[Air-l] Benchmarking government web site and online service

[Mattia Miani]

Dear Aoirs,

I am currently working in a research project aimed at analyzing the quality
of government web site in Emilia-Romagna (one of the twenty Italian
administrative division, roughly equivalent to a U.S State or a German
Lander). We are studying both the quality of what is offered online and the
interactivity of thoese services offered online.

We are much concerned in benchmarking, that is in comparing our situation
with other European and World regions (that's different from National and
Local level...).

If you know any research that could be useful for this purpose or are
interested in this knind of project, please read the rest of the message and
send any reference.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Benchmarking Information Society in the Regions of Europe

The Emilia-Romagna Telematic Plan
The Emilia-Romagna region has recently launched its Regional Telematic Plan
2002-2005.
For the year 2002, attention is focussed on:
· Broadband infrastructure in the region
o A network for Romagna
o A satellite for the mountain districts
o In Emilia the network runs along the rails
· TETRA, an emergency network
· Interactive public services
· Online General Practitioners and Paediatricians
· Digital land registry
· E-Procurement for Public Administrations
· Support for enterprises operating in the sector

In this framework, the Regional Government has launched a benchmarking
action, in order to compare itself with other regions in Europe.
Quantitative data and comparison between regions provide a great
decision-support tool for local policy-makers.
Ervet, the Regional Development Agency, is in charge of the execution of the
project, which was already carried out successfully as a pilot in the
Province of Parma.

The benchmarking indicators
The benchmarking action is consistent with and takes accoun of main eEurope
actions, current European projects such as BISER, and priorities of the
Regional Plan. Although not yet finalised and open to discussion, actual
indicators for benchmarking are:
- Interactivity of public services and quality of public websites -
Connection of research centres and universities to Research Networks
- Internet access in households - Number of places and graduates in ICT
- Number of Public Internet Access Points - E-commerce in enterprises
- E-procurement in Public Administration - Availability of broadband
connection
- Internet connection in schools - Dimension of ICT/multimedia sector

WHAT WE HAVE
We are already aware of a number of pieces of research, among these:

Benchmarking Eeurope
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/benchmarking/text_en.htm

Bartelsmann Foundation: Balanced e-government benchmarking
http://www.begix.de/en/frames/content.html

Accenture, Governments Closing Gap Between Political Rhetoric and
eGovernment Reality, studio del 2001 sull'e-gov in 22 paesi
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enWeb&xd=Industries\Government\gove_st
udy.xml
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=industries\government\gove_me
thod.xml

I materiali del laboratorio di Benchmarking della comunicazione pubblica in
rete organizzato da Urp degli Urp
http://www.urp.it/Database/urpdegliurp/urp.nsf/pagine/35DC4B691A14E2C8C1256C
52002557DA?OpenDocument

Cheklist per il controllo della conformità dei siti ai requisiti per l'
assegnazione del dominio gov.it (valido per la pubblica amministrazione
centrale)
http://www.mininnovazione.it/ita/intervento/normativa/dominio.shtml

AIPA - I servizi in rete offerti sui siti web delle regioni italiane e delle
province autonome Quaderno n. 11 - Luglio 2002
http://www.aipa.it/servizi%5B3/notizie%5B2/Rilevaz_servizi_in_rete.pdf

AIPA - I servizi in rete offerti sui siti web dell'amministrazione
centrale italiana, Quaderno n. 6 - Ottobre 2001
http://www.aipa.it/servizi[3/pubblicazioni[5/quaderni[3/quaderno_6.pdf
Censis - Città Digitali e analisi dei siti della PA centrale (arpa-l,
arpa-c)
http://www.rur.it/rur/
http://www.censis.it
http://www.censis.it/censis/ricerche/2001/paonline/index.html

Darrell M. West, Assessing E-Government: The Internet, Democracy, and
Service Delivery by State and Federal Governments, Providence (RI), Brown
University, 2000
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/polreports/egovtreport00.htm
l
Altri studi, compreso il follow-up di quello del 2000
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/policyreports.html

Is Your Local Government Plugged In? Highlights of the 2000 Electronic
Government Survey Prepared for ICMA and PTI byDonald F. Norris, Patricia D.
Fletcher, and Stephen H. Holden University of Maryland, Baltimore County
February 27, 2001
http://icma.org/download/cat15/grp120/sgp224/E-Gov2000.pdf

INVOLVEMENT

If you are working on some similar project, especially in Europe, please
contact me outside the list (my email is katanankes at yahoo.com); we are
looking for partners for future efforts and for polishing our methodology.

Mattia Miani
University of Bologna
ITALY