Assessing impact of eGovernment services

An expectation of a positive impact of some kind is the basis for any eGovernment investment. However, the real benefits are often hard to quantify and there is as yet no unified accepted definition of eGovernment impact established.

Most initiatives center around positive effects for citizens as well as businesses as a results of eGovernment. Typically, eGovernment impact includes public services which in some way is a true improvement to the users of the services.

An often used example of eGovernment impact is tax payments online.
Traditionally, tax return forms have been done off-line on paper. However, many countries now support tax returns to be filled out online – which has the potential of significantly reducing the time each user need to spend on their tax return. Provided the service is indeed used and has the expected effect the impact can be positive.

It is worth noticing that negative impact of eGovernment services may also exist. As an example, introduction of an online service may make some employees redundant which clearly is negative for the people affected.

In the eGovMon project impact is defined as a measurable positive effect on a public service on a web site. Measuring this can be done by for example counting the number of visitors, or by user surveys explaining the level of satisfaction with the service.

Planned Activities

• Prepare a state of the art paper on eGovernment Impact measurements