thesis e-government services maturity model with automated e-services evaluation/verification tools

5/27/2018 Thesis E-Government Services Maturity Model with Automated E-services Evaluation/Verification tools

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E-Government Services Maturity Model with Automated E-services

Evaluation/Verification tools

By

Muhammad Nawaz

THESIS

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for

the Degree of

Master of Science (Computer Science)

Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology

February 2008


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In the name of noble profession

With countless regards, honor respect and love, who took me to the level of excellence where I stand

today looking for the most promising and gleaming career ahead.I hope to fulfill all of their expectations, and make them proud of me.

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Acknowledgement

I thank God who gave me the opportunity to learn under themeritorioussupervision, of Dr. Syed Irfan

Hyder, and also thanks to Dr. Syed Irfan Hyder, for his valuable guidance, great help and dedicated

support given me enough courage to complete this study.

I also like to thank my colleagues Mr. Issa Memon, Mr. Khurram Rashidi, Ms.Arshi and Mr. Muhammad

Raza for their great support in various phases of this study. I am also thankful to Ms. Seema Ansari,

whose personal and keen interest has given me great support.

I cannot forget to thank Mr. Adeel and the administrative staff of PAF-KIET for their support during the

work of this study.

Muhammad Nawaz

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Abstract

E-Government, refers to the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by government

agencies. Like Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing that have the ability to

transform communications with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. This technology can

provide a variety of services with better delivery of government services. The resulting benefits are

eradicating corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and cost saving.

Traditionally, the interaction between public and a government took place in a government office. With

emerging information and communication technologies it is possible to locate service centers closer to the

public. Such centers may consist of an unattended cubicle in the government agency, a service cubicle

located close to the public or virtual service by use of a computer at home or in office more friendlily.

During the course of research, existing e-Government services in Pakistan overviewed with the

perspective of their usability and interaction abilities. Some mature e-Government services were found

such as KESC institution supplying electricity to the Karachi city provides online billing whereas the

submission of online payment is still not available. Sui-Southern gas is also providing online billing and

online bills payment. However, obtain a new connection without visiting their office is not yet possible.

City District government-Karachi web portal provide some basic info forms and contracts information,

yet complaints system does not get solve grievances like unavailability of water; sewerage lines chocked,

street light facility etc. Electronic government directorate presented a website with some basic levels

training but this directorate fails to up-lift the standard of Pakistan e-Government services like other

developed countries. NADRA has also developed a good system to know about status of applied

Computerized National Identity Card CNIC but we may not have CNIC without visiting CNIC centre in

person.

Discussed e-Government services are developed by out serving e-Government projects. Present need is to

initiate the culture of in house e-Government services development. In Pakistan government, there is no

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concept or provision of in-house development rather they depend on out-sourcing the required software to

be developed. The limitation of out-sourcing the software development is the lack of support or future

changes required to be implemented by the government as soon as the outsourcing company winds up its

business

. The new outsourcing company does not accept the previously developed software and it requires

software to be developed altogether from scratch.

In house development of projects is usually done by the permanent staff members, as and when they

complete the project, they start planning to improve further because employee take interest to develop

public centric services for which they are compensated in the shape of appreciation promotion and other

financial benefits. Another important reason of inefficient e-Government services is lower salary package

of I.T professionals in government sector.

Pakistan is at No.136 on the ranking of e-Government services in the world. Situation existing on paper is

looks up to the mark; every tier of government related to ICT is fully functional but still fail to facilitate

public because e-Government Services in Pakistan are being developed in an adhoc fashion without

following any road map that could help to analyze the causes of their failure in meeting the public

requirements. In this research we present a road map for Pakistan an e-Government Services which

evaluate e-Government Services and identify why their e-Government Services fail to help citizens. An

automatic evaluation tool of coherent services also Identify their status of maturity and reasons of the

failure to meet public requirements.

In this research, we proposed a four staged model to evaluate the maturity of e-Government service.

Furthermore, to evaluate the presence of some parameters of an e-service we used a tool named Black

Widow. This is an automatic evaluation tool we provide a URL and Black Widow crawl throughout the

website and report all the errors, threads, broken links, used e-mails etc. But Black Widow does not tell us

the level of maturity of a website. Perhaps we may say Black Widow is only a verification tool.

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To evaluate the level of maturity of a website, we have developed a tool named e-Government

evaluation and verification tool. This tool evaluates the proposed level parameters and calculates the

level of maturity. Preliminary, this tool enables us to check the maturity level of a page by verifying

predetermined parameters. The parameters developed by using scripts. The development of intelligence

test is further needed. The intelligence-tests like hit counter used by the third party, java applet or php etc.

In this maturity model, four levels of maturity are outlined while complete structure of level-one is

proposed with detailed parameters and attributes. Integration of the used tools is yet required and to

develop the remaining three levels for the complete functionality.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduct ion ...........................................................................................................11

1.1 E-Government .....................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.2 Phases of E-Government .................................................................................12

1.3 Status of e-Government in Pakistan ...............................................................13

1.4 Objective of Thesis ...........................................................................................16

2 Related Work .........................................................................................................17

2.1 The identified categories of SOA are:- ............................................................ 17

2.2 Existing Frameworks ........................................................................................ 18

2.3 Existing e-Government Services Maturity Model ........................................... 18

2.4 Levels of e-Government services ....................................................................20

2.5 Maturity Models and Approaches....................................................................21

2.6 Evaluation Verification Tools ........................................................................... 22

2.7 Black Widow ...................................................................................................... 23

2.8 Present Status ................................................................................................... 28

2.9 Legislation in e-Government ............................................................................29

2.10Electronic Government Directorate (EGD)......................................................30

2.11Failure of e-Government services ...................................................................30

2.11.1 Online Payment. ...................................................................................... 302.11.2 Absence of Maturity Model for E-Government Services. ......................... 312.11.3 Absence of E-Government Framework for Pakistan................................ 312.11.4 Implementation Issues. ............................................................................31

2.11.5 E-Government Outsourcing Issues.......................................................... 322.11.6 Lack of availability of Laws and Rules for e-gov services. ....................... 322.11.7 Lack of end user involvement. ................................................................. 32

2.12E-Government in Developed Countries. ......................................................... 34

2.13Public Trust on e-Government......................................................................... 36

3 The Proposed Model .............................................................................................37

3.1 STRUCTURE ...................................................................................................... 38

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3.1.1 Level-1 A Mature Website........................................................................ 383.1.2 Level-2, Dynamic Website .......................................................................423.1.3 Level-3, Integration with centralized data.................................................42

3.1.4 Level-4, Transformed Government .......................................................... 434 Automat ic Evaluat ion Tool Implementation ....................................................... 44

5 E-GOVERNMENT SERVICE EVALUATION SNAPSHOTS ..................................45

6 Conclusion and fu ture work .................................................................................52

7 References .............................................................................................................54

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Table of Tables

Table 1 E-Government status of South & Central Asia...............................................................................................13Table 2 Budgetary Provision for e-Government [68]..................................................................................................29Table 3 E-Government status of top 20 developed countries Source [UNPAN] .....................................................35

