E-Government and COVID-19: An Empirical Study in Greece

E-government and the implementation of ICT technologies in the public sector has been in the center of interest for a few decades now, but it is a fact that the Covid-19 pandemic and the worldwide lockdowns have given a boost on their prosecution in our everyday lives. The aims of this study were to i) examine the implementation of digital transformation best practices utilized by the governments globally and ii) take a thorough look in the case of Greece, to determine whether and to what extent the Greek government adopted similar practices and initiatives, allowing the use of online digital services to citizens in a wide array of public sector areas during the Covid-19 pandemic. Initially, we sent a questionnaire to 202 people in Greece, via email and social media platforms. In response, 150 useable questionnaires were received with response rate of 74%. We gathered responses were gathered between May and June 2021, and data gathered were analyzed with PSPP statistical program. The results showed that the majority of the practices used by the government were well communicated, as most of the digital services were acknowledged by the participants even if they had not used them. In particular, the taxation portal and the central digital portal for governmental services were used in percentages of 76% and 66% respectively. In terms of use and satisfaction, responses were also quite encouraging, with 72% of the participants mentioning being very satisfied with the speed and quality of the new digital services, though leaving room for further research to conclude on improvement methods. After in-depth examination of the global and Greek progress of digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to state that all governments have shown tremendous improvement in order to cover citizens' needs, while using the majority of the available digital channels.

Open government data for crisis management: Rapid information sharing and co-creation of services

During the COVID-19 pandemic, open government data (OGD) was often used as a valuable crisis management resource. Unfortunately, there is limited research that explores how OGD can be used during times of crisis as a crisis management tool. To ensure that OGD can be used effectively in future crises, there is a need to understand how it may be used and what benefits its usage may bring. This paper brings new insight into this topic by conducting a comparative exploratory case study of three Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries – Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia, where OGD was used at different levels to help manage different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of this research, three contributions are made: (1) it integrates OGD into previous crisis management literature, offering new and initial conceptual propositions;(2) it demonstrates how OGD enables the co-creation of new services that create public value during times of crisis;and (3) it provides empirical examples of OGD-driven co-created services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Information Polity: The International Journal of Government & Democracy in the Information Age is the property of IOS Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Combination of Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modeling and Ontology Matching for Building Domain Ontologies: E-Government Case Study

During the last decade, ontology engineering has undoubtedly participated in a lot of beneficial applications in different domains. Nevertheless, ontology development still faces several significant challenges that need to be addressed. This study proposes an enhanced architecture for the ontology development lifecycle. With the help of this architecture, users can complete ontology development tasks since it provides guidance for all key activities, from requirement specification to ontology evaluation. Ontology-driven conceptual modeling (ODCM) and ontology matching serve as the foundation of this architecture. ODCM is defined as the application of ontological ideas from various fields to build engineering objects that improve conceptual modeling. Ontology matching is a promising approach to overcome the semantic heterogeneity challenge between different ontologies. The proposed architecture is applied to e-governance domain, which is one of the online services that gains a great attention worldwide, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. However, residents of Arab countries face numerous obstacles and do not receive the full benefits of e-governance. For these reasons, Egyptian e-government is selected as the suggested case study. The results are encouraging when the produced ontology is compared with 20 existing ontologies from the same domain. On the basis of OntoMetrics, the average values of metrics correlated to accuracy, understandability, cohesion and conciseness lie in the 95th, 95th, 95th and 57th percentiles respectively. The results can be further enhanced by defining more non-inheritance relations and distributing the instances across all classes. © 2022. ISCA

