Date of Award

8-1-2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis

First Advisor

Dr. Ilze Zigurs

Abstract

In the United States today, approximately one third of the population fails to access the Internet for one reason or another. This can have dire consequences for local, state, and national governments who are committed to providing e-government services to citizens. These services range from offering information to users to affording citizens the opportunity to place online ballots and almost everything in between. As governments attempt to reach their most unreachable citizens through use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), they are faced with the difficult task of finding ways to overcome factors which can affect citizen access. These factors include age, race/ethnicity, and socio-economic status, and they have the potential to exclude a very important part of the population from the online government services that are put in place to aid all citizens, including this population of people. As a result, governments everywhere are implementing initiatives, either by providing free access or by lowering computer and access costs that encourage participation in e-government. Most governments use examples of initiatives from other governments coupled with the needs of their citizens as a guide for implementation of e-services. The City of Omaha is no exception and could very well benefit from other initiatives as well as suggestions from its citizens on how to better serve them. This thesis uses information obtained from literature, case studies, and citizen surveys to uncover ways in which the local government of Omaha, Nebraska can best utilize advanced communication and information technologies to create a universally accessible environment for technologically underprivileged citizen participation in communication, information sharing, and decision making.

Comments

A Thesis Presented to the Department of Information Science and Quantitative Analysis and the Faculty of the Gradute College University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science University of Nebraska at Omaha. Copyright Sandra Denise Andralie Reade August, 2006

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