Next Generation E-Government

The evolving model of the Future Internet has, at its heart, the users of the Internet. Web 2.0 and Government 2.0 initiatives help citizens communicate even better with their governments. Such initiatives have the potential to empower citizens by giving them a stronger voice in both the traditional sense and in the digital society. Pressure is mounting on governments to listen to the voice of the public expressed through these technologies and incorporate their needs into public policy. On the other hand, governments still have a duty to protect their citizens' personal information against unlawful and malicious intent. This responsibility is essential to any government in an age where there is an increasing burden on citizens to interact with governments via electronic means. This chapter examines this dual agenda of modern governments to engage with its citizens, on the one hand, to encourage transparency and open discussion, and to provide digitally offered public services that require the protection of citizens' private information, on the other. In this chapter, it is argued that a citizen-centric approach to online privacy protection that works in tandem with the open government agenda will provide a unified mode of interaction between citizens, businesses, and governments in digital society.

Web 2.0, ICT Infrastructure, and Training Provision for E-Government Readiness in Nigeria

This chapter presents a discussion on e-readiness, Web 2.0, social media, mobile/wireless technologies, and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that can help to facilitate the attainment and sustenance of an e-ready environment necessary to enhance e-governance in Nigeria. The chapter aims to clearly articulate the necessary steps to be taken to provide all stakeholders with a blueprint of areas and factors on which to focus. An assessment of how e-ready the Nigerian government and its citizens currently are and the requirements necessary for further steps to be taken (such as policies, programmes, and processes to be put in place, infrastructures to be acquired, and training provisions to equip Nigerian citizens and government officials with the capacity to benefit from and sustain the use of acquired e-technologies) are also presented. Specific ways by which Nigeria can harness the various emerging technologies (social media, Web 2.0, and mobile/wireless technologies) are highlighted. If employed appropriately, these technologies can help to provide improved processes, increased efficiency, improved transparency, and citizen's effective participation and involvement in governance to further improve the lives of Nigerian citizens.

Connected Services Delivery Framework

Efficient public service delivery is a primary task of public administration within any governance model. The main theme of modern governance implies an integrated, effective, and citizen-centric practices of government and administration as a prerequisite for a long-term positive development of the economy. Electronic public service delivery via e-government portal has become a convenient means for the customers—citizens and businesses—to fulfil their requirements. However, the quality of service delivery is heavily based on the level of integration of the services between different partners in the back office. Service integration requires good governance among partners in agencies in various departments and sometimes at different government levels. This chapter provides an interoperability integration framework that connects closely coordinated services based on Service-Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Service Bus, and Web services. The proposed framework is presented as an attempt to align the organizational structures and processes of different government departments while reducing implementation and ownership costs. The framework is applied to a realistic case example of integrating three different public services, namely applying for a Tourism Agency License, applying for a Vocational License, and applying for No Criminal Record Certificate, in a highly interoperable manner and a high level of adaptability to existing government policies and priorities.

The Case of the Mexican Mobile Government: Measurement and Examples

The mobile government has become a reality in a large majority of countries around the world. However, the use of mobile apps (small software programs for use on mobile devices) to link government Websites and information is a recent trend that is becoming of interest to citizens and public officials. The uses, advantages, and disadvantages have recently become a study field for several scholars around the globe. The mobile government is not new for e-government scholars; however, the explosion of apps and the increase of smart phones have created a new trend in the mobile government field. In order to understand these phenomena in the Mexican society, the authors have gathered data from different sources: government departments, business enterprises, and citizen organizations. Based on this information, they analyze the impact of apps across the country and suggest a classification method that can be used for a better understanding of this new field. In this chapter, the authors discuss five small case studies, which they consider good examples to follow by different government organizations. To accomplish this objective, they divide this chapter into seven main sections. After the introduction, the authors provide a literature review, describe the method of study and classify the apps, discuss the findings with the model application, present the case studies for government apps, discuss ideas for future research on government apps, and then in the final section, they present final remarks and conclusions of the investigation.

Data Modelling of a Multifaceted Electronic Card-Based Secure E-Governance System

In the current climate of global economic decline, the developing countries are facing severe challenges in maintaining an efficient administration within an affordable budget. If this economic slowdown continues, there will be serious difficulties which will hamper the socio-economic development of the entire region. To respond to the situation, the governments must reduce budget expenses and still maintain efficiency and openness. To do so, the administration must deploy ICT-based mechanisms to fulfil the desired objectives. In this chapter, the authors present the development of a multifaceted electronic card-based secured e-governance mechanism to attempt to redress the inherent issues and explore new dimensions of interdisciplinary research. The proposed system will also act as the all-purpose electronic identity of the Citizen and hopefully replace the existing identity instruments such as Voter Card, Permanent Account Number Card, Driving License, Ration Card, Below Poverty-Line Card, Employment Card, Health Card, Insurance Card, etc. Moreover, this electronic instrument will also enable Citizen to perform financial transactions. Clearly, the authentication procedure of the proposed mechanism must also exist otherwise the intruders will be able to breach the system and execute their ill intentions. To ensure appropriateness of security features of the mechanism, the authors have also implemented a user authentication technique using object-oriented modelling of RSA digital signature algorithm for a Government-Citizen (G2C) type of e-governance. For better management of such a huge amount of sensitive information, the authors also discuss data modelling techniques used during user authentication of the proposed model.