Digital Government in Application-Based Motor Vehicle Tax Payments in Indonesia

Amid the current pandemic, information technology such as the internet has become a basic need for society. The increasingly limited space for movement requires people to master technology to be able to survive and interact virtually. On the other hand, technology that has become a basic need also needs to be adopted by the government to improve public services amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to be more effective and efficient. E-Government and digital government in Indonesia are strengthened by the presence of Presidential Instruction No. 3 of 2003, as well as Presidential Regulation (Perpres) no. 95 of 2018 concerning the Electronic-Based Government System (SPBE). One of these acceleration efforts is also strengthened by the presence of the electronic-based government system index (SPBE) which measures how the electronic-based government system in Indonesia is at the regional level. As people increasingly master technology, the form of technology-based services (e-services) will be increasingly needed by the public. So, how does the government respond to this? West Java Province itself through Bapenda (Regional Revenue Agency) and a team of IT experts has launched an application called Sambara (West Java Mobile Samsat), a public service in the form of an Android-based smartphone application for payment of Motor Vehicle Tax (PKB) in West Java Province. The application is also implemented in Banten Province through the SAMBAT (Samsat Banten Hebat) and SIGNAL (National Digital Samsat) Applications as well as Cooperation in the Management of Regional Levies through the SIREDA (Regional Retribution System) application.Copyright © 2023, Anka Publishers. All rights reserved.

How effective is digital marketing for government organisations in times of crisis: the case of Kuwait's fire force during COVID-19

Digital marketing is increasingly used by government organisations during crises to improve information dissemination as well as foster citizen and general public participation. This paper explores the adoption of digital marketing by Kuwait Fire Force. Qualitative data was used to understand the strategic approach and effectiveness. Secondary data was collected from social media platforms to determine participation of citizens, the impact of the strategies, the sentiments of the information and the reach of information through the platforms. This paper argues that commercial digital marketing strategies can be applied in crisis management through social media channels. the results show that to a certain extent, the digital marketing strategies are effective. However, care should be taken to ensure that all platforms are well-integrated, have similar messages and the tone of these messages need to be clearly defined in the digital marketing strategy. Recommendations have been provided to improve the impact of these strategies.

To "D” or Not to "D”?: Assessing Instructors' Intentions to Adopt Digital Learning in Saudi Arabia's Public Universities in the Wake of COVID-19

Although digital learning has been used by the public universities to teach students for some time, the relatively new established universities still didn't fully adopt the digital learning practices. Therefore, this research aims to understand the factors that influence instructors' intentions to adopt digital learning during and post COVID-19 time period. For this, the paper proposed a model based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology extended with additional construct such as self-efficacy and moderators such as staff IT-training and institutional support. The workable data were collected from 274 instructors across 10 public universities that have implemented digital learning in their curriculum relatively lately after 2010, and they are still experimenting its implementation using their resources. The data were analysed using PLS SEM. The results supported the influence of antecedents on instructors' intentions to adopt digital learning, and moderators were also found to support the relationships significantly.

The great wave: The increasing demand for digital competence within the public sector

The increasing diffusion of digital government has led to numerous reports on both significant progress and failure in terms of digital transformation. Previous research highlights the role of digital competence as a pre-requisite for successful digital transformation, yet few studies have addressed the actual state of digital competence demand in the public sector. We study the development of digital competence demand in the Swedish public sector for the period 2006-2020. Utilizing a complete, open dataset of all job postings, we find that the digital competence demand in public sector recruitment has significantly increased. At the same time, the public sector lags behind the private in terms of digital competence demand. These findings are discussed from the perspectives of both the need for further research into human resource-related aspects of digital government and the national digital government policy. We also discuss the potential impact of disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2009 financial crisis on digital competence demand. © 2022 - IOS Press.

Local e-Government Development: Results of an international survey

There has been rapid progress in local government websites, especially in terms of services provision and resident engagement. The assessment of local government websites can help to ameliorate effectiveness of municipality services and be used as a mechanism to understand the critical needs of residents. To this end, our research is focused on assessing features of local e-Government development in some of the largest cities worldwide based on their responses to a questionnaire. The findings are discussed suggesting possible ways to improve the level of local e-Government development. An examination of responses for 42 cities reveals that e-Government is prominently practiced. The results indicate that local governments organise their web presence and service provision applying a variety of e-Government strategies based on their needs and priorities. They mainly align with the national legislation covering e-Government regulations. Online services provision, usage and citizens' satisfaction need more systematisation. Social media platforms are tools with an increasing application perspective, especially in residents' engagement in decision-making. COVID-19 initiatives provided a pathway on how to apply technologies, in a relatively short time period, facing critical situations. Emerging technologies provide tools that can be used to solve critical urban problems. Finally, the present study contributes towards an ongoing discussion for the development of a common worldwide assessment scheme that would measure the level and sophistication of local government digital development. © 2022 ACM.

