutual understandings of their jobs. The series of informal meetings have provided those city departments with a valuable opportunity for mutual learning. Furthermore, some Philly311 staff said the interagency relationship has shifted from competitive on customer services to complementary. At the beginning of Philly311, other departments and agencies had a concern that Philly311 takes their own jobs. Now the mutual learning has developed an understanding that Philly311 does help their jobs. In addition, Philly311’s past three years have changed the City Council’s early perception of the 311 center and other departments as well. The City Council does not concentrate their energies any more on routine constituent services that they dealt with before 311 by receiving service requests and complaints pertinent to Council districts. Philly311 reports to the City Council about the status of customer service delivery by Council districts, and the Council members appreciate data and information pulled from 311 as an effective tool to better understand their constituents.
5.2 Management and Organization Budgetary constraints generated organizational challenges in recruiting qualified call center agents and keeping call center operations open for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While these staffing challenges have continued since the launch of Philly311, the interviews revealed a new and related challenge. Philly311 as a city agency has a unique organizational culture distinguishable from other departments and agencies, because it serves as a leader and pioneer of customer services in the City government. According to one Philly311 staff person, call center agents may feel that they have to comply with a more rigorous internal standard for excellence in customer services, which is not required in other departments. Philly311 may offer government employees a new opportunity to see their job differently. The way service departments do their business changes due to the 311 center. Directors and managers in the city departments are seeing their job in a more efficient, effective, and transparent way. For example, one of Philly311’s missions is to “provide recommendations into ways to improve City government through accurate, consistent measurement and analysis of service delivery citywide” (see www.phila.gov/311). By the measurement and analysis, Philly311 helps city departments have better understanding of what they are doing and what others are doing. According to one executive-level interviewee, Philly311 is driving a cultural change in the whole city government to data-based, performance-driven, and customer-oriented culture, but that isn’t coming at a short horizon, given the interdepartmental differences in organizational culture.
Another side of governance formed by Philly311 indicates the increasing interactions with citizens. Philly311 provides a new way by which citizens are involved in their neighborhood concerns. Philly311 receives requests for service, which may be the reports of community problems residents see: for example, removing graffiti, clearing up a vacant property, moving a vacant car, replacing a street light, and so on. Among them, some requests, despite a small portion in call volumes, reflect concerned citizens’ ideas and suggestions for improving neighborhood environments beyond reporting immediate problems. This citizen engagement category of calls to 311 merits attention from city managers, but inbound calls are currently analyzed in terms of the two main categories (information requests and service requests). Categorizing some calls into citizen engagement and further analyzing those calls in depth needs additional efforts of Philly311 agents.
5.3 Internal and External Governance Internal governance-related and also cross-organizational challenges mostly lie in interdepartmental or interagency collaboration. A formal governance body for such collaboration does not exist, but instead some staff members of Philly311 meet key people from the departments on the service level agreements in a regular basis. Philly311 staff identified this process as informal. The City government considers expanding the scope of services and information provided by Philly311 by including more departments in the service level agreements. The process through which the current service level agreements were created is based on interdepartmental collaboration. To establish the interdepartmental agreements, Philly311 staff identified potentially high volume customers (departments) and contacted them. Through the meetings, Philly311 staff decided who has knowledge of city services and information. This process has been semi-regularized, but not based on a formal process. With this informal process, there is a challenge in bringing new service departments into the service level agreements, because Philly311 does not have a formal governance body for organizing new interdepartmental collaboration and cooperation. The mechanism for interdepartmental workings on revising and updating the service level agreements currently relies on relational governance, which refers to governance by commitment, mutual
6. DISCUSSIONS While a growing number of conceptual studies are exploring cities and the meaning of being a “smart city”, relatively few studies are engaging in empirical investigations of smart city activities. A variety of existing theories and theoretical models of urban innovation are being considered by scholars in terms of their relevancy to city-level initiatives being carried out in the interest of becoming “smarter”. A challenge to such efforts is that, as of Table 7. Challenges and opportunities of Philly311 Challenges Technology
Timing in upgrading software and systems
Management and organization
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Limited funding Cultural differences between 311 and other departments
Opportunities
New technologies to bridge the digital divide
Business process change
Change to data-based, performance-driven, and customer-oriented culture
Internal and external governance
Reliance on informal
Strengthening relational
processes in interdepartmental collaboration Additional efforts for analyzing calls for citizen engagement
governance in interdepartmental collaboration Providing a new way to citizen engagement
equipped technical conditions have continued since the launch of Philly311. While some smart city programs such as the 311 nonemergency contact centers consume capital budget, others may be conducted in a resource-saving way. The case of Philly311 offers various lessons for smart city practitioners. With the growing importance of Philly311 as a smart city program of the city, the data-driven and customer service-oriented culture is increasingly being imbued across the whole city government of Philadelphia. Mitigating inter-organizational tensions and conflicts is also vital to smart city management. In the case of Philly311, internal governance enables interdepartmental efforts toward producing service level agreements. Current informal governance mechanisms leave much room for improvement. To gain much attention and guarantee active participation of all related actors, a smart city program needs to be formalized and institutionalized by a city government.
