icegov2012 proceedings

4.3 Measurement of a Level of Public Apps
In order to measure the level of public apps of Korean central
government, the authors made a check-list on whether each of 161
public apps was satisfied with the specific criteria of each stage of
the model. And then, the level of each public app was determined
as the highest stage where each public app reached. Of 161 public
apps, 13 public apps were excluded because of the unexpected
problems. For example, the authors could not get access to the
public app named “National Tax Service for Businessmen”,
because it was necessary to have a registered business number in
order to log in to this public app. Then, based on 148 public apps,
the authors measured a level of each public app.
Table 4. Measurement of a level of public apps
1 st
stage
2 nd
stage
3 rd
stage
4 th
stage
5 th
stage
6 th
stage
Total
Frequency 24 80 13 24 7 0 148
Portion
(%)
16.2 54.1 8.8 16.2 4.7 0.0 100.0
As shown in Table 4, 54.1% of the public apps provided by
central government agencies satisfy the criteria of the second
stage of the model. That is, more than half of the public apps
provided by central government agencies provide the functions
that increase citizens’ convenience by means of mobile
technology, such as LBS and QR code. In term of interaction
pattern, 70.3% of public apps provide one-way communication
services, while 29.7% of public apps provide two-way
communication service. Also, it is notable that 25% of the entire
public apps provide the functions that satisfy the third and fourth
stage, while only 4.7% of the entire public apps reach the fifth
stage. When it comes to the portion of the public apps that provide
two-way communication service, the authors interpret in the
following ways. First, given that the public apps that satisfy the
third and fourth stage account for 25% of the entire public apps, it
seems that central government agencies try to provide the
functions for promoting interactions with their citizens by
accommodating their questions or opinions through public apps.
Second, it can be said that public apps which provide two-way
communications are at the initial stage. Only 4.7% of the entire
public apps of Korean central government provide the functions
that satisfy the fifth stage, such as mobile payment and mobile
order of package delivery. Diverse possible causes for this
phenomenon can be considered. On the supply side, the weak
leadership for developing higher level of public apps or the low
level of technology which government agencies have could be
major obstacles against providing the fifth and sixth level of
public apps. On the demand side, it is possible to argue that the
demand from citizens on such kinds of public apps is still weak.
5. TENTATIVE CONCLUSION
In this paper, the authors reviewed the literature on m-government
and claimed the necessity to approach m-government empirically.
Regarding public apps as the significant substance of mgovernment,
the authors built the public apps development model
in order to analyze the public apps systematically, and examined
the entire population of public apps. Until now, it is found that the
total number of the public apps provided by central government,
local governments, and public agencies in Korea was 701. Also,
108
local governments were the most active providers of public apps
among the three types of public organizations. In addition, overall
level of public apps of central government is approximately in a
midpoint of the second and third stage.
These tentative results can be interpreted that government
organizations and public agencies in Korea are actively adopting
mobile technologies for delivering public information services in
the era of m-government. On the other hand, Korean public
organizations still have long way to go because the overall level
of public apps are not so high that it cannot be enough to fully
satisfy the citizens’ expectations and future demands for the
transaction and integrative services through public apps.
The authors plan to do as follows in the future. First, the public
apps development model should be complemented reflecting
results of the public app survey. Second, the current status of
public apps should be analyzed more deeply applying various
criteria. Third, the measurement of levels of public apps of local
governments and public agencies will be conducted and the
overall level of the entire public apps in Korea will be examined.
Finally, causal factors for determining the levels of public apps
will be analyzed through statistical inferential analysis.
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