the study of government website information disclosure in taiwan

1、C.C. Yang et al. (Eds.): PAISI 2007, LNCS 4430, pp. 251–256, 2007. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007 The Study of Government Website Information Disclosure in Taiwan Yuan-Fa Chen1, Sandy Yu-Lan Yeh2, and Kuo

2、-Ching Wu1 1 Department of Information Management, Central Police University, Taiwan wkc@mail.cpu.edu.tw 2 Department of Foreign Affairs Police, Central Police University, Taiwan sandy@mail.cpu.edu.tw Abstract. Taiwan’s

3、Freedom of Information Act (TFOIA) aims at protecting people’s right to know and making the information easily, evenly formulated and obtained by the public. The access to government information not only en- hances peo

4、ple’s understanding, trust, and supervision on public affairs, but also promotes their participation in democracy. The goal of open and transparent administration can be achieved only by sharing the information with th

5、e public. All government agencies must have everything set, especially after one-year adjustment of TFOIA that was passed in December 2005. In expectation of pub- licizing government’s efforts and achievement, we desi

6、gn a score card on the basis of regulations made by TFOIA for all governmental websites. Meanwhile, we also conduct a survey of 248 governmental websites to see whether the web- sites offer legal and proper information

7、 to the public or not. The findings of the research confirm that the information disclosed on government websites still remains insufficient, except for data on official organizations, duties, addresses, telephone num

8、bers, fax numbers, websites, e-mail addresses, and the like. Moreover, the information disclosed on the websites has a remarkable connec- tion with organizational levels and functional attributes of all government of- f

9、ices. In general, according to the score card, TFOIA scores only 1.25 on the average, far from the regulated full score 3.0. Apparently, TFOIA still has much room for improvement. 1 Introduction In the World Economic

10、 Forum (WEF) rating of competitiveness, Taiwan was ranked as the third in the world in 2004 when the total of internet users was approximately 10,330,000 and the population to surf the net was up to 9,050,000. With the

11、 rapid growing nature of network, much more investment on human resources, facilities, and services are urgently needed. Taiwan is presently at the third stage of planning to promote ‘the advanced type’ of electronic

12、government. Retrospectively, at the first stage, the electronic government brought forth innovations in the networking of pub- lic services, expanding and promoting government information disclosure. At the second st

13、age, the function and convenience of the electronic government helped en- courage people’s participation in public affairs and remold Taiwan government thor- oughly, making possible progressive transition and development

14、 of a civic society. The Study of Government Website Information Disclosure in Taiwan 253 4 TFOIA Measurement and Statistical Analysis 4.1 Sampling Method and Survey Design This research starts with investigating T

15、aiwan government organization websites. Since there are too many government’s agencies in Taiwan, it is impossible to do a compre- hensive study of all government agencies due to the limitation of time and resources. H

16、ence, this research employs the purposive sampling method to get information of 250 government websites, including administrative organizations, public hospitals, judicial units, police/fire offices, county and municip

17、al governments, congress, etc. This research examines the total amount of 250 samples collected from central government websites, among them 248 samples are valid for analysis. The only two invalid samples indicate th

18、at these websites do not have the function to provide any service. The research uses a 3-point scale in survey design. The questionnaire of the study, taken from Article 7 of TFOIA, corresponds to the diction and phra

19、sing of the said law about the information that the government should disclose publicly, except for some wording commonly used in questionnaire (Table 1). Table 1. The Content of Article 7 of TFOIA Item no Contents Q

20、1 Whether or not the website offers treaty, documents of foreign relations, law, emergency order, and order, regulation ordering and local autonomy regulation decreed in accordance with the Standard Law of Central Re

21、gulation. Q2 Whether or not the website offers the explanatory stipulations and judgment criteria regarding the unified the explication of the law, recognition of facts, and the exercise of executive judgment, which

22、 are decreed by the government to help the government agency at a lower level or its subordinates. Q3 Whether or not the website offers data on its organization, duty, address, telephone number, facsimile number, webs

23、ite, and E- mail account. Q4 Whether the website offers administrative guidelines to docu- ments and paper work related to the agency or not. Q5 Whether the website offers its administrative plan, business statis- tics

24、, and research paper or not. Q6 Whether the website of the agency discloses its budget and fiscal report or not. Q7 Whether the website offers the disposal result of petition and the decision of appealing or not. Q8