Learnings from a Pilot Hybrid Question Answering System: CQAS

The Singapore Government first released their digital government blueprint in 2018 with the key message for all their agencies to be "digital to the core and served with heart". With this push, agencies are moving towards human-centric digital services, especially for individual citizens. During COVID-19, Singapore government agencies introduced many COVID-19 digital initiatives resulting in more incoming inquiries from citizens to respective agencies. This surge in inquiries created the challenge on the agencies' end to meet service level agreements. One widely adopted solution is the use of chatbot technology that directly interfaces with the customer. However, several organisations have faced backlash from the citizens or customers when such chatbots cannot answer or give inappropriate answers to the questions. Hence this research takes a different approach to address this challenge using a question answering (QA) system that supports the CSOs to help answer the citizen inquiries more efficiently. This paper shares our learnings from implementing the pilot QA system;the Citizen Question Answering System (CQAS) was built using a hybrid QA approach that combines techniques from Natural Language Process QA, Knowledge-based QA and Information Retrieval QA. We also highlight the essential learnings in implementing QA systems within a government agency. The research will further share how these learnings could inform the adoption of QA systems in a government setting. The subsequent research following this paper will then focus on conducting a user study with the CSOs to validate further the benefits of this pilot QA system, which is not covered in this paper. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Standard and guideline development for the interoperability of a digital government system

In the time of crisis with Covid-19, the digital government has become a necessity for all countries. To continuously provide services to citizens staying at home, government adapts and creates ways to reach out to citizens digitally. Many new applications emerged, and these new applications accessible via mobile phone and through website and platforms must be standardized for citizens' convenient usage. There must exist a series of standards to ensure interoperability among the government digital service systems. This paper describes the standard and guideline development process invented and adopted at the Digital Government Development Agency (public organization) or DGA. It further summarizes the work that needs to be done for a complete solution and the groups such as standard committees involved in achieving this goal. The focus of the paper is on the standard development for interoperable digital government systems in Thailand. The development of the data catalog standard is presented as an example of applying the proposed approach. Standard and guideline development are a necessity for aligning digital government systems together. © 2022 IEEE.

Digital Exclusion During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of How Developed Countries Responded to Support Their Citizens

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the reliance on digital services increased in most developed countries leaving many communities who are digitally excluded cut-off from vital services such as health and social care. Globally, digital exclusion is proposed to be one of the largest issues on discrimination within countries where smart cities and digital-by-default policies have been promoted, preventing certain groups of society from having access to public services. Addressing why people are being digitally excluded is important in improving the access people have to healthcare and other services that improve a person’s quality of life. Through a focused review of literature and publicly available secondary information, this paper examines the impact of Covid-19 on digital exclusion in Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Asia Pacific region and the methods that have been successful in limiting digital exclusion. Results show that while some countries handled the COVID 19 pandemic well, other countries’ attempts widened the gap with more people becoming digitally excluded.

China Pakistan Economic Corridor Digital Transformation.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) vision and mission are to improve the people's living standards of Pakistan and China through bilateral investments, trade, cultural exchanges, and economic activities. To achieve this envisioned dream, Pakistan established the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority (CPECA) to further its completion, but Covid-19 slowed it down. This situation compelled the digitalization of CPEC. This article reviews the best practices and success stories of various digitalization and e-governance programs and, in this light, advises the implementation of the Ajman Digital Governance (ADG) model as a theoretical framework for CPEC digitalization. This article concludes that the Pakistani government needs to transform CPEC digitalization by setting up the CPEC Digitalization and Transformation Center (DTC) at the CPECA office to attract more investors and businesses.

