Taiwan ranked second in the latest survey by Brown University on online governments, moving one notch higher in the rankings from last year, a statement released by the Cabinet’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said yesterday.
Taiwan trailed South Korea, but led the other 96 countries in the study, which was conducted by the university during June and last month.
A total of 1,667 government Web sites were analyzed according to several criteria, including the content of central government Web sites, disability access, the presence of privacy policies and security measures, contact information, foreign-language options, advertisements and user fees, as well as the number of online services.
On a scale of 0 to 100 points, Taiwan’s government Web sites received the highest score in the rating for the offering of online publications, announcements of privacy and security-related policies, and foreign-language options.
Taiwan was given a score of 58.7 in the general e-government rating, lagging behind South Korea’s 64.7 points but beating the US score of 53.7 points — the top three in the annual Brown University survey.
The government statement credited the achievement to efficiency in promoting data transparency.
A study by the commission shows that more than 13 million people above the age of 12 use the Internet nationwide, and the time they spend surfing the net was found to surpass 2.4 hours a day on average.
The Internet has become one of the main channels for communications between the public and the central and local governments, the statement said, adding that the public’s satisfaction with e-government services had reached 62 percent.
To further upgrade online government services, the commission said that the Executive Yuan had prepared a four-year program (starting this year) with three major goals: actively serving public needs, reinforcing social care and boosting network interactions.
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