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2.6 Challenges of e-government in developing countries
E-government is a long term project with lots of complication in its implementation as far
as developing countries are concerned. Thus, Valentina 2004 describes theses challenges
such as follows:
2.6.1 ICT infrastructure
Many developing countries suffer from the digital divide, and they are not able to deploy
the appropriate ICT infrastructure such as internetworking,
models, standards
and architechure as guiding principles to successful
e-government.
2.6.2 Policy issue
Laws policies and regulation are not well established in order to control the e-government
legal rights in most of developing countries.
2.6.3 Human capital development and life
long learning
As far as human resource is concerned, there is lack of techonology skill to enhance
successful operation in e-government.
2.6.4 Change management
Change management creates fear and tensions among government employees who
may find difficult to adapt from conventional to e-government system.
2.6.5 Partnership and collaboration
Collaboration and cooperation at local, regional and national levels, as well as between
public and private organizations, are still major problem in implementing the e-government
development. This has caused lack of trust between citizens and government.
2.6.6 Strategy
Proper analytical and dynamic strategy is another difficult issue which needs to be
addressed with quality re-engineering process to improve e-government services to serve citizens
better.
2.6.7 Leadership role
Leadership is one of the main driving forces of every new and innovative project or
initiative. However, most developing countries lack dynamic influencial leaders who should
encourage and motivate developers and users of e-government system.
In order to provide quality websites, it is necessary to evaluate its usability to satify the
users. The following point will explain the goal of web usability.
2.7 Web usability
Tom Brinck 2002 defined web usability as the degree to which people users can perform
a set of required tasks. The goals to achieve quality usable websites such as:
a. Functionally correct: This primary system
correctly performs the functions that the user needs. Software that does not allow users to
perform their tasks is not usable.
b. Efficient to use: Efficiency can be a
measure of the time or actions required to perform a task. In general, procedures that
are faster tend to be more efficient.
c. Easy to learn: Ease of learning determines
how quickly new users can learn to accurately perform a task procedure. In
general, the fewer steps a procedure contains, the easier it is to learn.
d. Easy to remember: The degree to which a
system taxes human memory determines how easy it is for users to remember.
Systems that compel users to paste memory aids on their display screens are not easy to
remember.
e. Error tolerant: Error tolerance is
determined by how well errors are prevented, how easily they are detected and
identified when they occur, and how easily they are corrected once they are identified.
Error-tolerant systems can also prevent catastrophic results if all other measures fail.
f. Subjectively pleasing: usability is often
determined by how users feel about using the system. Although nonfunctional graphics
and other interface elements can skew a user’s perception of usability, user
satisfaction is probably a combination of all these criteria.
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CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Methodology Diagram
The following steps were taken to ensure this research has achieved its goals. These
includes literature review, selection of e- government stage model and web usability
method, data collection, analysis and fianally is conclusion. Figure 5 further shows the
procedures taken to accomplish this research.
First, e-government concept was reviewed from literature data.
In the second step e-government stage models are summarized to evaluate government
services while inspection usability method was used to evaluate web usability.
Third, a review of Cambodian and Indonesian government websites were carried
out. These are such as, central government of Cambodia and Indonesia with 25 and 31
websites respectively.
Furthermore, local
government of Cambodia with 24 websites, while 33 websites for Indonesian local
government. refer to Appendix 4 for government name and websites
Next is the discussion and analysis based on data review, and the final is the conclusion.
3.2 The evaluation of parameters
Parameters were devided into stage model parameters and inspection usability parameters.
The four-stage model, such as web presence; interaction; transaction; and participation, was
used to evaluate government services. While inspection usability method was used to
evaluate usable of government websites which concentrated with eight components such as
architecture and navigation ; layout and design ; content ; form and interaction ; graphic ; color ;
typography ; and platform and implementation. There are 20 parametersfeactures were used in
four stage model evaluation, while 24 parameters were used in the inspection of
usability evaluation. For detailed parameters of inspection usability, we refer to Table 1 of
Appendix 3.
Binary number 1 or 0 was used to show the
presence or
absence of
specific parameterfeature. For example, number 1
shows features of websites are present accessible and number 0 shows their absence
inaccessible.
The following parameters of four-stage model being evaluated such as:
Stage I: Web presence a.
Web launching: the ministrial official
webpages were reviewed by using Internet server at Bogor Agricultural University IPB
- Indonesia. The review carried out during three consecutive weekends.
b. Tab about us: generally it describes
institutional history optional, function, vision, mission, and institutional structure.
c. Contact information: information about the
place and person that can be contacted when needed.
d. Link to other official webpage: link to
other government webpages and other useful websites optional.
e. Regular update: webpage always update
at least once a week. The update was reviewed three consecutive weekends.
f. English language: available webpage is in
English language.
For Indonesian
government websites, primary language is Bahasa Indonesia
while Khmer as primary language
for Cambodian
government websites.
g. General news and activities: provide
internal andor external news on their websites.
Figure 5 Research methodology diagram. Literature Review
Selection of e-government stage model and web usability method
Data collection Government’s websites
Analysis
Conclusion
