Constructing Automatic Evaluation System for

E-Government

Yi Wang, JianJun Cheng, YongLi, Han Ding,

School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
XiangFan University
Xiang Yang, China
dhnats@163.com

Abstract—Based on the analysis of existing methods and means of
e-government evaluation, we propose an automated,quantitative
evaluation model for e-government.The purpose is to avoid the
inherent disadvantages of artificial uncertain factors and time-
consuming. By analyzing each stage of the model,combined with
existing Web data access technology, database technology and
neural network technology,we intend to establish a set of
automated e-government website evaluation system.
Keywords-e-government; evaluation; automatic
I. INTRODUCTION
Government web sites is one of the main links between the
Government and the public. With the development and
popularization of the computer and network,the government
web sites is getting more and more important. The demand that
people want to access information from government web sites
is also growing more and more urgent. To establish service-
oriented government, it also need to greatly strengthen the
government web sites. E-government is a highly efficient
means that the government achieve its management and service
functions using the network and communication technology. In
order to promote the development of e-government, it is
necessary for effective evaluation of government web
sites.There are many institutions and higher learning at home
and abroad during the same work. The evaluation index
system,evaluation methods and tools is all different, They all
reflect the effectiveness of evaluation from one aspect. To a
certain extent, they promoted the development of e-
government. Looking at the existing evaluation methods and
means, in practical operation, we are required to invest a lot of
manpower and material,so it is not only time-consuming and
arduous,but also subjective. We intend to construct a system
framework of automatic e-government website evaluation, we
expects that the system can realize the automated evaluation
from the stage of obtaining the website information to the site's
overall evaluation, thereby increasing the objectivity and
accuracy of evaluation.
II. A SITUATION OF E-GOVERNMENT EVALUATION
E-government evaluation plays a vital role of promoting the
government website construction, and the website is one of the
main links between the government and the public. website
evaluation should not only be able to find the issues of e-
government, but also be able to play a facilitating role of e-
government construction and development. So, whether
evaluation index system, or the objectivity of evaluation
method and means are particularly important, they must be able
to reflect the true level of e-government, and be able to identify
the problems.
Looking at the index systems of e-government website both
at domestic and international, we will find that the existing
index system[1][2] in a large part is only the qualitative
indicators to judge, that is, more human factors, and can not
give convincing quantitative analysis. This is not conducive to
the improvement of website construction. The evaluation
method[3][4][5][6][7][8] was based on the use of artificial
methods through users, experts and other artificial means to
evaluate. This is time-consuming and evaluation results can not
be convincing.
Since 2007, we and department of XiangFan government
information management carried on the thorough cooperation
in e-government evaluation . For the 197 websites carried out
evaluation. Because e-government of XiangFan starts later, we
take into account the actual situation. The implementation has
changed several times from the evaluation indicators to the
evaluation process and evaluation means. To the current,we set
up the evaluation indicator system,it put serving the people as
the center,and put the user awareness and satisfaction survey
results into a comprehensive performance evaluation indicator
system.In the evaluation process, we also recognize that we put
in a lot of students, teachers and experts each time, but there
are also some evaluation results that lack of objectivity.
Investigate its reason, one hand, the evaluation indicator
system is not detailed enough; the other hand, Some indicators
is more stronger randomness and more human factors. For this
reason, we try to establish a reliable, automated evaluation
system.
III. CONSTRUCT AUTOMATIC EVALUATION SYSTEM FOR
E-GOVERNMENT
Automatic evaluation system model of e-government is
shown in Fig. 1.
The units that are evaluated submit public information in
the online catalog and services for the public’s convenience,

