To order raw e-government data, visit http://www.InsidePolitics.org/egovtdata.html
Tennessee and Maine
are Best States for American E-Government
A study of digital
government in the 50 states and major federal agencies also finds that FirstGov (the U.S. portal) and the Social Security
Administration are the top-rated federal sites.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Tennessee and Maine are the best states for e-government in the United States, according to the fifth annual e-government analysis conducted by researchers at Brown University. FirstGov and the Social Security Administration are the most highly rated federal sites.
Darrell M. West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, and a team of researchers examined 1,629 state and federal sites. The researchers analyzed 1,569 state sites (or an average of 31.4 sites per state) plus 60 federal sites. Research was completed during June, July, and August, 2004. Previous e-government studies were released in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003.
Websites are evaluated for the presence of various electronic features, such as online publications, online databases, audio clips, video clips, foreign language or language translation, advertisements, premium fees, user payments or fees, disability access, several measures of privacy policy, multiple indicators of security policy, presence of online services, the number of online services, digital signatures, credit card payments, email addresses, comment forms, automatic email updates, website personalization, PDA accessibility, quality control, and readability level.
The results show that progress has been made on several fronts. In terms of online services, 56 percent of state and federal sites have services that are fully executable online, up from 44 percent last year. In addition, a growing number of sites offer privacy and security policy statements. This year, 63 percent have some form of privacy policy on their site, up from 54 percent in 2003. Forty-six percent now have a visible security policy, up from 37 percent last year. Twenty-one percent of sites offer some type of foreign language translation, up from 13 percent last year.
However, little progress has been made in providing disability access. Using automated Bobby software available from Watchfire, Inc., 42 percent of federal sites and 37 percent of state sites meet the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) disability guidelines. The states numbers are up from 33 percent in 2003, while the federal numbers are down from 47 percent last year.
There are also a number of quality control issues on public sites. To measure these quality problems, we used WebXM, Watchfire's enterprise platform to analyze each of the 50 state government portals. The WebXM platform scans enterprise websites regardless of size or complexity, and identifies compliance, quality and risk issues. For this project the WebXM quality module was used to scan a random sample of 5,000 pages from each state and identify online quality issues that impact the user experience, such as broken links and anchors, broken links, missing titles, missing keywords, missing descriptions, warnings and redirects and poor search functionality. Nearly every state has a large number of sites with content, search, and design problems.
The study ranks the 50 states and various federal agencies on overall e-government performance. Using measures such as online services, attention to privacy and security, disability access, and foreign language translation, researchers rated the various state sites and compared their performance to last year.
The top ranking states include Tennessee, Maine, Utah, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Indiana, Texas, Delaware, and New Jersey. The most poorly performing e-government states are West Virginia, Mississippi, Wyoming, and Nebraska. The following table shows where each state ranked in 2004, with the previous year's ranking or score in parentheses.
|
Rank |
State |
Rating Out of 100 Pts |
Rank |
State |
Rating Out of 100 Pts |
|
1.(4) |
Tennessee |
56.5(41.4) |
2.(25) |
Maine |
55.2(37.4) |
|
3.(17) |
Utah |
54.6(38.1) |
4.(8) |
New
York |
53.6(40.5) |
|
5.(11) |
Illinois |
51.0(39.7) |
6.(1) |
Massachusetts |
51.0(46.3) |
|
7.(3) |
Indiana |
46.0(42.4) |
8.(4) |
Texas |
44.5(43) |
|
9.(24) |
Delaware |
44.2(37.4) |
10.(13) |
New
Jersey |
41.3(39.6) |
|
11.(5) |
California |
41.2(41.1) |
12.(22) |
Connecticut |
40.3(37.9) |
|
13.(9) |
Florida |
39.9(40.3) |
14.(21) |
Kansas |
39.9(38) |
|
15.(7) |
Pennsylvania |
39.3(40.5) |
16.(37) |
Arkansas |
39.2(34) |
|
17.(10) |
Kentucky |
39.0(40) |
18.(15) |
Arizona |
38.8(39.1) |
|
19.(34) |
Oregon |
38.6(34.9) |
20.(26) |
Ohio |
38.5(37.4) |
|
21.(28) |
Louisiana |
38.2(36.6) |
22.(6) |
Michigan |
38.0(40.6) |
|
23.(16) |
Washington |
37.8(38.6) |
24.(19) |
Virginia |
37.7(38.1) |
|
25.(31) |
Georgia |
36.9(35.8) |
26.(23) |
N.
