Search results

Knowledge management (KM) is an important consideration in e‐government portals to ensure that knowledge flows efficiently between governments, individuals and organisations. A crucial aspect of e‐government portals that has not been addressed adequately is the extent to which KM mechanisms have been implemented. Specifically, the authors argue that appropriate KM mechanisms are necessary to support the access, creation and transfer of knowledge between these portals and their users. The paper aims to propose an evaluation model for this purpose by first defining the main KM mechanisms and then burrowing deeper into their constituent dimensions.

An evaluation model known as knowledge access, creation and transfer (K‐ACT) is presented which identifies three KM mechanisms for portals: knowledge access, creation and transfer. Each mechanism is characterised by a set of dimensions and sub‐dimensions representing the tools and features for supporting that mechanism. The model was derived from an analysis of the literature and validated by two independent reviewers who were trained in information science, were familiar with the objectives of the project and understood the concepts underlying KM implementation in portals. Using this model, a checklist was developed and applied to 60 e‐government portals in the Asian and North American regions to investigate the extent to which these KM mechanisms have been implemented.

The findings indicate that, on average, e‐government portals featured only about 36 per cent of the KM mechanisms described in the model. Furthermore, no significant differences in the implementation of the KM mechanisms were found between the two regions' portals. The evaluation also offered potential areas for improvement based on the K‐ACT model.

The present work has developed an evaluation model known as K‐ACT which can be used to assess KM implementation gaps in e‐government portals. This model can also be generalised to other types of portals. The evaluation also provides insights into the state of KM processes in the portals of the Asian and North American regions.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of organizational factors on the adoption of interoperability technology for Indian portals.

This exploratory study was conducted through a survey questionnaire from 300 portals of government departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs) in India. Data were also collected from portals of Indian companies.

The study finds that adoption of interoperability for Indian portals is highly associated with certain organizational factors. In addition, multiple regression analysis reveals that the functionalities of government portals in India are significantly related to four organizational factors.

The research provides insights for government officials and practitioners to understand and improve the level of interoperability in government portals. The study also provides a 2 by 2 matrix framework that helps the government officials to focus on the relevant organizational factors.

This study is the first to examine the effect of organizational factors on interoperability adoption in Indian portals. The results lead to a number of recommendations for achieving interoperability for government portals in India.

This paper concerns public sub-sector branding within the higher education (HE) system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how public sub-sector branding within HE is organized and how it is influenced by the use of national values, traits and characteristics.

The study relies on two data sources: first, the paper benefits from a data set of one-stop web-portals for HE from the 23 countries listed in Times Higher Education’s top-60 universities ranking. Second, it builds on a sample and brief overview of Norway’s sub-sector branding of its HE sector.

Expert authorities within the HE sector are legally and organizationally responsible for sub-sector branding, and they establish coordinated and coherent web-portals. In practice, however, nation-branding concerns are influencing on how the HE sub-sector is branded. The paper concludes with a discussion of democratic implications, and points to paradoxes arising from the use of national clichés and characteristics in this highly international sub-sector of the public realm.

The paper informs discussions about public sub-sector branding within HE, a phenomenon that thus far has not been systematically studied. The practical applications of such a study are evident, as branding is becoming more important in the public sector in general, and in HE in particular.

The purpose of this study is to examine the position of interoperability of government and corporate portals in technological adoption space in India in terms of three critical dimensions: data integration, process integration and communication integration.

This exploratory study was conducted through a survey questionnaire from 300 portals of government departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs) in India. Data were also collected from portals of Indian companies and the results have been compared with those of the government portals.

The results show that the majority of government portals in India have initiated integration. Second, the portals of Indian companies are performing better than the portals of government and PSUs for achieving an interoperable position. Third, there is high dispersion in level of integration of government portals in India.

The portals with the lowest level of integration in government in India will determine when government will actually attain full horizontal integration and hence achieve an interoperable portal as there is high dispersion in level of integration of government portals in India. Also, for achieving an interoperable government portal, an organization needs to focus on the weakest factors of each dimension.

This study is the first to examine the position of interoperability in technological adoption space in India. The results lead to a number of recommendations for achieving interoperability for government portals in India. The study also highlights the weakest factors of each dimension that require more improvement than other factors.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the e-government stage models that have been developed in last one decade give a true indication of e-government growth in a developing country like India.

This exploratory study was conducted through a survey questionnaire from 300 portals of government departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs) in India.

Results show that on e-government stage model; only 28 per cent of the surveyed government department have achieved the transactional stage whereas 58 per cent have reached at least a minimum level of vertical integration. On the other hand, 74 per cent PSUs are at transactional level and 69 per cent have achieved at least a minimum level of vertical integration.

