Public Services and Electronic Government for Chicago's Digital City
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
International Conference on Social Science and Management - ICSSM 2014
Advanced Information Science Research Center (AISRC)
March, 2014 - Chicago, Illinois, USA - http://www.aisrc.org/conference/?n=icssm2014
Public Services and Electronic Government for Chicago’s Digital City
Denis Alcides Rezende1,a, Justin Broms Kohls2,b
1
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Urban Management Postgraduate Program, Curitiba,
Brazil.
2
DePaul University, School of Public Service, Chicago, USA.
a
denis.rezende@pucpr.br, bjkohls@mail.depaul.edu
Keywords: public services; electronic government; digital city project; public administration.
Abstract. In digital city projects, public services are utilized through digital or e-government
models. The objective of this study is to describe and assess the public services offered on the City
of Chicago’s website. The research methodology consisted of case studies covering the City Hall
and each municipal department, joined with an in-person interview with the Chief Information
Officer at the Department of Innovation and Technology. Four criterions were used to measure the
scope of the services offered in the digital format: communicability, content, functionality and
public services. The conclusion reiterated the importance of the e-government’s public services
applications for Chicago residents. It resulted in benefits through the accessibility of the internet and
the City.
Introduction
In digital city projects, public services offered to citizens can be a form of electronic government.
Public services, along with information technology (IT), are relevant resources for the proper
electronic government. The supply and efficient use of public services is a constant challenge for
cities concerned with planning and developing municipal affairs from the perspective of citizens’
quality of life and effective municipal management. At the same time, the participation of citizens in
the affairs of a city is an inexorable requirement. One way of addressing these challenges is through
collective information and public services at both city hall and municipality level, in which
systematized information is a prerequisite for municipal organizational and management activities.
Electronic government and digital city projects can contribute to the improvement of public policies
and government programs through the provision of public services to citizens. Public services
provided to citizens can add valor to municipal management, facilitating the communications
between the citizens and government to expand the credibility, trust and equality, while promoting
accountability, transparency, and democracy. With the use of information technology it is possible
to better integrate the citizen to the government.
For effective integration between citizen and government, it is necessary to discuss and plan for
public services. The planning of public services, like the municipal strategic planning, is one of the
tools for managing city halls and towns of unquestionable relevance. Evidently, these activities will
be more profitable to the cities if they have effective participation of their citizens.
Many cities have problems with the inexistence or inadequacy of public services offered through e-
government models, which enhances the difficulties of municipal management. Compounding this
1 de 9is the fact that citizen participation is uneven, creating sub-optimal democracy and a lack of full
contribution to city administration.
The objective of this study is to describe and assess the public services offered through the website
towards a digital Chicago (USA). The research emphasized public services offered by the website. It
covered city hall, municipal departments, and other municipal entities, such as schools, health
centers and citizen-oriented municipal information offices. The reason for that is due to structuring
public services, which surely do not happen overnight and require short, medium and long term
action in the cities.
Nowadays, the e-government projects have been considered relevant to assist the management of
cities and contribute to its public administration.
Literature review
A literature review will highlight the relevant concepts of public projects as part of the digital city
and electronic government models.
Public services
Public services can be understood as any service provided by the government or by their
delegates under state standards and controls to meet the essential needs of the community or
secondary or simple convenience of the State. Examples of public services include: public
education, the police, the public health, public transportation, telecommunications, and others [1].
Scholars and administrators of municipal governments generally agree on four essential goals of
public services: efficiency, effectiveness, equity and responsiveness [2]. The responsibility of goods
and services provisions is transferred from private to public when the private sector underprovides
or when it is a necessity for the citizens to survive. If these services were left up to the market, under
provision is likely to occur, and the population would be adversely affected. While there is no legal
ruling on the responsibility of provision for public services, it is generally viewed as an extension of
the role of governments. Furthermore, since most public services are paid for through the tax
system, the citizens of those geographic areas have a vested interest in the types of services made
available [3].
A more important picture in this system is the role of information in public services.
