Assessment Frameworks

e-Governance project focus on achievement of business benefits to the Government and citizens. Hence, defining a monitoring and evaluation framework as well as assessment framework, for the project is a crucial element in e-Governance project design and implementation. Monitoring relates to tracking the project progress, outputs and deliverables as per the defined project plan whereas evaluation refers to assessment on achievement of business objectives and benefits defined for the project.

There are various assessment frameworks developed, especially with a focus to address e-Government projects. These have been developed from different perspectives and mainly address the needs and objectives being important to the institutions undertaking the assessment study. An assessment exercise involves a tedious process, in terms of capacity, time and resources; if the intention is to assess an e-Government project thoroughly. e-Government projects involve a number of stakeholders, whose expectations from the project needs to be addressed.

There is various assessment frameworks related to e-Government projects and some of them are

• e-Government Assessment Framework (EAF), India
• eGEP – The e-Government Economics Project, EU.
• VAN-DAM model, Australia.
• A Public Value framework, UK.

e-Government Assessment Framework (EAF), Government of India

The Department of Information Technology, Government of India along with IIM-Ahemdabad and NISG created the Framework for assessing e-Government projects under various dimensions. The projects were categorized into small, Medium and Large, based on the investments. The EAF broadly consists of the following attribute classes for evaluation as

• Service-Orientation- class consisting of 3 sub-groups namely, Efficiency, User-convenience, and Citizen centricity.
• Technology class consisting of 5 sub-groups namely, Architecture, Standards, Security, Scalability, and Reliability.
• Sustainability class consisting of 3 sub-groups namely, Organisational, Commercial, and Legal sustainability
• Cost-effectiveness class
• Replicability class consisting of 3 subgroups namely, Functional, Technological, and Commercial Replicability