Best Practices in E-Governance: A Comparative Study Based on the Rutgers University Worldwide Digital Governance Survey - Information and Communication Technologies in Public Administration - page 36

government. These methods include filling out online forms to provide comments
or feedback, subscription options for newsletters or listservs, bulletin boards to
gather citizen input, online discussion forms or chatting capabilities for citizens to
discuss public issues, online surveys or polls, real-time chat or instant messaging,
and others.

2.5 Results
Among all 100 municipalities, 92 were found to have official websites, with an
increase from 87 in the 2009 survey, 86 in the 2007 survey, and 81 in the 2005
survey. This reflects an increase in e-governance adoption among municipalities
worldwide. As Figure 2.1 shows, the average score for e-governance over all 92
municipalities is 33.76, somewhat of a decrease from 35.93 in 2009 versus increases
from 33.37 in 2007, 33.11 in 2005, and 28.49 in 2003.
As Table 2.3 indicates, however, municipalities vary a lot in their e-governance
performance. Only 7 municipalities score higher than 60 of 100, and only 19 score
higher than 50. Twenty-one municipalities even score lower than 20, reflecting
their poor performance in e-governance. The results indicate differences over five
categories (as Figure 2.2 reflects). The average score for usability is 12.09, the high-
est among these five components, whereas that for content is 7.38 and that for
service is only 5.78. The average score for privacy/security is 4.99, whereas that for
citizen and social engagement is 3.53, which is the lowest. This indicates that gov-
ernments pay more attention to technical aspects, such as whether their websites
are user-friendly with advanced tools. However, they pay limited attention to the
services and information that users need through their websites. Moreover, few of
them are doing well in enabling citizens to participate online.

36.5

36

35.5

35

34.5

34

33.5

33

32.5

32

31.5

2005 2007 2009 2011

Figure 2.1 Average e-governance score 2005-2011. (From Holzer, M., &
Manoharan, A. (2012). Digital governance in municipalities worldwide (2011-
2012) . newark, nJ: e-Governance institute, Rutgers University.)