Virgil Stoica and Andrei Ilas
Here are some examples of questions included in our questionnaire. For“ security and personal data protection ": Is there any note regarding personal data protection? Does the note make any reference concerning the use of cookies? Is there a contact address or an e‐mail address for questions referring personal data protection? For“ usability”: What is the length of access page? Do the accessed links modify their initial colour? Is there any search engine available? For content: Does the site contain recordings of local council meetings? Is there any information on the local budget? Does the site utilise wireless applications? For“ services”: Is it possible for a citizen to pay taxes on‐line? Are there any on‐line forms for complaints against administration? Is it possible for a citizen to apply on‐line for licences or permits? For“ digital democracy”: Can a citizen transmit her / his comments or proposals to the local officials? Is there a forum regarding community problems? Is there any e‐petition or e‐referendum?
This evaluation scale has been applied to a sample of Romanian rural communities that during the referring period( June 1 st to 30, 2012), had a functional webpage. There are 2856 rural settlements in Romania. At the time of the study, only 1111 of these( that is 38.9 %) had functional web pages. A random sample of five rural websites has been extracted out of each of the 40 Romania’ s counties. In fact, the sample size was only 198 instead of 200, because one county had only three functional websites at the time of the research.
The process of data gathering was accomplished with the aid of our undergraduate and master students of the Political Science Department of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi. The evaluation grid included grading examples for each item, the operators being given detailed explanations on the grading system. In order to ensure the reliability of the instrument and its application, each website has been evaluated at least twice by different operators. If the difference between the scores was larger than 5 points( 5 % of the maximum value of the scale), the website underwent one more assessment.
5. Results
Figure 1 presents the histogram of total scores distribution on class boundaries of 2 units. The average for scores is 11.79 with a standard deviation of 4.29 and a median of 10.97. The fact that the median is lower than the average shows that the score distribution leans to the right; the few bigger scores are influencing the average score in such a way that it has a bigger value than the median. The categories with most scores are those between 7 ‐ 13 where no less than 132 villages can be found, which is more than two thirds.
Figure 1: Score distribution histogram for Romanian rural websites
The highest score obtained was 24.31 while the lowest score was 2.50. The amplitude of the resulting scores ' variation is 21.81. Taking into account that the maximum possible score is 100 and the fact that 194 out of 198 rural websites have scores lower than 20, it is clear that the Romanian rural e‐Government is far from being perfect.
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