A Primer on E-Government

Author(s):  
Shannon Howle Schelin

E-government (electronic government) has become a mainstay in local, state, and federal government. The era of e-commerce and e-business began with the widespread adoption of the Internet in the mid-1990s and today many citizens expect the same responsiveness and access to government services as found in the private sector. According to the 2002 International City/County Managers Association e-government survey, over 73 percent of municipalities with populations larger than 2,500 have Web sites. The 2002 Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that 58 percent (68 million people) of American Internet users have accessed at least one governmental Web site (Larson and Rainie, 2002).

Author(s):  
Gohar Feroz Khan ◽  
Junghoon Moon

Electronic government, or e-Government, is the practice of providing public services to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies where government services can be accessed through the Internet, mobile phone, fax, mail, telephone, and personal visits (MGAHA, 2005). Developing countries, utilizing the late comer advantage, are mimicking trends of paperless governments with the expectations to reap the same benefits enjoyed by developed countries. However, e-Government initiatives have not always been successful in developing countries. According to the study conducted by Heeks (2003), the rate of e-Government success in developing countries was only 15 percent. The authors believe that such failures are mainly due to certain unique social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges faced by e-Government in developing countries. For example, some major issues include digital divide, political instability, and skills-related issues. However, the research dealing with these problems is limited. Therefore, in this chapter, the authors discuss these challenges.


Author(s):  
Bill Ag. Drougas

Internet today is one of the most useful tools for information, education and business or entertainment. It is one of the modern technology tools giving us many applications world wide in various fields. One of the most important applications of the Internet is the e-commerce for quality health and medical products. There are an enormous number of Web sites offering health products with the method of E-commerce but still there are many problems with the quality of these products. To the other side many individuals are not able to choice and to know about the quality of these health products that offered today on line with the Internet companies. There are many serious proposals today in to the direction of the quality of the products in health. In this paper summarized many informations about the on line commerce for health products, some of the most popular products and the methodology to train individuals in to the direction to buy and choose quality products. In this paper also presented and analyzed the characteristics and criteria of one serious Internet health company and its Web site. Also how the different scientific organizations can help people and the electronic health commerce to be more effective in to various fields in the division of the popular health. This will be more effective after training and giving criteria and or educating Internet users for a serious choice in to their on line commerce with the E-Health Commerce Web Organizations.


Author(s):  
Alfred P. Rovai ◽  
Emery M. Petchauer

The Pew Internet and American Life Project (Pew/Internet; Lenhart, Horrigan, Rainie et al., 2003) reports 42 percent of Americans say they do not use the Internet, with 24 percent being truly off-line with no direct or indirect experience with the Internet. However, these percentages represent averages and don’t pertain uniformly across all subpopulations. Pew/Internet (Fox, 2005) reports Americans age 65 and older, African-Americans, and those with less education lag behind others in Internet usage. The present article examines the impact of these differences on social equity in terms of receiving fair, just, and equitable treatment by the political system regarding public policies and services.