Emerging and Traditional ICT as Critical Success Factors for Local Governments

It was not long ago when Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) were not ubiquitous and Web 2.0 was the stuff of science fiction. However, these technologies are now here to stay, and local governments should learn how to make the most of them. In this chapter, the situation of emerging ICT in Spain in general and for Spanish e-government in particular is described. Next, the results of an empirical study based on a longitudinal quantitative survey are shown. The survey was carried out in 2005, before the advent of Web 2.0, and again in 2012. In the survey, the Chief Information Officers (CIO) of Spanish municipalities express their opinions on critical success factors that may enhance or hinder the effectiveness, connectivity, and transparency of their strategies for a connected government (c-government). The comparative findings reveal that political issues set off, then and now, local e-government success and failure, whereas ICT-based issues, once very important for these CIOs, have been downgraded in their minds. Therefore, the emergence of social media, mobile technologies, Web 2.0, and connected government has not had a truly significant role in the quest for e-government success on their own, but in combination with other factors. The chapter also discusses the related factors.

Mobile and Cloud Technologies for Smarter Governance

There are hordes of data-driven, context-aware, and people-centric applications and services for smarter environments such as smarter homes, governments, buildings, cities, and organizations. With the exponential growth of smart phones, there are service repositories and application stores in remote mobile clouds. Similarly, with the ceaseless advancements in the device ecosystem and in the IT field, government-specific applications will flourish and be deployed and maintained in special cloud stores, platforms, and infrastructures to be found, bound, and used by any input/output devices for a variety of everyday personal and professional purposes. Smart, sustainable, intuitive, and citizen-aware services can be dynamically created from the ground up as well as orchestrated or choreographed out of multiple atomic and discrete software services. Such composite services are directly fulfilling government activities. Thus, clouds emerge as the most common and minimum requirement for not only producing and stocking services but also for hosting application platforms. Further, clouds facilitate provisioning and renting out their configurable and customizable assets on demand. Through self-service portals, the cloud usage is to pick up fast in the days to unfold. In this chapter, the authors write about how cloud adoption is to ring in delectable transformations for worldwide governments as well as their citizens, that is, how governments can accomplish more with less, how people can experience high quality, technology-sponsored digital living, how the cloud idea becomes a centre of attraction for more ingenuity towards newer and nimbler service conceptualization, concretization, and delivery.

Enhancing Data Management in E-Government Using Data Categorization and Visualization Techniques

Modern information and communication systems can process massive amounts of data automatically and efficiently, but human beings have a limited cognitive capacity. Organizations that handle data on a larger scale need to adjust and streamline their operations in order to cope with this complexity. The e-Government information systems present problems that are on an entirely different scale, with communication streams between citizens and government easily dwarfing those in the private sectors. The information flows in e-Government are further constrained by established processes and practices that are hard to change and strict privacy concerns. A solution to problems of complexity and inefficiency of data manipulation in e-Government is needed. This chapter analyzes models and techniques of data categorization and visualization that can be employed in the context of e-Government. Methods of categorization, metadata, and ontologies in particular are explored for use in such an environment. A simple government ontology framework is developed as a starting point for introduction of ontologies into the e-Government context and the information is structured in such a way to allow easy correlation and navigation between concepts. A simple but intuitive visual representation of information and their relations is developed to facilitate better understanding of complex topics.

Social Computing and Cooperation Services for Connected Government and Cross-Boundary Services Delivery

Connected Government requires different government organizations to connect seamlessly across functions, agencies, and jurisdictions in order to deliver effective and efficient services to citizens and businesses. In the countries of the European Union, this also involves the possibility of delivering cross-border services, which is an important step toward a truly united Europe. To achieve this goal, European citizens and businesses should be able to interact with different public administrations in different Member States in a seamless way to perceive them as a single entity. Interoperability, which is a key factor for Connected Government, is not enough in order to achieve this result, since it usually does not consider the social dimension of organizations. This dimension is at the basis of co-operability, which is a form of non-technical interoperability that allows different organizations to function together essentially as a single organization. In this chapter, it is argued that, due to their unique capacity of coupling several technologies and processes with interpersonal styles, awareness, communication tools, and conversational models, the integration of social computing services and tools within inter-organizational workflows can make them more efficient and effective. It can also support the “learning” process that leads different organizations to achieve co-operability.

Scalability and Sustainability of M-Government Projects Implementation in Developing Countries

Mobile technology has played a crucial role in facilitating democratic change in many of the developing countries. Many countries have attempted to implement Mobile Government (m-government), which is a form of electronic government, using mobile and other latest technologies such as social media as the most fundamental infrastructure for implementing such changes. However, m-government projects' scalability and sustainability are amongst the key issues relating to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This chapter attempts to discuss the scalability and sustainability of m-government projects in the context of developing countries. The aim is to provide a broader understanding of the inherent issues surrounding scalability and sustainability of m-government projects: in general terms and also in relation to mobile phone-based projects for governments' service delivery. In order to understand these issues, definitions of these two concepts are provided and various e-government maturity models are discussed. This is then followed by an overview of the challenges of scaling up and sustaining the m-government projects in developing countries, and lastly, an elaboration of how sustainability and scalability can be achieved is also presented.