yet, there is no consensus on what constitutes a “smart city”. Grounded in rich evidence from semi-structured interviews, this study considers Philly311 as a smart city initiative that contributes to making the city of Philadelphia more efficient, effective, and transparent and facilitating city-level governance. The study also suggests a model, grounded on empirical evidence without preconceived theories [13,22], to understand smart city programs. Figure 1. A smart city program model
Philly311 also offers new ways to engage even more citizens in neighborhood issues. The challenge for cities is in understanding how best to create new policies and administrative processes to ensure as well as leverage such engagement. While the whole city government obviously takes benefits from Philly311 by making operational management and service delivery smarter, the 311 service center exposes both challenges and opportunities.
Technological factors
Smart City Program To Make a City Government Smarter
Smart City Management
Efficiency Effectiveness Transparency Governance
7. CONCLUSION
Smart City Service Delivery
Organizational factors
Philly311 is being used as crucial part of the city administration’s strategy to transform the city government into a smarter, faster and better city. Interviews with key actors in the creation and operation of Philly311 shed light on its contribution to a smart government and ultimately a smart city. According to the interviewees, a smart government involves operating in a more efficient, effective, transparent, and open governance-facilitating way. In this paper, we suggested preliminary understanding of smart city initiatives in the context of the City of Philadelphia and its 311 non-emergency contact center. The understanding should be extended and generalized to other smart city programs. Further research will focus on more diverse cases of 311 contact centers. We will revisit findings from this study and extend them through comparative analysis with additional 311 service center cases as well as service integration efforts more generally.
Cross-organizational factors
This study explored impacts of a smart city initiative in the form of a 311 non-emergency service program. Philly311 as a smart city program is enabling more effective and efficient management while also informing service delivery strategies. It is also deeply embedded in a set of technological, organizational and managerial, and internal and external governance-related factors. The Philly311 service center serves residents, business, and visitors as a convenient front line of municipal services. Tailoring frontline services to the needs of individual citizens is a key to smart city service delivery [8]. Philly311’s back-end functions enable the city to gain more efficiency and effectiveness by allocating and using managerial and operational resources in a smarter way, based on performance data. City management leveraging these smart cities strategies and capabilities is thus contributing to efficiency, effectiveness, and the improvement in decision making [24]. Enhancing transparency and accountability of service delivery through Philly311 is also one of the ways to Philadelphia is becoming smarter. Enhanced transparency and accountability of city administration contributes to smart governance [12]. Externally, Philly311 allows citizens to engage more easily in their neighborhoods and communities. Internally, Philly311 enables and promotes interdepartmental collaboration and cooperation. Based on the practice in Philly311, this study suggests that a characteristic of a smart city engages various internal (city agencies) and external (individual citizens and civic groups) stakeholders in making community-related decisions [12].
8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the many City of Philadelphia government officials who spent time with us and openly shared their perspectives and valuable insights on Philly311, PhillyRising, and PhillyStat programs. We are also grateful to all members of the multinational research project titled “Smart Cities Service Integration.” This study is partially supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and the home institutions of researchers who jointly work on the multi-national research project. The views and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SSHRC or the home institutions of other researchers.