Traditionally, governments have not had to compete with other vendors in their service provisions,
so they have not had to be concerned with disseminating adequate information about such services
[4]. With the advancement of information and communication technologies in the provision of
public services, a primary concern lies in security and privacy. This indicator includes privacy
policies and issues of authentication on the websites of city hall. Analysis must assess to what extent
such policies appear on pages that accept sensitive data and the existence of the word ‘privacy’ on
these pages. An additional concern is whether or not the privacy policies identify the agencies
collecting the data and what data is collected, in the interests of the user [5].
Electronic government and information technology
The utilization of information technology (IT) or information and communication technologies
(ICT) can be conceptualized as computational and technological resources for data storage,
generation and use of information. IT is based on the following components: hardware and its
devices and peripherals; software and its resources; telecommunications systems; data and
information management [6, 7, 8]. It can also be defined as telecommunications and computing
technologies that supply automatic means and information handling, encompassing tangible
hardware and intangible software [9] and telecommunications networks [10].
2 de 9When information technology is applied in public administration (in the spheres of federal, state
or municipal), it is called electronic government (e-gov). Thus, e-government can be seen as the
application of the resources of information technology (IT) or information and communication
technology (ICT) in public management and policies of federal organizations, state and local,
including the city and municipal organizations. This may involve actions of government to
government or government to society and its citizens (and vice versa), providing public information
in an electronic media format [11]. Electronic government (e-gov) promotes efficient and cost-
effective government; facilitates more convenient government services; allows greater public access
to information and makes government more accountable to its citizens [12]. Governments around
the word have created websites that enhance citizen convenience in various projects within different
levels of public services [13]. E-gov involves the creation, development and interlinking of a variety
of social, institutional and technological ecologies to deliver services which are perceived as
legitimate, innovative, useful and welfare enhancing [14]. The use of modern information and
communication technologies, especially Internet and web technology, by a public organization to
support or redefine the existing and/or future (information, communication and transaction)
relations with ‘stakeholders’ in the internal and external environment has a tendency to create added
value [15]. The uses of information technology in the public sector, covers a broad range of
managerial issues: from high-level strategy to detailed tactics; from the technicalities of data flows
and process mapping to the politics of e-government [16]. The strategic use of ICT, in and around
public administrations, is for the purpose of creating a ‘wired’ or ‘digital’ government. Ideally, a
wired government is more focused on and responsive to societal needs, and makes governments
more efficient and democratic [17].
Digital city
A digital city can be defined as a city that collects and organizes digital information, provides
that information for citizen interaction online [18] and is be lived in by digital citizens, who are able
to participate in an online society [19]. As large cities become more fragmented physically, socially,
and culturally, computer communications are seen to be a potentially integrative medium, tying the
disparate fragments together into new threads of public discourse, in ways that few other media can
manage [20]. In this sense, the concepts of connectivity, accessibility and responsiveness must be
covered [21].
The concept of digital cities regards the gathering and organization of digital information to
streamline the public services process and provide citizen/resident interaction [22]. It is the digital
network environment, which interlinks advanced technological systems to public services, assets,
brands, schools, non-profit organizations, enterprises, and micro and macro communities. This
prototype makes information available in several patterns aiming to develop the information
society’s potential and transform the citizen into actor and protagonist of a virtual reality [23].
Science and technology become important for urban development [24, 25, 26].
In the context of telecommunications, digital cities are conceptualized as “information
highways”, with a set of web applications, IP applications, services and equipment that provide
citizens with a constantly present, ubiquitous, pervasive environment that not only is omnipresent
but also spreads itself, infiltrates, and penetrates. Digital cities, which are also known as, amongst
other things, cybercities, virtual cities, electronic cities and intelligent cities represent projections
into the digital world [27].
The strategic digital city can be understood as an application of information technology resources
in municipal management and in the availability of information and services to residents. It is a far-
reaching project if compared to simply offering internet to citizens through telecommunications
conventional resources. It goes beyond inclusion of citizens into the world network of computers,
3 de 9and into such ample projects as information systems for municipal management and citizen
utilization, public services for the community and municipal safety systems [11].
