E-Government

E-Government, also known as e-gov in short hand, is a term describing the use of online features and technologies by means of the government to distribute and collect information to and from the general public. The main use of this connection of the public and government via the means of the internet is to deal with everyday problems and situations that may occur outside of the internet and, in some cases, inside the internet; although the group that benefits the most is the government, as the internet applications are used to aid in government affairs. The use of e-gov has been around for many years but not necessarily as obvious as it is now and especially not on the internet as it commonly is featured on today. Before the use of e-gov on the internet governments and political figures would use other means of communicating to the public by means of the radio, T.V broadcasts, fax machines etc. Nowadays the internet is usually the answer to receiving and sending government information and services. I am going to focus on the aspect of websites that feature help for the public and to make them less dependent on the government. I have listed three common services and information features that are used by the government to gain data, but are for the general public to use:

-Job centres.

-NHS Direct.

-Kent Police

Job Centres:

Online Job Centres are the most commonly used features of e-government to date. There are many sites on the internet all eager to provided the necessary information for the public to get into work as quickly and efficiently as they can. Finding a site that provides information on the country you are living can be quite tricky, as there are many for such places like Ireland which won’t apply for the U.K. One site, however, that does apply for the U.K is a site by the name of Jobcentre Plus. Jobcentre Plus is a government agency for people hoping to find work in the U.K. The site features three type boxes, two of which have drop down boxes for a variety of options in the vicinity you are living in and the style of work you are hoping to find. Lower down the page the site gives a brief description of what the site intends to do for the user, it states; “Job Centre is a government run organisation and this site has no affiliation with it, instead we offer access to categorised job searches that will put you one step ahead of your competition The job centre plus has offices all over the country and these are one of many places to find jobs using their job terminals which list up to the minute vacancies across the country. Not only that but this is where you come to collect your jobseekers allowance each week to support you while you are out of work.” Although Jobcentres Plus has now acquired a much larger site, one that is slightly more easier to use and features many more services such as part time or voluntary work searches, information about student finances and even help on your passport.

NHS Direct:

NHS Direct, NHS standing for Nation Health Service, is the health advice and information service provided for the people of England, with advice offered 24/7 throughout the year. Services included are by means of telephone contact on the national 0845 46 47 number, a web based symptom checker, and via mobile, with Apps for such appliances like the iPhone. As a part of the National Health Service, all NHS Direct services are free at the point of care. As well as these core services there are a number of commissioned services such as specialized support for patients with long term conditions and illnesses, access to GP, General Practitioner and dental healthcare. The web based symptom checker is a very useful feature of the NHS site, as this allows people with not so serious illnesses to see what they can do to help themselves. This then means that the NHS staff can concentrate on those with more serious illnesses or conditions that otherwise and let those at home care for themselves. Everything is very easy to find on the homepage and is clearly linked with the other features of the site to give as much help and advice as they possibly can.

Kent Police:

The Kent Police is the territorial police force for Kent, in England. The force covers an area close to the vicinity of 1,443 square miles, being 3,740 km, with a population of over 1,660,000 people. Not only does is the force expected to protect the citizens of Kent but they also have an overseas force in France where they have teamed up with other U.K and European forces to help protect the channel tunnel of Dover. Some main features of the Kent Police website is the feature to take a look at your local area’s level of crime and the statistics, reporting a non-serious crime or offense that has been troubling you and your neighbourhood online and the fact that the general public can have their say in policing matters and affairs; and also to give reviews on how well they are doing their jobs. The site also offers dozens of information in the areas of ‘County News’ and ‘Local News Highlights’ about affairs that have happened recently within the policing community and how it may have affected you or whether you have any information to help the procedure along. The Kent Police website is also home to three different fan bases, all of which offer some information regard the police force, these being a YouTube profile, Facebook fan page and Twitter news feed.

Advantages to E-Government:

-Makes the public feel involved, thus stemming a healthier relationship with the government.

-Offers services and information relatively quickly and promptly when needed.

-Some matters of the government require the public to bring their views across, such as the reviews of Kent Police.

-If information needs to be sent out to the public, email’s, news feeds on homepages and fan bases means a less cost effective way to get the information out there.

-Information is usually much more accessible on the internet compared to in person.

Disadvantages to E-Government:

-Many people feel secure in terms of face to face contact with members of the government and that connection is lost through e-government.

-Fear of spamming and virus’s through unwanted chain mail can lead the public to move away from e-government as most, if not all, services require an email address to ‘log in’ to the service.

-The fact that e-government is done over a computer and may only require a limited number of staff means that many other members of staff will lose out on jobs.

