Paul Worthington, Office of the Auditor General, 4th Floor Dumas House, 2 Havelock Street West Perth, WA 6005, Phone: +61 (9) 222-7500 Fax: +61 (9) 322-5664 Email: bworthin@isis.curtin.edu.au Home Page: Paul Worthington [HREF 1]
Keywords: World Wide Web, Government, Information
This paper comes from a research project to identify, examine and address the significance of the conceptual and pragmatic problems affecting the establishment of a government world wide web presence and to develop a model which will assist in identifying issues to be considered.
The author identified four major issue groups ie security, organisation, technological and business. These issues were identified by case study and survey techniques. The findings after applying descriptive statistics conclude that a number of issues and problems do exist that provide barriers to providing government information via the World Wide Web.
During the research project a case study was carried out. A questionnaire was sent to government agencies participating in the survey. The results from this questionnaire were analysed and a graphical model developed to assist in identifying further issues for exploration.
The paper begins by outlining information strategy and the Use of the World Wide Web. The author then identifies issues concerning the use of the world wide web by government agencies. The author then undertakes an explanation of the research project carried out and details case study findings and survey results.
The adoption by government of output/outcome based performance measures is challenging agency management to find more productive ways of delivering services and information to clients and to the community. Confronted with the unsatisfactory strategy of reducing levels of service in response to reduced funding appropriation , the imperative is to find innovative ways of providing requisite services.
An innovative way of providing government agency information to clients and the community is via the World Wide Web (WWW). Ives, B and Jarvenpaa, S (1994) [HREF 2] suggest that information providers such as government will be among the first to benefit from opportunities offered by the World Wide Web. It can do this by providing cost containment and increasing communication lines (internal and external) to gain and maintain competitive advantage. In the 1993 Australian Survey on critical issues, promoting effective use of the information resource, using information systems for competitive advantage and developing an information architecture ranked 4th, 5th and 6th out of 27 issues respectively (Pervan, 1994).
According to Norderhaug, T (1994) [HREF 3] more than half of the State Governments in the USA have made information services available on the Internet and these services are now increasingly being integrated into the World Wide Web. Analysed data provided by the Graphics, Visualisation, & Usability (GVU) Center [HREF 4] showed that the number of users browsing government information regularly via the World Wide Web has increased from 3.15 % (1994) to 10.36 % (1995). For the same period the occasional browser of government information had risen by 18%. These increases demonstrate the need for government to provide greater service.
The Australian Science and Technology Council (1994) state "knowledge and information are the fundamental strategic resources of our age: access to them through electronic networks is vital for a nation such as Australia, which is geographically large and physically isolated from other nations. Through these networks Australia overcomes the tyranny of distance and becomes not only a user but also a provider and exporter of global information and associated services". According to the Australian Science and Technology Council (1994), over 30% of Australian homes have personal computers and Australians are estimated to be the second greatest users per head of the Internet internationally.
The Western Australian Information Policy Committee (1993) states "government has a major existing investment in information and supporting technologies that cannot be quickly changed. Many disparate sources of useful information already exist in agencies, and this information could become a whole-of-government resource if it were collectively managed to achieve this aim".
An issue for the government is therefore whether the ways of the past will serve the needs of the future. December and Randall (1995) suggest that the World Wide Web can act as a vehicle to collectively manage founding a 'whole-of-government resource' and to re-engineer its processes. These processes will be heavily dependent on sharing information. According to Ward et al (1990) this rational of sharing information should also address practicalities of the provision. These practicalities include: access mechanisms, security, risk, communications capability and centralisation or decentralisation.
Providing information via the World Wide Web is not without its challenges, there are real issues and problems to be resolved. Provision of information and widespread access to global information is therefore essential if Australia is to maintain its international competitiveness. In order for these issues and problems to be resolved they must first be identified.
