Week 6:

Case Study on South Korea’s E Government

In the final report to clients, I did a research on the South Korea’s e-government and concluded its history, sitemap, current situation. Compared with e-government in many other countries, the unique of South Korea’s government is that they make a long-term plan for their e-government and they keep finding best way to introduce the advanced technologies into government’s daily operation. In the blog of this week, I will analyze the case of South Korea’s e-government and did a SWOT analysis, which I did not include in my final report.

Part 1: South Korea’s e government

History[i]

The Beginning (1960s–1970s)

Korea’s e government introduced computers for statistical analysis work in the Economy Planning Board in 1967. It was one of the earliest countries that deploy IT technology in operating government.

Building the Infrastructure for E-Government (1980s–1990s)

In 1986, “National Backbone Computer Network” was launched. Projects related to that plan would become the communications and information network for the public sector. In 1993, the concept of “e government” was introduced in official documents. Meanwhile, a basic plan for building the foundation for the information super-highway was announced.

Full-scale Implementation of E-Government (2000–Present)

In 1999, a comprehensive e government implementation plan was created when integrated civil application information system and comprehensive statistical information system were introduced. For e government, the most important thing is that “the participatory government’s vision and direction of e government” was announced in May 2003 and the “E-Government Roadmap” based on the vision of realizing the “World’s Best Open E-Government” was released in August of the same year. [Ref3.1.1-1]

                                           Figure 1 Website of South Korea government

Ø  “SEPO” for South Korea

E government of South Korea establish an integrated portal where citizens could find nearly every service they want national wide local wide. The website is used as a gateway to service by multiple channels. Citizens could also have a customized channel by providing their personal preference and information. Back-office integration across many departments brings a powerful search engine offering advanced categorizing function, which can list results by websites, service, and news. [Ref3.1.1-2]

Ø  Sitemap of “SEPO”

According to the sitemap of “SEPO”, its services could be included into the following aspects:

1.    Information retrieval: hot service and search could be found through this website.

2.    Public service: channels are provided for citizen’s convenience to get government’s help online.

3.    User-specific service: students, workers, businessman and so on could find resources they may need on line.

4.    News: news about economic, society, culture, diplomatic, security and on are updated.

5.    Navigation: navigate to other themed service website.

6.    Others: business corporations, value-added service, introduction of Korea and so on.   

                                 

Figure 2 Sitemap of “SEPO”

Ø  Unique of “SEPO”

As the global leader in e government, South Korea designed and set up their website based on careful considerate to citizens’ demand and ambition to create a top e government all around the world. Take its similar programs like “SEPO” as an example, the unique of them could be reflected in following aspects:

1.    The website clearly divided all the contents into six sub-functions, which guides citizens to related pages to complete their process.

2.    User-oriented services are provided on the Internet. Students, workers, business men, and couples at different ages could all find the resource they may be interested on the website.

3.    The website listed both contacts of different government’s departments and their public service. Citizens would be very clear about how they can get help.

4.    The website classified and listed public service related agencies and provided links to these pages. Search bar is provided to guarantee that citizens could find these items effectively.

5.    Public activities are always updated on the website so that citizens are easy to find those which may relate to their benefits.

3.1.2 Benefits

Ø  Time Saving

Agency benefits:

-Lower cost channels of communication with citizens and businesses

-Increased resource efficiency

Social benefits:

-Faster turn-around of information requests

-Faster access to documents and forms

Consumer financial benefits

-Faster turnaround of service delivery

Ø  Cost Saving

Agency benefits:

-Lower cost channels of communication with citizens and businesses

-Increased resource efficiency

Ø  Effectiveness

Agency benefits:

-Lower cost channels of communication with citizens and businesses

-Increased resource efficiency

Consumer financial benefits

-24-hour service delivery

-More self-service

-Improved ability to find information

-Wider reach of information to the community

-Better communication with rural and remote communities

Part2: SWOT Analysis

Strengths

As mentioned above, the greatest strength of South Korea is that they launched their e-government long-term developing plan very early. In their development plan, careful consideration has been given to Korea’s current situation and the technology level.

Weaknesses

The weakness of SK government could be concluded into the following aspects:

1.    South Korea’s culture may have a negative effect on the more advanced and diverse transformation of e government.

2.    The export of their ideas may be harder to be admitted by other countries.

Opportunities

In Asia, Korea may increase its share of total IT market and consequently improve e government’s service quality, municipal management, e-democracy and so on. The development of IT technology may bring South Korea government benefits as well.

Threats

The threats come from South Korea’s outside environment, such as the globalization, powerful business innovations. Internet security may also threaten the well-beings of e government service.

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[i] "E-Government in South Korea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government_in_South_Korea>.