Indian Government Websites : A Study

B B Chand; Ramesha B.

doi:10.14429/djlit.37.5.10964

B B Chand Institute of Social and Economic Change
Ramesha B. Bangalore University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.37.5.10964

Keywords: Government websites, Website evaluation, Information dissemination, Information facilitation index, Usability analysis

Abstract

Transparency and accountability, participation and services are some of the important priorities of governments across the word today. Information plays an essential role in achieving all there objectives which is largely being delivered by using websites. Study of these websites entails the role of governments in disseminating information and providing services to the user community. The current study uses 6 key parameters with 55 indicators to evaluate the performance of 81 central government ministries and departments. It is found that all the websites are following guidelines related to identifier with utmost importance, where as the scores in information, usability and security parameters are quite acceptable. It is also found that the score with respect to participation and services it is very low. Correlation analysis shows strong relationship between information and usability and usability and participation. The study also observes that most of the websites mostly facebook or tweeter for social networking. The information facilitation index shows that Ministry of External Affairs has the highest score of 0.875 and the lowest score lies with Department of Agricultural Research and Education. Though information is being delivered through the websites can be accessed with little efforts, the concern is that when it comes to citizen participation and service delivery there is quite a lot to be improved.

Author Biographies

B B Chand, Institute of Social and Economic Change

Mr B.B. Chand is currently working as a Deputy Librarian and Head, Dr V.K.R.V. Rao Library, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru. He has over 15 years of professional experience and earlier associated with IIM, Indore, US Library of Congress, New Delhi and NCAER, New Delhi. His prime research areas include : Digital library, research library, social science information, data curation, open data and linked data, government data.

Ramesha B., Bangalore University

Dr Ramesha, presently he is working as Professor and Chairman in the Department of Library and Information Science, Bengaluru University, Bengaluru. He was awarded ‘ILA – A.G. Motiwale Award for Young LIS Professionals -2007’ and ‘ILA – Dr C.D. Sharma Best Paper Award 2009’, respectively by the Indian Library Association. He has published more than 70 research papers and edited 10 Books. His area of interest includes Information Literacy, Design and Development of Digital Repositories and Application of ICT in LIS.