Defining what a government agency or department means by the term electronic government, or "e-government" is an important step in implementing any e-government initiative or strategy. This paper identifies some of the most comprehensive definitions of e-government, based on an extensive sampling of existing definitions and the development of a set of criteria for assessing them. Definition samples were gathered via the Internet from the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, state governments, the private sector, academia, private research organizations, and international governments. This research was conducted by senior level information technology professionals representing a variety of federal agencies at the National Defense University’s Information Resources Management College for its Electronic Government course in March 2002.

As the Internet has proliferated and become a more ubiquitous part of everyday life, it has fundamentally changed consumers' expectations about customer service, whether from businesses to customers or from a government to its citizenry. In such an environment a comprehensive definition of the concept of electronic government–henceforth "e-gov"–can no longer be ignored. Defining the term "e-gov" should be the first step in any implementation plan. That definition, whatever its ultimate form, necessarily charts and delineates an organization's "e-gov" strategy. As such, development of a solid operational definition is the critical success factor against which to measure all other "e-gov" work efforts. The purpose of this paper is to provide (1) criteria with which agencies can assess their own definitions of e-government, (2) an assessment of selected definitions of the term against the criteria, and (3) a methodology and template for government organizations to use to assess suggested definitions, and (4) explanations of selected e-government definition assessments.

Today's question is "e-gov." What is it? What does it look like? And will we know it when we see it? After all, the need for a common understanding is inescapable. Seeing "e-gov" and knowing it are critical given its potential to transform not only the methods by which governments and businesses deliver services and information, but also the very nature of governance and citizen participation in democratic institutions.

A definition provides clarity, focus, and a common intellectual framework. According to Webster's Dictionary, a definition "determines or identifies the essential qualities or meaning." So, a common definition of "e-gov" will afford governmental agencies at all levels a common frame of reference by which to measure the effectiveness of their "e-gov" implementations. A definition is the foundational architectural layer upon which multiple agencies can build and realize cross-organizational implementation strategies, operational plans, and measures of effectiveness as well. The definition enables synergy of efforts and better alignment of the new click-and-mortar government entities.

In March 2002 hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives, officials from the General Accounting Office (GAO) gave unambiguous testimony on the importance of definition for the implementation of e-government:

GAO's testimony goes on to map out both the architectures within which that legislative branch agency recommends "e-gov" applications evolve, as well as the likely pitfalls such evolution may face. "Without enterprise architectures to guide and constrain IT investments, such as e-government initiatives, stovepipe operations and systems can emerge, which in turn can lead to needless duplication, incompatibilities, and additional costs."

With an eye to GAO's concerns, this research paper derives overarching criteria for operational definitions of "e-gov". The intent is to distill a wide variety of policy leader inputs and delineate functional desiderata that the government should pursue in "e-gov". Subsequently, we apply those distilled criteria to a broad sampling of definitions from multiple federal, state, local, international, business, and academic organizations and attempt to identify those explicitly stated definitions which represent "best of breed".

One crucial difference between the Supreme Court's definitional crisis in the last century and "e-gov's" today is that this newer concept suffers from a plethora, rather than a dearth, of potential definitions. The challenge thus posed for this study was to determine a set of criteria that could be used to assess candidate definitions.

Drawing upon pronouncements from e-gov policy leaders in both the current administration and the 107th Congress, the authors distilled a set of criteria against which to measure definitions of "e-gov". Of particular relevance were statements and testimony from the Director, Deputy Director and Associate Director (Information Technology and e-Government) of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The February 2002 report of the E-Government Task Force chaired by the Associate Director received considerable attention, as did pending legislation proposed by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, the E-Government Act of 2001.

In that same month (July 2001), Sean O'Keefe, then Deputy Director of OMB, testified before Sen. Lieberman and the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. At that hearing Mr. O'Keefe began his remarks as follows:

For their parts Mr. Forman and the members of the E-Government Task Force summarize the issue in their report, E-Government Strategy: Implementing the President's Management Agenda for E-Government:

• Make it easy for citizens to obtain service and interact with the federal government;
• Improve government efficiency and effectiveness; and
• Improve government's responsiveness to citizens."

