IMS 6485: Electronic Government

1Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Topics

• Share of the Economy & Social Objectives of Govt.

• No Competition & Bureaucratic Motivations

• Staffing for eGovernment

• eGovernment Benefits

• Wasted Money

• Privacy vs. Efficiency

• Redesigning Government

• e-Democracy

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

2Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Government Issues in the Value Chain?

TRANS-PORTATIONCOMPANY

BROKER

INFORMATION FLOWS(SELLERS TO BUYERS)

FLOW OF GOODS

ADVERTISING .

INVOICE .

ORDER INFORMATION .

INFORMATION FLOWS(BUYERS TO SELLERS)

REQUEST INFORMATION .

PLACE ORDER .

MAKE PAYMENTS .

Animal

Vegetable

Mineral

INVENTORY

INVENTORY

INVENTORY

FACTORYWHOLE-SALER

INTERMEDIATE

GOODS

WHOLE-SALER

RETAILER

Where do these topics fall?

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

3Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Share of the Economy & Social Objectives of Govt.

• What are the economic reasons for having governments?

• Size of Governments

– Personal consumption $7.7 trillion of $11 trillion economy (2005)

– Government spending $5.1 trillion of a $14 trillion GDP economy in 2008 (transfer payments provide some double counting)

• Federal: $2.9 trillion

• State: $1.2 trillion

• Local: $1.5 trillion

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

4Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Stages of eGovernment

• Providing information

• Interaction (communication)

• Transaction processing

• Transformation of government

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

5Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

No Competition & Bureaucratic Motivations

• Risk/reward for innovation in the private and public sectors

– Gore, Al. Reinventing Government: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less. Three Rivers Press, 1993.

• Historical experience of having a champion for innovative projects

– Ignores the risk

– Visionary

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

6Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Staffing for eGovernment

• Development

• Operation

• Difficulty firing nonperforming employees

• The role of consultants

– EDS

– Implications for you

– Government IT as a career path

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

7Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

eGovernment Benefits

• Reduced costs

• Improved effectiveness

– How should effectiveness be defined?

• Reduced corruption

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

8Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Wasted Money

• Systems that didn’t work out

• What accounts for these?

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

9Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Privacy vs. Efficiency

• Statutory authority to collect personal information

• Requirements to protect privacy

• Privacy vs. Convenience

– ePass

– FL DL photos

• Vulnerability of gov’t. information

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

10Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Redesigning Government

• Government structures are created along two dimensions

– Level of government (national, state, county, local)

– Function (education, building codes, defense, etc.)

• Citizen tasks may not align with government structures

– Different jurisdictions

– Different functional focus w/ impact on same transaction

• E.g., Building permit jurisdictions

• E.g., Higher education benefits

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

11Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Redesigning Government (cont.)

• The "citizen-centered perspective" is shorthand for the good point—so far largely ignored in e-government design—that setting up new electronic systems only to mimic the old offline ones is a bit of a waste of time.

p. 6

• A good e-government scheme starts off from the citizen's eye view, not the bureaucrat's one.

p. 6

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

12Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Redesigning Government (cont.)

• The Florida Building Permit case

– West, L. A. Florida's Marine Resource Information System: A Geographic Decision Support System.   Government Information Quarterly 16, 1 (1999), 47-62.

– West, L. A., & Hess, T. J. Metadata as a Knowledge Management Tool: Supporting Intelligent Agent and End-User Access to Spatial Data.  Decision Support Systems 32, 3 (January 2002), 247-264.

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

13Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

Redesigning Government (cont.)

• But so far, governments have mostly been using technology for projects where public support is likely to be strong and opposition low… Few have even started to tackle the really big task: reshaping government in order to take advantage of the immense possibilities that technology now permits.

p. 10

IMS 6485: Electronic Government

14Dr. Lawrence West, MIS Dept., University of Central FloridaLWEST@BUS.UCF.EDU

e-Democracy

• What have been the lessons of the 2008 US presidential election?

• What have the Democrats done differently after winning the election?

• What are the incentives and disincentives for citizens to become involved in government?

– How does technology change this structure?