ASSESSMENT OF WEBSITES QUALITY OF THE MINISTRIES OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Abstract

By using e-government websites, all stakeholders can receive benefits. Citizens can receive better and more convenient services, businesses can reduce their cost while dealing with institutions and governments can reduce operation and management costs. For more than two decades, governments around the world are making their services available online via e-government websites. However, there are determinants that influence whether constituents will embrace the use of e-government websites. The explored factors are based on information and system-quality aspects since the existing works indicate these quality aspects affect the use and user satisfaction. This study, primarily explores the factors that influence the adoption of e-government websites of all fifteen Ministries of the Republic of Macedonia.The research is performed using structured questionnaire that consists of several parts. The quality of the e-government websites was assessed by 6 parameters of the official websites and the binary choice of the answers on the chosen statements (I agree/ I don’t agree). Graduate students were trained to perform the analysis by checking the ministries’ websites.The first determinant is Information qualitythat was assessed by 4 statements. The second determinant of quality is Information content parametersassessed by 5 statements. The third quality factor concerning e-government websites that is analyzed is Accessibility/ Navigation.The Usability/ Functionality/ Interactivity features are considered to be the most important for achieving higher levels of the e-government websites sophistication. Efficiencyand Security/Barrierswere also assessed. From the analyses of the received questionnaires several conclusions can be made. Without doubt, information quality is perceived as satisfactory from all respondents. They agree that on all websites of the ministries information are accurate, on-time, relevant and precise. Concerning the second determinant –information content, the answers are mainly in line with the statements except the fact that on most of the sites there is no FAQs. The accessibility/navigation characteristics are viewed as satisfactory, except keyword search. The forth group of characteristics is assessed by 10 statements that reflect usability, functionality and interactivity. The resultsare more variable across the answers. Discussion forums for citizens and businesses are not present and online tracking of proposals is not possible. Transactions online are not available as feature. All ministries are present on social media. However, most of the respondents answered negatively when they were asked about the security. As an overall conclusion we can stress out that quality of the websites of the ministries of the Government of the Republic is satisfactory from the information quality and content, while parameters of quality such as interactivity and functionality are perceived as less satisfactory. Websites don’t follow the same pattern, they are developed without compulsory functionalities and we can’t find consistency in the solutions. However, the progress is obvious in the perception of the transparency, open data, information content and connectivity with the social media. Still, two-way interactions are not possible and that is the step that will be hard to achieve without improving the security and interoperability.