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Some positive changes made by Philly311 are not without challenge, especially in terms of technology, management, and governance. This finding can be extended to practical implications for smart city initiatives. Budgetary constraints and under-
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Session 11 IT Governance & Policy
A Literature Review: IT Governance Guidelines and Areas Ruben Pereira
Miguel Mira da Silva
Instituto Superior Tecnico Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa +351 966474901
Instituto Superior Tecnico Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa +351 919671425
[email protected]
[email protected] [50][27], nevertheless, there are also evidences that IT keep being badly managed and governed [29][14]. Such fact influences the success of e-Governance initiatives.
ABSTRACT Lack of business/IT (BIT) alignment affects e-governance initiatives success. Information Technology Governance (ITG) has been recognized as a CIO top-10 issue for more than five years and has risen in priority between 2007 and 2009. Several Frameworks exist to help organizations in ITG implementation but lack scientific viewpoint, are complex, and also overlap each other. In this paper we make a literature review to leverage the ITG general guidelines and main ITG areas in order to provide a scientific viewpoint validation. We also evaluate our artefacts with expert’s interviews in order to provide practitioner viewpoint validation, and map our artifact with current theories. Finally, we conclude our research with main contributions and future work.
Several Frameworks exist to help organizations in ITG implementation. However, organizations still prefer to design their own [5]. Such fact is not surprising since most Frameworks state that there is no single “best” IT organizational structure or governance arrangement because IT needs to respond to the unique environments within which exists [29][2] but don’t specify the factors that can influence each ITG implementation, are seen as complex [35], too general [32], lacking a theoretical foundation from a scientific viewpoint [17], and overlap each other [35]. Such statements reinforce the possibility of improvements in the existing Frameworks.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1.0 [Models and Principles]: General.
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
General Terms
Few researchers attempted to perform empirical studies on ITG topic [6]. Hence, we constructed and evaluated new and innovative artifacts following the design research paradigm [21]. Based on the four design artifacts produced by design science research in information systems - constructs, models, methods and instantiations - we will focus on constructs (ITG guidelines and ITG/M areas). Constructs are necessary to describe certain aspects of a problem domain [37], they provide the language in which problems and solutions are defined and communicated.
Management, Performance, Design, Standardization, Theory.
Keywords IT, Governance, Management, IT Governance Guidelines, Literature Review, IT Governance Areas, e-Governance
1. INTRODUCTION Many organizations have become totally reliant on IT for success and recognize that IT is becoming one of their main organizational assets [34][16]. However, government bodies have limited expertise in IT and are slow to leverage their potential for improving governance what can be fatal for organizations wishing to implement e-Governance solutions [31][23]. BIT alignment becomes crucial and ITG has been identified as an appropriate solution to deal with increasing IT changes and complexity. The purpose of this paper is to examine both the previous and the current research in ITG so a basis for further research and the identification of the main ITG guidelines and main ITG and Management (ITG/M) areas based on literature and experts’ knowledge could be provided in order to help organization in future ITG implementations. Indeed, there are studies that show the positive effect of good ITG implementation in organizations
The methodology applied is divided according to the two processes of design science research (build and evaluate). The literature review approach used in this paper follows the conceptcentric methodology of IS literature reviews as outlined in Webster and Watson [49]. In this article we evaluated our artifacts through interviews. In addition, by submitting scientific publications to respected international conferences, we also used the appraisal of the scientific community as evaluation criteria.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW Since the 1990s ITG has been a concern. However, good ITG is no longer a “nice to have”, but a “must have” and can contribute to higher returns on assets at a time when business is spending increasing amounts on technology investment [48]. Indeed, Gartner states that ITG has been recognized as a CIO top-10 issue for more than five years and has risen in priority during the past two [16]. ITG potential is also in the fact that the most significant IT issues, currently and in the future, are not technology-related, but governance-related [18].
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3.1 IT Governance Guidelines Guidelines have been designed, used, and adopted in several domains [21][4][43]. As a result, they should be considered an instrument that ought not to be underestimated since guidelines
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Table 1. ITG Guidelines Summary Guidelines 1
Where do we want to be?
2
Where are we now?
3
What do we need to get there?
4
7
How do we get where we want to be? How do we know we have arrived there? Are we following the market’s best practices? How do we know we are doing it right?
8
How do we keep it on track?
5 6
About what? BIT objectives and vision BIT alignment, maturity, BIT strategic plan Structures, processes, and mechanisms IT processes Metrics Measurements Best practices Frameworks Compliance Audit Improvement Innovation
What do we need?
