icegov2012 proceedings

equirements for successful implementation of the e-
Government application vs. the real situation now);
o Others – indicate such issues as the time and money required
to successfully implement and operate the new application
compared with the time and money really available now.
3. COLLECTION OF DATA
All the Primary data were collected from the supply side of the
system as citizens have no direct interaction with the system yet.
Thus, those involved in the project were considered. Accordingly,
interview was made with the Deputy administrator of the city
administration; head of the Capacity Building and ICT Sector
Bureaus; head of the ICT sector in the capacity building bureau;
seven top level managers in the city administration whose duties
are highly related to the Land Management practice, and the
system administrator of the new system. In addition, group
discussion was made with the four IT staff (data encoders) in the
city administration. The questions for the structured interview
were prepared based on the constructs of the Design-Reality gap
model and a copy of the interview questions were given to each
study subject at least two days in advance. But, some more
clarifications were obtained through telephone conversation from
two of the interviewees among the top level managers in the city
administration during our discussion while rating the numerical
values for each of the constructs in the Design-Reality Gap model.
3.1 Presentation and analysis of data
Thematic analysis [8] of the organizational reality and
requirements within the design of the e-Government application
was made based on the qualitative data collected from the field as
per the seven ITPOSMO dimensions. Next, the rating of each
dimension as well as the interpretation of the sum of the
numerical values of the dimensions is made by adopting a detailed
guideline available for same (See at
http://www.egov4dev.org/success/techniques/risk_drg.shtml).
The rating of each dimension was made in a coconscious among
the three researchers based on the data at hand and
recommendations made by interviewees during the group
discussion. Accordingly, each dimension is numerically rated in a
scale from zero to ten where zero is to mean no change between
the design proposal and current reality; ten means complete
change between the design and current reality; and five would
indicate some degree of change. Finally, all the rating numbers for
each dimension were added up and interpreted as depicted in
Table 1.The original table is for use with predictive – i.e. pre-hoc
design-reality gap analysis before implementation. As this system
has already been implemented, we were interested in doing a midimplementation
assessment in order to see what has been achieved
so far, and where the project may go in future. Thus, rewordings
were done on the items in the table accordingly.
Table 1: Interpretation of total gap score
Total Gap
Score
Interpretation
0-14 The e-Government project well
succeeded.
15-28 There is partial failure in the e-
Government project as actions are not
212
taken to close design-reality gaps.
29-42 The e-Government project might fail
totally, or might well be a partial
failure unless action is taken to close
design-reality gaps.
43-56 The e-Government project may well
fail unless action is taken to close
design-reality gaps.
57-70 The e-Government project certainly
failed as actions are not taken to close
design-reality gaps.
4. DESIGN-REALITY GAP ANALYSIS
AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section we will use the seven dimensions from the Design-
Reality Gap model to analyze the case study gaps. We will
describe the design goals and the current reality followed by gap
assessment between the two.
4.1 Information
The Land Management Information System (LMIS) was designed
manage data on the basic land information and owner profile. It
provides information on land purpose/zoning (commercial vs.
residential), lot size, land location, land identification number,
other legal information in relation to that piece of land, the land
owner name and address, spouse name, children names, and
household number. The system design requires all supporting and
related documents to be scanned and available online.
In reality majority of the land and user profile information are
made ready by the new system except few documents to be
scanned in incorporated.
Gap = 3; a significant portion of the design goals are
implemented. But supporting documents of few land owners were
not scanned and incorporated yet.
4.2 Technology
The design called for technologies including scanners, server
computer and local area network, Internet connection, and
personal computers. Scanners needed to digitize the current paper
based documents, new court decisions, and tax receipts. Server
computer and network needed for storing information in a
centralized location for access by decision makers including
engineers, finance officers, land administrators, and city
managers. Internet connection needed for off-site access mostly
by field personnel. About fifteen personal computers with
Pentium IV processor and at least 40GB hard disk space were
needed for decision makers and data entry personnel.
The implemented reality has all technology requirements except
scanners and some concerns regarding the processing as well as
storage capacity of the Personal Computers as their capacity is
lesser than the required capacity.