An Assessment Study of Indian State Government Portals

Does the e-readiness of a country or a state give any insight into the success of their e-government projects? Does scaling up of e-readiness help to measure the acceptance of e-government projects by citizens? Research has failed to provide a direct answer to these questions. While an e-readiness index summarizes the infrastructural condition of a state or country in terms of network readiness and availability of hardware facility; e-government readiness implies the acceptance of e-government projects by the citizens in a state or a country. So, the e-readiness index cannot clearly depict the e-government readiness of a country. Since e-government projects are broadly categorized as Government to Citizen, Government to Business and Government to Government, it becomes difficult to quantify the satisfaction level of the stakeholders. For analysing the acceptance of e-government business models particularly the web based ones, researchers (Yang, 2002; Kašubiene & Vanagas, 2007; Janssen, Kuk & Wagenaar, 2008; Morgeson & Mithas, 2009) often adopted the quality criteria used in evaluating service offered by of e-commerce sites. The most pervasive concept of quality in use is the extent to which a web service meets and/or exceeds a citizen’s/customer’s expectations. Portals at the Federal Government level in India were developed with the idea to form a ‘single window’ access to the facilities provided by the states or union territories to the citizens in an integrated platform. The idea behind such investment on state wise portals was to serve the citizens better but there was hardly any attempt from the government side to assess the acceptance of the portals. Some of the portals have counters to keep a track of visitors and email facilities have been provided to serve queries of the visitors. So the effectiveness of the portals has become a questionable issue today. In this study we have tried to concentrate on Indian State government portals and assess the service quality provided by them. It was observed that State wise Service Quality issues in e-government differ significantly when global parameters like usability, adequacy of information, navigation facility interactivity are considered. So, to evaluate the portals a conceptual framework based on previous research works was proposed. Quality dimensions were identified to assess service quality of government portals and each of the state and the union territory portal was audited based on the parameters proposed like usefulness of information, adequacy of information, citizen centric information, usability, accessibility, interaction, privacy, security and citizen participation.

Integrating Budget Transparency into E-Government Websites

This chapter provides a basic template that governments can use when integrating budgetary information into any type of e-government website. Building on previous scholarship on citizen participation, budgeting, and budgetary transparency in e-government, the template divides budgetary information into two broad categories: process-based information that gives citizens a better understanding of budget decision-making and their avenues of participation, and outcome-based information that shows citizens the types of revenue collected by the government and how those revenues are used. We examine these two categories of budgetary information on state governmental websites in the United States and find that as governments increase the technological presentation of budgetary outcomes on their websites, a decline in the presentation of some types of budgetary process information occurs. We suggest that regardless of the sophistication of the e-government website, governments must present information on both the budgetary process and outcomes for true budgetary transparency via e-government to occur.

Achieving Transparency in State Lottery Websites

Accountability, ethics, and transparency are buzz words that have permeated politics and administration over the decade, becoming increasingly prominent as political and business scandals have been occurring far too frequently. Given democratic need for an informed public and the need to build public trust, achieving transparency continues to grow as an important dimension of effective governance. We developed a model that assesses the level of transparency in government web sites. The model contains three constructs, Policy, Management, and Information, which are subsequently applied to five southern state lottery web sites. We chose this policy arena for two reasons. First, the number of state lotteries has increased over time due to declining revenue streams and citizen dissatisfaction with increasing taxes. Second, fungibility issues have been raised as general fund contributions to education budgets have made only marginal increases despite large sums of lottery funds. Our analysis reveals that states that began using the lottery in more recent years learned from the mistakes that occurred in earlier years. As a result, web site development in the latter years was more transparent and suggests the likelihood that not only do programs become similar as administrators learn from the experiences of others but administrative expectations of transparency are integrated in the adopted programmatic design.

E-Government and its Potential to Facilitate Citizen Participation in State Budget Deliberations

State legislative websites have potential both to inform the citizenry and increase their participation in the governing process. This is particularly the case with respect to budget deliberations, which traditionally have been shrouded in mystery. Previous studies as well as a direct review of websites over the last few years have shown an increasing amount of data available. It ranges from basic information such as member lists and calendars to full documentation of events via transcripts and archived audio or video. A survey of state fiscal officials confirmed the utility of these websites for providing information. Thus, the websites have reached half their potential. However, the web sites do not appear to have enhanced citizen participation in the process. Opportunities for feedback and interaction are minimal at best. The implementation of such tools would enable the websites to reach their full e-government potential.

