EGovernment
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eGovernment (from "electronic government," also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational government) is the application of information and communications technology to enhance the effectiveness of a legislature, judiciary, or administration, either to improve efficiency or to change the relationship between citizen and government, or both. The primary delivery models are Government-to-Consumer (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and government to government (G2G).
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Technologies
While eGovernment is often thought of as "online government" or "Internet based government"—many non-Internet based "electronic government" issues exist under the eGovernment heading. Similarly, not all Internet-related eGovernment is about government websites.
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Non-Internet technologies of eGovernment
Non-Internet technologies used in eGovernment include:
- Telephone and telecommunications issues in a government context, including:
- the provision of government services by telephone (such as in call centers)
- the use of fax in the provision of government services and the conduct of government business
- the use of mobile phone (and PDA) based communications technology (such as SMS text messaging and MMS as well as 3G, GPRS, WiFi, WiMAX and Bluetooth) in the provision of (and as a means of access to) government services and the conduct of government business
- general Government IT, which is now starting to be reclassified as eGovernment, in many cases because it is becoming ever more difficult to disentangle internal (i.e. non-"citizen-facing") IT resources and projects (which have hitherto mostly not been seen as part of eGovernment) from external (and thus mostly already seen as eGovernment) service provision. This reclassification is by no means universal and is often controversial.
- Surveillance systems, CCTV, tracking systems, RFID, biometric identification, road traffic management and regulatory enforcement
- Identity cards, smart cards and other NFC applications
- Polling station technology (where non-online e-voting is being considered)
- TV and radio-based delivery of government services (this often has a crossover with the Internet, but also includes many non-Internet based aspects and projects such as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) Digital TV and High Definition TV (HDTV) provision)
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Non-website-specific aspects of Internet-based eGovernment
Aspects of Internet-based eGovernment that aren't specific to websites include:
- the use of email in the provision of government services and the conduct of government business
- the use of online community facilities, such as message boards, newsgroups and electronic mailing lists
- the use of real-time Internet facilities, such as online chat and instant messaging technologies
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Development and implementation issues
The development and implementation of eGovernment involves a wide range of issues:
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Sociological and environmental issues
- environmental effect
- social effect
- effect on crime
- cultural effect
- public education (concerning the availability of eGovernment services, but also adequacy of skills, confidence, interest and choices, also e-learning issues)
- education policy (including the effect of eGovernment upon non-eGovernment education issues)
- effect on social cohesion
- effect on single issue politics
- effect on consumer advocacy
- effect on consumer choice
- effect on lifestyle
- effect on population distribution
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Social justice, equality and inclusion issues
- gender issues of eGovernment (e.g., "women in IT")
- age related issues in eGovernment (e.g., online pension payment, special provision for the elderly)
- effect on multilingual information provision
- effect on cultural diversity
- effect on literacy, numeracy, education standards and IT literacy
- effect on minorities
- importance of every single individual person on e-verdict
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Socioeconomic issues
- Digital divide: The effect of non-use, non-availability or inaccessibility of eGovernment, or of other digital resources, upon the structure of society
- effect on wealth distribution
- effect on economic migration
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Democracy issues
- use of online consultation
- e-democracy and e-citizenship
In countries such as the United Kingdom, there is interest in using electronic government to re-engage citizens with the political process. In particular, this has taken the form of experiments with electronic voting, aiming to increase voter turnout by making voting easy. The UK Electoral Commission has undertaken several pilots, though concern has been expressed about the potential for fraud with some electronic voting methods<ref name="voting pilots">Template:Cite news</ref>.