Research Methodology
The research methodology emphasized one case study obtained from city hall and an in-person
interview with Brenna Berman, City of Chicago, Chicago Department of Innovation and
Technology (DoIT) Chief Information Officer. It put together other approaches explained by the
eclecticism and integration of inseparable methods [28, 29]. The study sample consisted of Chicago
City Hall (Illinois, USA).
Chicago has about 3 million inhabitants and has been ranked the fourth best project and the fifth
best project in the Digital Cities Survey among all major U.S. cities in 2011 and 2010, respectively
[30, 31].
The research protocol included the analysis of specific criteria of the information and public
services offered by the websites of City Hall, notably: communicability; content; functionality; and
public services. The observation unit included the website. The research was made in July and
August 2013.
Public Services and Electronic Government at Chicago Digital City
Chicago offers its citizens 281 public services. All public services share their respective
information.
Types of information and public services offered
The information and public services offered by Chicago are classified into the following 256
subjects or themes: abandoned; abandoned construction sites; abuse; accessibility; activity;
adoption; advertising; alert; alley; alley light; animal; appeal; application; artist; assessment;
assistance; backup; basement; benefit; bicycle; blood test; breast; brochure; building; calendar; care;
career; caregiver; cart; cat; certification; check-up; Chicago; Chicago cultural center; child; citizen;
city; city maintenance; city services; clean-up; clinic; code; communication; community;
community services; complaint; compliment; construction; consultant; consultation; contract;
contractor; corruption; counseling; crisis; cruelty; dca; damage; debris; development; disability;
disabled; discrimination; district; doctor; dog; domestic; donation; drain; drivers; drug; dumping;
educational resource; elderly; electrical; elevator; emergency; emergency response; engineer;
environment; environmental; ethics; evaluation; event; exam; ex-offender; exposure; exterior;
family; family planning; fare card; fees; filming; financial; assistance; fire; foia; food; forestry;
form; garbage; grandchildren; grandparents; green; green building; gynecology; hand washing;
health; health resource; health services; heat; help; hiv/aids; home visit; homeless; housing; illegal;
illegal sale; impound; independent; infant; information; inspection; internship; intervention; issue;
job training; kids; landfill; learning; license; light pole; liquid; local; location; maintenance;
mammogram; map; mason; mbe/wbe/dbe/bepd; meals on wheels; mechanic; medical; medicine;
mental health; minority; motorists; municipal; neighborhood; newsletter; no smoking; nutrition
services; occupancy; online; park; parking; partnership; payment; pelvic; exam; permit; pet;
physical; pick up; placement; planning; planting; plumbing; police; policy agenda; pothole; power;
preschool; problem; procurement; program; project; property; protest; public; public health;
pushcart; record; recycling; red-light; reentry; regional transit authority; registration; relief; rental;
repair; report; residence; residential; resource; respite; restaurant; retail; review; rock; rodent; safety;
sale; sanitary; sanitation; sanitation code; senior; services; sewer; shakman; shelter; sign; smoke;
smoking; snow; sponsor; sponsorship; sports; status; sti; sti/hiv; sticker; storage tank; stray; street;
4 de 9street light; substance; summer job; support; tax; tax/fee/bill/ticket; taxi; testing; training;
transportation; trash; tree; vacant lot; vehicle; vendor; vendor payment; venue; viaduct; violation;
violence; violence prevention; waiver; wall; waste; water; weather; weeds; wellness; wheel chair;
women's health; workshop; youth; zoning.
Analyses of Chicago public services
To analyze public services of the digital city project we utilized specific criteria among the
literature [5, 32, 33, 21, 34].
The emergence of the Department of Innovation and Technology at the City of Chicago has been
an evolutionary process. Initially termed, Business and Information Services, in 2011, under Mayor
Emmanuel, the DoIT was created, with a greater emphasis on innovation technology both within
and external to the municipal structure. Brenna Berman, Chief Information Officer, and her
department focus on internal governmental innovations and John Tolva, Chief Technology Officer,
oversees external technology innovations. It is important to note that the digital city objective in
Chicago is a concept to strive for, rather than a plan in and of itself.