Literature Reference
BIT strategies BIT goals Core competences, assess IT department and maturity, assess enterprise, assess BIT alignment Collect information about contingency factors of the organization, define the necessary mechanisms Materialize the plan defined in the previous step IT Balance Scorecard Enterprise Balance Scorecard
[34][41][27][48][16][12][43] [38][15][46][33] [34][41][27][48] [16][12][43] [38][15][46][33]
Be aware of best practices frameworks and standards
[28][17][12] [8][11]
Audit regularly Internal and external compliance Collect information to I&I in order to prepare organization for current and future challenges
are necessary to obtain a uniformity regarding functionality, as well as a desired quality level [4]. Reviewing available literature on the subject under study is an essential part of developing guidelines which can be based on experience - either practical or theoretical [45]. We summarize our guidelines in Table 1.
[1][13][9][29] [8][46][33] [2][22] [41][48][12] [44][43][15] [46][2] [1][41][27][48] [44][8][39] [46][33][30]
[41][36][24] [16][38][15] [2][24][19]
also used the results of a series of experts interviews. We used structured interviews covering a diverse sample of organization types, sizes, and roles. By space limitations we won’t present interviewees details. The respondents have a lot of experience in the area. To support the interviews, we designed a questionnaire to lead the discussion. In the interviews, the majority of the questions weren’t open-response questions because of the nature of the information we need to elicit. The interviews were conducted over a one month period. Each session lasted from 60 to 90 minutes and was transcribed into digital data.
3.2 IT Governance/Management Main Areas Many frameworks exist and each one calls their processes/areas with different names which culminate in overlap and contribute to organization confusion as well as waste of resources [35]. Therefore a formalization of ITG and ITM areas is needed. We summarize the ITG and ITM areas in Table 2.
We performed nine interviews with ITG experts who have strategic alignment and ITG knowledge in their organizations. Seven interviews were performed in Portugal and two in Ireland by Skype. The interviewees were 3 consultant organizations (1, 2 and 7) and 6 non-consultant (3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9) organizations. Table 3 shows a summary of the results. We used “yes/no” to
4. EVALUATION In order to validate our artefacts, besides the complete literature review and despite the little empirical work concerning ITG in the literature, we also mapped the artefacts with current theories and
Table 2. Main ITG/M Areas summary Main Area
Description
Topics/subjects
Literature Reference
Strategy Management
Responsible for business/IT objectives and alignment, contingency factors, and other reasons pointed out as possible differentiators of ITGI.
Demand Management, Market analyze, IT/Business strategy plan/definition/alignment
[41][28][48][12][47] [39][15][46][2][11][19] [30]
Service Management
Responsible for service definition, service catalogue, service portfolio, service levels, and other subjects about provided services.
Service Level Management Service Portfolio
[34][24][26]
Resource Management
Accountable for the correct management of the organization’s resources, like people, technology, applications, etc. Training is included.
Human resource, Hardware, Software, Capacity and Configuration Mngt., Information Mngt.
[13][41][28][47][39][2] [19][30]
Responsible for the correct assurance of the business’ continuity by anticipating and preventing possible risks of the IT department, which are correlated with business risk. Responsible for the design and development of software as well as its maintenance. Responsible for the design of the necessary architectures for the good functioning of the IT department. Accountable for the management of the entire cross IT department project, all kinds of projects. Responsible for the assurance of the required procedures to guarantee functionality and provide services and products with the required quality. In charge of assuring the correct financial functioning of the IT department and of providing budget, costs, and financial plans. Manages all the aspects concerning outsourcers, as contracts, service levels, relations, etc.
Disaster recovery, Backups and security Management, Business continuity, Identity and access Management Application Management Application maintenance IT architecture and engineering Infrastructure Management Project Portfolio Management Project Management Quality control Product Quality Management Portfolio and Value Mngt., Define budgets, Manage costs Manage contracts Control outsourcers Incident and Problem Mngt. Service desk
Risk Management Development Management Architecture Management Project Management Quality Management Investment Management Outsourcing Management Support Management Compliance Management Improvement & Innovation Management
Responsible for user interaction and mainly keeps user satisfaction
[29][48][15][46][2] [11][30] [50][12][2] [13][41][12][47][39] [43][15][2] [13][41][16][12][39] [15][30] [42][40][7] [14][29][48][16][12] [15][39][46][2][24][30] [47][39][15][2][24] [20][3][10][25]
Accountable for the control of internal and external regulations, as well as report and measurement.