Through a literature review the following issues were revealed to be of major concern:
Jones (1995) states "Whenever a talk radio program goes to air, the producer and the host sit poised over 'kill' buttons that will stop a caller's words from going over the air. The producer's nightmare of totally uncensored communications is ironically a paradise to the majority of the Internet's user base. This suggests censorship is an important issue and raises questions relating to not only exchange of 'words' but also the exchange of pornography over the network.
According to Akass (1993), Cryptology and security are becoming big issues. As an official Internet security watchdog, Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) was formed by the Defence Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) after the infamous November 1988 Morris worm incident wreaked viral havoc on many computers across the Internet. With the increase in the number of Internet connections, CERT has seen a parallel increase in attempted intrusions to Internet hosts. According to Streeter (1995), one security expert put it, the new, larger Internet / WWW provides hackers with "a target-rich environment".
Copyright is becoming a big issue. For the World Wide Web this means that materials on the Internet, of all kinds eg e-mail, bulletin boards, gopher files and web pages are just as protected by copyright as printed books . Lean (1995) states " copyright is part of a bundle of rights which are loosely referred to as intellectual property rights". These rights are associated with patents, trademarks, industrial and trade secrets, circuit layouts, registered designs computer programs.
According to Ryan and McClure (1995), a recent seminar on 'Building and Managing Government Internet Services' reported that there were technical issues that needed to be addressed. Some of these concerns included: getting the service up; obtaining software, hardware, telecommunications connectivity; deciding between types of servers eg Gopher and World Wide Web; and determining how to put data on to the system. Experienced builders had concerns ranging from how to integrate existing agency legacy databases and database engines to multi-media use. These concerns suggest not only will there be issues of implementing new technology but also how to integrate existing technologies.
Ryan and McClure (1995) identified in the 'Building and Managing Government Internet Services' report that there were a number of concerns regarding resource and cost allocation issues when building, managing, maintaining or scaling, government Internet services. This raises the question of whether charges need to be raised for the provision of government information. If charges are to raised, how will the price be determined ?
According to Ryan and McClure (1995), not only are there concerns such as cost, security and technology issues but there are also concerns being raised regarding organisation and business culture issues that need to be addressed. Some of these issues included gaining support from senior management, an increase in existing inter-departmental tensions, difficulty of determining who will be in charge of what and whether existing roles, policy and procedures were adequate. These concerns suggest, for government agencies to implement initiatives on the World Wide Web they must first overcome government inertia.
Two main research questions that were answered are as follows:
The hypothesis was that there were factors which impacted current usage of the World Wide Web. Factors include size of the organisation, industry sector, awareness of resources available, perceived benefits and perceived drawbacks. These factors can be grouped under four main headings ie Security issues, Organisation issues, Technological issues and Business issues.
The case study was conducted prior to the survey at the premises of the Office of the Auditor General [HREF 5] , Western Australia. The Office of the Auditor General's mission is to provide Parliament with timely, relevant, quality information necessary to enhance public sector accountability and performance. The purpose of the Office of the Auditor General's web site is to fine-tune its approach for the delivery of information to its customers. The Office of the Auditor General uses "IINET" as its service provider. IINET has a 'multi homed' connection to the Internet (Telstra, Access One and Connect.com.au) and runs 'Apache' that serves around 120,000 pages per day. IINET assisted the Office of the Auditor General's web site development by providing no time charges, documentation and support. The Office of the Auditor General primarily uses the World Wide Web for provision of information and is not significantly hindered by network performances.
Convenience, access and geographic proximity was the main criteria used for selecting the Case. The primary objective of the case study was to investigate the use of and barriers to the use of the World Wide Web within the real-life context. Findings from the Case Study were used in questionnaire construction. The case study consisted of 4 main phases ie Review of preliminary information, determination of persons to be interviewed, conducting unstructured interviews and an analysis of the data collected.
The following 4 themes were identified from the findings:
Security Issues - The web site developer strongly agreed that security must be addressed by government agencies. Information security was of prime concern as it affected the content of information that could be presented in web pages.
