Designing an Automated e-Readiness Assessment Tool to Assess Local Authorities in Namibia

Abstract

 E-Readiness assessments have been identified as a pre-requisite for successful systems implementations and therefore it is a pre-requisite for e-Government as well. It is however difficult to use existing e-Readiness assessment tools as most have been designed to cater for a specific context. In the absence of previous assessments, the level of e-Readiness of local authorities in Namibia is undetermined. The aim of the study is to design an automated assessment tool to assess the level of e-Readiness of Local Authorities, focusing in particular on the Municipality of City of Windhoek. This assessment will be carried out using the newly designed automated assessment tool. Two online surveys were designed and conducted. One was specifically designed for the Information Communication Technology Department and another one was designed for the staff members of all other departments. The surveys measured the e-Readiness of the Local Authority in terms of online service provision, its computer systems, hardware/network infrastructures and the skills set of employees. The findings indicate that the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in research efforts, greatly improves the process, as the automated e-Readiness assessment tool delivered faster assessments and at a lesser cost. The results from the automated assessment tool shows that it can be used to measure e-Readiness at different Local Authorities.