When shutdown is no option: Identifying the notion of the digital government continuity paradox in Estonia's eID crisis

States must increasingly manage cybersecurity threats and disruptions in their digital government infrastructures. However, the digital government literature lacks a systematic, more rigorous understanding of how states respond to such risks and crises and what factors can explain these responses. This article addresses this research gap by identifying explanatory mechanisms of cyber risk and crisis governance in a critical and, to date, unique case: the Estonian government's management of the ‘ROCA’ vulnerability, which rendered two-thirds of its national electronic identity cards vulnerable to a major security risk. The case provides one of few examples in which a digitally highly advanced state publicly dealt with a large-scale cyber risk at the heart of its digital government. Estonia overcame the crisis without constraining the affected infrastructures' functionality, while other countries did not. The article examines a seeming paradox of 'digital government continuity': Crisis managers can not afford to shut down widely adopted, yet vulnerable, digital systems. However, the vulnerable systems' continued operation contributes to their resilience. The article identifies five constructs that help explain digital government resilience: 1) technology management, 2) networked cooperation, 3) collaboration capital, 4) risk management capacity, and 5) legitimacy building.     

Social media use in local government: Linkage of technology,task, and organizational context

Social media technologies have begun to enter the governmental workplace as tools to accomplish improved public service and engagement. Widespread recognition of the potential of social media technology for achieving public outcomes does not match our understanding about how and why specific tools are being used for specific purposes. This paper makes use of newly collected national survey data from local government managers in five different agencies to address the questions: which social media tools are being used, for which tasks or purposes; and what organizational characteristics influence the coupling of task and technology. Findings reveal patterns of social media tool application for particular purposes, although organizations do not all use social media tools in the same way. Moreover, regression analysis shows that different organizational factors – work characteristics, innovativeness, technology and management capacity and stakeholder influence – predict each of the four technology–task couplings — social media for dissemination, social media for feedback on service quality, social media for participation, and social media for internal work collaboration. This study demonstrates that social media tools are not a monolithic group and calls for greater research attention to the complex interactions among social media technology, task and organizational context.     

Key issues in data center security: An investigation of government audit reports

The rising volume of electronic data, the growth in cloud computing and the need for secure and affordable large-scale data storage all contribute to the increasing reliance on data centers in society. This paper provides an overview of security issues relevant to data centers. We offer an aggregation and exploratory analysis of four audit reports of government data centers operating in the United States. Using the information security common body of knowledge to categorize audit findings, we identify the key issues from the reoccurring findings in the reports, particularly in regards to operations security, data center management, physical security, and disaster planning. The security of data centers has become a paramount concern for both government and the information technology industry. Both practitioners and academics can benefit from our research results because it provides insight into the key security issues facing modern data centers.     

Business Models in Digital Book Publishing: Some Insights from Australia

This interpretive study of change in Australian book publishing, included a survey of book publishers and the conduct of 14 case studies in five categories of publisher: general trade, academic, professional, specialist and university. This paper reports in detail on the experience on one general trade publisher as it sought to face the challenges of globalization and of organizational and technological change. The major finding was that digitization is indeed, impacting on business models for book publishing, with current models comprising something of a hybrid between the traditional and the innovative. Reflecting the presence in Australia of similar trends and issues that are affecting book publishing around the world, the findings are of relevance both to book publishers and to researchers. The work is original in that relatively little recent academic research has been conducted into book publishing in Australia, particularly as regards the implications of digitization for business models.     

Seeking electronic information from government resources: A comparative analysis of two communities' web searching of municipal government websites

This study examines queries submitted through two municipal government websites over a 3-year period to discover patterns in information seeking that current web log analysis literature have not discovered or addressed. The findings reveal: in spite of subtle differences strong similarities remain between two different communities' information needs from municipal government websites; demographic variables and close physical proximity do not appear to affect these similarities; there appears to be a belief that municipal government websites can deliver all types of information; and, using methods presented in this paper, municipal governments may better manage their online information resources.     

