State Portals as a Framework to Standardize E-Government Services

State portals play a prominent role in the convergence of politics and administration. On November 8, 2000, U.S. voters received conflicting media projections, but the Secretary of State’s Office in Florida was able to provide them with that state’s most timely election counts. With this example, software design factors, such as the use of dynamic Web programming, suddenly sprung to the forefront of attention. For almost all federated entities, the establishment of state portals has become an advanced stage of e-government; most now have them, and they provide a wide variety of services. They can be a gateway or central access point, but to appear coordinated, the use of portals should provide a development framework. This article presents the convergence of advanced software engineering practices with the empowerment of public administration standards and the swift enabling of public policy via state portals. Years ago, government agencies progressed from simply republishing their forms on a front-end Web site. However, far fewer have advanced on to developing back-end Web applications. Advanced portal features can now be extended and implemented to include more file-intensive processing. Because software is a form of organizational memory, it has been called a type of federated governance (Strassmann, 1995). E-government portals now include self-service applications, and may enable the ability to initiate government contacts, interactivity, and consultation (Aitkenhead, 2005; Curtin, Sommer, & Vis-Sommer, 2003; Sharma & Gupta, 2003; Thomas & Streib, 2003; West, 2004). Further, citizens will demand more of these interaction capabilities in the future (Thomas & Streib, 2003). It is prudent for the chief executive, or his/her designee, to take control of such developments. Factors to consider among agencies would include the quality, accessibility, privacy, and security of their Web site functions. In theoretical terms, the concept of a state provides for a framework for analyzing the organizational and ethical complexities of life. Further, a state can provide a unity of attention amid a diversity of details and speculation (Farr, 1993). With design and engineering, a focal point of contact can be achieved. As a minimum, a government-wide portal should provide links to various applications on the Internet “...organized in a way that makes the site easy to navigate and desired links easy to locate” (Edmiston, 2003, pp. 2324). A state portal is a specific form of government portal. In almost all instances, there are one-to-many states, and within those states there may be one-to-many disparate functions. Yet, a government portal should be fully executable with integrated online services offering considerable convenience to its visitors (West, 2004). This attribute is desired for most of the organizational entities, even those at a peer level. In short, government portals are “... the entry point for business and citizens to access information or services that are for the good of the community” (Aitkenhead, 2005, p. 214) and, like with software engineering, state portals should attempt to have replicate functionality. Various types of portals have been categorized (Tatnall, 2005) and a state variety could be thought of as being a General/Mega type. While vigilantly considering the needs of state constituents, these portals try to be a “one-stop” source for services, thus the mega description. It is also hoped that the user would return to the same portal for yearly government renewals. Examples may include intermittent visits, such as the payment of parking tickets, or yearly visits, like the payment of taxes or motor vehicle fees (Johnson, 2002). A uniform belief is that these fee-based interactions would be considered encroachments on a constituent’s time and resources. As such, states do their utmost to make the experience politically acceptable. A common goal for state portals is for the Web-enabled services to have a similar look and feel. The front-end graphical user interface (GUI) should not be a source of client frustration. This goes for both functionally specific and centralized processing agencies. Resources may vary from state to state as each provides a wide variety of services. However, most want their constituents to be comfortable with the use of their Web site. Factors of consistency and application reuse are primary among the various organizations of a state. A well-designed framework, similar to those crafted by software engineers, may be the best way to ensure that consistency.