This E-Government Strategy documents the criticality of the President's "Expanding E-Government" initiative to meet today's citizen and business expectations for interaction with government. Specifically, the strategy identifies six areas where significant improvements in the federal government can be made:

• Simplifying delivery of services to citizens;
• Eliminating layers of government management;
• Making it possible for citizens, businesses, other levels of government and federal employees to easily find information and get service from the federal government;
• Simplifying agencies' business processes and reducing costs through integrating and eliminating redundant systems;
• Enabling achievement of the other elements of the President's Management Agenda; and
• Streamlining government operations to guarantee rapid response to citizen needs.

Additionally, Congressional involvement and interest as expressed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut add key accents specifically in areas relating to privacy and security as well as universal access. Sections 214 & 215 of the proposed E-Government Act of 2001 address the so-called 'digital divide' by requiring "that online Government initiatives shall not have the unintended result of increasing any deficiency in public access to Government services" and "ensure permanent public access to information disseminated by the Federal Government on the Internet." Similarly, Section 219 reiterates the Congress' interest in assuring accessibility to people with disabilities.

Section 218 pays special attention to citizen's privacy and to the security of data received from the public through "e-gov" initiatives. This section of the bill would require federal agencies to conduct privacy impact assessments before collecting any personally identifiable information. Moreover, agencies must describe both "the intended uses of the information collected" and "the period for which information will be retained;" allow the public the ability to control the collection, disclosure and accuracy of information and develop "security procedures to protect information collected online."

Drawing collectively from these statements, the authors distilled the following conceptual criteria used throughout this study (see Table 2). We believe a comprehensive operational definition of e-government must possess language that ensures:

• Accessibility to services;
• Customer(citizen)-centric provision and delivery of services;
• Leveraging of technology;
• Customer (citizen)-centric communication and information sharing;
• Customer (citizen)-centric interaction, participation, and engagement.

These five criteria represent fundamental, functional areas of "e-gov" and affect all customers, citizens, businesses, or government alike. Each may provide a return on investment for "e-gov" when appropriate outcome-oriented measurement criteria are applied. The authors believe these areas must be part and parcel of any comprehensive operational definition of "e-gov".

To standardize assessment of the definitions, the criteria from Table 2 were broken down into question and answer templates (See Appendix A). Evaluators then applied a "traffic light" grading regimen --Red, Yellow, Green-- based upon the precise verbiage appearing in the definition. The goal was identifying "best of breed" definitions based upon meeting all five criteria.

One of the study's more critical conceptual issues concerned the criteria's level of specificity. While it would have been very easy simply to ask five straightforward questions–e.g., Does the "e-gov" definition address 'accessibility to services?'–the authors felt that such an approach risked injecting more variability into the assessments. Therefore, we analytically developed a series of sub-questions (see Appendix B) to provide a more precise inventory with which to identify the five components. This methodology translated the abstract general criteria into more precise observable constructs, reduced the subjectivity among individual researchers, and served as a standard template to compare working definitions of "e-gov".

"E-gov" means many things to many people and it takes different forms depending on those defining it. In conducting this study, our purpose was to identify a methodology that can help the federal government identify and focus on key attributes of "e-gov" that satisfy multiple constituent expectations. The appendices contain the raw data results compiled in this research. Table 3 provides a summary of the "best of breed" definitions for each of the three organizational domains.

In particular the definitions from MicroSoft Corporation and the State of Missouri deserve special notice as both achieved the best possible score using our derived criteria. Those definitions are as follows:

Noteworthy is the distinctive form each definition takes. The corporate submission from Microsoft contains brief, to-the-point sentences cataloguing all the services and capabilities inherent in "e-gov" criteria identified in this research including the issues of security and privacy. The public sector submission from Missouri goes one step further and explains not just what "e-gov" is or ought to be, but more practically how it will look to Missourians. Even in its very language, that paragraph reflects the state's vision for electronic government; everything from vehicle registration to reserving campsites in state parks to businesses' tax identification numbers to state government's purchasing. These are the types of daily, practical things that matter most to citizens and businesses.

Therefore, we submit these two high-scoring definitions together as a recommended mission statement (Microsoft) and vision statement (Missouri) for "e-gov" at the federal level. They are the best and most explicit operational definitions of "e-gov" this research encountered. Because we encountered no existing federal government definition that included reference to citizen-centric engagement and participation in decision making we offer only the Microsoft and Missouri definitions as examples to emulate.