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Table of Figures

Figure 1 Levels of e-Government 2.4 ..........................................................................................................................21Figure 2 .9 Snapshot of Black Widow: Sowing folders hierarchy of www.Pakistan.gov.pk........................................24Figure 3 E-Government Services Evaluation and Verification tool .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ...25

Figure 4 E-Government Services Evaluation and Verification tool .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ...27Figure 5, Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk .......... .......... ........... .......... ........... ........... .......... .45Figure 6, 2

ndlevel Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ........46

Figure 7, 3rd

level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ........46Figure 8, 4

th level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk.......... .......... ........... .......... ........... ........47

Figure 9, 5th

level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk.......... .......... ........... .......... ........... ........47Figure 10, 6

th level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk........... ........... .......... .......... ........... .....48

Figure 11, 7th

level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk........... ........... .......... .......... ........... .....48Figure 12, 8

th level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk.......... ........... .......... ........... .......... .....49

Figure 13, Last level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk........................................................49Figure 14, E-mails used in , www.pakistan.gov.pk......................................................................................................50Figure 15, Links used but not working in , www.pakistan.gov.pk .......... .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ........... ......50Figure 16, Links contained errors in , www.pakistan.gov.pk .......... .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ........... .......... ...51

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1 Introduction

1.1 E-Government

e-Government is the government owned or operated systems of information and communication

technologies that transform relations with citizens, the private sector and/or other government agencies so

as to promote citizens empowerment, improve service delivery, strengthen accountability, increase

transparency, or improve government efficiency. e-Government refers to the use of ICT by government

agencies Like Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing that have the ability to transformcommunications with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. This technology can provide a

variety of services with better delivery of government services. The resulting benefits are eradication of

corruption, transparency enhancement, greater convenience, revenue growth, and cost saving. E-

Government is further defined as Electronic Government (e-Government), also known as e-Gov, Digital

Government, Online-Government or Transformational Government, e-Democracy, e-Government Unit, e-

Rule Making, Electronic Services Delivery, Online-Consultation, Online-Deliberation, and Open-Source

Governance, refer to Governments use of Information Technology to exchange information and services

with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. e-Government usually has been applied by thelegislature, judiciary, or administration, to improve internal efficiency, the delivery of public services, or

processes of democratic governance. The referred services are being employed at different levels like

Government-to-Citizen or Customer (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B), Government to Local

Governments (G2LGs) and Government-to-Government (G2G). The significance of e-Government has

increased manifolds for the achievement of improved efficiency, convenience, and better accessibility of

public services.

E-Government means utilizing technology for the accomplishment of reforms by fostering transparency,eliminating distance and other divides, and empowering people to participate in the political processes

that affect their lives.

Governments have different strategies to build e-Government. Some have created comprehensive long-

term plans. Others have opted to identify just a few key areas. In all cases, however, the countries

identified as most successful have begun with smaller projects in phases on which to build a structure.

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1.2 Phases of E-Government

The process of e-Government implementation can be divided into three phases. The phases are not

dependent on each other; furthermore, they offer three conceptual ways to think about the goals of e-

Government. The three phases are:-

(i) The Publication phase. (ii) The Interaction phase. (iii) The Transaction phase.

Publication phase: The publication phase is concerned with the brief introduction presented by

organization along with organization hierarchy, contacts information and details of offered services with

existing clients, projects and pipelined projects. The graphical virtual tour may also be presented in

publication phase.

Interaction phase: The interaction phase covers the detailed information for the user by the organization

about the services offered, as well as, FAQs, online help, online-query forms, online-registration or

booking or seat reservation etc.

Transaction phase: The transaction phase provides not only the basic information, but also the e-

Commerce related activities like submitting the payment against the services availed like e-Ticket or

purchasing products. The limitation of interaction phase is the payment method which is not being

provided after the e-reservation or e-registration whereas the transaction phase also covers the facility for

e-transaction. However, e-Government phases in Pakistan are divided into following four phases:-

Informational: This is the first phase and includes the provision of information alone. The quality,

usability and currency of the content determine the value of this phase of e-Government. This is the least

complex of all the phases.

Interactive: In this phase, E-Government provides some degree of online interaction. For instance,

citizens can enter complaints or job applications online. This phase does not include secure transactions

such as financial or other transactions that require a high degree of authorization and audit.

Transactional: Provides secure transactions with high level of authorization. Citizens can now apply

online for passports, NICs and make payments online. This requires a high degree of security and basic

infrastructure allowing for secure transactions.

Collaborative: In this phase citizens and businesses collaborate with the government on processes,

projects, etc. This is especially important for businesses working together with the government on

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projects, for public-private partnerships, NGOs, citizen forums, etc. This phase requires a collaboration

infrastructure, which brings together suppliers, consumers and the government in a network with the

object of increasing value creation.

1.3 Status of e-Government in Pakistan

Presently, Pakistans e-Government services are at the stage of upgrading existing e-services to mature

services. IT Departments have been established in Federal & Provincial governments; E-Government

Directorate has also been established by Federal Government. Furthermore, Sindh IT Board & Punjab IT

Board has also been established to oversee and regulate IT in public sector.[1]

The published IT Policy is silent about mature services or maturity models. The web standards are

defined but automatic testing or evaluating mechanism is not available [2]. Present IT structure is lacking

the formulating rules and laws which is an impediment for its implementation. The main impediments in

the achievement of mature e-Government Services are lack of IT expertise in government sector, lack of

outsourcing model in context of e-Government software, and lack of e-Government services model.

Therefore, the global e-readiness ranking of Pakistan is facing downfall.

Table 1E-Government status of South & CentralAsia

e-readiness ranking by United Nations Online

Network in Public Administration and Finance

(UNPAN)

Index Rank in

2005 2005 2004

1 Kazakhstan 0.4813 65 69

2 Kyrgyzstan 0.4417 76 66

3 Maldives 0.4321 77 78

4 Uzbekistan 0.4114 79 81

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5 India 0.4001 87 86

6 Sri Lanka 0.3950 94 96

7 Iran 0.3813 98 115

8 Tajikistan 0.3346 117 ..

9 Nepal 0.3021 126 132

10 Bhutan 0.2941 130 165

11 Pakistan 0.2836 136 122

12 Bangladesh 0.1762 162 159

13 Afghanistan 0.1490 168 171

Average 0.3448

E-Government is not simply a matter of giving government officials computers or automating old

practices. Neither the use of computers nor the automation of complex procedures can bring about greater

effectiveness in government or promote civic participation. Focusing solely on technological solutions

will not change the mentality of bureaucrats who view the citizen as neither a customer of government

nor a participant in decision-making [3].

Several established e-Government services are evaluated [4] and each step of developing e-Government

services from scratch to mature services is studied. Several researchers have proposed models for the

achievement of maturity in e-Government services, but implementation of the models is still awaited.

However component based evaluation tools are available like Checker, ATRC (University Of Toronto,

2006), the Common Look Website Testing Tool (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat), NetCentric

(Technologies Inc.), and Deque Ramp Grade (Deque Inc.,January 2005).

