Class Notes On Human And E-Government Readiness

HUMAN AND E-GOVERNMENT READINESS

Contents
E-Government Readiness.............................................................................................................................. 1
Human readiness of e-Government. ............................................................................................................ 2
Factors that make humans ready or not ready for e-governance: ............................................................... 2
Acceptance................................................................................................................................................ 2
Accessibility ............................................................................................................................................... 2
Administrative literacy .............................................................................................................................. 3
Benchmarking ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Digital divide ............................................................................................................................................. 3
E-readiness ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Efficiency ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Security ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Stakeholders ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Usability .................................................................................................................................................... 4
How e-Government Readiness is measured ................................................................................................. 5




E-government is the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within
public administration to optimise its internal and external functions, provides government, the
citizen and business with a set of tools that can potentially transform the way in which
interactions take place, services are delivered, knowledge is utilized, policy is developed and
implemented, citizens participate in governance, and public administration reform and good
governance goals are met.


E-Government Readiness
Wherever possible, it is recommended that programmes for more comprehensive and sustainable
e-government development begins with a vision, strategy and action plan. In other cases, e-
government may develop on a more ad hoc basis. Regardless of the process, an important tool to
initiate e-government programs and applications in a sound manner is the e-government
readiness assessment.

, An e-government readiness assessment is meant to serve as an advisory tool and aims at:
- Raising awareness as to the bottom line motivations and capacities that have to be in place in
order to assure a reasonable basis for success in the e-government development process;
- Usefully describing the environment in which e-government development will occur and
confirming the viability of application of e-government approaches;
- Pinpointing the “weak links” in this environment – for remedial action and, in this way,
enhancing the chances for eventual success of e-government development;
- In extreme cases, advising against application of e-government approaches in a given public
administration, as its given level or in a given organizational part of it;
- informing broad or sectoral e-government strategy and action plan development;
- providing a monitoring and evaluation tool.




Human readiness of e-Government.
This is the way how people are prepared for the use of e-Government.


Factors that make humans ready or not ready for e-governance:
Acceptance
User acceptance of technology is defined as the demonstrable willingness within a user group to
employ information technology for the tasks it is designed to support. This definition can be
brought into the context of e-government services where acceptance can be defined as the users’
willingness to use e-government services or the willingness to decide when and how to use the e-
government services.

Accessibility
Users’ ability to access to the e-government services is important theme in the previous
literature. For example, most of the websites in general fail to serve users with disabilities.
Recommendation to improve accessibility is evident where to improve e-government services’
accessibility like: design for accessibility from the outset of website development, Involve users
with disabilities in the testing of the site. Focus on the benefits of an accessible Web site to all
users.