Abstract: Electronic Government (e-government) initiatives are complex change efforts to use new and emerging technologies to support a transformation in the operation and effectiveness of government. In Pakistan government has outline its e-government initiatives. The objectives of these initiatives are to increase the scope of which governments, businesses and citizens can interact with the government online. To accomplish this there is a need to move forward and develop e-government structure by using the internet based multimedia services and technologies. In this study internet based multimedia services and technologies that can play a vital role in the establishment of an efficient and secure e-government services in the context of Pakistan were discussed. In doing so a conceptual framework is developed that can provide the support to the decision makers, while taking the decisions to accomplish e-government services.
INTRODUCTION
The recent increase of geographically dispersed users has given rise to greater requirements for better methods of collaboration and interaction between personnel. Accelerated advances in computers and communication technologies have ushered in the increasing popularity of multimedia applications on the Internet (Dong, 2006a, Syed, 2006). The combination of Multimedia and Internet technology has introduced an increasing demand for Large-scale consistent services. Multimedia technology offers many and most popular services on the Internet. This has increased the popularity of technologies such as IP telephony and multimedia protocols such as video-conferencing, Voice mail and text messaging (Yang et al., 2007; Dirk et al., 2005; Toufik et al., 2006).
Multimedia systems have attracted much attention in the last few years in the field of information technology. The use of continuous media such as audio and video multimedia applications brings new methodologies. Therefore, to enable access to time-dependent information such as audio and video data, techniques must be developed and applied which allow for its handling in computer and communication systems and obeying time constraints (Kalogeraki et al., 2007; Tadahiko et al., 2006). Data distribution and sharing between organizations, both government and industry, has increased with the beginning of the Internet technology (Rathindra and Krishnamurity, 2006).
In recent year’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are widely being used in government settings. Governments are increasingly moving towards the use of ICT in their daily operations and businesses. ICT has the potential to transform government structures and to improve the quality of government services. As a result several theoretical and conceptual frameworks have been developed to understand different characteristic of e-government (Ramon and Ignacio, 2006, Christopher, 2005).
It has been well reported in the literature that ICT provides two main opportunities for governments: (1) increased operational efficiency by reducing costs and increasing productivity and (2) better quality of services provided by government agencies. To realizing the benefits of ICT requires organizations to understand and overcome the challenges to their efforts. As a result, this study is an attempt to discuss the scope of internet based multimedia services in the context of e-government.
Internet Based Multi Media Services (IBMMS): In the past few years there has been an explosion in the number of people using the Internet via different desktop and hand held devices like notebooks, workstations PDA and Cellular phones (Gianluca et al., 2006). These users expect high quality material to be delivered over the web, including Voice, Video, graphics, Text and animations. Multimedia is became an essential part of internet, various multimedia services are now integrated part of internet (Dietmar and Klaus, 2007).
| Table 1: | Description of internet based multimedia services |
| Table 2: | Applications/features of Internet based multimedia services |
These services are daily used by various organizations for different interactions. (Table 1).
Applications of IBMMS: Increasing applications of Information and Communication Technologies have lead in the popularity of multimedia applications on the Internet. Many of these applications transmit huge amount of data to many receivers, including real-time media streaming, video conferencing, distance learning and web radio (Uthman and Mohammed, 2006; Athina et al., 2006) (Table 2).
E-government stages of growth model: The stage of growth model plays a significant role in ICT strategies’ implementation at an organisation level. In this model organisational progress through a number of successive, identifiable stages are well elaborated. Each stage replicates a particular level of maturity in terms of the use and management of ICT in the organisation (Donna and David, 2006; Ebrahim and Irani, 2005). Accordingly, Ebrahim and Irani (2005) propose a four-stage model that characterizes the adoption stage of growth model of an e-Government initiative. These four stages are government information delivery, one-way service delivery, two-way service delivery and government integration (Table 3).
The authors consider this stage of growth model to understand the applications of internet based multimedia services in the context of E-Government.
A conceptual framework for Internet Based Multimedia Services (IBMMS) For E-Government: The Internet based multi-media services are categorized in three ways that includes video, audio and text services. In video services Video-on-Demand, video conferencing and IPTV can be used to share interactive and on demand visual information source between local governments, organizations and government. Figure 1 is developed to represent the possible interaction of these services.
By using these interactive visual services citizen can participate with government. IP telephony helps to build a strong and low cast two way speech communication source between governments to governments and government to business organizations. Voice messaging facility provides the talk and sends method of voice transfer by which government can send information messages in form of voice mail, a single message can be transferred to many persons simultaneously. Audio on demand facility provide the facility by using for listening the stored speeches, discussions and important messages any time. Live audio service facilitate the government that it can run their own Internet based radio services that can be used for transfer live government information delivery.
| Table 3: | Description of stages of growth model: Source (Ebraim and Irani, 2005) |
| Fig. 1: | Conceptual framework for IBMMS in e-government |
Email is nowadays used for various purposes. This two way source can be helpful to develop an interaction in form of text data that can store, transfer and handle in easy way. Text messaging service provides facility to communicate with citizens, government and business organizations using a interactive chatting sessions, that interactive sessions can be stored and printable. E. Books/Articles are sources that can be help to government to electronically publish their policies, meetings minutes, decisions, rules etc, that are formally available on paper. This information format is cheaper and easy to download for any user.
CONCLUSION
This study presented in this paper proposes a conceptual framework for internet based multimedia services in the context of e-government. This framework can be used as a tool to take the possible advantages of internet based multimedia services and technologies. The successful development of an e-government is required a program and framework to support the organizations. Various services and technologies are being used for different purposes so why not for e-government? The use of these services obviously provides a commanding tool for modernizing governments and their interaction with organizations and public. This framework can be used as tool for the decision makers while taking the decision for E-Government initiatives.