By the use of component based evaluation tools, several parts of a website can be evaluated as per

guidance of W3C or any other customized maturity standardization [5]. The existing tools do not support

evaluation testing of a complete website or web portal or e-Government services; instead the tools are

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limited to only a single page testing. In this context, a model for Pakistan e-Government services has been

developed with an automated testing or evaluation tool to verify the maturity of E-Government Services

and the level of their maturity.

The existing e-Government services in Pakistan are overviewed with the perspective of their usability and

interaction abilities. Some mature e-Government services were found like KESC institution supplying

electricity to the Karachi city provides online billing whereas the submission of online payment is still not

available. Sui-Southern gas is also providing online billing and online bills payment but we may not

obtain a new connection without visiting their office in person. City District government-Karachi web

portal provide some basic info forms and contracts information, yet complaints system does not get solve

grievances like unavailability of water; sewerage lines chocked, street light facility etc. Electronic

government directorate presented a website with some basic levels training but this directorate fails to up-

lift the standard of Pakistan e-Government services like other developed countries. NADRA has also

developed a good system to know about status of applied CNIC but we may not have CNIC without

visiting CNIC centre in person.

Discussed e-Government services are developed by out sourcing e-Government projects, so developed

parameter are shows tidally and in well mannered way but are limited and a large amount is spent to

develop these services.

Present need is to initiate the culture of in house e-Government services development. In Pakistan

government, there is no concept or provision of in-house development rather they depend on out-sourcing

the required software to be developed. The limitation of out-sourcing the software development is the lack

of support or future changes required to be implemented by the government as soon as the outsourcing

company winds up its business. The new outsourcing company does not accept the previously developed

software and it requires software to be developed altogether from scratch.

In house development of projects is usually done by the permanent staff members, as and when they

complete the project, they start planning to improve further because employee take interest to develop

public centric services [6] for which they are compensated in the shape of appreciation promotion and

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other financial benefits. Another important reason of inefficient e-Government services is lower salary

package of I.T professionals in government sector.

1.4 Objective of Thesis

This research evaluated that the e-Government Services in Pakistan are being developed in an adhoc

fashion without following any coherent Maturity Model that could help analyze the evolution of e-

Government services through various levels of maturity and identify the causes of their failure in meeting

the public requirements. In order to enhance the e-Government services, an e-Government Services

Maturity Model presents for Pakistan that can evaluate e-Government Services and help to understand

why their e-Government Services fail to help citizens. The model would also allow automatic evaluation

of coherent services. Identify their level of maturity and reasons of the failure to meet public

requirements. The model helps in automatic determination of the levels. Manual evaluation of level-1 and

level-2 is approximately presented however, complete automatic evaluation and determination of

parameters for level-3 and level-4 is proposed and needs further exertion.

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2 Related Work

This research is based on requirement of globally accepted e-services Maturity Model with automated

evaluation or verification tools. There is a need to investigate the parameters on which existing maturity

models are developed [7]. This study initiated with research on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

2.1 The identified categories of SOA are:-

Concepts and Characteristics of SOA [8].

Service Oriented Architecture Approaches [9].

SOA Based Data Collection [10], and.

SOA for Designing & Development [11].

By narrowing down the topic of SOA, the second area of research is analyzed as e-Government

services. During this course of research the following implemented, available and existing e-Government

services are observed:-

1. Basic information about government and its attached department and sub-government.

2. Online Services.

i) Online Tax Return/Submission

ii) Vehicle Registration

iii) Property Tax Submission

iv) Accessing centralized database

v) Excise Tax Submission

vi) Tariffs

vii) Online change / update of addresses

3. Archived database

4. Form Submission

5. Communication System

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(i) Group Mail (ii) Newsletter (iii) e-fax (iv) e-mail service

2.2 Existing Frameworks

Several frameworks are available to develop online services. These frameworks offer various kinds of

services available in different platforms. Some frameworks offer license based services whereas the

remaining ones are open-source and provide free services. Following platforms and their corresponding

web application frameworks are observed during this study :-

In Cold Fusion platform four web application frameworks available i.e FuseBox, Mach-II, ColdSpring,

Model-Glue.

Under Java platform approximately twenty two (22) web application frameworks existed some of them

are Apache Cocoon, Apache Struts, AppFuse, Aranea framework, Click framework, Google web toolkit,

Grails, Helma Object Publisher, JavaServer Faces, OpenXava, RIFE, Shale Framework, Spring

framework, Stripes, Tapestry, Thin Wire, VYRE Unify, WebObjects, WebWork, Wicket, ZK.

JavaScript present Dojo Toolkit, Prototype JavaScript Framework, qooxdoo, Yahoo! UI Library, JQuery.

Under PHP platform approximately nineteen (19) web application frameworks presented i.e Achieve Tool

Kit, Aukyla Platform, BlueShoes, Canvas Framework, Code Igniter, eZ publish, Horde, PHPOpenbiz,

PRADO, Qcodo, Radicore, SilverStripe, Seagull, Symfony, Virtual-OS, Xaraya, Zend, Zoop.

Perl platform presents Catalist, Interchange, Maypole, and Mason.

Python presents twelve different web application frameworks services, whereas Ruby and Smalltalk

platform also presents some web application frameworks.

Now a day widely used web application framework is recognized as DotNetNuke which is developed on

C#.

Other languages also presents some web application frameworks i.e. OpenACS, UnCommon Web, Yaws

etc.

2.3 Existing e-Government Services Maturity Model

Following existing e-Government services maturity models observed, New Public Management Model, e-

Government Maturity Model, Model for Metropolitan reforms, e-Government Model by Riley cover e-

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Government, e-Governance, and e-democracy, e-Local Government Model, e-Management, e-Service, e-

Commerce, e-Decision Making/e-Democracy [12].

a) Model for Metropolitan reforms: Musso, Weare et als presented model of metropolitan reforms, which

divides municipal government activities in the USA into two categories. Entrepreneurial measures

emphasize the provision of services to residents and businesses to facilitate economic development.

b) E-Government, e-Governance and e-Democracy: Riley outlines a model containing three progressive

stages; e-Government, e-Governance and e-Democracy. In this model, governments move from net

presence (e-Government), through to service provision and representative democracy (e-Governance), to

a final stage of e-Democracy. This model suggests a linear progression to final maturity.

c) Quircks Four Staged Maturity Model: This model offers four stages with different spaces for e-

Government, which is widely accepted and used in the world. This model gives information at the lower

end by Empowering Citizens at the final stage. It outlines different spaces of e-Government for local

authorities. Quirk describes e-Service: as Interface with customers, e-Commerce: as Cash transactions,

e-Democracy: as Political dialogue between citizen and community, e-Decision-making: as Betterinformed public interest decisions, e-Management: as Improved management of people.

Several other ways presented to develop a mature e-Government service, like a road map,

recommendations, and questions etc. One of them is a council of USA named Pacific Council on

International Policy defined a road map for e-Government for the developing world.

They recommended eleven (11) questions for e-Government leaders should ask themselves.