Looking for datasets to open: An exploration of government officials' information behaviors in open data policy implementation

In recent years, more and more government administrations around the world are participating in open data policy implementation. Government officials who are charged with implementing this new policy usually need to look for related information for deciding what datasets to open to the public. Accordingly, a research gap exists in understanding government officials' information behaviors in implementing open data policy. By using a qualitative approach to conduct semi-structured interviews with government officials who have extensive experience in implementing open data policy, this study explores government officials' information behaviors in searching and selecting datasets for open data publication. Specifically, this research investigates government officials' information needs, the employed information sources, and the intervening variables that influence their information behaviors. While open data is an ongoing policy implementation, government officials' information behaviors form an iterative cycle where information needs continually occur, information seeking activities are conducted by using a variety of information sources, and the obtained information is used to satisfy information needs. The findings and discussions of this study are expected to provide insights of government officials' data search and selection to practitioners and to enrich the current literature of open government data.     

Understanding the key factors and configurational paths of the open government data performance: Based on fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

The governments worldwide have attached great importance to open government data (OGD), and many OGD projects have emerged in recent years. However, the performance of OGD greatly differs in various districts and governments. Therefore, the influencing factors of OGD performance should be explored. However, the existing research has not yet established a systematic analytical framework for OGD performance, and the explanation degree of performance differences in OGD implementation is limited. Thus, this study takes technical management capacity, financial resource, organization arrangement, rules and regulations, organization culture, public demand, and inter-government competition as antecedent conditions under the perspective of technology–organization–environment framework and resource-based theory. From the cases of 16 provincial OGD practice in China, we employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore the influencing mechanism of the interaction and coordination of multiple conditions on OGD performance. Results indicate that OGD performance depends on the integration of the total effect of various factors. Moreover, four configurational paths could be utilized to achieve high OGD performance, namely, organization–balanced path, organization–environment path, balanced path, and organization–technology path. Furthermore, a substitution relationship exists among different conditional variables, which points out the direction and focus of the implementation of OGD for governments with different endowment characteristics. This study enriches the existing studies of OGD implementation and provides references for OGD practice.     

Trends in courses taught: Insights from CMG’s college faculty database

CMG Information Services, or CMG (formerly College Marketing Group), has been maintaining a database of U.S. college and university teaching faculty since the mid-1970s. The database is primarily used by scholarly, academic, and college text-book publishers to promote their books by direct mail. One of the features that makes the database valuable to publishers is that it contains all the courses taught by each faculty member. The number and kinds of courses taught over the period of time that the database has been maintained affords a unique perspective on some of the changes occurring in the academic world. John F. Hood is senior vice president of CMG Information Services. Formerly known as College Marketing Group, CMG developed and introduced the first college faculty database for college text and academic publishers in 1973.     

Measurement of objects of the digital cultural space in analytics of the socio-cultural sphere

This paper deals with the problem of studying the virtual socio-cultural space through its measurement. The informative value of the measurement procedure, including for the study of social interaction, is noted. Indicators for monitoring of the digital cultural environment are suggested.     

The survival of open government platforms: Empirical insights from a global sample

For a number of years scholars have theorized about a change of paradigm in the collaborative practices between governments and citizens as a result of the newly emerged many-to-many forms of connectivity. A vibrant agenda on open government has flourished since, with critical advances on the conceptual front, but much less empirical testing of its propositions. This article makes use of a recognized typology of co-production initiatives in order to implement a Cox hazards survival analysis of 465 open government platforms from a global sample in 87 countries. Its main findings suggest that government-initiated collaborations have the lowest risk of termination and that citizen-to-government initiatives the highest. They also show that while internationally-exerted pressure for openness favors the genesis of open government platforms, it does not affect their survival chances.     

