The development status and problems of China's portal website

From the start of the government Internet project in 1999, the development of government websites has entered a new stage of "portal" development, making the development of government portals gradually become the leader of e-government construction, and the development of government portals has also prompted the construction of e-government to become the "leader" of promoting national informatization. "

The development of government portal has also made e-government construction become the leader of promoting national informatization, and it is the concentrated manifestation of the achievements of e-government construction, which has driven and promoted the development of the whole society's informatization through the government's access to the Internet.

But the development of government portals to today, some of the development of the problem is also clearly exposed, and in the understanding of the existence of bias is also increasingly visible in the future development we have to correct the government portals in the development of bias and solve the existing problems.

A government portal construction and operation of the main confusion

Since the start of the government Internet project in 1999, the country's cities and counties have been building a government portal most of the original information system under the State Planning Commission to undertake, but with the changes in institutional reforms to undertake the construction of government portals in the department of the main several times, so that in the country to manage and operate Government portals department, basically has not been able to become an efficient system, a few years we understand through different channels, now the construction of government portals at all levels across the country, the management and operation of the system is summarized basically three chaotic.

First of all, the confusion of affiliation, especially at the municipal and county levels of management and operation of government portals department of the confusion of affiliation is particularly prominent, the municipal and county levels of management and operation of government portals are subordinate to the Party Committee Office, the Government Office, the Party Committee propaganda department, the Development and Reform Commission, the information industry sector, the statistics department, and the individual municipal and county governments directly under the. Because of these authorities have different business subjects, the angle and focus of an issue or thing to recognize different, so that the current government portal construction of a variety of different, not easy for the public to use.

Secondly, the nature of the management and operation of the government portal departments is confusing, there are reference to the civil service approach to management, there are financial full-funded institutions, there are financial differential allocation of institutions, and there are also some people working on the same site, there is a variety of differences in their status. A few years of frequent reform of the institutions, so that the nature of the sector is poorer units of talent can not be retained, mediocrity can not do the work of the situation.

Finally, there is confusion in the hierarchical structure of the units, which is highlighted by the fact that the departments that manage and run government portals at the prefecture and city levels are roughly two levels down from the top.

The first point of the above three chaotic, so that the management and operation of government portals at all levels of the department of the system does not function, resulting in the construction of government portals in a variety of ways. The differences that exist in the second and third points make the function of the talents not play out, affecting the subjective motivation of people.

So, all levels of management and operation of government portals urgently need the state to solve the problem of confusion in the management and operation of government portals main body, so that it plays a systematic benefit for the future construction and operation of standardized government portals to lay the necessary foundation and system and management to ensure.

From the healthy development of the cause, it is recommended that the main body of the management and operation of government portals at all levels should be made independent from their respective subordinate organizations, because the work of government portals overseeing the whole of the government departments of the online services and office affairs, the existing party and government departments have their own main business, so that the construction and management of e-government affairs of such a concern to the whole situation, in particular, the management and operation of government portals. Portal management and operation work, into a department of the subordinate business, will not be conducive to the development of e-government, and therefore said to be responsible for the construction of e-government, management and operation of the organization is not suitable for who is subordinate. After it becomes independent or is called e-government administration, and is directly supervised by the executive deputy heads of governments at all levels or the secretaries-general of governments, the departments responsible for the management and operation of government portals will have the power to supervise, check and evaluate the behavior of government departments on government portals while serving government departments, so that the departments responsible for the management and operation of government portals will have the power to do their jobs and be conducive to the development of their work. (c) The government departments responsible for the management and operation of the government portals are empowered to carry out their work. In addition, the main body of the management and operation of government portals at all levels to become a system will bring great benefits to the unified planning and management of government portals, conducive to solving the second problem described below, but also will certainly save a lot of management and operation costs and improve efficiency.

Because of the various government portals at all levels of management and operation of the subject of the affiliation of a variety of subjects, the main body of the construction of the site has a different sense and focus, the understanding of the functions and role of the government portal there is a bias. As a result, the second problem that needs to be solved urgently arises.

Second, the government portal itself urgently needs to be unified and standardized

Today's society, the mobility of people in the increasing, out of a variety of needs, a person may be in a very short period of time need to understand some of the situation in a number of cities, the city's government portals have become the first choice to understand this information. At present, many government portals in China have problems such as confusing content categorization, unclear positioning, and unclear service targets. When we as a public browse the government portals of different cities, due to this variety of sites, should have been very fast and convenient information browsing, so that we have to be as if entering a maze, to patiently and carefully find. These problems are largely in three areas, one is in the home page of the site this densely packed in small words quickly, when we go to find the information we need, in different sites, its location is very different, like a maze. Second, the same information content, in different sites on the name of the column is different. Third, the same column name, in different sites on the information content is not consistent, these issues need to be standardized.