Recommended questions are:-

o Why are we pursuing e-Government?

o Do we have a clear vision and priorities for e-Government?

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o What kind of e-Government are we ready for?

o Is there enough political will to lead the e-Government effort?

o Are we selecting e-Government projects in the best way?

o How should we plan and manage e-Government projects?

o How will we overcome resistance from within the government?

o How will we measure and communicate progress?

o How will we know if we are failing?

o What should our relationship be with the private sector?

o How can e-Government improve citizen participation in public affairs?

The presented idea looks too old because technology world is developed at a mature level. This task is not

been solved by raising only ten questions instead of presenting a complete model or framework however

these questions could be helpful in developing a model for maturity.

After undertaking these services, now need is felt to validate the maturity of these services. In thiscontext, above mentioned existing e-Government services, [13] and maturity models are investigated with

the aim to investigate existing e-Government services maturity models and parameters on which existing

maturity models are developed. Furthermore, the issues under investigation are the choice of tools to use

for the evaluation or verification purpose, the quantitative approaches and other survey-based findings.

The research is focused on concepts, characteristics and development of e-Government services [14],

architectures [15], framework [16], models [17], projects [18], data distribution [19], information system

and quality [20].

2.4 Levels of e-Government services

E-Government services are being provided by one level of government to another level of government.

Therefore, the Services can be categorized on the basis of levels, like Government to Government (G2G),

Federal Government to Provincial Government (FG2PG) , Provincial Government to Local Government

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(PG2LG), Local Government to Local Governments (LG2LGs), Government to Business or Private

Enterprises (G2B), and Government to Citizens (G2Cs).

Figure 1 Levels of e-Government 2.4

E-Government

G-T-B G-T-C

G-T-G

B-T-G G-T-B G-T-C C-T-G

G-T-LGs LGs-T-G

2.5Maturity Models and Approaches

Maturity model presented by Quirck uses a survey based quantitative approach as an evaluation tool

whereas maturity models presented by others do not contain such evaluation tools. A scale named

EGOVSAT [20] is also provided by the American researchers for the evaluation of maturity, which

focuses on the quality and usability of e-services. With the help of evaluation tools and quantitative

measures, developers become capable to evaluate real maturity of a service.

Therefore, it may be stated that before the existence of above mentioned maturity models, the concept for

the maturity of service was never introduced. The formulation of presented model has initiated the need

of having a universally or widely accepted maturity model for e-services. The requirement to have a

widely accepted maturity model has become apparent which should also be equipped with automated

tools, as well as it should accommodate all presented small & customized maturity models.

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The common approach used for the development of maturity models is linear progression to final

maturity. Major area of undertaken research is focused on the staged maturity models. The American

concept of e-Government is initiated as Digital Government. National Science Foundation of USA

initiated several compensation programs to achieve the target of pre-determined goals towards digital

government [21]. Some presented generic type of services with different categories but this concept could

not achieve popularity for wide usage and remained limited for specific use. Some of the Italian

researchers suggested use of intelligent agents, which are capable of suggesting the users based on user

and device profile [22]. On this pattern, they presented a public administration agent for performing the

roles of addition, modification and removal of a service, offered as a uniform interface. Several models

are being developed on customized parameters and on need basis, instead of having a globally accepted

maturity models.

An institution of United Nation, United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance

(UNPAN) published e-readiness global ranking, defines the criteria of maturity of e-Government services.

It recommends six parameters for each sector but weightage is given on the importance of each parameter

e.g. Connectivity and technical infrastructure 25%. Lowest weightage is to be given to the supporting e-

services, 5% for remaining four parameters on the basis of given ratio i.e. Business environment 20%,

Consumer and business adoption 20%, legal & policy environment 15% and social and cultural

environment 15% .

2.6Evaluation Verification Tools

The parameters on which existing models are based are on micro-level whereas the requirement is to

develop a maturity model based on either macro-level parameters or on the basis of aggregated data. The

criteria would serve as a guarantee for development of widely accepted e-Government services maturity

models.

In order to evaluate the maturity of a model, the automated verifying tools would play an important role

for the integrity of e-Government services. However, component-based evaluation tools which already

exist are required to be integrated. Component-based evaluation tools usually evaluate the parameters of

an e-service such as the design, the functionality, the utility, the broken-links, the email addresses

mentioned, the external links provided, the embedded databases, the login forms, over all structure of

website, the files available in hosting folders, any other knowledge relevant to the service, the files and

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folders placed in the hosting directory, and the size of files, but it lacks the information like maturity level

of e-service. Advanced level of integration of e-services is also considered to be an important factor

towards e-Government maturity.

The automatic evaluation and verification of e-Government services maturity is proposed in order to

evaluate whether defined e-services are available and functional or not and their level of maturity

according to defined maturity model. The proposed model comprises of following four levels of

maturity:-

1. Level-1 of e-Government services, A Mature Website.

2. Level-2 of e-Government services, website with dynamic features.

3. Level-3 of e-Government services, Integration with centralized database.

4. Level-4 of e-Government services, Transformed government having features of CRM, CM, AI, and

ERP etc.

Initially the emphasis is to develop the first level of e-Government services maturity model in detail,which will also cover evaluation and verification. The evaluation and verification is being accomplished

in two ways, one is through the software already developed named Black-Widow by SoftByteLabs and

second is our own developed software.

The Black Widow evaluates some parameters of a website. The customization in software is also possible

with the skills of c++ syntax based programming language. But we preferred to develop own software in

order to evaluate remaining parameters with the hope to fully evaluate e-Government service with own

developed software in future.

2.7 Black Widow

Black Widow is a tool to scan a site and create a complete profile of the sites structure, files, external

links and even link errors. Black-Widow also download all file types such as pictures and images, audio

and MP3, videos, documents, ZIP, programs, CSS, Macromedia Flash, .pdf , PHP, CGI, HTM to MIME

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types from any web sites. Pull links from Java Scripts and Java Scripts files scan Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

and Flash files for links + more from any web site. Write your own "Plugins" for impossible to scan sites.

BlackWidow can be customized to make a plugin that will search and extract information from a web site

database, say, an online store, a job recruiting web site etc. If you are a novice or an experienced

programmer, you can make a plugin in less than 15 minutes. A plugin template for C++, Delphi and

PowerBasic. Just fill in the blanks, write your code and you're done. If user is not a programmer softlab

make one, just let us know what the requirements are. plugins can do anything, you need not restrict your

plugin to scanning files only. The SlowDown plugin for example, slows down the scan randomly to make

it look like a human is navigating the site, not a spider.

Errors: BlackWidow will list all link errors found by listing the links with the server error code and

description. This includes broken links, mistyped links, server errors such as configuration errors etc.

BlackWidow can be configured to list the status of links to external web sites to make it easy to find links

which no longer exist.

Figure 2 .9 Snapshot of Black Widow: Sowing folders hierarchy of www.Pakistan.gov.pk

Above snapshot shows folders hierarchy of Pakistans official Web portal discovered by the tool used

(Black widow) to evaluate various parameters. The tool discover DNS number used for portal and all the

folders, sub folder, and files with names and other details like size of file date etc at hosting space, usually

this information is treated secret and without using intelligent tool can not be traced.

