Partners

• Author: G. Arévalo Nieto/E. Fernández Vicente/J.A. Messía de la Cerda Ballesteros/J.A. Rubio Blanco
• Pages: 123-152

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3.- Partners

To get a deeper view, we decided to undertake a similar study within the

non-academic partners involved in E-Prodat, to wit, Abruzzo, Bologna, Kavala,

Tenerife and Western Greece. A questionnaire was placed on the website

http://www.eprodat.org, which included 368 questions relating to IT

infrastructure deployment, administrative web services deployment, IT

population competence, e-participation and data protection. The full

questionnaire is available as Appendix 1. We summarise here the key findings.

3.1. e-Government and e-Participation

Assessment

We shall now describe in some detail the situation in each of the regions.

Abruzzo

Abruzzo’s portal, www.regione.abruzzo.it, has several services available

(8) and all departments are covered. The equivalent .com and .net are not

covered by the town hall. Google ranks the portal as 1st and it is adapted to all

browsers, not requiring plug-ins. Moreover, the multimedia content is not

excessive. It includes an online help system and a site map, numerous links, but

not a keyword search system. It is not developed with open source software.

Several web forms are being incorporated into the portal, and it

provides a webmail service and an FTP server, although there are no FTP

services like discussion fora. Around 60% of the information available in

person or via telephone is available on the site. Contact details for various

services are available.

There are no payment services online or digital signatures, but there is

recognition of electronic certificates and data encryption. Moreover, the portal

does not have an information management sub-system or a workflow

management sub-system and, similarly, does not include online polls or e-

voting mechanisms.

The information, and its updating, is correctly evaluated (7), as is the

accessibility (8) and runs through a quality control.

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Abruzzo has an area of over 10,794 square km with a population of

around 1,262,392 inhabitants, the number of homes being 658,931. The income

per capita is 10,663.80€.

There are 4 telecommunications operators in the city. There is already an

available telecom infrastructure, reaching 100% of homes, including the least

economically developed and rural areas. The population is satisfied with the

infrastructure. The cost of the PSTN for connection to the Internet is free and

the cost per minute to call a local telephone is 1.5€.

There are 509 PCs/1000 persons, 400 users/1000 p, 420 telephone

lines/1000 p, 800 telephones/1000 p and 333 connections (ADSL, ISDN,

etc)/1000 p.

Among the citizens MODEM is the most widespread technology, with

100 Mb being the average connection speed. There is public financial support

to aid in IT costs for citizens, and both local and national governments invest

in public infrastructure.

Abruzzo has a department devoted to IT promotion which has started to

promote e-government services. There has not been emphasis on

disadvantaged groups, although they provide free wireless access.

As far as human resources are concerned, 91.43% of Abruzzo’s

population have primary studies, 35.36 % have secondary studies and 7.61 %

have university studies. The number of students per computer in primary,

secondary and university education is, respectively, 13, 8 and 6. Similarly, 26, 16

and 7 are the numbers of students per internet connection in all three education

levels.

The assessment of degree of IT knowledge of the population is 6.

Moreover, there are local and national plans to promote IT.

Bologna

Bologna’s portal, comune.bologna.it, has reached an adequate spread

among citizens and, so far, it offers several services, more than 20, and all

departments are covered. The equivalent .com and .net are not covered by the

town hall. Google ranks the portal as 1st and it is adapted for use with all

browsers, albeit requiring plug-ins, the multimedia content not being excessive.

It includes an online help system and a site map, numerous links and a keyword

search system. It is developed with open source software.