Narrow Results

This paper aims to describe a public procurement information platform which provides a unified pan-European system that exploits the aggregation of tender notices using linking open data and semantic web technologies. This platform requires a step-based method to deal with the requirements of the public procurement sector and the open government data initiative: (1) modeling the unstructured information included in public procurement notices (contracting authorities, organizations, contracts awarded, etc.); (2) enriching that information with the existing product classification systems and the linked data vocabularies; (3) publishing relevant information extracted out of the notices following the linking open data approach; (4) implementing enhanced services based on advanced algorithms and techniques like query expansion methods to exploit the information in a semantic way. Taking into account that public procurement notices contain different kinds of data like types of contract, region, duration, total amount, target enterprise, etc., various methods can be applied to expand user queries easing the access to the information and providing a more accurate information retrieval system. Nevertheless expanded user queries can involve an extra-time in the process of retrieving notices. That is why a performance evaluation is outlined to tune up the semantic methods and the generated queries providing a scalable and time-efficient system. Moreover, this platform is supposed to be especially relevant for SMEs that want to tender in the European Union (EU), easing their access to the information of the notices and fostering their participation in cross-border public procurement processes across Europe. Finally an example of use is provided to evaluate and compare the goodness and the improvement of the proposed platform with regard to the existing ones.

This paper proposes a solution to the problem of software absence for the quantitative fire safety analysis of complex objects, which is suitable not only for highly qualified scientists and experts but also for fire safety engineers and inspectors and is compatible with mobile devices. Existing software solutions for quantitative fire safety analysis are desktop-based, and all require a high level of competence of users. We propose a solution by combining the formalism of typical probabilistic structural–logical (TPSL) models, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) concept, and end-to-end encryption. Using TPSL models allows the development of cloud-based applications with a simple request-based application programming interface and intuitively understandable user interface to assess the level of safety of complex objects. As a result, we could use such mobile device-ready applications both for developing mobile device applications and developing mobile-device-friendly website-based services to carry out safety control inspections or level of safety management.

Because of the aging society, web accessibility will become more important, especially for the disabled people. Even though efforts have been made to reduce the informational gap resulting from web inaccessibility, websites from virtually every type of organization have major accessibility problems. This study used an automated software tool to evaluate the accessibility of four Korean government and four US government websites. The web accessibility problems found were manually verified by both human experts and an assistive technology. Results were compared between the Korean and the US government websites and between the websites published in 2004 and 2007. Finally, how much accessibility of the Korean and the US government websites has improved during 2004–2007, common web accessibility problems, and potential errors from the automated software tool are discussed.

This paper examines the extent of end-user satisfaction on the service delivery process by the Royal Malaysian Customs (RMC) as the agency moves toward implementing electronic government (e-government) initiatives. The RMC has in fact been identified as one of the prominent and technology-pioneering government agencies in the country and therefore suitable for delivering electronic public services. Data were collected in mid-2009 from two types of customers, i.e., internal (Customs officers) and external (forwarding agents, importers, and bonded warehouse licensees) who use the Customs Information Systems (CIS) C8 form for transshipment of goods. Overall, the findings suggest that both types of customers are either indecisive and/or doubtful with the performance of the CIS. These findings are then extended to the broader context of information technology. It is of paramount importance that the RMC takes appropriate measures to satisfy both its internal and external customers by provision of improving its service delivery process through its CIS to produce desirable results.

From utilising the mobile applications to lessen the price and durations by abolition of displays of procedures and systems of governments, e-Government intends to deliver services to the private and public segments of the country’s communities through the use of mobile applications. Across the globe, every country, but particularly developing countries, is in search of the application and dispersal of e-Government services. This research study will specifically assess the effect of mobile applications have on e-Government services application in Jordan. The debate as to whether mobile applications trigger addiction within the public segment in Jordan will be closely investigated and analysed in this research study. A collaboration of data gathered from a random selection of the population of the Income and Sales Tax Department staff ($n=220$) exposes the fact that both the females and males from the random sample are likely to be using mobile applications for numerous hours each day. With this considered, the study also reveals that mobile applications have a substantial influence on the accomplishment of e-Government application within the public segment in Jordan.

E-government has become an important direction for the development of our government. Measuring national and regional e-government development indicators can help government agencies better understand the actual situation of e-government. This paper is based on E-government Development Index, including the Online Services Index (OSI), Telecommunications Infrastructure Index (TII) and Human Capital Index (HCI). The development of e-government in Guilin is evaluated by using the methods of index change analysis and comparative analysis. The relevant data of this paper come from Guangxi Statistical Yearbook, Guilin Economic and Social Statistical Yearbook and the official website of Guilin Bureau of Statistics. From the study of Guilin e-government data, we judged that Guilin e-government is in the trend of rapid development and comprehensive and coordinated development. Through its development trend, we can judge that in the future, Guilin e-government will continue to develop, but at the same time, if we do not deal with the relationship between development speed and development content, it will also bring great trouble to Guilin e-government. Therefore, we put forward the following development suggestions: (1) Guilin e-government should strengthen technological innovation and development, and create an intelligent e-government platform. (2) Guilin e-government will make government services more targeted and build a service platform for special groups. (3) Guilin e-government should formulate e-government policies and improve institutional innovation.