Author(s):  
J. Paynter

Historically, information and services can only be obtained through narrow, one to one, phones, and agency-specific shop fronts (Caffrey, 1998). Information technology, especially the Internet, opens possibilities of using methods to distribute information and deliver services on a much grander scale. The Internet provides a foundation for a variety of communications media. The Web is one of the most important media built upon the Internet. It can be accessed from almost anywhere in the world by means of computers and electronic devices; it is possible to elicit more information, establish platforms for online payment, online consultation and e-voting. Security concerns can be overcome by data-authentication technologies. It can deliver government services and encourage greater democracy and engagement from citizens. Governments around the world are exploring the use of Web-based information technology (Grönlund, 2002). Attention has focused on the design and delivery of portals as a major component of government electronic service infrastructures. The N.Z. government portal site (http://www.govt.nz/en/home/) or the Local Government Online Ltd (LGOL) Web site, (www.localgovt.co.nz/AboutCouncils/Councils/ByRegion/) are examples. Since the mid-1990s governments have been tapping the potential of the Internet to improve and governance and service provision. “In 2001, it was estimated that globally there were well over 50,000 official government Web sites with more coming online daily. In 1996 less than 50 official government homepages could be found on the world-wide-Web” (Ronaghan, 2002). Local governments are faced with growing demands of delivering information and services more efficiently and effectively and at low cost. Along with the rapid growth of technological developments, people demand high quality services that reflect their lifestyles and are accessible after normal office hours from home or work. Thus, the goals of delivering electronic government services are to simplify procedures and documentation; eliminate interactions that fail to yield outcomes; extend contact opportunities (i.e., access) beyond office hours and improve relationships with the public (Grönlund, 2002). Having an effective Web presence is critical to the success of local governments moving to adopt new technologies. Of equal importance is the evaluation of Web sites using different manual and automated methodologies and tools. In this study an evaluation of local authority Web sites was conducted to gain a practical understanding of the impact of the Internet on local governments in New Zealand using a tailor-made model specific to local governments. Issues studied focused on the information and services provided by the local authority Web sites. What is more important is whether the local government operations can or are able to support the expectations for speed, service, convenience, and delivery that the Web creates. Through identification of best practice Web sites and a set of evaluation methods and tools, this paper will provide a set of design guidelines to local authorities that would benefit and better meet the needs of their local communities.


Author(s):  
Marina Sergeyevna CHVANOVA ◽  
Tatyana Yuryevna KITAEVSKAYA ◽  
Irina Aleksandrovna KISELEVA

We analyze influential factors of the Internet on society, their place and role in modernization of open education. We also consider the factors of the Internet impact on society through the change and satisfaction of the following needs of Internet users: the use of new educational technologies and their generation in the Internet space; the formation of project competencies in the process of communication and the potential of new forms of Internet socialization in their implementation; interaction with external partners and the development; interaction in the learning process using new forms of Internet socialization. We consider new forms of online socialization such as social networking; cloud resources; online forums; chat rooms; electronic science videoconferencing; videoconferencing; electronic libraries; electronic government; online banking; recreational services. The study analyzes the pedagogical aspects of the impact of Internet factors on the socialization of young people.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 846-854
Author(s):  
Carlos Luis López-Sisniega ◽  
Maria del Carmen Gutiérrez-Diez ◽  
Ana María de Guadalupe Arras-Vota ◽  
José Luis Bordas-Beltrán

The benefits of e-government services depend on the number of citizens who take advantage of them. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational research study was to determine barriers to e-government use as perceived by citizens at the municipal level in Mexico. The technology acceptance model (TAM), the diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory, and models of web trust formed the theoretical framework of the study. Several hypotheses tested the relation of demographic variables, TAM, DOI, and web trust constructs to the intention of using e-government services of 149 taxpayers of the city of Chihuahua, Mexico, who did not to use the e-government services for payment provided by the government of their municipality. The findings of this study show that trust in the Internet, trust in government, perceptions of convenience, perceptions of compatibility, access to the Internet, perceptions of ease of use, and perceptions of relative advantages are related to the intention to use e-government services. Conversely, awareness of the existence of e-government services, income level, family structure, age, literacy level, computer literacy level, gender, and possession of bankcards are not individually related to the intention to use e-government services of those persons who made face-to-face payments at the treasury office.


Author(s):  
Kaifeng Yang ◽  
Chengfu Zhang ◽  
Jun Tang

As Internet use increases rapidly in China, its governance implications have been debated among researchers. This chapter provides a brief discussion of the complex relationship between Chinese Internet use and Chinese governance regarding the development of the Internet infrastructure, the level and form of Internet use, the “dark” side of the Internet and its control, and the provision of electronic government services. We argue that Internet use in China has been shaped by China’s governance structure, but at the same time it is changing, albeit slowly, that structure.