Benefits and Barriers of Using XML in Government Websites

Electronic government can be understood as the use of information technologies in public sector organizations. One of the most visible strategies of electronic government is the development of Websites. As these government Websites have grown in size, complexity, and prominence, Website management, content management, maintenance costs, and accessibility have become growing concerns for federal, state, and local governments. Government webmasters and system administrators have come to realize that the technologies and strategies used in the past to build most Websites are designed to produce individual Web pages. However, they do not provide a structure to easily maintain entire Websites, keep them responsive to changing needs, or manage the workflow involved in Web content production and maintenance; nor do they facilitate the sharing and reuse of Website content. Based on semi-structured interviews and a survey to program and IT staff from five government agencies, this paper examines the potential of XML (Extensible Markup Language) for Website content management in government settings.1 It identifies expected benefits and perceived barriers. It also provides some examples and explanations about the usefulness of XML for Website content management in government.

Web 2.0 Applications and Citizen Relations through E-Government Websites

This research will focus on constructing an analytical model for Web 2.0 applications through making a systematic analysis on emerging web practices, to talk about a strategic, systematic plan of Web 2.0 in e-government Web sites. To achieve this mission, we suggest applying dialogic communication theory (Kent & Taylor, 1998) that has been developed in public relations, to create an analytic model of the various types of Web 2.0 applications for building better e-government Web sites.

Internet-Based Citizen Participation

This chapter determines whether the deliberative features of local government websites reflect city officials’ beliefs and funding for Internet-based citizen participation. Although the Internet is argued to have interactive potential to bring citizens closer to their governments, empirical evidence suggests many governments have not taken advantage of this potential. A survey was sent to Chief administrative officers of municipalities with websites, and respondents’ government website contents were analyzed and audited against the survey responses. Findings from the audit reveal that in general, the deliberative features of local government websites reflect the beliefs and funding stated in the survey. The technique applied in this research could be a useful tool to investigate the degree of alignment between a government’s Internet website contents and its e-government strategic goals, policy requirements and priorities, etc.

A Review of Standardization Frameworks for Electronic Government Service Portals

E-Government service portals have a challenging and unique mission, focused on public access, for an unknown group of users who vary greatly in terms of the information and services they seek, as well as their education, background, and access to technology. Within this context public organizations at central, regional or local level initiate many efforts towards the development of government portals in order to offer electronic services to citizens and businesses. However, even if these efforts are in most cases successful, the portals that are developed do not follow a common set of specifications. On the contrary, each public agency follows its own design, set its own functional and technical specifications and most of all put its own needs before the needs of its users. The need for e-Government frameworks, as a prerequisite supporting tool for e-Government portals implementation becomes more apparent worldwide, when considering the added complexity of procedures, information needs and systems, technologies used, security aspects, legal frameworks, organizational structures, and other special issues which have to be taken into account. In this chapter a comparison framework is proposed, extending and adopting existing approaches, to the national standardization framework’s needs. Applying the proposed comparison framework an assessment and extended review of some of the most significant standardization efforts undertaken worldwide are considered in an attempt to assist decision makers, politicians, public and IT managers to design their own Standardization Framework for Electronic Government Service Portals.

Access Indiana

Indiana was one of the first states to build a state website. Its IT functions had strong legislative underpinnings and its central IT agency exercises a relatively high degree of authority over agency-based IT functions. In addition, Indiana’s website, AccessIndiana, was the product of a long-term public-private partnership. Based on the analysis of official and public documents and some in-depth semi-structured interviews with key factors such as the general manager of Indiana Interactive and the former state CIO, this case describes the recent history and success of AccessIndiana from about 1995 to 2005. This was the period in which Access Indiana was considered one of the most successful public-private partnerships managing a state Website. After a brief period of uncertainty, in July of 2006, the state of Indiana signed a new long-term contract with Indiana Interactive to develop and maintain its official portal. AccessIndiana offers important lessons to public agencies, particularly for state and local governments and developing nations.