An innovative eGovernment project I discovered and researched is the National e-Commerce Extension Initiative, a regional program addressing e-commerce innovation and its impact on technology and economic development in urban areas. As a unique e-commerce outlet, the initiative features interactive learning modules with additional training and tutorial resources. The website and project, found at http://www.connectingcommunities.info, are an extension of the Southern Rural Development Center, an association of 29 land grant institutions in the rural southern United States who address critical rural development issues affecting people and communities.
The Initiative website is an interactive portal where users can access “The Learning Center” function, an interactive learning tool, and “e-Commerce Tutorials,” where users can develop applicable e-Commerce skills. As this initiative relies on the interaction between municipalities, businesses, and other organizations, current technology events keep businesses informed of successes in rural broadband adoption and extension programming. The initiative is a service-generating project, with emphasis on non-strategic alliances in sharing resources and ideas. Such innovation is further enhanced through the offering of funded competitive grants in coordination with the Regional Rural Development Centers and other organizations.
The website is user-friendly, and contains many applicable features in presenting the initiative mission, contacts, services, and features. The site presents news stories as a means of disclosing public efforts to improve e-commerce, though does not list the main issues and challenges of rural e-commerce development in rural areas. For example, the www.whitehouse.gov website contains a lot of information, though organizes the site by issue, allowing issues to offer criticism based on immigration, civil rights, etc. Additionally, the www.whitehouse.gov website offers immediate access to interactive media, whereas the e-commerce initiative site only provides links to new technology services.
In comparing and contrasting the Initiative site to the www.serve.gov website, several features were similar to the White House portal. The use of video and news feeds is present on the home page, as is also found on the Initiative website. However, the www.serve.gov site contains an updated blog of service activities throughout the United States. Although the Initiative contains updated news feeds of conferences and events, user interaction is not promoted. The www.serve.gov website also contains a section where users can find service events. The e-Commerce Initiative would benefit by implementing similar interactive features to publicize training events and ideas.
The National e-Commerce Extension Initiative is connected through local businesses by webinars, a function where professionals discuss methods for promoting broadband in virtually every facet of rural communities. These interactive features are unique to other agency websites that contain a great deal of information, though can be difficult to navigate. The www.recovery.gov website emphasizes the federal government utilization of social media to track government spending. This site publicizes spending information, thus increasing transparency at the federal level. Users can follow this process via Facebook, Twitter, and other mediums. The e-Commerce Initiative would benefit from this implementation of social media to further the cause of broadband installation in rural areas.
The www.wethepeople.gov website is similar to the aforementioned federal websites in terms of interactive features and sections. One important feature of this site is the ability for citizens to create petitions and recommend ways to improve the website functionality. The e-Commerce Initiative site presents very useful training functions, though appears to be largely one-sided: not eliciting suggestions for improvement.
As discussed in the lecture for module week 4, the cost of implementing services such as the e-Commerce Initiative is expensive, often requiring agencies to outsource technology services. As referenced in the lecture, “…securing funding for these projects can be difficult in tough economic times. There also exists the very real dilemma of not having the in-house expertise to create the necessary e-government applications.” Given the relative plainness associated with the site, funding may not be sufficient enough to warrant additional website services and functions.
This relates to the basic purpose of local government and agency websites: presenting information for public view. Wohlers theorizes, “local government websites are mostly informative and limited to providing a range of basic one-way services rather than transactional services” (p. 4). As such, federal and regional sites are mediums to elicit monetary support or other input types. The relative inability of the e-Commerce Initiative website in allowing users to offer feedback is detrimental to the success of this innovative program. Jaeger asserts, “users feel that their input is not wanted or that users cannot find a way to get their input to the Web developers” (p. 184). The aforementioned federal websites focus a great deal on citizen response, thus increasing transparency among agencies. The initiative goal of coordinating rural development efforts through broadband connections relies on citizen participation and publicity.
The success of the e-Commerce Initiative relies on local business and government realization of the necessary costs of electronic government. Heeks theorizes, “despite the high costs of failure and the high prevalence of failure, many officials and politicians are still very keen on e-government” (p. 5). Improvements to the website will increase funding, and elicit more citizens participation in educating the public about this need for rural technology development.
This project is very innovative, and represents new efforts of local organizations in connecting services. Although the project remains in its infancy, there is a great deal of potential in spreading the word about technology advances in rural communities.
References
Heeks, Richard (2003). Most e-Government-for-development projects fail. how can risks be reduced? IDPM, pp. 1-19.
Jaeger, Paul T. (5 June 2006). Assessing section 508 compliance on federal e-government web sites: a multi-method, user-centered evaluation of accessibility for persons with disabilities. Information Quarterly, 23, pp. 169-190.
Wohlers, Tony E. (12 Apr. 2007). Comparative E-Government: trends and sophistication at the grass roots. Prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political
Science Association Annual Conference. Chicago, Illinois.
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