The planning structure operates from the municipal strategic plan set for by Mayor Emmanuel.
Under this administration there is an emphasis on children and education and crime and public
safety. Beyond this, each department has internal planning foundations that they work from and
varies from year to year. An example of this is as follows: theme- public health; strategy- develop a
healthier Chicago; goal- decrease smoking; program is designed around that goal.
a. Communicability
Communicability is defined as the social and human components of Information Communication
Technologies and is situated in the social sphere of information systems. For our purposes of more
localized interactions, we can look at the efforts to incorporate diverse cultural and linguistic
populations within the geographic boundaries of our observation units [21]. From the citizen’s
standpoint, communicability and accessibility allows for greater understanding of the services
offered. [32, 34].
Chicago’s efforts at communicability are exemplified in the amount of services that entail filings of
grievances and assistances. Both of these themes show an effort on City Hall to provide an arena for
public discourse and participation in the allocation of city services. The former serves to provide a
voice for populations that previously did not have one, specifically in the fields of police brutality
and/or discriminatory housing policies. These areas of public service provide sites for the public to
actively communicate with agencies and fellow citizens in efforts to enhance the functioning of
government through the use of complete and full information and quality public services. In our
interview, Berman shared with us that a new initiative towards enhancing citizen participation
through communicability is in the planning process. The city operates a non-profit arm funded
through grants, Smart Chicago Collaborative, that is responsible for cultivating community
engagement with technology. The city connects with them to gain feedback and support and plans to
increase this partnership to achieve their goals.
b. Content
An analysis of content can be understood as the breadth of public information available on the
website, the level of horizontal integration between government agencies and an estimate of the
amount of information available about the dealings of such agencies [33].
5 de 9In Chicago, information regarding each of the governmental agencies and municipal departments is
clearly established on the website; with user-friendly links at most points. The optimal structure is
as follows: each department has program specific operations, focusing on their own missions. The
Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) handles the entire city’s IT and innovative IT
support. Notably, in the field of job services, the website provides links to local, state and national
agencies, showing a profound integration of information across geographic boundaries. The level of
public information listed on the website is quite extensive, ranging from how to pay for parking
tickets to obtaining FOIA (freedom of information act) documents (see list of themes, above).
Furthermore, while not specifically stated by Middleton [33], the organization of the content on the
website is admirable and enhances the ability of the citizen to access the information they are
searching for with ease and speed.
Frequency of updated information is also a primary concern of a content analysis for information
and public services. In this respect, Chicago shows a great effort for accuracy of useful information
and efficient public services.
c. Functionality
The concept of functionality is best understood as how effectively a site/organization is designed in
order to help the user navigate it. This is inclusive of how the services are organized and if there are
summaries of the broader service structure. This indicator is the broadest in most evaluative lists
and specific criterion can include readability, visual aesthetics, ease of use and robustness of public
services forms. As government services are intended for public use, broad accessibility is
encouraged and must take into account disability access, and compatibility across advancements in
ICT’s [33].
Chicago’s overall functionality and interface of its city services website is clearly organized and
easy to navigate. Subsuming the various services and information items into broader themes, allows
the user of all levels to easily find what they are looking for. At the same time, it enables the
interested user to scan the various thematic components of the website in a clear and concise
manner. Additionally, the style is consistent on all pages, with its recognizable multi-shaded blue
background and orange text/banners, signaling to the user that you are still within the City of
Chicago’s website.
Finally, it is worth noting that Chicago employs numerous interactive components through ‘Online
Service’ icons. These are essential as they turn the passive user into an active user and they are
clearly demarcated with a computer icon and are joined with a legend on the right hand side of the
page in clear view.
d. Public Services
Public Services can be best understood as encompassing a two level audience approach: citizens and
business. Within each of these levels, we measure availability of payment and registration and
application services; for the citizen we look at online recruitment and for the business online
tendering [33]. Utilities can be used as tools for decision making for the government or the citizens
[34].
