Some ambiguity issues with the pilot case

[egovernments]

Here I list some ambiguity issues with the pilot case, please have a look. 

1.State level and national level issue: 
For such services as car registration, company registration, birth certificates, ID cards, and driver licenses, the levels of the government authorities that provide these services differ from countries to countries. In most large 
countries, state level government provide these services, such as the US and China. 
Sample Question:  
[112] III.18 — Can the user pay online for: Birth certificates? 

2. Website Maintenance: 
For some services, the website is under maintenance or the link is error. 

Sample Question:  
[112] III.18 — Can the user pay online for: ID Cards? 
In the case of India, the Visa application website is under maintenance and can't be used even after the announced complete date 

3.Examples of "raw (non-deliberative) public opinions":  
Sample Question:  
[70] II.51 — Does the government provide the tools in order to obtain raw (non-deliberative) public opinion through online polls? 
   
4. Government/ Non-government website 
How to categorize "government enterprises", government or non-government?   

Sample Question: 
[76] II.57 — How many government websites that link to the government portal? 
[77] II.58 — How many non-government websites link to the government portal? 

[egovernments]

thank you so much for your email. Let me try to explain and clarify it, as these matters came to us several time in the past. 

1.State level and national level issue: 

As principle we assess all the portal-web sites only at state-national level. 
It means we are not able to catch what is going on at local level unless the national-portal/web site we are assessing is linked or directly connected with some specialized portal/website 
(for ID - passport, car registration, company registration ...) that provides this kind of services for all the citizens.  What we need to find out - during our assessment - is if there is the possibility for citizen to go directly from the national web-side to the "one-stop-shop specialized portal" for company registration, to get ID-passport, etc.     

About the possibility to pay or make on-line transactions, we only assess if this feature is available in the portal - as we can not really make the request or the payment. Most of the time for many countries, this feature is not directly "open" but requests a previous registration and has some security's filters. We can only assess it if this feature is available on line and If we are not 100% sure that this feature really works we can make additional on-line research to try to catch some feedback from citizens and/or some news related to that feature ( articles, advertisements, comments or information from third parts).   

 2. Website Maintenance: 
Remember that when you make your assessment you always have to think and act as a common citizen that tries to find out on-line how to get the service he needs. 
If the URL is wrong, if the portal or the web site is under maintenance for me this service is not available and I will score "0" . One advice - just go back to the portal a second time after one-two days to find out if the web is available. In case still under construction/maintenance for me ( as citizen ) is not available then i score "0". 

3.Examples of "raw (non-deliberative) public opinions":  

Today there are many tools available in the portal/website that provide on-line polls.  Some are more structured then others and give the opportunity to fill a survey or answer a set of questions, others are just a feedback box for comments and/or to express an opinions. Again, we need to think as a citizen that wants to express his own opinion about a new service, law, rule, etc, decision at political/governmental level  and the question is  "does the portal provide some tools/mechanisms for the first stage of citizen engagement/participation?   

4. Government/ Non-government website 
Good question. Most of the time this classification is already available under the national portal and we need just to count the links, list available in the national portal. The extension can help a lot to understand if it is from the government or not ( .gov, .org)   In case they have the extension of the country then we need to open the link and make some additional research reading the home page of that website. 99% of the time in the "home page" or in the feature "about"  you will find the information you need to understand if this body is from the government or not. 

Last but not least - when you have some doubt - if it is available the "English' version of the portal/feature, check also in the "translated" version; also share this information or your doubt to your supervisor and ask for his advice.