13th European Conference on eGovernment – ECEG 2013 1 | Page 525

Virgil Stoica and Andrei Ilas

The fact that the score average is only 11.51 and that 75 rural websites obtained scores lower than 10 suggests that local authorities are only incidentally interested in e‐Government. Because our research examined only a sample and not all rural websites, the mean scores should be regarded as an estimation. However, we can be 95 % sure that the real mean of the general score is between 11.00 and 12.03( Table 1).

Table 1: General score and the scores for the five dimensions of Romanian rural websites

Digital democracy

Mean 11.51 0.34 7.50 2.42 0.77 0.55 Median 10.97 0 7.5 2.40 0.68 0.36

Standard Deviation 3.67 0.76 2.02 1.38 0.80 0.79 Minimum 2.50 0.00 1.25 0.00 0.00 0.00

When it comes to“ security and personal data protection”, the best sites barely reached 7.10 points of a maximum of 20( Table 1). The average was 0.33. In fact, 139 of the 198 rural web pages do not even mention personal data protection and 41 have only a very brief note. Only eight sites are allowing users to fill in a form on their personal data protection. This absence of concern for information security could be triggered by the fact that the web administrators are seeing the webpages as a one‐way platform for providing information and, consequently, the personal data protection is not relevant.

The highest score for“ usability” is 14.38 points of a maximum of 20. The average score for this dimension is 7.50 points. Most websites have relatively brief access pages / homepages of no more than two screens in length; the sitemap is absent for the majority of websites, but a navigation bar is available on each page. The home page often displays useless photographs( e. g. mayors participating at different events), which further hinders the access. The audience is never targeted as groups( e. g. locals, tourists, business owners, elders, young people or individuals with special needs). Only a few sites offer the opportunity of filling in online forms. Seventeen official pages have a search engine but without the option of sorting the results by relevance or by any other criterion. Thirty of the websites show the date of latest update; for the rest, this date has to be inferred from the latest press release or document published.

The highest score for“ contents” is 6.80, with an average of 2.42. Most websites provide the City Hall address and some contact details, as well as a list( most times a partial one) of the local council decisions / resolutions. Some information on the local budget can be found in only 25 websites. A good part of information regards past events, while future ones are announced in a few words and are related, as a rule, to a village ' s most festive moments( village holiday and religious celebrations). The minutes of the local council meetings are absent. Almost a third of the websites offer information in at least two languages( Romanian and English), but there are several websites in three, four or even six languages( Romanian, English, French, Italian, Hungarian and German). Only one site presents information about possible natural disasters. No site offers access options for those with sight or hearing disabilities. There are no websites containing information related to day‐to‐day life aspects, such as traffic information in the area. The most surprising fact is that 27 websites have almost no information: only the name of the community and, in some cases, the address of the local council or the mayor’ s name. Some websites have menus, but without content.

The highest score for“ online services” is 3.05( Table 1) with an average of 0.77. In fact, the websites of 64 rural settlements do not offer any online services. Another 57 websites are offering only one service: either for requesting information or for lodging complaints. Only 17 of the assessed web pages provide access to databases. We are aware of only one Romanian village, Luncavita, where the locals are paying their utility bills using the official webpage as a portal. The village decided to join the National System of Electronic Payment of Taxes and it is mainly the locals working in other countries or parts of Romania that are using this system( Romania Libera, 2012).

The highest score on " digital democracy " is 4.36 points( Table 1). All the other websites obtained scores below 3.27. The average score for participation is 0.55. A number of 95 out of 198 websites offered no online feedback option. Only three websites are providing online forms for comments on the performance of local au‐

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