In Chicago, these two levels of public services are not clearly separated, but are subsumed into the
broad services list (organized in themes from A to Z). Within the advertising (partnership) section,
there is no present online component, however there are phone numbers and email addresses to
contact for further information. From the citizen perspective there are some online components of
registration/application services (i.e. ‘Inviting the Mayor to an event’ can be applied for online) but
6 de 9other services simply provide registration applications that must be then printed/downloaded and
emailed/faxed/mailed through the postal service. This can be seen as an area of improvement for the
city services as enhanced technologies arise, as a means to increase efficiency and ease.
Conclusion
Public services offered to citizens can be enhanced through electronic government projects and
digital city goals. However it is important that the public services are appropriate to the needs of
each citizen. To achieve this, proper and informative planning must take place, to become an
inexorable participative instrument of management for municipal government. With the right
modeling, planning and availability of public services, it makes possible the breakthroughs in
citizenship building within the public space, municipal democratic governability, and transparency
of management and in the urban, rural and regional development of the cities. Also, the information
can facilitate communications between the citizens and govern to expand credibility, trust and
equality, promoting accountability, transparency, and democracy.
The objective of this proposal has been achieved as details of the public services in Chicago have
been presented through website and evalutated. Chicago offers its citizens 281 public services
distributed in 256 subjects or themes. The electronic government projects of the City of Chicago can
be considered adequate, but can be improved as technology improves and should be further
extended to citizens. In the case of citizens with entry-level computer knowledge and limited access
to such technologies, there exists a greater need for communal access to computers.
The public services offered via the website resulted in benefits for the municipalities, notably
modernization of municipal management activities improved access to information and public
services as a result of increased internet use brought about by digital inclusion. With the use of the
resources of information technology, in particular the Internet, it was observed that it is possible to
better integrate the citizen to the government. With this integration, it was possible to realize
enhanced communications between the citizens and government, expanding the credibility, trust and
equality while promoting accountability, transparency, and democracy.
The analysis reiterates the importance of availability of public services to all citizens, through the
Internet (and technologies for access), to achieve the goals of the digital age. Public services allow
citizens to plan and decide the most adequate use of such services.
Acknowledgments: CNPq-Brasil, FA-Paraná, PUCPR and DePaul.
References
[1] H. L. MEIRELLES. Direito administrativo brasileiro. 39 ed. São Paulo: Malheiros (2013).
[2] R. E. ENGLAND; J. P. PELISSERO; D. R. MORGAN. Managing urban America. 7th ed.
Washington: CQ Press (2012).
[3] J. GRUBER. Public finance and public policy. 3 ed. New York: Library of Congress (2011).
[4] C. SKELCHER. Improving the quality of local Public services. The Service Industries Journal,
v. 12 (4), p. 463-477 (Oct 1992).
[5] M. HOLZER; C. KIM; S. KIM; J. MELITSKI; S. RHO. Digital government worldwide: an e-
government assessment of municipal Web sites. International Journal of Electronic
Government Research, v. 1 (1), p. 1-19 (2005).
7 de 9[6] R. M. STAIR. Principles of information systems: a managerial approach. 8 ed. Boston: Course
Technology (2007).
[7] E. TURBAN; E. McLEAN; J. WETHERBE. Information technology for management:
improving quality and productivity. New York: John Wiley and Sons (1996).
[8] D. A. REZENDE; A. F. ABREU. Tecnologia da informação aplicada a sistemas de informação
empresariais: o papel estratégico da informação e dos sistemas de informação nas empresas. 9.
ed. São Paulo: Atlas (2013).
[9] R. HEEKS. Reinventing government in the information age: international practice in IT-enabled
public sector reform. London/New York: Routledge (2001).
[10] J. WARD; J. PEPPARD. Strategic planning for information systems. New York: John Wiley &
Sons (2002).
[11] D. A. REZENDE. Planejamento de estratégias e informações municipais para cidade digital:
guia para projetos em prefeituras e organizações públicas. São Paulo: Atlas (2012).
