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The emergence and development of e-government #

E-government, also known as e-government, digital government, and online government, refers to the use of information technology, especially Internet technology, to improve the level and quality of government work. E-government uses the World Wide Web to collaborate, communicate and serve the following objects:

• Interaction between government departments (G2G);

• Interaction between government and business institutions (G2B);

• Interaction between government and public (G2C);

• Interaction between government and employees (G2E).

The concept of e-government took shape during the Clinton administration in the United States. In 1993, the Clinton administration came to power and launched a movement to “reshape the government”, carrying out “enterprise-oriented” reforms of the government, striving to transform a bureaucratic administrative government into an efficient, frugal, task-and customer-oriented government. Subsequently, the Clinton administration established the National Performance Review (NPR) and submitted a work report entitled “Using Information Technology to Transform Government”, proposing the ideal of using the Internet and information technology to reshape and reform the government and improve U.S. competitiveness., using the World Wide Web as a tool to make the government more open and transparent by providing unified information access services and faster, convenient and low-cost government business processing methods. Response is more timely.

Great progress has been made in e-government reform during the Clinton administration. By the end of the 20th century, most of the U.S. federal and state governments, as well as most local government agencies, were online and provided many Internet-based services. In September 2000, the U.S. government issued FirstGov. gov(later renamed USA.gov), an official government portal. Initially, it provided access to 47 million U.S. government Web pages, and later provided a topic-by-topic search feature to make it easier for the public to find the government services they needed. At the same time, the U.S. government has also formulated and promulgated citizens ‘privacy provisions to protect the exchange of information between the public and the government. In 2002, after President George W. Bush took office, he promulgated the E-Government Act, which increased investment in e-government, established an e-government special fund, and established an e-government office to manage e-government work. Promote the use of information technology in the public sector (U.S. 107th Congress, 2002). In January 2009, after President Obama took office, he relied on the U.S. National Chief Technology Officer, Office of Management and Budget, and the Bureau of General Services to vigorously promote information disclosure and transparent government. He established websites such as Recovery, gov and data, gov, which are specifically used for the U.S. federal government. Information disclosure and data disclosure to facilitate public supervision of the transparency and fairness of government work.

Gartner, the world’s authoritative information technology research and consulting firm, published a report in 2002. The report analyzes the development trends of government affairs such as administration, finance, transportation, public security, medical care, criminal justice, natural resources and environment, and municipal engineering. The report pointed out that federal, state and local governments in the United States have common concerns and complementary work content, but the interaction styles of U.S. government departments with the public and other agencies are different, as reflected on their websites.

The role of the state government is reflected in the link between the federal government and local governments, which makes the state government the center of government business and information interaction. Compared with the federal government, state governments have more direct interactions with the public, and this interaction is easily implemented on the Web. Business functions such as driving licenses, fishing licenses and motor vehicle registrations handled by the state government have been completed through Web technology. In other words, administrative business also adopts the form of e-commerce that is familiar and accepted by the public. This processing method has saved the government a lot of money, and has led more and more state governments to adopt e-government for online processing of business.

The local (county and city level) government is the department with which the public has the most direct and frequent contact. For example, through local governments, the public learns which road sections are planned for maintenance, where to vote and where there are garbage collection points. Many local governments have adopted Web technology as a gateway to provide government service information to the public. Web sites are also a way to elect officials, solicit public support for their policies and plans, and obtain public feedback. They are also a medium for communication between governments and business organizations. Government websites can publish project and bidding information, making it easier for companies to submit their bidding documents online and simplify the business process between private companies and local governments.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the way people use the Web has changed. The Web is no longer a one-way to provide information to users, but a platform for sharing, socializing and helping each other. “Government 2. “government2.0” refers to the use of Social networks in government work and the integration of Web 2.0 (EggerS, 2005). President Obama’s campaign success is largely due to his full use of the concepts and technologies of Web 2.0 and the participation and support of the general public. In 2009, in his first memo report, he emphasized that government should be transparent, participatory and collaborative (Obama, 2009). One of the important methods to achieve such a government is to actively use Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, Social networks, Twitter, Weibo and Facebook to provide a smooth platform for interaction and communication between the government, civil servants and the public.