A Review of Digital Era Governance Research in the First Two Decades: A Bibliometric Study

The emergence of digital technologies has profoundly affected and transformed almost every aspect of societal relations. These impacts have also reached public administration, including its governance. Digital technologies’ rise has paved the way for the surfacing of a new public governance model called the Digital Era Governance (DEG) model (often referred to as e-government, digital government, e-governance, or digital governance) in which digital technologies play a central role. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive and in-depth examination of DEG research over the past two decades. Bibliometric analysis is based on the Scopus database that contains 9175 documents published between 2001 and 2020. In this context, several established and innovative bibliometric approaches are applied. The results reveal the growth of DEG research over the last two decades, especially in recent years, as accelerated by several of the most relevant documents published in reputable journals such as Government Information Quarterly. Most DEG research has been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, as confirmed while examining the most relevant authors’ affiliations and collaborations. The results also indicate that DEG has advanced from conventional public services to citizen-oriented e-services by including citizens’ participation and, most recently, even to smart services by facilitating emerging and disruptive technologies. The findings add to the stock of scientific knowledge and support the evidence-based policymaking needed to successfully pursue a sustainable future.

Impact of Digital Economy on the Provision Efficiency for Public Health Services: Empirical Study of 31 Provinces in China.

The digital economy is booming in China and has become the world's largest after the United States'. Since China entered the era of the digital economy, its digital technology has radiated into various fields. This study is to examine the impact of China's digital economy on the provision efficiency of public health institutions and the mechanism of action between them. Specifically, it measures the development level of China's digital economy, and the provision efficiency of public health institutions from 2009 to 2018. The research also explores the relationship between China's digital economy and its provision efficiency, through the Tobit-DEA model. An analysis of the regional heterogeneity indicated that the performance of China's digital economy in the eastern region has a significant positive effect on improving the efficiency of the public health sector. This further confirms that the digital economy has strengthened China's ability to deal with public health crises during the COVID-19 pandemic. A further mediation effect analysis showed that China's digital economy optimizes the efficiency of public health provision by improving governmental performance and regulatory quality. This shows that the development of the digital economy promotes the construction of digital government, and thus improves the quality of governmental supervision and governmental performance, which has a significant positive effect on the efficiency of the supply of public health services. During the COVID-19 pandemic especially, government delivery of public health services was critical in addressing public health crises. Therefore, based on the results of our empirical analysis, this study provides policy suggestions for improving the efficiency of public health service provision in the era of the digital economy.

Government dissemination of epidemic information as a policy instrument during COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Chinese cities.

COVID-19 has given rise to a surge in the number of policy instruments used to deal with the pandemic at different levels of governments globally. While much attention has been placed on travel bans, lockdown, social distancing, and economic stimulus packages, government dissemination of epidemic information as a policy instrument has received less attention. Based on 14,637 news items collected from the portals of 79 municipal governments in China, this study aims to 1) conduct a content analysis of news items and construct three key attributes of governments' practices of epidemic information dissemination, namely, comprehensiveness, responsiveness, and the protection of privacy, and 2) study the patterns and determinants of the dissemination of epidemic information. Our results show that these cities vary substantially in how they disseminate statistical data and information on individual cases of COVID-19 infections within their localities, which are shaped by government performance in open data, severity of the pandemic, cities' administrative level, population, and health sector capacities. The findings generate theoretical and policy implications for government dissemination of epidemic information.