Organisation Issues - The Manager Information Systems, identified that an information manager (not necessarily Information Systems manager) should be responsible for information provided in web pages. This questions the placement of web responsibility within an organisation.
Technological Issues - The case study identified that the type of service and support provided by a service provider would affect web development. While software was available to aid the development of web pages eg Hot Dog and LVIEW, developers could experience difficulties if not sufficiently conversant with the "UNIX" operating system and HTML language.
Business Issues - The case study web site cost $300. The development work was completed mostly in the developers own time . The only cost the agency bore was the cost of using the service provider and online time. As the case study web site had only been developed in August 1995, it was too early to tell whether costs such as training would be incurred. The web site under study, consisted of approximately 20 pages. No systems development methodology was used in its construction. For large web sites, systems development methodologies may need to be used to control the development.
In order to validate hypothesis and information gathered from the case study a survey of 17 government agencies was conducted. The survey was conducted via semi structured interviews and the use of a designed www questionnaire.
The WWW Questionnaire was developed by the author to explore issues regarding the use of the WWW by government agencies. The WWW questionnaire comprised of 3 sections and a total of 36 questions. Section A - "Common Section" was answered by all participating government agencies. Section B - "Service Provider Only" was answered by government agencies that made use of a service provider and Section C - "Web Site Only" was answered by government agencies that have their own web site.
The survey findings revealed the preferred way to provide information via the World Wide Web is through the use of a service provider. This is attributed to cost and security issues. Government agencies surveyed reported that their major service was to provide information to the general public, to their clients and for internal use. Expected benefits for agencies themselves in using the World Wide Web were reduced costs, increased awareness, increased access, increased utilisation of resources, increased service and increased publicity. Expected benefits for agencies clients were increased awareness and increased access to government information.
World Wide Web management and significant control fell typically with the agency's IS department IS/IT department. Departments within the agency such as marketing and other specific work groups have shown interest in the World Wide Web development. Agencies generally agreed that the use of the World Wide Web has not yet made a significant difference in operational performance although agencies stated that it was still early to tell.
The issues of copyright was being addressed by agencies and security was found to be an issue. Generally agencies using a service provider did not have an anticipated budget whereas those with their own servers had established budgets. A majority of the agencies reported that Web pages were completed in employees own time.
Government usage of the World Wide Web and Government web developments were assisted by the provision of a 'free' shared web server on Highway 1 [HREF 6], through Western Australian Information Policy Council - Strategic Information and Information Technology Unit initiatives. The 'Highway1' WA Government information server is run on a dedicated web server on a 'SUN' platform. Network performance is increased by placing information on Highway 1's USA server sitting on a T-3 45 mbs link. This is available to Government Agencies that depend on promoting their information internationally. Since a majority of Western Australian Government agencies use 'Highway1', indexing of pages is more readily completed thus allowing more comprehensive searches.
One of the aims of the project was to develop a graphical model to facilitate exploration of issues impacting use of the World Wide Web by government agencies (see Figure 1). The model developed is a result of relationships or concepts that emerged from the case study and survey analysis.
The model is divided into three main sections. The first section is based on the identification of reasons for the government "push" to establish a World Wide Web presence. The second section is based on the identification of barriers to provision of information via the World Wide Web. The third section the development of solutions to remove barriers to provision of information via the World Wide Web, will be the subject of further research.
The model is not an entirely comprehensive depiction of the issues central to the provision of information via the World Wide Web by government agencies but is a reflection of the results of this study. The model can be used as a starting point to aid the development of possible solutions to identified barriers. The issues from each main issue type ie Security, Organisation, Technological and Business have been developed by summarising the issues supporting each hypothesis. These issues should be individually discussed in turn. Discussions will identify whether the issue has been adequately addressed or is considered significant.