[12] S. BHATNAGAR. E-government: from vision to implementation. New Delhi: Sage
Publications (2004).
[13] D. M. WEST. Digital government: technology and public sector performance. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press (2005).
[14] D. D. NAVARRA; T. CORNFORD. ICT, innovation and public management: governance,
models & alternatives for e-government infrastructures. European Conference on Information
Systems (ECIS) (2005).
[15] V. J. J. M. BEKKERS; V. HOMBURG. The information ecology of e-government: e-
government as institutional and technological innovation in public administration. Washington,
DC: IOS Press (2005).
[16] R. HEEKS. Implementing and managing eGovernment: an international text. Thousand Oaks,
California: Sage Publications (2006).
[17] V. HOMBURG. Understanding e-government: information systems in public administration.
London: Routledge (2008).
[18] T. ISHIDA. Activities and technologies in digital city Kyoto. Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, State-of-the-Art Survey, 3081, 2004. Available at:
. Accessed: May, 21 (2012).
[19] K. MOSSBERGER, et al. Digital citizenship: the internet, society, and participation.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press (2008).
[20] A. AURIGI; S. GRAHAM. Virtual Cities, Social Polarisation and the Crisis in Urban Public
Space. Journal of Urban Technology, v. 4 (1), p. 19-52 (1997).
[21] F. S. DUARTE; H. F. PIRES. Inclusión digital, tres conceptos clave: conectividad,
accessibilidad, comunicabilidad. Revista Electrónica de Recursos em Internet sobre Geografía
y Ciencias Sociales, v. 150 (1), p. 1-15 (2011).
[22] P. V. D. BESSELAAR; D. BECKERS. Demographics and sociographics of the digital city.
Available at: . Accessed: Feb, 2 (2009).
[23] E. P. GUERREIRO. Cidade digital: infoinclusão social e tecnologia em rede. São Paulo:
SENAC São Paulo (2006).
8 de 9[24] A. LEMOS (Org.). Cibercidades II. Ciberurbe: a cidade na sociedade da informação. Rio de
Janeiro: Editora E-Papers (2005).
[25] M. CASTELLS. A Sociedade em Rede. A era da Informação: economia, sociedade e cultura. 8
ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra (2005).
[26] J. M. BARBERO. La ciudad virtual: transformationes de la sensibilidad y nuevos escenarios de
comunicaión. Revista de la Universidad del Valle. n. 14, Cali (1996).
[27] L. S. MENDES; M. L. BOTTOLI; G. D. BREDA. Digital cities and open MANs: a new
communications paradigm. IEEE Latin-American Conference on Communications, v. 8 (4), p.
1-8 (2010).
[28] R. K. YIN. Case study research: design and methods. 4 ed. London: Sage Publications Inc.,
USA, 2008.
[29] D. NACHMIAS; C. NACHMIAS. Research methods in the social sciences. 6. ed. New York:
Worth Publishers, 2006.
[30] DIGITAL COMMUNITIES. Digital Cities Survey. Available at:
. Accessed: Feb, 15 (2013).
[31] CHICAGO. City of Chicago: city services - service directory. Available at:
. Accessed: July, 21 (2013).
[32] J. B. SIMÃO; G. RODRIGUES. Acessibilidade às informações públicas: uma avaliação do
portal de serviços e informações do governo federal. Revista Ciência da Inormação. Ci. Inf.,
Brasília, v. 34, n. 2, p. 81-92, maio/ago (2005).
[33] M. R. MIDDLETON. Approaches to evaluation of websites for public sector services. In
Kommers, Piet, Eds. Proceedings IADIS Conference on e-Society, pp. 279-284, Lisbon,
Portugal (2007).
[34] D. A. REZENDE; G. S. MADEIRA; L. S. MENDES; G. D. BREDA; B. B. ZARPELÃO; F. C.
FIGUEIREDO. Information and Telecommunications Project for a Digital City: A Brazilian
case study. Telematics and Informatics. In press, 2013. Available at:
. Accessed: July, 21
(2013).
9 de 9You can also read