Recalling the testimony of Messrs Hite & McClure from GAO before the House of Representatives, "e-gov" applications already proliferate among federal agencies. The success of those individual agency applications and of federal "e-gov" as a whole depends on definition. Taken jointly, these two submissions from Microsoft and Missouri comprehensively address all of the functional requirements for "e-gov" as well as political considerations levied by the White House and the Congress. More importantly, they adequately describe the desired end-state; how "e-gov" should look to the American citizenry, to the fifty-four states and territories, and to the business community.

The following individuals participated in the accomplishment of this research:

Major Darwyn Banks, USAF, Deputy Commander, AF Information Warfare Battlelab, San Antonio, TX

Ms. Judith Oxman, Chief, Network Services & Operations Division, Acquisition, Logistics and Facilities Directorate, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA )

Commander Steven Main, USN, AFCEA Fellow, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA)

Captain Sidney Rodgers, MSC, USN, Deputy CIO for Navy Medicine

Ms. Doreen Sterling, Associate Director, CSTD, EPA

Mr. William Baucom, Director Information Systems Division, Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Norfolk, Detachment Washington

Mr. Michael Wingard, Project Manager, Naval Sea Systems Command

Mr. Robert Woodham, Deputy CIO, Ballistic Missile Defense Agency

Ms. Carmen Molina, Program Management Analyst, FAA

Mr. Gilbert Ward, CIO / Commander Navy Region Northeast

Ms. Stephanie Watts, Telecommunications Specialist, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA )

Mr. Scott Chamberlin, Information Resource Management, FAA

Lieutenant Commander John Daly, USCG, Budget Execution (Capital Projects), Office of the Commandant U.S. Coast Guard

Ms. Margaret Holl, Chief Systems Support Branch, HQ Air Mobility Command, Belleville, IL

Mr. Yong Sung Kim, Technical Information Specialist, FAA

Ms. Virginia Reighney, Plans and Acquisitions Office, US Army Enlisted Records and Evaluation Center, Indianapolis, IN

Mr. David Young, Computer Specialist, FAA

The authors also wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance and support of Ms. Mandy Keathley without whose efforts the creation of the appendices would not have been possible.

• Accessibility to Services
• Customer-centric provision and delivery of services
• Leverage technology
• Customer-centric communications and information sharing
• Customer-centric interaction, participation, and engagement

We define the term "customers" to include citizens; businesses; internal government employees/agencies; external government employees/agencies (Federal / State / Local / Tribal / International). Federal and State government includes Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches.

• Does the definition mention 24/7?
• Is access to information for information retrieval?
• Is access to transact business for service delivery?

• Does the definition mention all its "customers"
  (citizens, business, other Government)?

• Are words like "transparency" or "seamless" in the definition?

• Does the definition mention securing information or address privacy issues?

• All customers
• 24/7
• Transparency or seamless
• Security/privacy

• Does the definition mention items like "ease of use",
  "one stop" and/or "minimal clicks"?

• Does the definition mention Internet use?

• Does the definition mention use of other technologies or emerging technologies?

• Does the definition mention customer focus or customer preferences?
• Is there a mention of timely responses?
• Are the services, information, and transactions provided and delivered quickly, easily, efficiently, effectively, and conveniently?

• customer focus or customer preference
• timely response
• effective / efficient service

• Customer interaction/participation
• Participate in decision making
• Convenient and timely interaction

This report summarizes the results of the federal sector research found in Internet sites of various Cabinet, Sub-Cabinet, Independent, Legislative and Judicial Branches. The team evaluated 30+ government/international web sites.

The sites were evaluated on the basis of 12 component questions that were included in the overall criteria described in Appendix B. Each criterion was classified Green (most or all of criteria met), Yellow (some or half of criteria met), and Red (few or no criteria met), based on meeting the 12 components.

It should be noted that in many cases, explicit definitions for "e-gov" could not be found. In some cases statements and/or documents that provided implied definitions based on current or proposed initiatives were evaluated. The phraseology of each definition varied significantly. Portions of the definitions, in addition to referenced URLs and comments, are provided in this report.

As "best of breed" we captured those three definitions that addressed most of the criteria.

The only downside to this definition was that it did not mention customer participation.

This definition’s only downfall was that it did not mention customer participation.

This definition's only downfall was its omission of any mention of customer participation.

The other sites we found and reviewed are provided below. We found that most of these sites did not address most of the needed criteria. In some cases there were no readily available definitions given because the particular agency may not have had an "e-gov" office; but after additional investigation, we found other sources for this data, for instance strategic plans that mentioned "e-gov".