-Those with little knowledge of the internet and e-government will struggle to acquire the information they are looking for, or providing it for the government to collect, as e-government does require a certain amount of know-how to be a part of its community.

My Experience:

The only time I have ever used a service from e-government was to find a part time job, which was only fairly recently. I went onto a site known as Tunbridge Wells Local Jobs to help me find a job that was close to home and had a fairly good pay. I had used several other search engines to help me, but most of those were unhelpful and had way too many full time centres , of which I unable to do. There have been many instances in which I have seen advertisements or news feeds come up on my internet home page regarding the feature of voting and online surveys for the government. An example being once I receive my pay check via email, there is a link that asks to complete a survey on the efficiency of the council and how they can improve their services but, as of yet, I have not completed one as my first pay check by email came only recently.

Education

Education on the internet has been present only very recently, in terms of how often it was used and what was available to help the user; being mainly students as the user. Now though education has become much more popular than it was in previous years, there is a much wider area of educational services and tools to use and help students in all areas of learning, whether that be languages, english, maths, science (virtually anything and everything). Online learning via tools and services is often known as something called Virtual Learning Environment, otherwise abbreviated to VLE. A more correct term for VLE may be a virtual environment for learning, instead of virtual learning environment, as this implicates that it is in fact the environment that is virtual and not the learning. A book and DVD pack called ‘Virtually There’ that is given out to schools by the Yorkshire and Humber Grid for Learning Foundation where a Professor Stephen Heppell said “Learning is breaking out of the narrow boxes that it was trapped in during the 20th century; teachers' professionalism, reflection and ingenuity are leading learning to places that genuinely excite this new generation of connected young school students — and their teachers too. VLEs are helping to make sure that their learning is not confined to a particular building, or restricted to any single location or moment”. Here I have listed five very useful sites all of which regard the use of education on the internet:

-MyMaths

-BBC Bitesize

-JSTOR

-The Student Room

-Downloadable Exams

MyMaths:

MyMaths is a brilliant site for maths and statistics revision, whether you are in the stage of GSCE or KS3. It has many different interactive online which gets the student involved with the lesson, asking them to perhaps type in the answer to a question or rotate a ruler to find the correct measurement. The lessons take you through many explanations to ensure that you understand as fully as can be; there are also some instances in which the lesson will be slightly different every time you do it, meaning that some quick questions for you to try will have lots of different types of questions. There are also some games that manage to combine learning and fun into the same category which helps to stem yourself to learn more. It does however require a user name and password, something of which I only know through my school as they made one user name for everyone to use, so this may mean that if someone found MyMaths by other means other than their school they would have to possibly go through many terms and conditions.                             

BBC Bitesize:

BBC Bitesize, although a revision site like MyMaths, offers many more curriculum lessons along with Maths, but also lessons such as english and science. It is very user friendly and can be used by a number of students across all school types; it offers lessons and revision topics for KS1, 2 and 3 and also provides many lessons for GCSE level. All the key stages are given the option to choose from maths, science and english whereas GCSE is given languages, religious studies and many more. Unlike MyMaths GCSE Bitesize does not provide many interactive lessons, apart from multi-choice tests that you can complete once you have read through the revision section. On the other hand there are several games which incorporate the learning aspect into a fun little break from hard learning. As well as interactive games they also have videos which you can watch to take in the learning from a different prospective.

JSTOR:

JSTOR is a site in which a student can download lessons and activity sheets to help them through revision. There is a link in the upper right hand corner giving information about what the site has to offer and quotes: “JSTOR is a not–for–profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive of over one thousand academic journals and other scholarly content. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship”. You are able to download hundreds of images and sources by the means of a PDF file; PDF, standing for Portable Document Format, is one of the most commonly used ways to allow students to download the content. Due to JSTOR’s incredible and vast data base of PDF files and images, finding exactly what you need may become a problem is it features so much data.

The Student Room:

The Student Room, originally known as UK Learning from 2001-2004, is an internet based forum for students everywhere, with an estimated 500,000 members and more than 26 million posts on the site. The site consists of students posting questions about general school related life such as courses, studying and careers for the near future. As The Student Room is a community based site students are able to help each other which is what the site relies on to keep a healthy flowing momentum throughout. Although the site is not a profit orientated website there is optional subscriptions that can be paid by the users and advertisements on the site from Google; all of which go towards keeping the site up and running.

Downloadable Exams, AQA:

AQA, which stands for Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, is an exam board in which GCSE, AS and A Level examinations are composed. It is an awarding exam body in England, Northern Ireland and Wales and one of the most commonly used exam bodies in the UK. The site of AQA offers many resources and help to students and teachers everywhere. One of the most valuable features of the AQA website is the downloadable past test papers that you can print off. Since the board offers a vast number of subjects there are numerous papers for each. Not only are you able to download the question paper, but the answers too, meaning that you can do revision from home with the papers and mark the test yourself.