This study is the first to empirically examine the linkage between e-Government and financial development. We utilize three indicators, including user centricity, business mobility, and key enablers to capture a digital process in the public sector, and their effects are analyzed on financial markets, institutions, and both. By employing an international sample of 26 European countries, we demonstrate the positive impacts of e-Government, especially the user centricity on the financialization. Furthermore, e-Government has the strongest influence on financial institutions.

This paper discusses the human-related factors contributing to the service time for government services. We build a discriminate model to extract the subjective factor, e.g. diligence, and objective factor from the working behaviors in logs. This model can be trained by maximum likeness estimation (MLE) to get the parameters which denote the factors. To evaluate the accuracy of our model, we conduct an external experiment on a real dataset from the workflow system employed in the government of Hangzhou City in China, which results in 2,367,598 logs from 400 activities and 732 employees in two years. The experiment result not only proves the correctness of our model but also draws some interesting conclusions about the diligence of different people in different ages and genders.

One of the most critical national infrastructures (CNIs) in Liberia on which critical e-government services are dependent is GovNet. GovNet is the acronym for Government of Liberia’s (GoL’s) Network, and it is the conduit for connectivity and gateway to the internet for all of the Government’s over 107 Ministries, Agencies, and Commissions (MACs), as well as its e-government programs. Most of the MACs connected to GovNet run siloed ICT environments with little or no cybersecurity mechanisms in place. This paper is an investigation conducted at six MACs that are members of GovNet. The investigation identified several cybersecurity deficiencies at those MACs, due to the absence of vital dimensions or pre-requirements of cybersecurity readiness including the infrastructure (digital infrastructure), capacity (education and skills) and, governance (legal and regulatory instruments). The investigation examines previous and extant literature, conducted interviews with stakeholders of GovNet, and leverages the vast experiences of the author, who is the immediate past Managing Director of LIBTELCO. Recommendations are made for the necessary actions to be taken to remedy those deficiencies in GovNet, and the study’s contribution to the body of knowledge is indicated in the Conclusion.

This paper focuses on information ethics in Saudi Arabia's embrace of e-government by referencing the Deputy Government of Riyadh Region for Regional Municipalities (GMRA) and concentrating on agency employees' perceptions. It found out that the agency did not adopt a specific framework for information ethics in e-government. Nevertheless, it adopted a code of ethics, which are drawn from the moral codes afforded by the Islamic religion. The technology acceptance model (TAM) is presented to develop a framework of information ethics in e-government, with the model specifically emphasising trust and perceived risks as important factors. The paper employs a qualitative method that adopts an interpretive approach. It uses survey and a focus group discussion for primary research, while books and online resources are used for secondary research. Recommendations include establishing an objective for installing information ethics, conducting training programmes and orienting employees to information ethics, its importance and the ethical standard they should follow.

Significant attempts have been made by national governments in recent years to provide services and information on the Internet using information and communication technology. However, the accomplishment of these efforts strongly depends on how the targeted users, such as citizens, relay, use and adopt them. As a consequence, a common need to understand the adoption and diffusion of electronic government, or e-government, has emerged in both developed and developing countries. Several impediments may prevent citizens from adopting e-government services, however, and trust is one of the major barriers. Therefore, this study aims to understand the influence of citizens' trust on the adoption of e-government services in the example of Saudi Arabia. From the data analysis, the exogenous variables of trust in Internet, government ability, government benevolence and integrity, and social influence were found to significantly affect citizens' trust in e-government services, whilst citizens' trust propensity was found to more usefully predict citizens' behavioural intention to use e-government services.

Providing web service to various clients is one of the important aspects of service providers. Generally service providers maintain a server relating to their business domain and provide services for their clients. Rule server is an emerging concept through which various business servers establish B2B interface and thereby enable the rule server to provide reactive services to various rule users through active XML rule technology. In these types of web services there will not be any interaction between web service providers. But in general, when a client requests for a service, the service provider may have to consult other service providers and based on their results, the service provider may in turn have to provide the web service to the client. Various service providers can group to form a trusted domain. This enables the service providers to effectively serve its clients by co-coordinating with different domain servers offering different services within the trusted domain. Particularly, in an e-government scenario, providing a service generally requires more than one server's interaction. Hence in this paper, a system architecture has been proposed, in which, agent based trusted domain servers will interact with each other in order to provide co-operative web services for a single user. This requires the conversion of composite web service into multiple sublevel web services, optimizing the order of execution of sublevel web services and keeping track of the status of client's request. In order to provide intelligent e-government, reactive behavior has been introduced into the system, which will be used by the trusted domain administrators, so as to improve the performance of the trusted domain.

This chapter discusses e-services by looking at E-government, E-learning, and E-health, reviews digital platforms & ecosystems, looks at social commerce & sharing economy, and highlights emerging trends of mobile business.

The public sector is under increasing pressure to reform in order to improve public administration and services. By adopting more information and communication technology (ICT) and reinventing public management, the potential of e-government has been increasingly recognized. However, the ever increasing complexity and heterogeneity of technology creates the need for improving interoperability between the different systems and among stakeholders. This paper addresses the public sector interoperability issue brought by the e-government practice. It analyzes administrative coordination challenges in providing integrated e-service delivery and proposes policy recommendations. The study contributes to the discussion of promoting e-government innovatively and enhancing public service quality in practice.