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Figure 3 E-Government Services Evaluation and Verification tool

The graphical view of our proposed (E-Government Services Evaluation and Verification tool) shows

parameters of level-1 of our proposed maturity model. Option is given to check all shown parameters or

some selected parameters. Initially proposed tool may check the availability of parameters developed by

using java script; it is further proposed to develop the same parameters on intelligence test or OCR

readers based in future. The Universal Resource Locator (URL) needs a valid e-Government service

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address to evaluate the service, after providing the valid URL, on clicking the button check Maturity

Level this tool will firstly check the total number of pages available in e-service and then multiply

number of parameters with pages, as a result of this multiplication gain amount of script will be provided

to the maximum script count field. The total script found field will be filled by found scripts by

crawling all the pages of e-Government service. The field percentage level then calculates percentage

of maximum scripts and found script and accordingly shows the result.

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Figure 4 E-Government Services Evaluation and Verification tool

Evaluation of Pakistan Government website. As per our defined level-1 Website is @0.62 rank

This figure shows the test of maturity level by accessing a single page of official web portal of

Government of Pakistan, i.e. www.pakistan.gov.pk.

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2.8 Present Status

As far as e-Government services in Pakistan are concerned, e-Government services will be implementedby legislation, administration and judiciary. Legislation has accomplished its goal by establishing IT

Department in federal and provincial-level governments. Moreover, the IT policy has been formulated by

legislation and released by the electronic directorate. At federal- level e-Government directorate and at

provincial-level IT boards have been established. Administrative departments also started functioning by

launching Pakistans web portal and provincial-level web portals. Government has provided the funds for

the computer training which has been executed in different phases to provide the training to the concerned

government officials. The IT infrastructure for the organizations at federal and provincial level has been

established. Approximately four-hundred (400) websites covering all tiers of government have beendeveloped and regularly being updated.

The published IT Policy is silent about mature services or maturity models. The web standards are

defined but automatic testing or evaluating mechanism is not available. Present IT structure is lacking the

formulating rules and laws which is an impediment for its implementation. The main impediments in the

achievement of mature e-Government Services are lack of IT expertise in government sector, lack of

outsourcing model in context of e-Government software, and lack of e-Government services model.

Since the creation of the Ministry of IT in the year 2000, IT has been brought in the forefront through

Human Resource development, opening a number of IT universities and IT departments in the existing

institutions, strengthening and promoting the domestic IT industry through Pakistan Software Export

Board, through the provision of basic IT training to federal and provincial government employees through

Pakistan Computer Bureau and through automating various federal and provincial government

organizations. Several projects initiated by the Ministry of IT

E-Government Directorate EGD activities are being increased steadily, and a definite positive correlation

has been observed in the form of increase in the number and total value of projects being planned and

implemented by EGD. The current status of e-Government projects at the Federal Government of

Pakistan is as follows:

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Table 2 Budgetary Provision for e-Government Program

Rupees in Million

S.# Activity for Fiscal Year 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2010-11 TOTAL

1 Basic Infrastructure inFederal Ministries

195.31 153.46 65.10 65.10 65.10 544.07

2 Baseline Applications inFederal Ministries

10.00 81.33 81.33 71.33 38.00 281.99

3 Basic Infrastructure inattached departments of theFederal Ministries

200.00 800.00 280.00 128.00 128.00 1,536.00

4 Baseline Applications inattached departments of theFederal Ministries

203.33 203.33 203.33 609.99

5 Agency SpecificApplications including high

impact applications andcitizen services

540.00 500.00 500.00 500.00 500.00 2,540.00

6 Capacity Building andcreating and creating anenabling environment

50.00 50.00 50.00 50.00 50.00 250.00

Total e-GovernmentSpending

995.31 1,584.79 1,179.76 1,017.76 984.43 5,762.05

2.9 Legislation in e-Government

Legislation is a key component in the overall IT Program. The introduction of online transactions and the

reengineering of processes require legislation and changes to the rules and regulations. The information

society has also created a new set of legal challenges that have to be dealt with by either bringing new

legislation or amending the existing laws. The most fundamental legislation is the recognition of

electronic transactions. The Government of Pakistan has promulgated the Electronic Transaction

Ordinance (ETO) in the year 2002. With the cover of this ordinance the legal system recognizes

electronic transactions and information stored in electronic form. The Ministry of IT has also completed

broad based consultations on the draft of the Electronic Crimes Act, which is to be submitted to the

Cabinet later this year. Work is also underway on the Data Protection Act and Electronic Signature Law.

Under the ETO the government has already established an Accreditation Council to accredit the

certification authorities that provide security authentication services. For example those authorities that

issue Digital Certificates. This Accreditation Council has been notified and the Secretariat has been

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formed under the National Telecommunication Corporation. The Accreditation Council is in the process

of framing its rules and other modalities of operation since 2005 [23].

2.10Electronic Government Directorate (EGD)

The Federal Cabinet approved the conversion of the IT Commission into the E-Government Directorate

(EGD). EGD was set up as a cell within the Ministry of IT to focus specifically on E-Government with

the following Terms of References (TORs):

o Lead the E-Government Effort in Pakistan

o Plan and Implement projects under E-Government program

o Provide technical support to Federal, Provincial and District agencies

o Preparation of standards for software and infrastructure in the field of Electronic Government

The E-Government Directorate has the primary responsibility for bringing about the e-Government

transformation within the Federal Government, with strong cooperation and commitment, necessarily,

from the various Federal Government organizations. Subsequently, EGD was further strengthened with

the sanction of 4 Business Analysts, a Director (Training), and an Executive Director.

2.11Failure of e-Government services

After having all these efforts, e-Government services still fail to provide facilities to the citizens and

therefore, the government is being criticized by the citizens. Several causes for failure of e-Government

were observed during the course of research. The overall issue is the lack of several basic requirements.

Some of frequently observed issues are given in brief:-

2.11.1 Online Payment.

The availability of earlier online payment option in e-Government services is being deprecated in the

world and ever new options are being introduced. Even in Pakistans private sector household entities are

being sold through online payment. But Pakistan government as yet fails to present a framework and

flexible laws to enable this option in their e-Government services. During this research several senior

bureaucrats of Government of Pakistan contacted and asked them for availability of online services, but

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they shows there inability due to non availability of related rules and laws. No clear policy or directions

as yet issued regarding the matter.

2.11.2 Absence of Maturi ty Model for E-Government Services.

The e-Government directorate has yet made several efforts to develop mature e-Government services by

developing web-standards, security frameworks, and outlined IT Policy but maturity model for e-

Government services and their automatic evaluation and verification is not yet presented. However,

presented model in the research may help e-Government directorate to define a road-map for development

of mature e-Government services besides the adhoc fashioned development. Completion of our next

phase research may present this improvement automatically and fully functional solution to the problem.

