Table 1: Indicator sets in 2007 and 2011
Svein Ølnes
2007 |
2011 |
Subset |
No. of |
Max. points |
No. of indicators |
Max. points |
|
indicators |
|
|
|
Accessibility |
11 |
27 |
11 |
28 |
Usability |
14 |
37 |
12 |
30 |
Useful services |
7 |
28 |
10 |
35 |
Total |
32 |
92 |
33 |
93 |
The indicators for measuring accessibility are mostly derived from W3C’ s WCAG recommendations. The usability indicators are mostly based on the heuristic principles for usability formulated by Nielsen( 1993). The last set of indicators, useful services, looks at the service provision from a user’ s point of view and are derived from different governmental policy guidelines and goals.
The only weighting in the set is in the maximum number of points for each indicator. The table above shows that useful services have been given priority over accessibility and especially usability over the period of five years. This reflects the strategy at the national level where provision of digital services to the citizens has been given an increasingly higher priority. The weight on accessibility has remained almost constant and it is usability that has been loosing weight.
The following table gives the results for the 2007 and the 2011 evaluations and the change in percentage points for this period. The municipalities are divided in three groups after their population: up to 5.000, from 5 – 20.000, and more than 20.000 people. This is Statistics Norway’ s way of grouping the municipalities in Norway after size( Langørgen and Aaberge 2011). The labels‘ medium’ and‘ large’ must of course be seen with respect to the general size of Norwegian municipalities. Most of them are small by any measures.
Table 2: Total score for municipality websites after size( percentage of max. points)
Municipality group |
2007 |
2011 |
Change( perc. points) |
Small municipalities(< 5.000) |
46,6 |
58,4 |
11,8 |
( N = 226( 2007) and 229( 2011) |
|
|
|
Medium sized mun.( 5.000 – 20.000) |
50,7 |
66,1 |
15,4 |
( N = 148 in 2007 and 2011) |
|
|
|
Large mun.(> 20.000) |
58,4 |
72,0 |
13,6 |
( N = 52 both in 2007 and 2011) |
|
|
|
Average, all municipalities |
49,5 |
62,7 |
13,2 |
Significant differences both between municipality sizes and years( 95 % confidence interval), using regression analysis
The results in the table above show that the large municipalities scored better than small and medium sized municipalities and they have also had the greatest improvement the last five years in terms of quality of websites as measured with this evaluation system. The difference in quality of websites between small, medium sized, and large municipalities is increasing. Part of this increasing difference can probably be attributed to the increasing weight put on useful services, which in 2011 counted for 37,6 % of the maximum score in 2011 compared to 30,4 % of the 2007 indicator set. But for the overall differences in quality we need to look further than the expert evaluations to find an explanation.
4.2 Survey of webmasters
The Agency for Public Management and eGovernment, Difi, conducted a survey to the administrators of public
websites in 2012 2. The results shown under are from the administrators of municipality websites. The questionnaire was sent to all 429 municipalities and 237 of them responded( 55 %).
The most interesting questions from the survey seen from this paper’ s view are the ones dealing with the respondents’ knowledge of the evaluation system, how the indicators are perceived, and whether the respondents find the evaluation criteria useful in their constant work to improve their municipality’ s website. Also
2 The results are not yet published. The results shown here are from a preliminary report.
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