Audit, Policy and Report Mngt., Internal Control
[44][15][24]
Responsible for the management of the improvements and innovations that can be required or provided by the entire IT department.
Analyze reports and options Prospection, Improvement and Innovation, Change Mngt
[39][39][15][2][24][19] [30]
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main ITG/M areas also validated in both scientific and practitioner viewpoint is added value. Including BIT concerns in our artefacts we argue that we are proposing important artefacts in order to increase the e-Governance initiatives success in organizations.
Table 3. Interview Results
Innovation
Architecture
G G G G G G G G G
Resource
No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Risk
No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Compliance
No No Yes No No No No No No
Strategy
Complete?
Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Investment
Remove step?
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Missing?
Complete?
Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Remove?
General?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
ITG/M Areas
Useful?
Interviewees
Guidelines
Future work must pass by the integration of the presented artefacts in an IT governance framework as well as a research in-deep of each identified area taking into consideration the most known frameworks applied in the area. Furthermore, real-world case studies should be performed.
G G G G G G G
G G
G G
6. REFERENCES
G
[1] Adams, C.R., Larson, E.C. and Xia, W. IS/IT Governance Structure and Alignment: An Apparent Paradox. MISRC, (2008).
G
highlight the positive and negative responses.
[2] Agarwal, R. and Sambamurthy, V. Principles and Models for Organizing the IT Function. MISQ 1(1), (2002).
The third interviewee was the only one to disagree with the proposed guidelines. He argued that guidelines 4, 6, and 8 are not needed and a new one about investment decision making between guideline 2 and 3 was missing. However, since we have strong literature support and only one interviewee mentioned this argument, we decided to keep the guidelines without changes. The fifth interviewee stated that such guidelines were not useful since COBIT already has guidelines with such abstraction. However COBIT has it for each COBIT process and not for general ITG implementation. Fifth, sixth and seventh interviewees affirmed that some factors were missing. Fifth, sixth and seventh interviewees stated that some factors were missing.
[3] Bartolini, C., Stefanelli, C. and Tortonesi, M. Analysis and performance improvement of the IT incident management process. In: TNSM, (2010), 132–144. [4] Bohl, O., Frankfurth, A., Schelhase, J. and Winand, U. Guidelines – A Critical Success Factor in the Development of Web-based Trainings. In: ICCE, (2002), 545–546. [5] Broussard, F.W. and Tero, V. Configuration and Change Management for IT Compliance and Risk Management: The Tripwire Approach. White Paper. IDC, 2007. [6] Brown, A.E. and Grant, G.G. Framing the Frameworks: A Review of IT Governance Research. CAIS 15, (2005),696712.
Several conclusions could be withdrawn from the interviews: most of the interviews see the guidelines as useful, compete and general; Strategy Management and Investment Management are almost consensual between interviewees as the main ITG areas; all the areas without any appointment will be assumed as management areas
[7] Corea, S. and Levy, M. Quality of IT support for corporate environmental management: A paradigmatic framework. In: 2nd ICDIM, (2007), 424–429. [8] Dahlberg, T. and Lahdelma, P. IT Governance Maturity and IT Outsourcing Degree: An Exploratory Study. In: HICSS, (2007), 236a.
This research provided us some important learning in ITG field. Based on both scientific and practitioner viewpoint with achieved the formalization of the contingency factors, ITG general guidelines and ITG/M main areas. Besides the consensual identification of the Strategy and Investment Management as ITG areas by practitioners, few other areas still dubiety in practitioner’s viewpoint.
[9] De Haes, S. and Grembergen, W. Analysing the Relationship between IT Governance and Business/IT Alignment Maturity. In: 41st HICSS, (2008),428. [10] Diao, Y., Jamjoom, H. and Loewenstern, D. Rule-Based Problem Classification in IT Service Management. In: CLOUD, (2009), 221-228.
5. CONCLUSION Our research provides interesting contributions in a moment where BIT alignment becomes a crucial issue. The approach allows for a better understanding of the implementation of ITG in a corporate environment.