E-Government and COVID-19: An Empirical Study in Greece

E-government and the implementation of ICT technologies in the public sector has been in the center of interest for a few decades now, but it is a fact that the Covid-19 pandemic and the worldwide lockdowns have given a boost on their prosecution in our everyday lives. The aims of this study were to i) examine the implementation of digital transformation best practices utilized by the governments globally and ii) take a thorough look in the case of Greece, to determine whether and to what extent the Greek government adopted similar practices and initiatives, allowing the use of online digital services to citizens in a wide array of public sector areas during the Covid-19 pandemic. Initially, we sent a questionnaire to 202 people in Greece, via email and social media platforms. In response, 150 useable questionnaires were received with response rate of 74%. We gathered responses were gathered between May and June 2021, and data gathered were analyzed with PSPP statistical program. The results showed that the majority of the practices used by the government were well communicated, as most of the digital services were acknowledged by the participants even if they had not used them. In particular, the taxation portal and the central digital portal for governmental services were used in percentages of 76% and 66% respectively. In terms of use and satisfaction, responses were also quite encouraging, with 72% of the participants mentioning being very satisfied with the speed and quality of the new digital services, though leaving room for further research to conclude on improvement methods. After in-depth examination of the global and Greek progress of digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to state that all governments have shown tremendous improvement in order to cover citizens’ needs, while using the majority of the available digital channels. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Digital government transformation in turbulent times: Responses, challenges, and future direction.

We are living in turbulent times, with the threats of COVID-19 and related social conflicts. Digital transformation is not an option but a necessity for governments to respond to these crises. It has become imperative for governments worldwide to enhance their capacity to strategically use emerging digital technologies and develop innovative digital public services to confront and overcome the pandemic. With the rapid development of digital technologies, digital government transformation (DGT) has been legitimated in response to the pandemic, contributing to innovative efficacy, but it also has created a set of challenges, dilemmas, paradoxes, and ambiguities. This special issue's primary motive is to comprehensively discuss the promises and challenges DGT presents. It focuses on the nature of the problems and the dilemmatic situation in which to use the technologies. Furthermore, it covers government capacity and policy implications for managerial and institutional reforms to respond to the threats and the uncertainty caused by disruptive digitalization in many countries. To stimulate discussion of the theme of this special issue, this editorial note provides an overview of previous literature on DGT as a controlling measure of the pandemic and the future direction of research and practice on DGT.

Effects of Application of Information on the Expectations of Benefits from GaaP: Moderating Effects from Perceptions of IIT

In the age of digital transformation, this study aims to reveal the determinant factors of the expectations of public officials of the benefits from Government as a Platform (GaaP). This study utilizes information as an independent variable, with the perception of intelligent information technologies (IIT) as a moderating variable, along with practical effects from three types of GaaP (cooperative GaaP, intelligent GaaP, and transparent GaaP) as dependent variables in establishing our research model. We conducted multiple regression analysis and moderating effect analysis to verify the proposed hypotheses. The robust regression relation analysis was adopted to solve outlier problems. Based on the results, we recommend that governments promote favorable circumstances for using information and that all government officials should get used to utilizing IIT in their jobs. The government also needs to adopt the bottom-up approach for adopting IIT or innovation. We also found that leaders need to be careful when considering a top-down approach in the public sector because strong leadership is a double-edged sword.

From recovery resilience to transformative resilience: How digital platforms reshape public service provision during and post COVID-19

This paper investigates how government-sponsored digital platforms facilitated the transition from recovery resilience during COVID-19 to transformative resilience of city-level service provision post COVID-19. Using an in-depth case study of the Weijiayuan platform implemented in the Jiaxing City of China, we found that digital platforms played critical roles in both stages of COVID-19 and helped facilitate the transition from recovery resilience to transformative resilience. This transition was made possible by four conditions: adopting and experimenting digital platforms with public entrepreneurship, achieving a critical mass of usership, incentivizing the coproduction of public services, and generating accountability mechanisms for government responsiveness. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Developing Digital Governance for Managing the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic-Case Study India

India is currently reeling under the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. Its brutal ascent in April and May 2021 has stretched the country's health infrastructure beyond limits while causing unparalleled adversity to the citizens. It is natural to ask if better digital governance would have helped to mitigate this wave. The Paper first highlights that emerging technologies and liberalized regulations have become the driving force for digital transformation of government. It then critically explores whether Government of India's Digital Governance solutions to manage the growing challenges of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic meet the expectations of the stakeholders. Based on the analysis, the Paper uses a globally accepted framework to fine tune the specific areas where the government needs to do better. In conclusion, it recommends adopting an overarching citizen-focused governance to increase the pace of transformation so as to successfully overtake the virus spread that is moving at tragic speed. © 2021 ACM.