Although the U.S. government did rise one slot in the rankings from last year, it is falling behind other countries in broadband access, public-sector innovation and implementation of the latest interactive tools to federal Web sites, according to a study released Aug. 17 by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think thank.
“The biggest change has been the declining dominance of American technology," said Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at Brookings. "I think the problem is that the U.S. is not investing in technology like other governments. I think the report should be a wake-up call for the United States.”
Specifically the U.S. has fallen behind countries in terms of the percentage of citizens who have access to broadband and Internet services, the report said. For example, the U.S., which had been ranked fourth among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations for citizen broadband access in a 2001 survey, ranked fifteenth in 2007, according to the report.
Both presidential candidates have pledged to make expanding Internet access a priority and West said both major parties' presumptive nominees, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) John McCain (R-Ariz.). are very interested in technology development.
Overall, the report showed mixed results for how countries around the world are doing in terms of their Web presence. The top 10 countries, in descending order, are: South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, Singapore, Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Dominica and Brazil. Meanwhile, Tuvalu, Mauritania, Guinea, Congo, Comoros, Macedonia, Kiribati, Samoa and Tanzania barely have a Web presence, the study found.
In addition, several authoritarian regimes ranked higher than Western-style democracies in terms of e-government adoption. For example, North Korea ranked No. 49 while Norway came in at No. 60, Denmark at No. 62, Austria at No. 65 and Israel at No. 66, according to the findings.
Countries received a rating from zero to 100, which was an average of the scores their individual government Web sites received. The countries were awarded points based on the presence of different features on government sites that deal with information availability.
For example, points were awarded for having publications, databases, multimedia clips, foreign language access, disability access, having privacy policies, security policies and areas to post comments, as well as not having advertisements or user fees, Points were also awarded for the number of online services executable from the site.
South Korea, the highest-rated country, received a score of 64.7, while the United States improved to 53.7 up from 49.4 a year ago. Tuvalu, the lowest-rated country, scored just 12 points.
“Despite the great promise of technological advancement, public-sector innovation has tended to be small-scale and gradual,” the report said of e-government efforts worldwide. “Factors such as institutional arrangements, budget scarcity, group conflict, cultural norms and prevailing patterns of social and political behavior have restricted government actions.”
Overall, the survey found that:
- Fifty percent of the countries surveyed offer services that are fully executable online, up from 28 percent in 2007.
- Thirty percent of government Web sites show privacy policies and 17 percent have security policies.
- Eight percent prohibit cookies.
- Twenty-three percent of government Web sites prohibit the commercial marketing of visitor information.
- Five percent accept credit cards, and two percent allow digital signatures for financial transac ions.
- Six teen percent of government Web sites have some form of access for people with disabilities.
- Fifty-seven percent of government Web sites provide foreign language translation to non-native readers, with 80 percent offering some portion in English.
- Fourteen percent offer personalization options.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ben Bain
Quelle/Source: Federal Computer Week, 19.08.2008
