Optimising e-government services for citizens
There are no established tools to measure the satisfaction of citizens with regards to services in the area of e-government, which poses a problem for benchmarking improvements in performance. Initiatives seeking to develop a citizen satisfaction model (CSM) have so far lacked a systematic approach. With this in mind, the EU-funded project '"C-E-E-S" (Citizen oriented evaluation of e-government services: A reference process model)' (CEES) set out to develop a reference process model and scientific evaluation framework as a benchmarking tool for improved e-government services in Europe and globally. A CSM as well as metrics for its measurement were developed. Reviews of existing e-government systems evaluation models were conducted and a new framework was proposed for the evaluation and monitoring of e-government services from a citizen perspective. Various factors and variables concerning the behaviour and experience of citizens during their online dealings were identified and measured. They were then tested on academics, e-government experts and users. An analysis was carried out over a six-month period on users of e-services provided by Turkey's official e-government portal. It identified inefficiencies in e-government services and proposed a better method to measure user satisfaction. The results will enable stakeholders to establish national best practice benchmarks and e-government performance indicators. They will also be able to monitor progress and assess the effect of policies on e-government development and enhancements long term. The project successfully organised a workshop attended by external experts in e-government. Three papers were presented at international conferences and five articles were published in international journals. CEES introduced a new approach to benchmarking e-government that should result in a high take-up by citizens.
Keywords
e-government services, public sector, citizen satisfaction model, reference process model