Figure 1 A Model Identifying Issues That Address The Provision of Information Via the World Wide Web By Government Agencies
At the time of conducting the case study no other similar www case studies were found to be completed. The literature review revealed that although some government agencies had completed case studies of their own site, they had not compared their sites to others. This indepth study was prompted by a summary report of the "Use of the Internet in Western Australian Government Agencies" completed by the Department of State Services, Information Technology Watch (October 1995). This study analysed only 6 questions relating to provision of information on the World Wide Web. Globally the literature review revealed that Cockburn, C and Wilson, T.D (1995) [HREF 7] had completed a case study on "Business Use of the World Wide Web" but had not examined use by Government Agencies. Ryan, J and McClure, C (1995) had previously conducted a survey of U.S federal agencies attending a seminar entitled "Building and Managing Government Internet Services" and had found similar issues which support the identification of issues found in this case study.
In order to compare this case study with other case studies a number of benchmarks may be used. These include the rate of growth, world wide web features and questionnaires as used in this case study.
The Information Policy Council (1995) states the growth of the Internet in Australia "... has also been reflected in the number of Western Australian agencies now making use of the Internet both for service and information delivery and for accessing the information resources of Internet". As at 13 October 1995, 20 Western Australian government agencies were actively using the World Wide Web. The Western Australia Government Agencies "Home Page" [HREF 8] was used to identify these agencies. The number of Western Australian Government agencies using the World Wide Web has increased to 40 as at 5 May, 1996. This provides a useful benchmark to assess the state of government use of the world wide web. In examining this figure the critical mass of adoption has not yet been achieved. This is the "point at which enough individuals have adopted an interactive innovation to cause the perceived cost-benefit of adoption to change from negative to positive so that the innovator's rate of adoption is self sustaining" (Rogers, 1991). According to Rogers (1991), the rate of adoption and diffusion may be a potential barrier to use of the World Wide Web by government agencies.
The use of multi-media and email on government agencies home pages can be used to determine use. In order to determine use of multimedia in home pages the following benchmarks can be considered.
An examine of Western Australian government agencies home pages as at 5 May 1996 reveals: 37 agencies used text and graphics, 12 agencies used text, graphics and images, no agencies used sound / video and 29 agencies made use of email on their site.
The web provides more than a way for government agencies to browse the Internet itself. The greatest benefit of the World Wide Web to the business of government at present is as a cost-effective means of distributing government information, press releases and other material world wide and to increase an agencies image and its visibility. Future developments of government use include the facilitation of electronic communication between government and its customers, to establish internal information discovery and distillation systems and to manage the founding of a 'whole of government information resource where information is managed as an integrated whole, using the World Wide Web as a common user interface that provides access to the whole environment.
Government must face the decision of remaining with the ways of the past or embrace the potential of the World Wide Web and re-engineer its processes to meet the needs of the future. Processes must be re- engineered to provide and share information globally. In completing the re-engineering process government must address and resolve practicalities of the provision which include: security, organisation, technological and business issues.
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Jones, T (1995), "The Executive Guide to Marketing on the New Internet", IndustryNET Marketing & Research Group, pp 1-6
Lean, M (1995), "AusWeb95 - Copyright and the World Wide Web", Southern Cross University
Pervan, G (1994), 'Information Systems Management: An Australian View of the Key Issues', Australian Journal of Information Systems, May, Vol 1, No 2
Rogers, E (1991), 'The "Critical Mass" in the Diffusion of Interactive Technologies in Organisations', Harvard Business School Research Colloquium, Harvard Business School
Ryan, J and McClure, C (1995), 'Next Challenges For Builders and Managers of Government Internet Services: A Report to the Information Infrastructure Task Force', Syracuse University., N.Y. School of Information Studies
Streeter, A ( 1995), "Don't get burned by the Internet", LAN Times, Feb 13, 1995 v12 n3 p 58(3)
Western Australian Information Policy Council (1995), 'Publishing Information on the Internet', Circular 02/95
Paul Worthington ©, 1996. The authors assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the author.
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