2.11.3 Absence of E-Government Framework for Pakistan.

Federal government directorate may play an important role to define a centralized e-Government

framework to develop successful e-Government services [24] with the support of rules and laws. All

government institutions may be directed to develop their e-Government services on the basis of federal

directorate recommendations. Information parameters can also be defined at this stage to know what

government information is to be published publicly and which information is needed to be published on

certain security and passwords or authorized access basis. The framework may be developed on the basis

of existing three tiers of e-Government these are:-

e-Government framework for federal institutions and department.

E-Government framework for provincial level institutions and provincial government.

E-Government framework for local government and their further three tiers.

Preferably an open source portal based framework will be useful for government sector like dot net nuke.

2.11.4 Implementation Issues.

The implementation on developed strategies, rules, standards, policies, and directions is an importantissue towards successful e-Government in Pakistan [25]. E-Government Directorate and departments have

been established and defined strategies like IT policy, web standards, e-mail usage policy etc, but the

implementations on defined strategies are not being followed/implemented, due to digital divide and

several other issues, some of the government agencies blame recommended services are costly,

inefficient, and lacking quality [26].

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2.11.5 E-Government Outsourcing Issues.

The e-Government services development strategy is based on outsourcing. The outsourcing way of

development is basically an adhoc based arrangement and never get mature, on completion of the project

contractor (who developed the project from scratch) do not take interest in the project even continue

payment is offered on yearly basis they just attend the project to release their payment. Further,

upgradation of project never provided until a new full-fledged PC-I is proposed as a new project which is

again adhoc fashioned development [27].

2.11.6 Lack of availabili ty of Laws and Rules for e-gov services.

E-Government Directorate is being functioning since year 2001, but no Act, Rules are yet notified to give

legal cover to the web based e-Government activities. IT policy and web standards are released, but theydoes not have any legal weightage, if these policies are not adopted by the government sector, no legal

action can be taken.

Last month Federal Government released an Ordinance named Prevention of Electronic Crimes

Ordinance 2007, which is yet to approve by the new assembly. If the same ordinance does not approve

with in three months this will expire and no existence of Ordinance will be treated. Further, several rules

are required to provide legal cover to various government activities. Frequently used rules are Privacy

Rules Under the E-Government Act of 2002, E-Transactions Rules etc.

2.11.7 Lack of end user involvement.

The successful implementation of e-Government project depends upon the feedback of user and

participation of end users in the project.

Unfortunately in e-Government projects, project developers do not knows who will be the end user of

project because in several cases end user as for concerned if data entry operators usually recruited after

development of project. In other cases end user usually a lower grade employee and frequently transferred

from one office to other, so they never consulted for their input during development of project. Second

end user in e-Government services project is general public, democracy in Pakistan do not yet established.

There is a clear and long distance between e-Government and public due to long tenure of dictatorship

and armed forces ruling in Pakistan, in this sequence usually these developments kept secret from public

and can be viewed by general public after released, whereas true sense of e-Government is that citizens

can participate as partners, taxpayers, constituents, employees, students, and customer.

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Some of frequently observed generic type issues are also listed below [28].

Lack of telecommunications and network infrastructure

Limited PC access

Lack of financial resources for developing an infrastructure

Lack of ICT literacy

Limited or costly Internet access

Cultural resistance

High costs of business investment

Strategic business impediments

Divides between countries or social divides within countries; and business divides related to

sector, region, firm and size.

The efforts so far made for reformation are initiated by the Chief of Army Staff holding the seat of

President on adhoc basis and the bureaucracy seems to be reluctant for the restoration of the public trust

on the reformations. The deadlock mentioned is a great impediment to achieve mature e-Government

services. Provincial-level web portals face discrepancies such as having the static websites instead of

dynamic web portals and therefore are not updated by the users. The concept of online-service is still far

from maturity. Bureaucracy seems to ignore public issues to be addressed in timely manner and seems to

be not interested even in responding to the public queries through e-mails [29].

The government sector is so far unable to lay down the criteria for the software procurement process [30].

Furthermore, various software products have been blindly procured from open-market for government

offices without any feasibility study and therefore can not be implemented. All procurement agencies

clearly mention a section in procurement terms and conditions that they will not be responsible to

implement procured software. Therefore, it is an apparent negligence on the part of government

administration in making such an agreement. As a solution, at least one party should undertake the

responsibility for the implementation of the procured software. Moreover, dispute resolution criteria may

also be determined in agreement in case of dispute between government and procurement agency.

Another important factor indicated in the research is the availability of friendly rules and regulations,

which is to be provided in the e-Government services. In this context, the National Conference of

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Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) formulated the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act

(UETA) for the establishment of legal recognition of electronic records and signatures. The UETA laws

help to resolve the uncertainty regarding the legal validity of electronically generated records and

documents [31].

The judiciary is a potential institution to play an important role for the implementation of e-Government

services in Pakistan. There is an acute need of judicial related e-Government services where public may

get an easy access to the information related to all cases. But the judiciary is not so far able to dispose off

its existing backlog of cases and government issues. As per an estimation, more than seventy five

thousand (75000) cases are lying pending in Sindh Province only [32], half of which are pending since

last ten 10 years. With the help of World Bank a project named Access to Justice Program is initiated to

streamline the situation, but due to internal issues of government stakeholders this project is still in its

infancy and failed to take off.

2.12 E-Government in Developed Countries.

It is now extensively accepted that ICT offers increased opportunities for economic development and

plays a critical role in rapid economic change, productive capacity improvements and international

competitiveness enhancement for developing countries [33]. The range of choices and opportunities in

developing countries is expanding. ICT is believed to be a powerful enabling tool to address some of the

key barriers and challenges for entering the global economy and for future growth potential [34]. It can

transform old challenges and create unprecedented possibilities for sustainable economic development,

just as it has done for businesses in the industrial world [35].

The efforts as yet made by the developed counties are also being monitored by several organizations [36].

Similarly, a survey of e-Government services e-readiness ranking conducted by the UNPAN aimed to

categorize the progress made by UNs member countries. The following table shows the top twenty 20

ranked e-Government services of developed countries [37].

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Table 3 E-Government status of top 20 developed countriesSource [UNPAN]

Name of Country Index Rank

United States 0.9062 1

Denmark 0.9058 2

Sweden 0.8983 3

United Kingdom

0.8777 4

Korea, Rep. of

0.8727 5

Australia 0.8679 6

Singapore

0.8503 7

Canada 0.8425 8

Finland 0.8231 9

Norway

0.8228 10

Germany

0.8050 11

Netherlands 0.8021 12

New Zealand 0.7987 13

Japan

0.7801 14

Iceland 0.7794 15

Austria 0.7602 16

Switzerland 0.7548 17

Belgium

0.7381 18

Estonia 0.7347 19

Ireland 0.7251 20

The table mentioned above shows top twenty rankers of e-Government services of developed countries.