978-1-4244-6581-1/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE

and other related projects to the government information
center, the government information center and relevant
government departments to review, and then store them into a
resource library. The government information center manage
the resource library .In the evaluation, The information access
subsystem that based on the information in the resource library,
obtain the required data from the corresponding Web site,after
processing, analysis and calculation, then quantify the results
and write information to the database. The BP neural network
subsystem that was trained through the sample data that
evaluated by experts processes the data read from the
information database,and gives the final evaluation results.
Figure 1. Automatic evaluation system model
In order to evaluate the government websites automatically,
accurately and quantificationally. We will start work in the
following aspects:
• The formulation of index system
In order to achieve the automation of evaluation, the
indicators to evaluate must be quantified as much as possible to
minimize the qualitative indicators, to reduce the influence of
human factors. Therefore, when we formulate the index
system,we must not only make a more comprehensive indicator
system to reflect the true situation, but also select the maximum
number of quantitative indicators.
The ultimate goal of e-government is to serve the public.
As a communication channel between the public and the
government ,the public understand the government behavior
and improve the efficiency of online handle affairs through
government websites. For this purpose, we work out some of
the most important indicators to evaluate the government
websites. Basically, these indicators can be quantified.
TABLE I. INDICATOR SYSTEM
The first level indicator The second level indicator
Links with Municipal government website
Website construction
Open website quickly
Open directory and Public guidelines
Affairs guidelines
E-government information
Updated information
openness
Letter reply
Suggestion box and timely treatment
Online handle affairs Form download
Convenience inquires
Online business process
Online consulting
Public participation E-government interaction
Content guarantee Integrated information in source library
• Access informations from the websites
1) Create a database to record these extracted informations
from some specific webpages. Of course, before these
informations are recorded to the database, they should be able
to quantify. For example: the number of the public
informations in the open directory,and wheather the public
informations conform with the informations in the resource
library to be public.
2) Access the informations. We read and browse the
specified web pages from the Internet using the
“Navigate”method of the “WebBrowser” controller of Visual
Basic.Each web page corresponds to a “Document” object,
and “WebBrowser” controller's “Document” property
corresponds to the current page of the browser; Body attribute
corresponds to the “body” marking in the HTML
document,and “innerhtml” properties of “body” subject
corresponds to the HTML code between <body> and </
body>in the current page. Usually,in the web pages,tables are
used to separate the data,Text prompts are in the front of the
special data. According to the text prompts to find the desired
item, and then analyze them using the corresponding program
to find the necessary data. After locating the original data,
through specific procedures to handle the data into
quantitative data, then record these data to the corresponding
database table.
3) In addition, we can also use the "web spiders" to In-
depth search, so for more complete data. Web Spider searches
web pages through a web link address,starts from one page
(usually home)of the web site,reads page contents and finds
other links in the page address, and then looks for the next
page through these links address, so that keep doing this loop
until all the pages of the web site are crawled last. If we take
the entire Internet as a Web site,the spider can use this
principle to crawl down all the pages on the Internet. The web
pages that was crawled down are a variety of formats,
including html, image, doc, pdf, multimedia, dynamic web
pages and other formats. After crawling down these
documents, we need to put these text information extracted
from these documents. For doc, pdf and other documents, that
generated through corresponding software provided by
professional firms, vendors will provide the appropriate text
extraction interface. Web Spider only call these plugins
interface,and can easily extract the document text and other
relevant information. But not the same as HTML and other
documents, HTML has its own syntax, through the various
command identifier to indicate different fonts, colors, layout
location.When we extract the text information ,we need to
filter out all these identifiers . Filter identifier is not difficult,
since these identifiers are certain rules, just follow a different
identifier ,corresponding information can be obtained.
Actually ,Web Spider use the link relations between Html
documents in a Web page to crawl, the system will catch these
pages to be analyzed and put into the database.
• Using the artificial neural network to evaluate
Using the artificial neural network to evaluate the website
automatically and quantify the evaluation.In front, we obtain
the original informations related to the website,and write them
to a specific database. The columns of the database table
corresponds to the appropriate evaluation indicators, the data in
the columns correspond to the evaluation results to this
indicator. The next, we will use the BP artificial neural network
to analyze the results. Put these data as input data, and output
the overall evaluation of the website. Prior to this, we need
experts and users to evaluate some websites carefully and
comprehensively ,and put these evaluations as the sample to
train the network. BP neural network is a mature, simple and
effective network, the learning process is to adjust the
connections weights between neurons, and makes the output
value be equal or close to the ideal target. Once the neural
network is trained completely,the websites can be evaluated
automatically, objectivly, fast and effectivly. With regard to the
learning process and ways of BP neural network, you can refer
to the corresponding literature, no details here.
IV. SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK
In the actual process of the website evaluation,we feel
deeply the disadvantage that evaluated by artificial
evaluation.So we try to develop a system to evaluate the
websites automatically. This is only the beginning of the study,
we will carry out a detailed analysis and design to all aspects of
the system. We intend to establish a set of automated e-
government website evaluation system.
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