The value of GIS to government #

Geographical location is an important basis for government decision-making. In the ancient Stone Age, our ancestors might have sat by campfires and discussed where to collect wild fruits and hunt tomorrow. These geographical problems not only determine their quality of life, but even determine their survival. Today, it is believed that about 80% of government records are related to geography-such as street addresses, plot numbers, and zip codes. GIS technology can use this geographical information from a spatial perspective to help government departments understand the relationship between various events, plans, policies, etc., which is difficult to show in general reports. GIS provides the government with a method and perspective to analyze data, and provides new support means for government decision-making and operations.

GIS provides a geographical information framework that supports governments in managing, analyzing, and visualizing various types of data, solving multiple problems, making decisions, and improving government business processing procedures. As Charles G., former director of the U.S. Geological Survey. Groat mentioned: “It is not enough to do science well. Science needs to produce practical results in social applications.” Based on its scientific foundation, GIS has a wide range of applications. GIS technology first emerged to assist land management. In the 1960s, Roger Tomlinson developed the first practical GIS. This GIS was developed for Canada’s land resources inventory. Later, the application of GIS continued to expand. For example, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security used GIS software as the core technology for safeguarding homeland security; the Department of Transportation used GIS to plan, design, build, inventory and manage highways across the country; and the planning department used GIS to integrate information such as demographic data, infrastructure and natural resources to create plans that meet public needs.

GIS technology has been deeply integrated into the businesses of some departments, so that these departments cannot work without GIS support. Before the introduction of GIS technology, urban planners could only make one or two plans in a limited time, and government officials could only make decisions based on these very limited options. Using GIS, the same planner can propose more and in-depth research solutions to decision makers. At present, many countries around the world regard how to improve efficiency and do the most work with the least amount of money as an important consideration in government work. Investment in GIS can improve government work efficiency and have obvious results.

For example, the Planning Bureau of Ontario, California, used GIS technology as early as the late 1980s to integrate land use data from different sources and established a special GIS organization to centralize the use of GIS technology. In the early 1990s, after the city’s tax department used GIS, staff could associate the address of the business unit with the parcel (parcel) without leaving the city hall and sitting next to the unit’s computer, find out those parcels that did not have a commercial permit, send letters to their owners or renters, informing them of the handling fees, taxes and fines owed, recovering taxes for the city government and upholding municipal regulations. Since then,GIS technology has also been expanded to police, construction, fire protection, finance and other departments. After nearly three decades,GIS has entered various departments and played a role in many government and business activities in the city. The city of Ontario uses GIS technology in multiple departments, apportioning software, hardware and maintenance costs among units in multiple department budgets. The data it collects is shared with multiple departments and utilized in multiple office systems. At the same time, it also gets a great return from the investment in GIS, making the city government’s work “faster, cheaper and better.” Here,”faster” means that the government can automatically process business and conduct faster information exchange, which improves the government’s response speed;”more economical” means that the government can conduct cross-department business cooperation, saving government personnel. Working time and overhead costs;”better” means that it provides more efficient and satisfactory services to the public by shortening response time.

Mainstream information technology is developing towards faster computing speeds, wider network traffic and larger storage capacity. Mobile communication technology and real-time networks are also developing rapidly. These developments have also promoted the development of GIS technology. The development of GIS software has gone through multiple platforms, from mainframe computers to minicomputers, workstations to personal computers, to the Web, cloud platforms and mobile platforms. Geospatial information is becoming increasingly abundant. In the past, GIS developers had to solve the problem of lack of data. Today, they often face the challenge of how to effectively integrate massive data resources. Thanks to the development of information technology, GIS can face these challenges in terms of massive data processing and rapid computing.

WebGIS promotes the application of GIS in e-government and saves the government time and money. For example, in the past, public members often had to answer repetitive questions raised by the public. Now, all this information is online, which can automatically provide free services to the public 7 x 24 hours a day, reducing the workload of government personnel. The public can also communicate with the government online without leaving home (Figure 9.1).