Hampshire |
36.0(37.6) |
|
27.(39) |
Colorado |
35.5(33.1) |
28.(14) |
S.
Dakota |
35.5(39.5) |
|
29.(33) |
Rhode
Island |
35.4(35.3) |
30.(29) |
N.
Dakota |
35.3(36.4) |
|
31.(20) |
N.
Carolina |
34.8(38) |
32.(18) |
Maryland |
34.4(38.1) |
|
33.(43) |
Montana |
34.1(32.7) |
34.(27) |
Minnesota |
34.0(36.8) |
|
35.(32) |
Nevada |
33.7(35.7) |
36.(30) |
Idaho |
33.7(35.9) |
|
37.(35) |
Iowa |
33.3(34.6) |
38.(12) |
Missouri |
33.0(39.7) |
|
39.(50) |
Alaska |
32.8(30.3) |
40.(45) |
Hawaii |
32.3(32.1) |
|
41.(44) |
Vermont |
31.3(32.3) |
42.(42) |
S.
Carolina |
30.6(32.7) |
|
43.(36) |
Wisconsin |
30.0(34.2) |
44.(46) |
Alabama |
29.9(31.9) |
|
45.(38) |
Oklahoma |
29.8(33.2) |
46.(49) |
New
Mexico |
28.8(30.3) |
|
47.(48) |
Nebraska |
28.5(31.3) |
48.(40) |
Wyoming |
28.4(33) |
|
49.(47) |
Mississippi |
26.8(31.5) |
50.(41) |
West
Virginia |
26.0(32.7) |
Top-rated federal websites include FirstGov (the U.S. portal), Social Security Administration, Department of Education, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Agriculture, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Reserve, General Services Administration, Postal Service, and the House of Representatives. At the low end of the ratings are the various circuit courts of appeals. The following table lists the ranking of federal agencies in 2004, with last year's rank or score in parentheses.
|
Rank |
Site |
Rating Out of 100 Pts. |
Rank |
Site |
Rating Out of 100 Pts. |
|
1.(1) |
FirstGov portal |
88(84) |
2.(3) |
Soc
Security Admin |
65(69) |
|
3.(21) |
Dept
of Education |
61(51) |
4.(2) |
Fed
Comm Com |
60.0(73) |
|
5.(11) |
Dept
of Agriculture |
56(56) |
6.(4) |
Internal
Revenue Serv |
56(68) |
|
7.(31) |
Fed
Reserve |
54(45) |
8.(13) |
Gen
Services Admin |
54(56) |
|
9.(6) |
Postal
Service |
54(68) |
10.(35) |
House
of Rep. |
53(42) |
|
11.(12) |
Dept
of Defense |
52(56) |
12.(9) |
Housing/Urban
Dev |
52(62) |
|
13.(33) |
NASA |
52(44) |
14.(22) |
Dept
of Transportation |
51(51) |
|
15.(7) |
Dept
of Treasury |
50(64) |
16.(45) |
Dept
of Interior |
50(36) |
|
17.(25) |
Dept
of Energy |
49(49) |
18.(38) |
Govt Printing |
49(41) |
|
19.(5) |
Library
of Congress |
49(68) |
20.(27) |
Gen
Account Office |
48(47) |
|
21.(53) |
Natl Endow Arts |
46(32) |
22.(8) |
Sec/Exchange
Comm |
46(64) |
|
23.(28) |
Veterans
Affairs |
46(47) |
24.(30) |
Cent
Intelligence Ag |
45(45) |
|
25.(10) |
Cons
Product Safety |
45(57) |
26.(16) |
Dept
of State |
45(54) |
|
27.(20) |
Health/Human
Serv |
45(52) |
28.(14) |
Natl Science Found |
45(56) |
|
29.(15) |
Small
Bus Admin |
45(56) |
30.(18) |
White
House |
45(53) |
|
31.(17) |
Food
Drug Admin |
42(53) |
32.(43) |
Homeland
Security |
42(38) |
|
33.(24) |
Env Protect Agency |
41(50) |
34.(19) |
Fed
Trade Comm |
41(52) |
|
35.(32) |
Cong
Budget Office |
40(44) |
36.(42) |
Natl Transp Safety |
40(40) |
|
37.(23) |
Dept
of Commerce |
39(50) |
38.(40) |
Fed
Deposit |
39(40) |
|
39.(39) |
Dept
of Justice |
37(49) |
40.(37) |
Eq Employ Opp |
37(41) |
|
41.(59) |
4th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
36(24) |
42.(34) |
Office
Man Budget |
36(44) |
|
43.(46) |
Senate |
36(36) |
44.(44) |
Natl Labor Relations |
35(38) |
|
45.(36) |
5th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
33(41) |
46.(26) |
Dept
of Labor |
33(49) |
|
47.(29) |
Fed
