Quality and impact monitoring for
local eGovernment services
Antonio Candiello, Andrea Albarelli and Agostino Cortesi
Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita
`
Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Italy
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a layered, comprehensive model of quality of
service (QoS) for local eGovernment, and discuss its feasibility on a regional eGovernment case study.
The eGovernment online services are becoming a key infrastructure for advanced countries. They
allow significant efficiency gains in different sectors of society, offering benefits for individual citizens
and for the community as a whole. The deployment of online services alone is not sufficient in order to
qualify an eGovernment strategy. The intrinsic and perceived quality of services offered, as well as the
actual impact of new functionalities, should be properly measured and taken into account.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents an applied research study for a
quality-focused evolution of a service-oriented architecture for local eGovernment portals. This
investigation was based on three main layers: the perceived quality and effective impact of services
(G2C layer), the effectiveness of the deployed processes (WFM layer) and finally, the system-level
efficiency (G2G layer).
Findings – The measurement of quality with respect to eGovernment services is a complex task
which requires appropriate tools to tackle the different aspects of the problem. Specifically, active and
passive tools (respectively surveys and usage analysis) should be used to evaluate the quality
perceived by the users as well as the utility of the service itself. The efficiency of the back office
workflow must be estimated measuring statistical and dynamical indicators. Finally, technical
measures should be used to monitor the responsiveness and scalability of software implementations
and deployment systems.
Social implications – A better knowledge regarding (e-)Government service delivery processes,
their QoS and their impact on the society can empower both citizens and local administrators, and can
help them to better improve the effectiveness of local government.
Originality/value – The multi-layered quality measurement architecture proposed in this paper
offers local governments the capability to systematically monitor and analyse the quality of their
online services. The business process management technologies allow citizens to get a better
knowledge of the service delivery processes; the QoS measurements allow to improve control on them;
and the eGovernment Intelligence model allows to better quantify their actual social impact.
Keywords Local government, E-government, Performance measures, Quality of service, Metrics,
Business process management, webbots
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Local eGovernment online services dedicated to the citizens enjoy an increasing social
impact. This yields a demand for the design and assessment of better quality of service
(QoS) monitoring tools and strategies. The political pressure to improve the services
provided to citizens forces each public administration to care about the quality levels
reached by their online services via a comprehensive quality management strategy.
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This work has been partially supported by project Laboratorio per l’erogazione e lo sviluppo di
portali di servizi ai cittadini e alle imprese, sponsored by Regione Veneto – Direzione Sistema
Informatico.
TG
6,1
112
Received 15 October 2010
Revised 27 February 2011,
2 April 2011
Accepted 20 May 2011
Transforming Government: People,
Process and Policy
Vol. 6 No. 1, 2012
pp. 112-125
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6166
DOI 10.1108/17506161211214859