China's government website construction and development has been a decade or so of history, the initial formation of a group of government websites construction pattern, marking the construction of government portals has been a scale, from the central government website to all levels of the government website has accumulated a lot of experience, the formation of the *** knowledge is also more and more, should begin to implement a more effective construction of the government website group and the standardization of the construction of government portals. . It is suggested that, at present, the competent departments of the central government should take the lead in organizing experienced comrades at all levels of government portals to study the model of standardizing government portals at all levels, and to produce standardized and unified styles of government portals at all levels for promotion and use. And with reference to the website construction, management and operation mode of the Ministry of Commerce, a group of government websites is established with the government portal as the leader. In particular, government portals at the city and county levels, which are the main windows for serving the public, should be promoted so that the public can easily find relevant information when browsing government portals in different cities. Therefore, should be in the home page of the website with about two-thirds of the layout to make mandatory standardized design, such as to be unified column name, column content requirements, columns where the location of the site, etc., as well as the format of each page should also have a certain degree of uniformity and standardization, especially the head of the web page and the bottom of the format of the design of the page to be unified, but the background and site logo can be customized according to local characteristics. With about one-third of the page for local characteristics of the design, so as to reflect the characteristics of different cities. In the column within the sub-columns should also make the necessary mandatory provisions, at the same time, but also according to the local characteristics of the respective increase in a number of characteristics of the sub-columns, which will achieve a harmonious unity of the various inter-governmental portals at the same level * * * sex and personality. In addition, there is still confusion over the name of the website and the website domain name, and there is also an urgent need to unify and standardize. I think it is time to unify and standardize the government portal. In this way, so that those due to the lack of technical personnel and funds in the region can also have a good website planning and design as a technical support, as for the richness of the information material or not, updated in a timely manner or not, the quality of service or not, it depends on the local party and government leaders of the importance of the degree of attention. Therefore, this measure can promote the construction and development of government portals in relatively backward areas.

Three, through the evaluation of government portals to assess the work of the government itself

Annual assessment of government portals and evaluation work should reflect the evaluation of government portals through the assessment of the local government itself in the quality and level of online services for the people, rather than the assessment of government portals themselves, the government portals itself does not produce information, can not answer the netizens' inquiries, complaints, adopt the netizen's The government portal itself does not produce information, cannot answer netizens' inquiries and complaints, and cannot adopt netizens' suggestions and opinions. Instead, the government departments and functions release information, do business online and interact with netizens through the platform of the government portal, thus realizing the purpose of serving the people online. The higher level of government assessment of the lower level of government portal, in essence, through the government portal to the lower level of government assessment, this level of government through the assessment of this level of government portal is in essence, the assessment of the functional departments in the government portal work performance.

The solution of the above problems can make the government portal and its management and operation of the department to achieve the repeated smooth relationship, standardize the standard, assessment and evaluation of the target and other purposes, is conducive to the healthy development of e-government, especially the government portal to facilitate the completion of the government through the use of government portals by an all-powerful control of the government to the service-oriented government transformation, so that the general public can really realize through the network dealing with the government.

Author: Qin Chengxiang, Deputy Director of Qiqihar Information Center

Preface

In order to comprehensively grasp the development status of government portals at all levels in China, summarize the problems in a timely manner, and provide a reference basis for the formulation of policies and measures to further promote the development of e-government, the State Council Informatization Office has commissioned the China Academy of Electronics Industry Development (CAIED), Saidi Consultant Co. Ltd. to set up a working group (State Information Office Letter [2003] No. 122) to study and formulate survey indicators and implement the annual survey.

On April 8, 2004, at the New Century Hotel in Beijing, the Informatization Office of the State Council organized a symposium on the "2003 Survey on the Development Status of China's Government Portal Sites" for personnel and experts from relevant units. Zhao Xiaofan, Director of the Promotion and Application Group of the Information Office of the State Council, presided over the symposium, and Sun Guofeng, Deputy General Manager of the Informatization Consulting Division of Sadie's Consultant, introduced the survey process and the results of the survey, General Office of the Ministry of Finance, General Office of the Ministry of Personnel, General Office of the Ministry of Information Industry, General Office of the Ministry of Commerce, General Office of the Ministry of Culture, Office of the State Drug and Food Supervision Administration, the State Council Information Office Secretarial Bureau and other 13 ministries and units of the comrades, on the relevant issues respectively, expressed their views, and launched a lively discussion.

Some of the findings of the survey are now published, hoping to draw the attention of the relevant government departments, and also hoping to get suggestions from all sectors of the community to improve the future survey work.

