icegov2012 proceedings

Evolving e-Government Benchmarking to Better Cover
Technology Development and Emerging Societal Needs
Kim Andreasson
DAKA Advisory
Alvgatan 3
432 38 Varberg, Sweden
+1 646 845 9782
kim@dakaadvisory.com
ABSTRACT
Many international e-government benchmarks seek to measure
progress towards various versions of a digital society, and in this
endeavor include a component of e-government. But because
comparable international e-government data are scarce, most
reports rely on the United Nations E-Government Development
Index, specifically its Online Service Index as a benchmark.
However, this assessment only captures national level initiatives
at a broad level and does not link evaluation to outcomes and
impacts, i.e. e-government performance relative to investment.
This paper briefly reviews the current UN framework and assesses
how it can evolve to meet new demands, such as calls to better
connect investments to policy goals, and evolving user behavior.
It also places this in the context of new technology trends, like
mobile and social media which have not yet been fully embraced
by e-government but which are likely to become increasingly
important. Similarly, important trends in benchmarking and in
benchmarking tools are surveyed.
For example, is it possible to measure outcomes in a cost effective
manner? What might be the role of non-UN data and of web
metrics and social media analytics? How could relevant data and
other information be better presented to countries and decisionmakers
in order to strengthen the goal of using the UN survey to
support learning and improvement? In this context, the paper
outlines the next feasible steps which the UN and similar
benchmarks might adopt, including how the framework might be
applied to local level assessments.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
K.4.1 [Public Policy Issues]
General Terms
Measurement, Documentation, Performance, Design
Keywords
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies
bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for
components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored.
Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to
post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission
and/or a fee.
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, United States, NY, USA
Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10…$15.00.
Jeremy Millard
Danish Technological Institute
Kongsvangs Allé 20
2000 Aarhus C, Denmark
+45 72 20 14 17
jrm@teknologisk.dk
430
Mikael Snaprud
Tingtun & University of Agder
N-4791 Lillesand, Norway
+47 91 862 892
mikael.snaprud@tingtun.no
E-Government, United Nations, Technology Trends,
Benchmarking Trends, Benchmarking Tools, Benchmarking
Framework
1. INTRODUCTION
Benchmarking the information society is important in order for
policy-makers to understand it and how to achieve better
outcomes from additional investment.
The benefits of a digital society are everywhere: the 2011 Future
of the Internet Economy report from the OECD says that between
2000 and 2009 investments in ICT contributed more to GDP
growth than all non-ICT investments in a majority of its Member
States. [1] Also in 2011, the McKinsey Global Institute, a
consultancy research arm, estimated the Internet's share of GDP to
be greater than many traditional industries. [2] Currently, the
report said, the Internet contributes 3.4% across the G8 countries,
South Korea, Sweden, Brazil, China, and India. Among mature
economies, 21% of growth in the last five years has come from
the Internet.
The potential benefits also increase as more people take part in the
digital society. One example of how rapidly people are coming
online is in Europe where 34% of individuals were regularly using
the Internet in 2003; in 2011, the number stood at 68%, according
to Eurostat the European statistics office. [3] The rise is also
global in nature. According to the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the
United Nations (UN), the number of Internet users globally has
increased from 6.4 per 100 people in 2000 to 29.7 in 2010. The
agency predicts that the world will go from two billion Internet
users in 2010 to five billion in 2015. [4]
Because of the potential benefits, understanding and measuring
the factors behind the digital society are increasingly important as
countries become more connected and interconnected. Prominent
examples of research reports that use international benchmarks to
measure progress towards various aspects of a digital society
include the World Economic Forum’s Global Information
Technology Report, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Digital
Economy Rankings, the Nokia Siemens Networks Connectivity
Scorecard, and the Partnership on Measuring ICT for
Development, coordinated and funded by the International
Telecommunications (ITU), a specialized agency of the UN, the
European Commission and Waseda University.
One commonality between such efforts to measure digital
progress is that they include a component of electronic
government (e-government). The development of e-government
has also been rapid by any measure but a commonly cited