Free Wireless Internet Park Services

This chapter examines the adoption of free wireless Internet parks (iPark) by Qatari citizens as a means of accessing electronic services from public parks. The Qatar government has launched the iPark concept with a view of providing free internet access for all citizens while enjoying the outdoors. This concept is enabled by an ICT infrastructure and broadband facilities, which is considered as regional good practice. By offering free wireless Internet access, the Qatari government encourages its citizens to actively participate in the global information society with a view of bridging the digital divide. Using a survey based study this research set out to examine the Qatari citizens’ perceptions of the iPark initiative. Results of the survey showed that there is a positive level of relation between the independent variables, usefulness, ease of use, Internet safety, and Internet speed/response time and one dependent variable, intention to use the iPark in Qatar. The chapter provides a discussion on the key findings, research implications, limitations, and future directions for the iPark initiative in Qatar.

Exploring IT Opportunities

There is a growing belief that IT can improve public management in general. The Dutch policy and services with regard to the elderly are no exception. Obviously, IT opportunities in the healthcare domain play a central role in this, since the main objective of policies is to sustain the independent functioning of the elderly in everyday social life. In this research four IT opportunities for elderly policy in The Netherlands are explored through discussion meetings with elderly, and consultation of experts in the field of elderly policy and services. The IT opportunities are designed to align the different levels of motivation and skills of elderly to use IT. Four IT pilot projects are defined, which take into account the costs and benefits of these opportunities to improve the elderly policy chain in The Netherlands.

Using Web Sites to Improve Fiscal Transparency

Fiscal transparency today is considered as an essential element of both good governance and e-governance. Therefore, in the new public management and budgeting reforms made by governments, it is clearly observed that fiscal transparency is one of the key elements. E-government technologies, and especially the internet, are supportive to the efforts on the part of governments offering unprecedented opportunities to public administrations enabling the dissemination of fiscal information and improving the e-governance system. In Turkey, where there is the tradition of Continental Europe, the reforms made through new laws in early 2000 contain various legal and institutional regulations to improve fiscal transparency and encourage the public administrators to use websites in an attempt to enhance fiscal transparency. This chapter, within the context of evaluating the endeavors in question, examines the websites of municipalities in Turkey in terms of fiscal transparency and eventually presents some suggestions for the improvement of the e-governance system.

The Other Side of “Big Brother”

A significant shift has occurred in the nature of policing over the past 30 to 40 years across jurisdictions and contexts. The paradigm of policing as a purely government function is under challenge. Policing is becoming more “pluralised” with a range of actors, both public and private. This shift has significant social implications for the general public, together with the public and private organisations that provide policing services. These implications are discussed and highlighted through the use of information technology by private police in two areas—CCTV surveillance and intelligence gathering. This case discusses this shift between public and private sectors in policing. The situation is more complex than a simple public/private divide and plays host to a range of interactions that bring many actors into contact, competition, and alliance in networks and assemblages. Most research and regulation remains focused on public policing even though, numerically, private policing is now a major provider of policing services in an increasingly fragmented, pluralized, and commodified market. This case considers the regulation of private policing as it exists in the Australian context and how it applies to the use of information technology, together with issues for human rights, especially privacy.

Vision Impairment and Electronic Government

The visually-impaired are in a distinctive disadvantage when using computer screens based on visual presentation of data. Their situation becomes increasingly critical, as most society services, including issues such as e-Commerce, e-Business, e-Health, and e-Government go on-line. Yet modern technologies can too offer solutions to their problems, both at hardware and software level, and often with reasonable cost. Effective ICT can open up new communication channels and functionalities for say totally blind people, which would not have been available for them otherwise. General sensitivity for this issue, and especially, sensitivity among designers of governmental e-services must be developed. E-Government is an especially demanding activity area as it comes to all sorts of imparities (not just vision impairment), as governmental services are often in a monopoly service delivery situation: citizen have to use them, and there is often no other alternative. The issue binds it to the wider discussion on digital divide, where vision impairment is one cause for digital divide, and often very devastating, especially if still combined with other sources of digital divide.