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Technology issues
- e-enablement
- transactional services / e-Services
- interoperability (e.g., e-GIF) and semantic web issues
- "legacy technology" (making "pre-eGovernment IT" work together with or be replaced by eGovernment systems)
- technology policy effect, including choices between open source and proprietary software, choices between different programming languages choices between different microprocessor technologies, choices between different networking technologies
- political blogging especially by legislators
- GIS (Geographical Information Systems)—"spatial data" systems (mapping and location data) in government and GIS interoperability
- eGovernment CRM (Customer Relationship Management, or perhaps "Citizen Relationship Management", or even "Consumer Relationship Management")
- government intranets and extranets
- mobile government or m-government
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Management issues
- service integration
- local eGovernment
- Internet governance including ICANN, IETF and W3C
- assessment and benchmarking of government websites and e-services
- e-management
- e-publishing
- e-readiness —preparedness for meeting eGovernment implementation/availability deadlines
- marketing of eGovernment, both online and offline, in order to raise public awareness of and increase attractiveness and use of eGovernment and well as the use of online marketing (e-marketing) to promote both eGovernment and non-eGovernment public services
- effect on bureaucracy / waste / "employment flexibility"
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Organisational issues
- international egovernment (including pan-national, trans-national, multinational and world eGovernment)
- effect on civil service jobs / job cuts / change of roles
- centralisation (of government, public services and eGovernment)
- decentralisation (of government, public services and eGovernment)
- eRulemaking and self government
- effect on government departmental structure, compartmentalisation/integration
- effect upon geopolitical boundaries
- effect on regional autonomy
- e-recruitment including eGovernment impact on public and private staff hiring practices, offline and online
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Financial issues
- cost of implementation / effect on existing budgets
- effect on government procurement (including but not restricted to e-procurement issues)
- funding—effect of eGovernment on government funding processes and also funding of e-government projects
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Administration issues
- e-Administration
- e-records including eGovernment impact on census issues and record preservation
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Adoption issues
- "rate of take up" of eGovernment services
- broadband provision and its effect rate of take up of eGovernment services
- accessibility (impediments to take up of eGovernment services, especially through disability, but also through geography, cost, and public education as well as any shortcomings in the design and implementation of eGovernment service
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Political issues
- political effect
- effect on diplomacy and consular functions
- e-campaigning (including election fundraising)
- political disintermediation
- effect on party politics
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Legal issues
- legislative effect
- freedom of information
- privacy (e.g. UK Data Protection Act)
- effect on broadcast and telecommunications legislation
- anti-spam legislation
- telemarketing legislation
- effect on civil liberties and personal freedom
- effect on government constitutions, constitutionalism
- effect on treaties
- effect on sovereignty
- effect on the legal system and the judiciary
- e-justice
- e-verdict
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Policy issues
- science policy effect
- health and safety policy (effect of eGovernment upon work practices, the health industry) and also e-health issues like Internet addiction, stress, work-life balance
- effect on housing and planning (zoning) policy (relevant to homeworking and commuting issues)
- effect on government transparency, scrutiny, review processes
- impact on arts policy—how do recent technological changes influence the commitment of government to support the provision of artistic and cultural resources to the public, how do those changes shape the scope and character of such support?
- effect on transport policy (e.g., telecommuting issues)
- effect on human rights, human rights legislation
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Economic and business issues
- effect on taxation (including e-taxes)
- effect on government revenues, debt, Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- effect of eGovernment on commerce and trade (e.g., public vs. private resourcing)
- effect on corporate governance (e.g., the Sarbanes-Oxley Act)
- effect on Internet Service Providers and Internet infrastructure
- effect upon (non-eGovernment) business practices, industry and trade
- effect on "free at the point of use" vs. chargeable public services
- effect on organised labour (trades unions)
- effect on Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs)
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See also
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References
<references/>
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External links
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eGovernment news websites
- eGov monitor — Daily news covering developments in UK and Europe, plus comprehensive weekly newsletter.
- Federal Computer Week — FCW eGovernment coverage is comprehensive, US based.
- Government Computer News — GCN eGovernment coverage is comprehensive, US based.
- UNPAN eGovernment News — news from UN Division for Public Administration on eGovernment worldwide.
- Journal of E-Government — Journal of E-Government is a new professional journal.
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Official eGovernment sites
- Good Practice Framework — eGovernment-Community of the European Union
- eGovernment Unit — Part of the United Kingdom Civil Service. See also the UK Government's Chief Information Officer site. [1]
- Irish eGovernment: state information search
- Local e-Gov — The United Kingdom's ambitions for eGovernment at a local level.
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Research and education
- Section for Information Technology and Administrative Systems at the University of Oslo — Research and education (bachelor and master degrees) on eGovernment. Focuses on privacy issues, information security and regulations.
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Unofficial eGovernment sites
- Action Network BBC's website for discussion and collaboration relating to UK government.
- E-Government in Belarus
- European LoG-IN project Website of the LoG-IN project (European Interreg IIIB North Sea project) where 32 local governments from 3 European countries work together to improve public sector support services to help them do more for local socio-economic development. To achieve this, the project plans not only to provide innovative ICT tools and strategies to public authorities but also to improve communications between public authorities at local and regional levels – G2G information exchange, and to develop ways of improving government-to-business, or G2B, information exchange.
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Miscellaneous
- Government Computerization in the Open Directory Project
- European Commission's IDABC website providing eGovernment news, summarised histories of eGovernment in member states, and further documents and information.
- Demosphere Project — The wiki & global project to develop a community based administration framework using open source and interactive software. (Wikinews article)de:E-Government_(im_weiteren_Sinn)