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http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=183http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=48http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=164http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=181http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=137http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=9http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=153http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=31http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=60http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=125http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=65http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=120http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=121http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=85http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=76http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=10http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=165http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=17http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=57http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=81http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=81http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=57http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=17http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=165http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=10http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=76http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=85http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=121http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=120http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=65http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=125http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=60http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=31http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=153http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=9http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=137http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=181http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=164http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=48http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/ProfileCountry.aspx?ID=183


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The result of e-readiness ranking released by an institution of United Nation named United Nations

Online Network in Public Administration and Finance (UNPAN). The UNPAN publishes e-

readiness global ranking, and defines the criteria of maturity of e-Government services. It

recommends six parameters for each sector but weightage is given on the importance of each

parameter. According to UNPAN the most mature e-Government services are presented by the

United State of America by achieving 0.9062 index and placed at top among 190 nations

whereas Denmark is at second position by achieving 0.9058 index, Sweden placed at third level

in the world by obtaining 0.8983 index and so on.

2.13 Public Trust on e-Government.

The trust of citizens in their governments has gradually eroded. Public wishes that the governments

should introduce e-Government for citizen-to-government interaction. This research tests the extent to

which online initiatives have succeeded in increasing trust and external political efficacy in general public

[38]. The use of Internet to transact with government has a significantly positive impact on trust and

political effectiveness. The quality of the interaction is also important, but it is regarded as secondary

issue [39].

The citizens feel that existing manual governments do not listen to them. The expectations by usage of e-

Government services are to directly involve citizens in the policy process, decision making and take

measures to serve them better. E-Government can increase process-based trust by improving interactions

with citizens and perceptions of responsiveness.

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3 The Proposed Model

One of the main challenges for developing a globally accepted e-Government services maturity model is

the establishment of an appropriate and context tailored maturity model. All the initiative needs to be

rooted in a careful, analytical and dynamic process. The process of developing required maturity model

seems to be a very difficult task, requiring a focus on many aspects and processes, a holistic vision, long-

term focus and objectives. Many government institutions limit their activities to a simple transfer of their

information and services online without taking into consideration the re-engineering process needed to

grasp the full benefits. The government must have a clear road map to overcome the barriers to change.

By learning a lesson from the private sector, e-Government must be customer-driven and service oriented

[40], meeting the needs of citizens and general public. The vision of e-Government implies providing

greater access to information as well as better, more equal services and procedures for public and

businesses. Even when e-Government projects seek to improve internal government processes, the end

goal should be making government serve citizens [41]. The finalized maturity model would play the

diverse roles that citizens can play as partners, taxpayers, constituents, employees, students, and

customer. For the sake of theses requirement level one of maturity model is proposed in detail whereas

generalized level of remaining levels are also defined which need further revision.

An e-Government maturity model provides us with guidance on how to gain control of our processes for

developing and maintaining e-Government services and how to evolve toward a culture of excellence in

providing and managing e-Government. A maturity model can guide us in selecting process improvement

strategies by determining current process maturity and identifying the few issues that are most critical to

e-Government quality and process improvement. By focusing on a limited set of activities and working

aggressively to achieve them, we can steadily improve our organization-wide e-Government processes

and enable continuous and lasting gains in our e-Government capabilities [42].

Proposed Maturity Model contains four (4) stages. These stages will be defined with the mode of

parameters on which globally accepted e-Government services maturity model could be developed. In our

previous research following three parameters to define globally accepted e-Government services maturity

model were identified:-

Continent and sub continent level maturity model

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World e-readiness ranking level maturity model

Five or four levels maturity model.

We have proposed four levels maturity model for efficient development of e-Government services and to

make the e-Government services citizens centric, level one is defined completely and fully functional

however automatic testing / verification still need to be evaluated by integration of used tools. Remaining

levels are also proposed with partial parameters but still need to work out with the passage of time and

invention of advanced technology.

3.1 STRUCTURE

3.1.1 Level-1 A Mature Website

1. Standard formatting of a page contains following parameters:-

Scripts

i) Date of creation of page

ii) All dates of updates / modifications as yet

iii) Last modifier on

iv) Total visits of Page

v) Time of opened page

The function shows in above part of maturity level usually use scripts; these scripts automatically capturerequired information by predefined strings being used in a file. It is not compulsory that all abovefunctions use scripts, possibilities of using other technology is also existed.

Uniformity / Design

vi) Uniformed Style for whole website:-

a. Fonts:- Color, Size, Type

b. Exception Main Page

vii) Bookmarks to jump each section

viii) Print widgets

ix) XML based Expender and Minimized data optionx) Name of developer company with its CMMI level

xi) Screen resolution if not onto adjustable

xii) Statistical data

xiii) Word less Messages

xiv) Graphical Views

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The design of a website and web portal is an important matter. Good looking, friendly user and attractivedesign may have attention of visitor. These parameters will be evaluated by verifying the use of CascadeStyle Sheets, Strings, Intelligent Optical Character Reader, Computers auto adjust functions.

Accessibility

xv) Links of website

xvi) Download link if any, in PDF

xvii) FAQs

xviii) Site Map

xix) A to Z

xx) Site map tracking on each link

xxi) Search Engine

xxii) Related Links

Availability of accessibility options may offer an ease to the viewer and visitor. Lack of accessibility maylose the interest of visitor, availability of all above mentioned options will be treated a One WindowSolution, OWS is widely used and adopted phenomenon in prevailing standards. This option will also beverified with used strings, scripts, systems, and applets.

Terms of use

xxiii) Privacy policy

xxiv) User policy / agreement

xxv) Security statement

xxvi) Security Feature

xxvii) Contents rating

xxviii) Help/ Documentation

xxix) External links usage policy

Legal status of soft information is being authenticated with the covers of newly defined rules by thegovernment. So it is also important to define the terms of use of published data and referred data. Theavailability of these terms will also be verified by Intelligent Optical Character Reader IOCR.

a. Basic information about Organization / institute.

b. Contacts information.

Contacts Information

i. Telephone Numbers with Country and City Code of head office

ii. Telephone Numbers with Country and City Code of its branch office,attached office, its affiliated offices, attached independent authorities, boardsetc.

iii. Fax Numbers of all above offices.

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iv. E-mail address of all designation with embedded auto reply.

v. E-mail address of all departments in general.

vi. E-mail Address of general purposes i-e info, recruitment etc.

vii. Group mails facilities.

viii. Postal address of all above officers / Designation / Departments.

ix. P. O. Box Number of Organization / institutes.

x. UAN Number.

xi. Toll free Numbers.

xii. Auto response Systems by using OCR, ICR etc.

xiii. Feed back form count down

xiv. News Letters.xv. Web Hosting

The basic information shows the field and association of website/web portal. An attractive introductionmay also have the attention of user and website may achieve its entire goal by appealing user. The basicfunction of a mature website is to motivate the customer/user to attract by offering services, after havingthis goal the importance relies that user may easily approach the service provider. The contacts detailmentioned in the model may open several opportunities to contact. The best technique to find thementioned links in a portal is also Intelligent Optical Character Reader IOCR.