For achieving a one-stop government portal, integration stage can be achieved before the transaction level. Reason behind this being nature and requirement of the portal. There are fundamental differences in social and political factors of various countries that demand more customized local models.

This study is the first to examine the evolution of government portals in India. The results lead to a number of insights such as there are few government portals that do not follow the proposed stage models and achieve the integration level before attaining the transaction level.

The paper discusses how to succeed in the new economy by utilizing e‐business in transforming business processes and strategy. The Collaborative One‐Stop Virtual Engineering Services (COVES) portal provides users with collaborative engineering services for government agencies and private sectors involved in various areas like safety, health and environment. The portal helps in design through modeling and simulation over the Internet for the above sectors. The portal provides a Web‐based environment for tackling the above issues during the design of a factory via the use of e‐computational fluid dynamics. Besides the above, COVES has re‐engineered the traditional business processes associated with construction industry by integrating various enterprises. The portal also improves competitiveness by installing a strong culture of knowledge collaboration and increased accessibility to expensive high‐performance‐computing (HPC) resources and tools. The integrated inter‐enterprise workflow with various public and private parties has simplified the procedure and expedites building plan approvals.

Horizontal web portals fill an important place in the operation of the internet and this paper seeks to look at how these portals may become profitable. A portal is simply a gateway, and a web portal can thus be seen as a gateway to content and services on the internet, or on a corporate intranet. This paper aims to compare several different views of what constitutes a portal, and to offer a specific definition. The main focus of the paper is on general horizontal (or public) portals and the relationship between their business‐revenue models and the content they provide. This paper aims to briefly review the relevant literature before describing a revenue model consisting of players, strategies and content. This is then examined and synthesised to match various revenue models and content.

After proposing the model, the paper tests how the matches proposed between revenue and content in the model compare with two currently operating popular horizontal portals.

An examination of two popular portals (one world‐wide and one based in Australia) has provided typical examples of how the advertising/revenue can be employed by horizontal portals and shown that they appear to match fairly closely with the proposed revenue/content model. After having examined the content of these two well‐known portals, it appears at this early stage that the revenue‐content model may show some promise.

While the paper cannot claim complete generalisability of a model based on a comparison of only two horizontal portals, the results are promising and should be useful for horizontal portal managers looking for how to balance the revenue of their portal with the content that they generate and the services they offer.

When fully tested, the model will provide horizontal portal operators assistance with the process of determining suitable content for their portals to match their chosen revenue strategies.

It is believed that this model is one of the few revenue/content matching models developed for horizontal portals.

The main purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a survey carried out in Southern African Development Community (SADC) universities to explore their knowledge portal practices and ignite debate on best practices regarding the importance, design and management of knowledge portals in developing world contexts.

The main data collection instrument was a questionnaire which was largely quantitative except one question was qualitative for additional comments.

The major finding of this study is that only one out of ten participating universities had a knowledge portal. Furthermore, what other participating universities have in place as web sites can only be described realistically as “extended web sites”.

Initially, the main purpose of this study was to explore SADC university knowledge portals and based on the findings ascertain the best practices prevailing among SADC universities. This purpose could not be fully achieved as most SADC participating universities do not have knowledge portals. Instead, they have extended web sites; hence, most responses are based on university extended web sites. Thus, the study reports on one case of a knowledge portal and describes how “extended web sites” might fit as foundational knowledge portals. Since the study was limited in its sample size (ten universities), it has implications for generalisation of the research findings.

This paper provides a theoretical framework for designing an effective university knowledge portal and creates the awareness of the importance of knowledge portals in universities. Also, the paper fills a gap in the literature on knowledge portals, and clarifies the difference between a knowledge portal and a web site.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a process for developing a metadata element set that will describe e‐government resources in digital collections. The outcome of the process is a metadata schema that reuses as many elements as possible from existing specifications and standards (termed as an e‐government metadata application profile). The use of e‐government metadata is to facilitate the electronic categorization and storage of governmental resources, as well as to enhance users' electronic interactions with the public sector.

The paper extends an initial process presented in the context of the European Standardization Committee CEN/ISSS, proposing four steps for developing the application profile: determine the resources to be described by the metadata, identify the stakeholder groups who will use the metadata, determine the use of metadata for each stakeholder group, and specify the metadata elements corresponding to each use.

The steps of the proposed process are followed in order to develop an e‐government metadata application profile for a particular digital collection: a one‐stop governmental Web portal that enables discovery and access to e‐government services and documents residing at the Web sites of geographically dispersed public authorities.

The combination of existing metadata schemas, in order to create an e‐government application profile, requires a well‐defined process for identifying the context requirements. This paper presents such a process and reports its engagement in a real case study. It may serve as a roadmap for other interested researchers, managers or implementers of digital collections of e‐government resources.