2011 ◽  
pp. 1064-1073
Author(s):  
John Paynter ◽  
Maria Yin Ling Fung

Historically, information and services can only be obtained through narrow, one to one, phones, and agency-specific shop fronts (Caffrey, 1998). Information technology, especially the Internet, opens possibilities of using methods to distribute information and deliver services on a much grander scale. The Internet provides a foundation for a variety of communications media. The Web is one of the most important media built upon the Internet. It can be accessed from almost anywhere in the world by means of computers and electronic devices; it is possible to elicit more information, establish platforms for online payment, online consultation and e-voting. Security concerns can be overcome by data-authentication technologies. It can deliver government services and encourage greater democracy and engagement from citizens. Governments around the world are exploring the use of Web-based information technology (Grönlund, 2002). Attention has focused on the design and delivery of portals as a major component of government electronic service infrastructures. The N.Z. government portal site (http://www.govt.nz/en/home/) or the Local Government Online Ltd (LGOL) Web site, (www.localgovt.co.nz/AboutCouncils/Councils/ByRegion/) are examples. Since the mid-1990s governments have been tapping the potential of the Internet to improve and governance and service provision. “In 2001, it was estimated that globally there were well over 50,000 official government Web sites with more coming online daily. In 1996 less than 50 official government homepages could be found on the world-wide-Web” (Ronaghan, 2002). Local governments are faced with growing demands of delivering information and services more efficiently and effectively and at low cost. Along with the rapid growth of technological developments, people demand high quality services that reflect their lifestyles and are accessible after normal office hours from home or work. Thus, the goals of delivering electronic government services are to simplify procedures and documentation; eliminate interactions that fail to yield outcomes; extend contact opportunities (i.e., access) beyond office hours and improve relationships with the public (Grönlund, 2002). Having an effective Web presence is critical to the success of local governments moving to adopt new technologies. Of equal importance is the evaluation of Web sites using different manual and automated methodologies and tools. In this study an evaluation of local authority Web sites was conducted to gain a practical understanding of the impact of the Internet on local governments in New Zealand using a tailor-made model specific to local governments. Issues studied focused on the information and services provided by the local authority Web sites. What is more important is whether the local government operations can or are able to support the expectations for speed, service, convenience, and delivery that the Web creates. Through identification of best practice Web sites and a set of evaluation methods and tools, this paper will provide a set of design guidelines to local authorities that would benefit and better meet the needs of their local communities.


Author(s):  
Susan A. Baim

Local, state and federal governments face a continuing need to supply increased amounts of information to their constituencies. Requests for information involve routine matters such as filing for a building permit, checking a property’s legal description, or looking up employment statistics. Requests for information can also involve more complex matters such as seeking advice on how to file income taxes, how to apply for government-sponsored loan programs and/or jobs, or ways to lobby lawmakers to advance a political point of view. In many cases, individuals are now looking to their governments to interact with them electronically, with the same level of sophistication, accuracy, and timeliness that they are experiencing from other online organizations. As a result, there is a tremendous incentive for governmental agencies to understand the Internet-based needs and wants of their constituencies and to respond to them accordingly. The use of efficient and effective virtual communities and interactive Web sites can assist in this process.


2013 ◽  
pp. 1272-1288
Author(s):  
Gohar Feroz Khan ◽  
Junghoon Moon

Electronic government, or e-Government, is the practice of providing public services to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies where government services can be accessed through the Internet, mobile phone, fax, mail, telephone, and personal visits (MGAHA, 2005). Developing countries, utilizing the late comer advantage, are mimicking trends of paperless governments with the expectations to reap the same benefits enjoyed by developed countries. However, e-Government initiatives have not always been successful in developing countries. According to the study conducted by Heeks (2003), the rate of e-Government success in developing countries was only 15 percent. The authors believe that such failures are mainly due to certain unique social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges faced by e-Government in developing countries. For example, some major issues include digital divide, political instability, and skills-related issues. However, the research dealing with these problems is limited. Therefore, in this chapter, the authors discuss these challenges.


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