Quality Hosting

Following general parameters may be considered to have a quality web hosting.

i. Operating systemii. Site load speediii. Supportiv. Reliabilityv. Price

vi. Trafficvii. Storage

viii. Emailix. Databases MySQL, Access, MsSQLx. .Net frame work

xi. Software PHP, ASP, JSPxii. Control panel

xiii. Website statisticsxiv. Upgrading

Following are detailed parameters to standardized web hosting.

Details Hosting Parametersi. Disk Storage in GBs

ii. Data Transfer Limit upto 50 GBiii. Sub-domains creationiv. Web-based Admin Control Panel

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v. FrontPage Supportvi. File Manager, Domain Manager & User Manager

vii. SSL Support*

viii. 24 x 7 x 365 LIVE Technical Supportix. Site Builder (Build your own website in minutes!)x. Emails Unlimited

xi. POP3 Email Addressesxii. Email Redirects

xiii. Auto Respondersxiv. Mailing Listsxv. Web-based Email Access

xvi. AntiVirus & Spam Protection

Databasexvii. Databases

xviii. .Net frameworkxix. Microsoft Access Unlimitedxx. MySQL

xxi. Microsoft SQLDevelopment, Programming

xxii. Programming Language Supportxxiii. PHP, Perl, Python & CGI Supportxxiv. ASPxxv. ASP.net

xxvi. JSPxxvii. FTP Access

xxviii. FTP Accounts

xxix. FTP Session Managerxxx. Website Logging & Statistics

xxxi. Web analyzer Website Statisticsxxxii. Access Log Files & Error Logs

xxxiii. Graphical & Text-based Countersxxxiv. Additional Web Applicationsxxxv. Package Prices

c. Domain Registered with InterNic or PkNic

d. No External Advertisement

e. Advertisement Standardization for web

f. Defined ways of communicationg. Issuance of Cyber Laws, Rules

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3.1.2 Level-2, Dynamic Website

a. Two way Communication

b. Database driven web pages

c. Online Forms

d. Diversity of data sources i.e XML, RSS Feeds.

e. Profile based page generation

f. Payment options

I. Master Card

II. Visa Card

III. Scratch Card

IV. Pay pal

V. Other options

g. Traceable / Track able Communication

h. Consumer Centric website

i. Data Repository

j. Triggers based updating

k. Aggregated data

l. Issuance of Friendly Laws, Rules

m. Establishment of Cyber crime Departments

n. Efficient connectivity optionso. Level of Service delivery perspective

3.1.3 Level-3, Integration with centralized data

a. Content Management

b. Customer Relationship Management

c. Knowledge Management

d. Computerized Integrated Processese. Data warehousing, Data Mart

f. Quality Assurance

g. Issuance of Friendly Laws, Rules, Ordinances

h. Advancement with technologies of Cyber crime Departments

i. Advanced connectivity options

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j. Level of Participation perspective

3.1.4 Level-4, Transformed Government

h. Decision Making

i. Artificial Intelligence

j. Participative improvement

k. Issuance of Friendly Laws, Rules, Ordinances

l. Terabyte connectivity & transfer speed

m. Information delivery perspective

n. Integration of Cyber crime Departments with world wide organizations

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4 Automatic Evaluation Tool Implementation

In this research automatic evaluation and verification of e-Government services maturity is proposed in

order to evaluate whether defined e-services are available and functional or not and their level of maturity

according to defined maturity model. The proposed model comprises of following four levels of

maturity:-

1. Level-1 of e-Government services, mature website.

2. Level-2 of e-Government services, website with dynamic features.

3. Level-3 of e-Government services, Integration with centralized database.

4. Level-4 of e-Government services, Transformed government having features of CRM, CM, AI, and

ERP etc.

Initially the emphasis is to develop the first level of e-Government services maturity model in detail,

which will also cover evaluation and verification. The evaluation and verification is being accomplished

in two ways, one is through the software already developed named Black-Widow by SoftByteLabs and

second is our own developed software. The Black Widow evaluates some parameters of a website. The

customization in software is also possible with the skills of c++ syntax based programming language. But

we preferred to develop own software in order to evaluate remaining parameters with the hope to fully

evaluate e-Government service with own developed software in future.

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5 E-GOVERNMENT SERVICE EVALUATION SNAPSHOTS

Figure 5, Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk

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Figure 6, 2nd

level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk

Figure 7, 3rd


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http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/


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Figure 8, 4th


Figure 9, 5th


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Figure 10, 6th


Figure 11, 7th


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Figure 12, 8th


Figure 13, Last level Folders Hierarchy in hosted space, www.pakistan.gov.pk

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Figure 14, E-mails used in , www.pakistan.gov.pk

Figure 15, Links used but not working in , www.pakistan.gov.pk

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Figure 16, Links contained errors in , www.pakistan.gov.pk

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6 Conclusion and future work

In this research, we have formulated a complete and broader definition of e-Government since existing

definitions do not cover the overall scenario. As we evaluated e-Government, "e-Government is the

automated government systems of information and communication technologies that transform relations

with the citizens, the private, the business, the industrial sector and other levels of government and related

agencies so as to promote citizens empowerment, improve service delivery, strengthen accountability,

increase transparency, improve government efficiency, and eradicate the corruption.

By observing existing literature we may say, this era is the most important in context with developing

mature e-Government services. The developed countries are being utilized e-Government services. As per

estimation approximately 92% public services are diverted to e-Government services and the true essence

of e-Government services is achieved i.e. public centric e-Government services. At this stage public have

the opportunity to have all the related service accessibility through a single terminal i.e. from birth

certificate towards admission in school, educational test, educational certificate, diploma, degree, research

and its evaluation, initiating a business, marketing, business automation, online billing, online payment,tax paying, paying bills, or applying for immigration, approach government for information, registering a

vehicle, financial transaction to and from government, online billing of utility bills, costing a vote in

election and other amenities of daily use.

Presently, the need is to develop country wide or global services by developing rights management

hierarchy. Developed countries are now working on the projects such as developing nation-wide grid,

country-wide cluster, etc. The small level frameworks and portals are available free of cost and open-

source; an operating system is shipped along with all the tools required for small business organizations

such as financial system, exchange for communication, directory, databases, website builder etc.

Pakistans e-Government services are yet to upgrade existing e-services to mature services. IT

Departments have been established in all government levels. Furthermore, IT Boards in Sindh and Punjab

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have also been established to oversee and regulate IT in public sector. The published IT Policy is silent

about mature services or maturity models. The web standards are defined but automatic testing or

evaluating mechanism is not available. Present IT structure is lacking the formulating rules and laws

which is an impediment for the implementation of mature e-Government services. The impediments in

the achievement of mature e-Government Services are lack of IT expertise in government sector, lack of

outsourcing model in context of e-Government software, and lack of e-Government services maturity

model.

In Pakistan government, there is no concept or provision of in-house development rather they depend on

out-sourcing the required software to be developed. The limitation of out-sourcing the software

development is the lack of support or future changes required to be implemented by the government as

soon as the outsourcing company winds up its business. The new outsourcing company does not accept

the previously

thesis e-government services maturity model with automated e-services evaluation/verification tools

Documents

existing egovernment

mature egovernment services

government office

government agency

arms of government

variety of services

great support

karachi city