Three major indicators constitute China's government portal evaluation system

Measuring the level of development of government portals must always be centered on the development of e-government requirements, while at the same time to meet the performance characteristics of the site itself, based on this, Saidi consultants believe that the government portal indicator system to follow the following five basic principles:

1. Through the survey indicators and findings of the survey can play a positive and correct role in guiding the development of government websites at all levels.

2. Objectivity. The survey indicators are mainly objective indicators (avoid subjective indicators as much as possible), through the website analysis can objectively respond to the important attributes of the website.

3. Comparability. Indicators must be set in conjunction with the current level of development of China's government websites in general, the indicators should not be too high, and at the same time must be able to distinguish between the level of differences between the websites, so that different websites can be compared with each other.

4. Operability. Try to make the indicators simple and easy to understand, objective scoring, easy to count the data, easy and quick to calculate.

5. Expandability. With the different stages of development of the government website, the survey indicator system must be adapted to make timely adjustments.

From the world's e-government development path, its main content construction basically follow the process from information dissemination to interactive services. In addition to the content of the website, the functional structure is the guarantee for the realization of the content of the portal. Therefore, this government portal index system consists of three parts: "government information disclosure", "government interactive services" and "website functional structure".

For the different characteristics of ministry websites and local websites, the indicator systems of the two are slightly different. The indicator system of ministry websites includes 35 specific indicators, including 19 indicators of information disclosure, 7 indicators of interactive services, and 9 indicators of functional structure, while the indicator system of local websites includes 40 specific indicators, including 24 indicators of information disclosure, 7 indicators of interactive services, and 9 indicators of functional structure, as shown in Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Evaluation index system of China's government portals

This survey adopts the "index" method to measure the comprehensive development level of websites and the construction level of a certain content or function, and the index takes the value of the interval of 0-1, with the theoretical minimum value of 0 and the maximum value of 1.

The overall development of China's government portals

The objects of this survey include ministries and departments of the State Council and their direct subordinate agencies (hereinafter collectively referred to as "ministries") and provincial, prefecture and county-level (hereinafter collectively referred to as "local") government portals. etc. In the course of the survey, the ministries and their subordinate organizations (***77) and provincial (***31) and prefectural (***329) government portals were surveyed in their entirety, and a sample of county-level (a sample of 414) government portals was used for the survey.

Survey results show that overall China's government portals are still in the early stages of development, reflected in the index, the score are below 0.5. In terms of the comparison of provincial, local and county-level websites, the development of provincial government portals is relatively good; county-level government portals are relatively backward. Regarding ministry portals, their development is also not optimistic, and the overall situation is slightly worse than that of provincial websites. The specific index scores are shown in the figure below.

Figure 2 Comparison of Comprehensive Index of China's Government Portal Development at All Levels

Survey results show that the top 10 ministerial portals are, in order, the Ministry of Commerce, the State Food and Drug Administration, the Audit Office, the Forestry Bureau, the Grain Bureau, the State Administration of Taxation, the Ministry of Health, the Administration of Foreign Exchange, the State Administration of Work Safety and the State Environmental Protection Administration; and the top 10 portals of the country's provincial and municipal level The top 10 portals are Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hebei, Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangxi, Xinjiang, Shaanxi and Fujian; the top 10 government portals are Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Zhuhai, Qingdao, Wuhan, Dalian, Huangshi, Suzhou and Shantou.

China's government portal "information disclosure" development

"Information disclosure" is the foundation of government portals, the survey results show that, in addition to county-level websites, China's provincial, prefecture-level and ministry-level websites have "information disclosure" as the foundation of government portals. County-level websites are still in their infancy, and the specific indexes are shown in the figure below.

Figure 3: The development of "information disclosure" on China's government portals

From the point of view of the specific information content published on the website, the government portals at the ministry level provide "policies and regulations", "departmental overview", and "information disclosure" on their websites. departmental overview" and "departmental contact information" are the most numerous, with the proportion of websites being 90.02%, 88.55% and 88.55%, respectively; the less published information is "bidding information", "organization setting", "information on the public", "information on the public", "information on the public", "information on the public", "information on the public", "information on the public" and "information on the public".

The three types of information on the provincial level have the largest number of websites, and the proportion of websites is 90.02%, 88.55% and 88.55% respectively.

Provincial government portals have the largest number of websites providing information on "Local Overview", "Policies and Regulations", and "Organization Setting", with the proportion of websites being 100.00%, 92.00% and 92.00%, respectively. 100.00%, 92.59%, and 88.89%; the less published information is "service time and place", "office guide", and "dynamic news", with a proportion of 77.78%. The proportion was 77.78%, 62.96% and 51.85% in that order.

