Citizen‐Centric Requirements for Transformational Government
Kamalia Azma Kamaruddin, Ariza Nordin and Nor Laila Md Noor Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia kamalia @ tmsk. uitm. edu. my ariza @ tmsk. uitm. edu. my norlaila @ tmsk. uitm. edu. my
Abstract: Governments in developed and developing countries have implemented electronic government in their effort to improve internal cost and promote efficient governance to the citizens and business communities alike. Though most countries, including the least developed ones, now are having their own websites and providing online services, it has been proven that e‐government does not deliver the results as it was expected. From a research done in developing countries, it has been discovered that 35 % of e‐government projects resulted in total failures, 50 % were partial failures and only 15 % succeeded. In reaction to these poor outcomes, a new trend in delivering public services using information and communication technology known as Transformational Government( T‐Government) has emerged. The shift of perspective in transformational government is about the use of technology to encourage more open and transparent form of government, where the public has a greater role in forming policy and has improved access to government information. In this research, we argue that citizen‐centricity is a fundamental principle in t‐government implementation, where citizens will no longer play the role of passive recipients of the government services but may take an active role in the t‐ government service design, implementation and operation as part of democratic processes. Citizen‐centric also means that government is more responsive towards citizen’ s requirements and being transparent in its service. By using literature analysis method, we begin by investigating the characteristics of transformational government and identifying its constructs from the citizens’ perspective. Then, a citizen‐centric demand model is composed and the relationships between its components are identified. These relationships will become the basis to build research hypotheses in upcoming work. Future works also include integrating the citizen‐centric demand model into the research ' s broader requirements framework that will contains government and technology components. The findings of this research are significant for designing an effective program of citizen‐oriented services in government agencies. A guided definition of citizen‐centricity concept is expected with the establishment of the model.
Keywords: transformational government, citizen‐centric, demand model, citizens requirements, requirements framework
1. Introduction
Governments around the world have implemented electronic government in their effort to improve internal cost and promote efficient governance to the citizens and business communities alike. In the era of information technology especially when the Internet and World Wide Web continues to expand, it is not surprising to see all levels of governmental bodies leveraging on these approach to deliver their services. However, even when the least developed countries have had their own websites and provide online services, it has been proven that e‐government does not deliver the results as it was expected( Dada 2006). From a research done in developing countries, it has been discovered that 35 % of e‐government projects resulted in total failures, 50 % were partial failures and only 15 % succeeded( Heeks 2003). Moreover, Gartner Group( 2002) identified the failure rate of e‐government projects worldwide is as high as 60 %.
In reaction to these poor outcomes, a new trend in delivering public services using information and communication technology( ICT) known as Transformational Government( T‐Government) has emerged. Also branded as Government 2.0, it is about the use of technology to encourage more open and transparent form of government, where the public has a greater role in forming policy and has improved access to government information. The shift of perspective to transformational government will enable citizens to gain more efficient and timely access to data, information and services through the sharing and distribution of information within and through the government.
Transformative government application encompasses a virtual business layer within government, which allows a transparent, collaborative and innovative citizen‐centric service to be presented to citizens across all channels. To materialize this, a good requirement engineering framework needs to be present to be used as process guidelines in developing transformative government applications. In a research conducted in National University of Singapore, Saha( 2010) stressed on the need“ to balance the currently dominant service‐provider centric viewpoint with the often ignored service‐consumer centric viewpoint”. Although service‐consumer
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