ABSTRACT
Information and
communication technology have improved government practices and provided
effective governance, processes, and services. These have influenced many governments
to mobilize the resources needed to implement e-governance in developed countries.
Developing countries are adopting such technologies to enhance their government
services while minimizing the costs. Nigeria, over the years has been grappling
to come to terms with the implementation of such technologies; hence, there is
a huge chasm in communication between the government and the governed. Such
chasm has also not been given full scholarly attention. Therefore, a study of
this nature becomes of essence. Indeed, e-governance services through cloud
computing infrastructure permits integration of smart phone applications as
well as traditional mobile network services with the e-government portal.
Mobile Cloud computing provides high scalability and supports large amount of data
in databases of e-governance services. Thus, this increases citizenry
participation in the governance process as the citizens are always on the
look-out for more ways to get involved in the governance processes. This is the
motivation for this research as it seeks to create a robust and distributed
database/platform for better governance services. Object Oriented Analysis and
Design (OOAD) was used as the design method, while Unified modelling language
(UML) was used to model the design. In this research, a reusable framework for
implementing mobile cloud computing in e-governance for Nigeria has been
created which ultimately automates effective e-governance. In the end, it is
expected that this framework will bridge the digital divide amongst government,
citizens, businesses and NGOs by providing more efficient interactions between
them. The framework is developed using HTML5, CSS5.5, PHP and MySql as
database.
Keywords: Framework, E-government, E-governance, Mobile Cloud computing, Digital divide.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background
Of The Study
E-governance
has become a popular focus of government efforts in many countries around the
world. More governments have implemented and introduced e-governance as a means
of reducing costs, improving services, saving time and increasing effectiveness
and efficiency in the public sector. E-governance has made an essential change
in the whole societal structure, values, culture and the ways of conducting
business.
The
emergence of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has provided
better way for faster and better communication, efficient storage, retrieval
and processing of data, exchange and utilization of information to its users,
be they individuals, groups, businesses, organizations or governments. With
growing computerization and increasing internet connectivity, governments
around the world have engaged in the process of developing a wide range of
e-governance services by using web-based internet applications. These
technological advances have tended to occur at a much slower rate in Nigeria. Government
authorities are aiming to meet the rising expectations of citizens for better;
more comprehensive services added using innovative information technologies and
various service delivery channels.
Over
the past few years, advances in the field of network based computing and
applications on demand have led to an explosive growth of application models
such as cloud computing, software as a service, community network, web store,
and so on. As a major application model in the era of the Internet, Cloud
Computing has become a significant research topic of the scientific and
industrial communities since 2007. Commonly, cloud computing is described as a
range of services which are provided by an Internet-based cluster system. Such
cluster systems consist of a group of low-cost servers or Personal Computers
(PCs), organizing the various resources of the computers according to a certain
management strategy, and offering safe, reliable, fast, convenient and
transparent services such as data storage, accessing and computing to clients.
Meanwhile,
smart phones are considered as the representative for the various mobile
devices as they have been connected to the Internet with the rapidly growing
wireless network technology. Ubiquity and mobility are two major features.
Mobile
cloud computing is a development of mobile computing and an extension to cloud
computing. In mobile cloud computing, the previous mobile device-based
intensive computing, data storage and mass information processing have been
transferred to ’cloud’ and thus the requirements of mobile devices in computing
capability and resources have been reduced, so the developing, running,
deploying and using mode of mobile applications have been totally changed. On
the other hand, the terminals which people used to access and acquire cloud
services are suitable for mobile devices like smart phone, PDA, Tablet, and
iPad but not restricted to fixed devices (such as PC), which reflects the
advantages and original intention of cloud computing. Therefore, from both
aspects of mobile computing and cloud computing, the mobile cloud computing is
a combination of the two technologies, a development of distributed, grid and
centralized algorithms, and have broad prospects for application.
ICT in
government helps in providing new governance services and products. It enhances
participation of people. It also helps in better information dissemination. As
ICT has already become an integral part of everyday life, the challenge for the
next generation of e-governance applications is to continue to improve public
sector performance. The partnership with the various stakeholders for
E-Government can be in many areas such as: Financial Investment, Infrastructure
Setup, Solution Architecture and Technology selection, Content Development and
Management, Rendering front-end services to the Citizens, roll-out of
e-government project, software development, project management and assessment,
capacity building etc. It describes the use of technologies to facilitate the
operation of government and the disbursement of government information and
services. . Meanwhile, this framework is a structure intended to serve as
a support or guide for the deployment of transformation stage of e-governance
in Nigeria. It is therefore reusable that is, can be expanded further.
- Statement of
the problem
Nigeria is a vast and populous country whose system and
processes of governance have been fraught with many challenges. This has led many to question the credibility
of the governance processes in Nigeria, thereby leading to so many issues.
These issues form the problem of this study as underlisted below:
- Lack
of direct access and communication between Government and her citizens
- Lack
of two-way communications among government departments example (Ministries,
agencies, parastatal, businesses, and
nongovernmental organisations)
- Inability
of government to be accountable owing to lack of verifiable record.
This study is motivated by the
desire to create a more efficient resource tool for governance in Nigeria.
Given the strategic importance of the information communication technology
today, it has become crucial to research on ways the government can improve
services and communications delivery to the people. Thus, the objectives of
this research work are as follows:
- Creation of a robust and distributed database
for governance services.
- Simplification of processes through the creation
of mobile website which could be accessed with mobile devices for easy
accessibility of governance services.
- Creation of platform
independent e-governance application.
- Creation of a reusable
framework for automating governance processes.
- Significance
of the study
- Reduction in operating costs to government at
all levels.
- Provides governance services faster and cheaper
thereby accelerating the adoption and use of mobile devices in governance.
- The framework will be
available without incurring too much on infrastructure.
- Increase in citizens’ ICT skills, internet
knowledge and smart phone usage
- Creation of a platform for transparent and
accountable governance
- Creation of new business and work opportunities
- Improve efficiency of government agencies in
processing data
- Improve services through better understanding of
citizens’ requirements, thus aiming for seamless mobile online services
- Information sharing between all government
agencies and departments to build one mega database.
- Assistance to government’s economic policy
objectives by promoting productivity gains inherent in ICT and e-commerce
- Transparency, accuracy and communication between
government and businesses.
- Trust between governments and citizens, an
essential factor in good governance by using mobile internet-based strategies
to involve citizens in the policy process.
- Scope of the
study
Nigeria has showed some
high level of presence in the Information, Interaction and Transaction stages
of e-governance. In this research, emphasis is made on the Transformation stage
of e-governance with focus on the three major components of e-government that
is Government, Business and Citizens.
- Definition
of Terms
Framework
A
framework is a real or conceptual structure intended to serve as a support or
guide for the building of something that expands the structure into something
useful.
E-government
E-government
is the use of internet and the world-wide-web for delivering government
information and services to citizens, business and other government agencies.
(UN Division for Public Economics and Public Administration 2001:1)
E-governance
E-Governance is the application of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) for delivering government services, exchange of
information communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone
systems and services between Government-to-Citizens (G2C), Government-to-Business
(G2B), and Government-to-Government (G2G) as well as back office processes and
interactions within the entire government frame work.
Mobile cloud computing
Mobile Cloud computing
is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool
of configurable computing resources, (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with
minimal management effort or service provider interaction on mobile phones
(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 2009).
Digital Divide
The gap between those constrained, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT) and those who are not constrained.
A FRAMEWORK FOR IMPLEMENTING MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING IN E-GOVERNANCE FOR NIGERIA