[11] Fasanghari, M., NasserEslami, F. and Naghavi, M. IT Governance Standard Selection Based on Two Phase Clustering Method. In: 4th NCM, (2008), 513-518. [12] Fink, K. and Ploder, K. Decision Support Framework for the Implementation of IT-Governance. In: HICSS, (2008), 432.
Our artefacts are based on literature review giving them theoretical foundation. Yet, in order to keep providing practitioner viewpoint we also performed interviews with ITG experts. Then we argue that our artefacts were build under both scientific and practitioner viewpoint.
[13] Gallagher, K.P. and Worrel, J.L. Organizing IT to Promote Agility. Inf. Tech. Manag. 9, 1 (2008),71-88. [14] Gao, S., Chen, J. and Fang, D. The Influence of IT Capability on Dimensions of Organization Structure.In: 2ndFITME, (2009), 269-273.
Since current IT frameworks are complex and lack the correct initial roadmap with the identification of the general guidelines that organizations must follow in order to know what must be implemented or addressed first given the context of each organization, we argue that our general guidelines add valuable knowledge to ITG field and community. Moreover, current frameworks also overlap each other, then the formalization of the
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Assessment of Success Factors of e-Government Project Implementation: Challenges for the Kosovo e-Government Perspective Artan Rexhepi, Blerim Rexha and Agni Dika Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Prishtina 10000 Prishtina,KOSOVO +377 44 115 651, +377 44 627 251, +377 44 500 721
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] Government
ABSTRACT Among European countries, Kosovo is ranked low with respect to the provision of on-line e-Government services. The challenges in the introduction of e-Government in Kosovo were largely related to launching simple service delivery and integration of governments back offices. There is still a big disparity between what is being provided and what citizens’ requirements for the eGovernment services are. This study has conducted a survey regarding the perception of current on-line e-government services among Kosovo citizens. By analyzing the current situation from the view of citizens, this paper analyzes the status, requirements and prerequisites for the implementation of a sustainable egovernment portal. The objective of this research is to emphasize the appropriate factors, ranging from information and communication services, application of electronic forms and provision of transaction services, electronic management of documents to the effective administration processes, which could significantly increase the likelihood of success of such egovernment projects. Based on the gathered and analyzed data, the paper discusses action recommendations for an acceptable and sustainable portal, which would be utilizable by a majority of citizens in Kosovo.
1. INTRODUCTION
Categories and Subject Descriptors
The initial requirements for the government start with a detailed remodeling of work processes within the public sector and by translating them into a digitalized e-service format model for citizens. The existing relationships between the government and the citizen will be therefore redefined by introducing new processes at work in the public sector and by opening new opportunities.
There is currently no reliable assessment of the e-government indicators and parameters required for the measurement of the present e-government development in Kosovo. As per the UN DPADM E-country report, Kosovo’s progress to e-government was rated at its beginning, ranking with this Kosovo low with respect to provision of e-services to the citizens [1]. However, over the past few years the understanding of governance and egovernance by the Kosovo government has been continuously changed. There are growing pressures and expectations from the citizens to the public administration aiming for governance with a modern approach for an efficient and effective administration. In addition, the transition period has shown that the government needs to be more transparent and accountable to the public. This and the need for reorganizing many processes within the public sector, covering a wide range of tasks and work arrangements, have been understood and it has lead to initiatives, such as the Kosovo Strategy for E-Government [2]. Nevertheless, there is still a big gap evident between the political priorities and agenda on the one hand and the actual implementation and users expectations on the other hand.
J.1 [Administrative Data Processing]: Government
General Terms Management, Documentation, Performance, Human Factors
Keywords
The Kosovo Government’s E-Government Strategy 2009-2015 has identified the major priorities and objectives that need to be realized. During the past few years, several projects were identified and fully or partly implemented as a basis for the provision of e-services, such as the central register of citizens, the register of economic entities and various registers of cadastre and immovable properties for land administration. Besides such important projects, there is now a need for development and implementation of new projects that will allow the provision of specific e-services, on the basis of which the ordinary citizens can experience the expected benefits of e-government and the information society.