Elect Comm |
33(46) |
48.(47) |
Supreme
Ct |
33(36) |
|
49.(48) |
US
Trade Rep |
32(36) |
50.(55) |
9th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
30(29) |
|
51.(41) |
Natl Endow Human |
30(40) |
52.(51) |
Fed
Circuit Ct Appeals |
26(33) |
|
53.(49) |
11th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
25(34) |
54.(52) |
3rd
Circuit Ct Appeals |
24(32) |
|
55.(54) |
1st
Circuit Ct Appeals |
21(29) |
56.(57) |
2nd
Circuit Ct Appeals |
20(25) |
|
57.(56) |
7th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
20(28) |
58.(60) |
8th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
20(24) |
|
59.(50) |
10th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
18(33) |
60.(58) |
6th
Circuit Ct Appeals |
17(25) |
In the conclusion of their report, West and his research team suggest several means to improve e-government web sites. One area is the way in which departments field online questions and receive feedback. Sometimes, help features and email addresses are hidden in small font at the bottom of pages. This makes it more difficult to get help at the very time when websites are incorporating more complex applications on their sites.
Some sites include feedback and question forms instead of an email address. This is certainly an improvement, as it is usually easier to find and allows users with no email capabilities to send feedback to a technician. However, these people still cannot receive responses without an address of their own, and as a result webpage forms are only more useful than address links for sending unidirectional feedback to the site.
One solution to this problem is to incorporate a help forum into the site, which would allow questions and responses to be publicly posted rather than sent to a mailbox. Not only would this allow people with no email capabilities to be included in the help process, but it allows questions and responses to be viewed by all people, such that frequent user problems need not be constantly attended to. Agencies would benefit from following the example of those who have incorporated a live help feature to their portal website. Chatroom-style live dialogue with a technician is the most user-friendly way to address the questions and concerns of users.
Another area that can be improved by many states is ease of navigation. Most people will come to state portal sites in search of specific services. It can be assumed that many of these individuals are not aware of which department or agency is responsible for the service they are looking for. Portal sites should be organized by services and needs, not according to bureaucratic hierarchy. Most portal sites now have a consolidated list of online services offered by all departments. This is an important first step in the restructuring of state websites. Several states, including several of the top ranked, now include a link to this list in a toolbar that exists on nearly all of the departmental pages. This feature increases citizen usability by making it easy to access services from any point on the site.
For more information about the results of this study, please contact Darrell West at (401) 863-1163 or see the full report at www.InsidePolitics.org. The Appendix of that report provides e-government profiles for each of the 50 states and the federal agencies.