Abstract
Information quality is critical for a communication portal because there are myriad information types, including textual, audio, video and other complex information types, which an organization has to manage. In this chapter, the author examine the information quality satisfaction of the Central Cyber Government Office (CCGO), which is a communication portal developed by the Hong Kong Government. A survey study was conducted to investigate how users evaluate the information quality of CCGO. This portal case is interesting because: (1) Hong Kong Government has invested millions of US dollars in its implementation; and (2) the number of potential users is huge (over 140,000) in 2007.
TopBackground
Central Cyber Government Office (CCGO)
In 2000, the Hong Kong Government launched its Intranet communication portal, the Central Cyber Government Office (CCGO), for its employees (HKG, 2009). This portal is designed for disseminating information within the government. It also acts as a hub for linking up services provided to internal customers from different government agencies. Its function is similar to GovHK, (http://www.gov.hk), the e-Government one-stop portal for members of the public developed by the Hong Kong Government. Users can access to CCGO via their network terminals, which are connected to the government Intranet. Apart from acting as a communication portal, CCGO also provides other add-on services, ranged from simple search functions, such as telephone directory and glossaries, to bulletin boards and discussion forums. Plus, CCGO acts as a platform for G2E and G2G applications. New applications, such as the electronic leave application system, electronic payroll system, and departmental portals were launched in the past few years (HKG, 2009).
In this study, we examine the user satisfaction on this Intranet portal. We choose CCGO as the focus of our study based on the following reasons. First, the Hong Kong Government is one of the pioneers in implementing e-Government projects in the world and ranked the seventh in the worldwide “Overall Maturity in e-Government” (Accenture, 2004). Thus, we conjuncture CCGO would be well designed. Second, the number of users of CCGO is huge. When we conducted our study in 2003/2004, the number of users of CCGO was around 50,000, i.e. 1/3 of the staff force. In the past few years, its user population has increased to 140,000 and it is now accessible by nearly all civil servants. With more knowledge on how information quality factors affecting user satisfaction on CCGO, business firms and governments can obtain insights on how to develop their own communication portals. Therefore, we aim at addressing the following research questions:
- (1)
How does information accuracy (Ac) affect the user satisfaction of Government Intranet portal?
- (2)
How does presentation format (P) affect the user satisfaction of Government Intranet portal?
- (3)
How does information timeliness (Ti) affect the user satisfaction of Government Intranet portal?
- (4)
How does content relevancy (C) affect the user satisfaction of Government Intranet portal?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Information Quality: Information quality is “the quality of the information that the systems produces” (DeLone & McLean, 1992). It can further divided into four data quality (DQ) categories, viz. Intrinsic DQ, Contextual DQ, Representational DQ, and Accessibility DQ (Wang & Strong, 1996).
Content Relevancy: Content Relevancy is “the degree of congruence between what the user wants or requires and what is provided by the information products and services” (Bailey & Pearson, 1983). It is one of the elements of Contextual data quality (Wang & Strong, 1996).
Information Timeliness: Information Timeliness relates to “the availability of the output information at a time suitable for its use” (Bailey & Pearson, 1983). It is one of the elements of Contextual data quality (Wang & Strong, 1996).
Presentation Format: Presentation Format is the measure of how “the output is presented in a useful format and whether the information is clear” (Doll and Torkzadeh, 1998)
Electronic Government (e-Government): Electronic Government (e-Government) is referring to the use of information technology to provide government services online, which aims to provide faster and better services for stakeholders. It can be divided into four basic categories, viz. Government to Citizen (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B), Government-to-Government (G2G), and Government-to-Employee (G2E).
Intranet Portal: Intranet Portal is a gateway on the Intranet developed by an organization, which unifies access to all information and applications related to the daily operation of the organization.
Information Accuracy: Information Accuracy relates to “the correctness of the output information” (Bailey & Pearson, 1983). It is one of the elements of intrinsic data quality (Wang & Strong, 1996).