E-Government, Assessment, Kosovo, Electronic Government, Information and Communication Technology, Digital Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
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reflected the introduction of the Information and Communication Technologies environment, sets out the intentions of the egovernment programme by 2015, aims to clarify what are the goals for the e-government service delivery and confirms the continues commitment of the government for the development of standards, interoperability and the government enterprise architecture for achieving the goals of this strategy. It also briefly outlines the current activities undertaken across some of the government bodies for the achievement of these goals.
Despite the fact, that the integration of e-government services in Kosovo through the governmental portal for both citizens and businesses is still in its initial phase, there are certain improvements evident, which were made by some institutions such as certain Ministries and municipal governments. However, most of them are primarily offering information to citizens, while the direct citizen interaction with the government is still in its development stage. A fully functional governmental e-portal as a one-stop access to the most important interactive and transactional e-services, leading to integrated delivery of all government services to citizens and businesses is one of the most important challenges in Kosovo. The development of technological, legal and institutional infrastructure will enable the development of such services to the level of performing full e-government transactions by citizens. However, while the ICT infrastructure remains one of the main pillars of the e-government, the importance of the technology aspect is regularly weighted more than importance of new or revised structures and processes within the public sector. The introduction of e-Government may show its expected benefits only if it is properly planned and if it owns a full social, cultural and political support [3] including the acceptance at the user side. For assessing the effectiveness and ensuring that the frequent rhetoric of a successful implementation of e-government is also matched by reality, the performance of the e-government project implementation needs to be measured [3]. The growing political interest for e-Government in Kosovo together with the increased idea that governments should be more accessible to the citizens through internet shows a big opportunity and a favorable momentum which needs to be appropriately exploited for enhancing the current level of e-government performance and for setting up new e-government projects. In order to prevent such an opportunity from disappearing, a quick and tangible success is required in the implementation of e-government projects for citizens. The success depends heavily on the simplification and implementation of information, communication and transaction processes respectively on the quality of administrative services, especially those which are fully transactional [4].
The main goal is to give access to the citizens to government information and services, participate in the democracy using the internet and other technologies. The better service improves the relationships with citizens by achieving convenience and satisfaction, with this the internal performance of the government will be more integrated and efficient and the citizens participatory role in the decision making process will be increased. The starting point for this study is the fact that despite considerable investments and a large number of ongoing and completed technical assistance projects, the e-Government services in Kosovo have not experienced the anticipated take-up. A systematic consideration of e-service delivery arrangements is required, specifications must be drawn up with great care and therefore the public administration must ensure that particularly the requirements of citizens are addressed during the implementation of the e-Government project [5]. The common requirement for a successful product development and acceptance by the clients is the analysis of the needs of users and the concrete definition and detailed documentation and validation of these requirements [6], however, according to Horan [7], the eGovernment research arena still suffers from a lack of users satisfaction measurements.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION For the e-Government demand side measurement and evaluation one of the most important questions is the decision what to measure and how to design the survey. For this reason the most influencing factors for the success of e-Government are to be identified.
With the objective of measuring the success of e-government, the aim of this study is the assessment the current developments of egovernment project implementation in Kosovo from the perspective of users at the demand side.
The first task was to compile the list of factors to be surveyed, while the success factors have to be determined on an individual basis [8]. These factors need to be adjusted to the context of this specific research. The list of factors to be included shall only consist of qualities, which may have a particular significance for the information system [9]. It is assumed that there are only a limited number of success factors that have an impact on the overall success of information systems [10]. The selected success factors have to cover various fields of information systems such as provision of e-services, communication, competence of staff and the role of the information system [11]. The main objective of the assessment of success factors is to analyze the contribution of particular factors and through this to identify the strengths and the weaknesses in the implementation of ICT systems, which is a requirement for deriving necessary measures for the improvement of the overall success and assessment of its urgency [13]. The selection and evaluation of success factors in this research was based on the list of success factors and methods defined and used by Heeks [12], Hoffmann [13] and Salzmann [14].
2. E-GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE– BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The main challenges faced currently by the public sector in Kosovo mainly relate to the issues of maintenance of databases of various organizational units, their processing and communication. These data are recorded and archived in different locations and media. The communication between specific institutions in the organizational view is very deficient, which is consequently causing delayed or wrong decisions and other mistakes in managing the processes within government institutions and the service delivery to citizens. There is a great potential to improve the information exchange by applying the information technology and communications, and thus directly increase the efficiency of the e-Governance. The Kosovo Government’s E-Government Strategy 2009-2015 was released by the Department of Information Technology of Ministry for Public Services in September 2008 [2]. This paper
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improvement of the overall success. The results of the study will be illustrated using available tools for graphical analysis.