Among the prefecture-level government portals, the largest number of websites provided information in the categories of "Local Overview", "Organization Setting" and "Notice", with the proportion of websites being 100.00%, 100.00%, 100.00% and 51.85%, in that order. 100.00%, 100.00%, 96.82%; publish less information for: "dynamic news", "leadership division of labor" and "service time and location". The proportion of the website is 70.49%, 61.17% and 49.42% in order.

County-level government portals have the largest number of websites that provide information in the categories of "Local Overview", "Organization" and "Notices and Announcements", with the proportion of websites being 94.02%, 73.1%, and 94.02%, respectively. 94.02%, 73.37%, 67.93%; the lesser published information is "leadership division", "office guide" and "service time and location", the proportion of websites is 47.28%, 47.28%, 67.93%, 67.93%, 67.93%, 47.28%, 47.28%, 47.28%, 47.28%, 47.28% and 67.93%, respectively. The proportion of websites was 47.28%, 36.96% and 15.76%, respectively.

Development of Interactive Services on Government Portals in China

Interactive services are the core of government portals, and the survey results show that interactive services are generally very poor on government portals at all levels in China. The survey results show that the situation of "interactive services" of government portals at all levels in China is generally very unsatisfactory, county-level government portals basically have not started, and provincial-level, prefecture-level, and ministry-level government portals have just taken a small step forward, with the indexes all below 0.3. The specific indexes are shown in the chart below.

Figure 4: Development of "Interactive Services" on China's Government Portals

From the point of view of the specific information content published on the website, the ministry-level government portals provide two types of services, namely "public opinion polls" and "complaint reporting". Complaints and Reports" are the two types of services with the highest number of websites, and the proportion of websites is 38.37% and 30.99% in that order; the services that provide less services are: "Declaration and Approval" and "Government Response", and the proportion of websites are 13.28% and 13.28% respectively. 13.28%.

Provincial government portals provide the largest number of websites providing the services of "Complaint and Reporting" and "Form Download", with the proportion of websites being 77.78% and 37.04%, respectively; and the fewer services provided are "Government Response" and "Online Consultation", the proportion of websites is 7.41% and 3.70% in turn.

Among prefecture-level government portals, the largest number of websites provided the services of "Complaint Reporting" and "Public Opinion Survey", and the proportion of websites was 89.94% and 31.19%, respectively; and the fewer services were "Government Response" and "Online Consultation", and the proportion of websites was 7.41% and 3.70%, respectively. "Government Response" and "Online Consultation", the proportion of websites is 4.60% and 2.03% in turn.

County-level government portals provide the largest number of services in the categories of "Complaints and Reports" and "Public Opinion Survey", with the proportion of websites being 28.80% and 7.61% in that order; and the fewer services provided are "form download" and "declaration and approval", the proportion of websites is 1.09% and 0% in that order.

Development of "Functional Structure" of China's Government Portal Websites

"Functional structure" is the guarantee of government portals, and the survey results show that the construction of "Functional Structure" of China's government portals is generally in a good condition. In terms of the functional structure of government portals at the provincial, prefecture, county and ministry levels, the overall development of county-level government websites is a bit worse, with an index score of less than 0.2. The specific score is shown in the figure below.

Figure 5: Functional structure of China's government portals

Survey results show that, in terms of the functional structure of government portals at the ministry level, the proportion of websites with "reasonable content level" is 90.02%, which is a good development status; while the proportion of websites with "reasonable content level" is 90.02%. The proportion of websites that "provide help for use" is only 2.95%.

In terms of the functional structure of provincial government portals, the proportion of websites with "reasonable content hierarchy" and "with content hints" was 100.00%, while the proportion of websites that "provide help for use" was only 2.95%. The proportion of websites that "provide help for use" is 0%.

In terms of the functional structure of prefecture-level government portals, the proportion of websites with "reasonable content hierarchy", "content hints" and "relevant links" is 100.00%; while the proportion of websites with "help in using" is 0%. 100.00%; while the proportion of websites that "provide help for use" is 0.81%.

In terms of the functional structure of county-level government portals, the proportion of websites with "reasonable content hierarchy" is 95.65%, while the proportion of websites with "help for use" is 0%.

This is the first comprehensive survey of government portals at all levels in China, and the goal of the indicators is to understand the systematic nature of website content construction. Future surveys will be based on the results of the current research and will further explore the depth and quality assessment of information and service content. Due to the time constraints, heavy workload and lack of experience, there are still many shortcomings in this survey. It is believed that with the continuous improvement of the survey index system and the gradual improvement of the survey methodology, the results of the survey on China's government portals will provide a more valuable reference for China's government to formulate relevant policies.