Collaborative digital government in Mexico: Some lessons from federal Web-based interorganizational information integration initiatives

The use of information and communication technologies in government has been characterized as one powerful strategy for administrative reform. From recent experiences around the world, it seems clear that in order to enjoy some of the greatest benefits of digital government, the integration of information across organizational boundaries is necessary. However, these digital government initiatives face additional challenges, since the required level of interorganizational collaboration and trust is often not supported by existing institutional arrangements, organizational structures, and managerial processes. In fact, many institutions and administrative structures found in government contexts offer incentives for single-agency work only, which produces stove-pipe systems. Based on an extensive case study in the Mexican federal government, this paper explores how certain institutional arrangements and organizational structures can enable or hinder cross-agency collaboration and consequently, interorganizational information integration.     

数字鸿沟视角下政务微信的使用行为研究

数字鸿沟是指在信息社会中,因为对新兴信息技术拥有和应用程度的不同而造成的信息分化现象,包括接入鸿沟、能力鸿沟和创新精神鸿沟。文章利用问卷调查法和结构方程模型法进行实证研究,表明在信息质量感知的调节作用下,信息质量感知和接入鸿沟对政务微信的使用具有显著正向影响,而能力鸿沟和创新精神鸿沟对公众使用政务微信的影响不显著。研究结论将为我国推广使用政务微信,更好地实现和改进政府的公共服务职能,探索在信息化社会中建立信息和谐机制提供启示和建议。     

Citizens as customers: Exploring the future of CRM in UK local government

Customer relationship management (CRM) is seen as a key element in delivering citizen-centric public services in the UK. However, CRM originated in the private sector as a technology to support customer acquisition, retention and extension (cross-selling). The appropriateness of this technology to organizations striving to meet complex goals such as improving the quality of life for vulnerable people is open to question. This paper uses the results of recent UK electronic government CRM programs to show that the focus for many local authorities has so far been systems integration, CRM-enabling call centers and the provision of routine transactions online. More advanced authorities are planning to use CRM to help them understand their citizens better. But more can be done. To this end, the paper proposes an alternative model of CRM progress which moves beyond transactions and customer insight and encourages citizens to co-produce the public services they consume.     

A post-September 11th balancing act: Public access to U.S. government information versus protection of sensitive data

The purpose of this paper is to suggest realistic guidelines that balance public access to government information and the need to protect sensitive data. Emphasis is on lessons learned from a 1979 case where the government attempted to prohibit the Progressive Magazine from publishing an article about making a hydrogen bomb and government reactions to the September 11th attacks. Executive Orders 12958 and 13292 and the new U.S. Geological Survey policy towards sensitive data can become the foundation for reasonable guidelines. The author concludes that the U.S. tradition of democracy and open government remains strong and will survive the attempts to limit information access since September 11, 2001.     

图书馆本质的客观知识论解释

本文在波普尔客观知识论的基础上,从图书馆的对象和活动主体两方面,对图书馆的本质进行了哲学解释。认为,图书馆活动的基本对象是基于静态载体之上的客观知识,图书馆活动的主体是人对图书馆的使用,人们对图书馆使用的过程就是构建主观知识与客观知识之间的对应关系。     

About informing the leadership in an organization: Problems in the context of information security

The phenomenon of whistleblowing in modern business is considered; its information function is defined; systemic problems with this function in an organization are revealed on the basis of the nature of the information activity on the subject of whistleblowing: the negative ethical status of whistleblowing, the adequacy of information, and the escalation of mistrust. The conditions and ways of solving these problems are substantiated.     

对农村居民获取政府信息的思考

政府信息公开在本质上是政府向公众提供政府信息的公共服务,因而具有公平性的特点.政府信息公开的公平性主要体现在政府信息公开要以政府信息获取主体广泛性为目标取向,即要为最广泛的社会公众提供获取政府信息的机会,尽量使更多的社会公众能够获取到自己所需要的政府信息.