In view of different theoretical approaches to e-government demand-side evaluation, a suitable and locally acceptable evaluation method was to be identified and to be used in this research for measuring the success of the e-government project implementation from the users’ point of view. The several egovernment surveys methods, which are generally used for data collection for the purpose of reviewing the existing performance of the e-government implementation, range from direct interviews with citizens or government officials [15], [16], focus groups [15], visits to government websites [17] to questionnaire surveys to citizens [18]. In order to include a large number of respondents from a broad territory, for practical reasons this survey has utilized the questionnaire survey method.
The profile diagrams and the portfolio matrix are used for the graphical evaluation of success factors. The priority and the perceived implementation of success factors are presented in the same diagram while their values are marked with corresponding points on a scale from one to four. The graphical portfolio matrix is used for the data analysis. This graphical tool is based on a two dimensional diagram, which illustrates the research results in a simple and understandable manner [13]. The portfolio matrix axes show the features explored, in which the priority/expectation is shown on the X-axis and the performance/implementation is shown on the Y-axis. In order to allow a simple evaluation of the results, the matrix is divided into nine clusters. All factors that are listed in the portfolio matrix by combining their characteristics fall into one of these matrix clusters. The clusters are used for gathering factors with similar characteristics in respective groups, for which pre-standard recommendations for action will be defined.
An empirical study has been conducted for measuring the success of the e-Government project implementation. The research utilized a structured questionnaire used by Hoffmann [13] which was adjusted to adapt to local conditions. The questionnaire used for the collection of data included 23 questions classified to measure the citizens perception of the priority and performance of selected factors, important for the success of the overall egovernment information system. Apart from these, the questionnaire contained additional 20 questions typical to demographics, internet usage habits, their awareness on the availability and their expectations for e-government services. Some questions additionally referred to their opinion regarding the future development of e-government services. The questions on the success factors required the responder to assess the priority of every factor on a scale from 1 (not important) to 4 (most important) as well as the current performance of the same factor from 1 (not implemented in practice) to 4 (fully implemented in practice). (Questionnaire can be provided on request).
This method is used for analyzing the success of implemented egovernment projects and to draw specific recommendations for further action in relation to improvement of the overall success of specific factors.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The target survey population of this study comprised a representative sample of people residing in various Kosovo municipalities during 2011. The study population was comprised of 300 adult persons of various age groups. The Figure 1 outlines the age groups of the study population by gender: a total of 38.3% of all male and female respondents were under age 25, 31.7% were within the age group interval from 26 through 35, 18% were between 36 through 45, 8.3% between 46 through 55 and 3.7% above 55. In absence of final data from the 2011 census in Kosovo, for comparison purposes the Figure 2 shows the estimated population of Kosovo by age groups as assessed through the results of the 2009 labor force survey conducted by the Statistical Office of Kosovo.
The probability method used for the selection of the survey sample was based on random sampling. A total of 350 questionnaires were used by targeting various citizens and in order to reflect the entire adult Kosovo population and to ensure a representative sample in terms of demographic and sociological structure, the questionnaires were distributed to random citizens through University students, employers of various private and public companies and institutions, unemployed and elderly people throughout 9 different Kosovo municipalities. For practical reasons the data collection was conducted in only 9 out of 37 Kosovo municipalities. In order to have a adequate statistical representation of collected data, Prishtina, as the capital city, together with all six secondary municipalities, where the majority of the Kosovo population resides, were included in this sample. Additionally two smaller minority municipalities were also included of this survey in order to obtain a representative sample from various municipalities. Out of this number a total of 300 questionnaires were validated and were selected for this empirical study, representing a sample size with a standard confidence level of 95% and confidence interval of 5.5%. The data collected through this survey was digitalized, coded and analyzed using statistical analysis software for descriptive statistics and relationships.
From the gender perspective, Figure 3 shows that 58.7% of total respondents were Males and 41.3% were Females and the gender differences were significant (χ2= 9.01, P=0.03, thus P