The Egyptian National Post Organization Past, Present, and Future

Over the last 20 years, the international postal sector has changed drastically due to several forces, including globalization, changing technology, greater demands for efficient services, and market liberalization. For Egypt, keeping up with the changing atmosphere in the global market meant investing in information and communication technology. The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (ICT), as part of its efforts to transforming government performance using ICT, chose the Egyptian National Post Organization (ENPO) as a model for ICT integrated government portal. The selection was due to ENPO’s extensive network, and the public’s confidence and trust in the organization. The case of ENPO, capitalizing on public-private partnership models, proved successful when reflecting ICT deployment for organizational transformation within the context of an emerging economy. In addition to its importance in providing eGovernment services to citizens, ENPO is evolving as a critical medium for effectively developing Egypt’s eCommerce. This case study takes an in-depth look at how ICT has improved the quality and range of services offered by ENPO, while asserting the magnitude of its impact on the country’s emergence as a competitor in today’s global postal market.

The Characteristics, Responsibilities, and Future of Chief Information Officers in the Public Sector

This chapter presents a model that depicts the critical factors and assists in understanding the demands and effectiveness of Chief Information Officers (CIO) in public sector organisations. The chapter explores the literature on public sector CIO addressing personal and professional characteristics. It also reviews the literature pertaining to the responsibilities, career advancement, and future directions in government departments. The authors adopt a qualitative methodology, by which semi-structured interviews are conducted with CIO representatives from a State Government in Australia. From collation of the interview results, utilising a mind mapping strategy, the chapter identifies a model that adequately reflects the critical factors required for a public sector CIO. The chapter concludes that there are certain unique characteristics and responsibilities that a public sector CIO must possess yet a private sector CIO does not require. The chapter also acknowledges the importance of outlining a future direction of the role, something that is neglected by the literature.

The Significance of Government’s Role in Technology Standardization

For first generation (1G) wireless communications technology standards, the Japanese government’s early decision provided an opportunity for its national manufacturers to be first movers in the global market, while the late development of wireless communications in Korea made the Korean market dependent on foreign manufacturers by adopting the U.S. standard (AMPS). Moving toward the 2G wireless technology market, both countries decided to develop standards instead of adopting a technology from outside their regions. Japan developed its own standard, PDC, while Korea developed CDMA systems with Qualcomm, the U.S. technology provider. Although these governments’ decisions on technologies looked only slightly different, the socio-economic consequences were greatly distinctive. The Korean success brought not only the rapid development of its domestic market but also opportunities for its manufacturers to become global leaders, while the PDC standard only provided the fast growth of the Japanese domestic market without any opportunities for the Japanese manufacturers to grow further internationally in the 1990s. By the end of 1990s, two nations again had to decide a 3G technology standard with vast challenges and pressures.

Analysis-Sensitive Conversion of Administrative Data into Statistical Information Systems

This chapter presents a case study concerning the development of a Statistical Information System (SIS) out of data coming from administrative archives of the PAs. Such archives are a rich source of up to date information, but an attempt to use them as sources for statistical analysis reveals errors and incompatibilities among each other that do not permit their usage as a statistical and decision support basis. These errors and incompatibilities are usually undetected during administrative use, since they do not affect their day-by-day use in the PAs; however they need to be fixed before performing any further aggregate analysis. The reader is engaged with the basic aspects involved in building a SIS out of administrative data, such as design of an integration model for different and heterogeneous data sources, improvement of the overall data quality, removal of errors that might impact on the correctness of statistical analysis, design of a data warehouse for statistical analysis, and design of a multidimensional database to develop indicators for decision support. Finally, some examples are presented concerning the information that can be obtained by making use of a SIS constructed out of Registry and Income Office archives.

Politics Hinders Open Standards in the Public Sector

In 2003, Eric Kriss, of the Executive Office of the Governor of Massachusetts, advised all employees that the Executive Branch would begin a transition of its information technology resources into open standards. The intent of the plan was the standardization of the IT infrastructure and the improvement of interoperability across agencies. The Executive Office later extended the open standards policy to electronic documents. In the quest to make documents accessible across agencies, Open Document Format (ODF) was declared to be the preferred format for storing data. This decision provoked a serious conflict between Microsoft and the Executive Branch after it became clear that proprietary open document formats, such as the one that was being offered by Microsoft, were declared to be unacceptable. This case explores the decisions that the champions made, the role that politics played in the process and the impact of these decisions on the ODF implementation.