Advantages of Online Education:

-You can access the revision lessons and resources from home.

-You can use the sites when it suits for you to do so, once you’ve talked about the topic in class. You’re not tied down to a class schedule.

-Most of the time the sources will be free of charge.

-The way in which you retrieve information online can be done via email, school websites downloading, printing etc. It is very easy to collect the documents you need.

-If there are any questions you might have about a document or information there is usually a forum that gives you help about what you need.

-There are many different ways in which you can learn online, perhaps by video, audio, forums, downloadable test papers etc.

Disadvantages of Online Education:

-You may need to give information about if you are taking a degree or the syllabus you are with which will be evidence for the site.

-Even though there is an endless amount of information on the internet, most of the information may be bias, unimportant or completely false.

-Communication within a class room is much more ideal in terms of the teacher and student than it is online.

-Some courses may not be available to some if they are taking a lesser known subject, and finding information for such a course can become difficult.

My Experience:

My experience of education on the internet mainly comes from revision. I have used BBC Bitesize throughout most of my school life as it was such an easy site to grasp and revise from. The information is easy to understand and you can find it with ease. The fact that they have many sub titles for certain topics also helps you to find specifically what you are looking for. I have also used the AQA website to download past papers and answers to help me in certain lessons a little while before the actual exam was; this defiantly gives you a very promising look at how to answer particular questions in the exam as most questions would be the same but have a different circumstance or worded slightly different. MyMaths was a very useful website to use for me as well especially since I did both mathematics and statistics for GCSE and MyMaths gave an amazing set of lessons and revision tips to help me through certain topics I didn’t quite understand fully in class, but the in-depth explanations and examples worked amazingly.

E-Commerce

E-Commerce

Electronic commerce, abbreviated to E-commerce, refers to the action of buying and selling products by means of using the internet as your source of distribution of items or collection of items. However, e-commerce doesn’t just cover the action of buying and selling online, it can also refer to such factors like development, marketing, banking and many more. The name given to brands that have a retailer and a website are known as ‘brick and click’. Although there are some brands that only have a site or only have a shop.

Shopping:

The sheer amount of internet shopping has increased radically over this generation and will undoubtedly continue to grow in many years to come. People see online shopping as such an easier task when compared to taking a trip to the town centre; especially if they can access their desired shop from the comfort of their own home. There are also specific websites that are dedicated to selling an enormous amount of products from all categories, such sites being Amazon.co.uk, Ebay.co.uk. These two sites are among the most popular and most used across the internet; they rely on the feedback and reviews that are given to them, otherwise the site will cease to exist, as they are heavily dependent on the people that use the site. Ebay and Amazon were both founded in 1995 and are among the highest rated shopping sites on the internet. Although they may seem quite similar, Ebay is an auction website, where the user can bid for the item they wish, and Amazon is simply an online shopping site. One huge difference that these sites have is one of the payment systems, being PayPal. PayPal is a very secure way of making sure that both the seller and the buyer receive both item and money. PayPal sends the money to the seller regardless of the condition but keeps hold of it just out of the reach of the seller. Once the item is received to the buyer then the money is transferred to the seller, however, if the item is not sent within a certain time then the money is instantly returned.



Ebay Logo
(Taken from Google Images)



Amazon Logo
(Taken from Google Images)



Advantages of Online Shopping:

-There is a definite potential to selling more of your stock if you use online as well as retail (from a business point of view).

-Discounts/special offers/sales can be rewarded and be made more visible on a website than in shops in some instances, meaning people will be more likely to come back to the website.

-The site will always be open.

-There is a much wider customer base online than in the shopping centre.

-You do not need to travel anywhere in order to purchase anything online.

-You can save your browsing history in online shops so that you can come back to possibly buying them at a later date.

-It is much easier to compare items from the internet than it is in store, in terms of whether the same item is available in another shop and you want to compare prices.

Disadvantages of Online Shopping:

-The site will require a high amount of maintenance to ensure that it is kept running smoothly.

-There is the possibility that the item you ordered was not what you thought it was going to be, or that it may get mixed up with another person’s order.

-There is less direct help online, so you are unable to ask a shop assistant about any questions you may have.

-You will need to wait for your item to be delivered; this is one of the biggest downsides that people see in online shopping, the fact that you can’t have your item there and then like in the actual shop.

-Hackers can get into the website and potentially shut it down or gain access to many peoples banking details.

-Postage and packaging may be involved and the cost could be added to the total at the end, which may not end up being as cheap as it once was.

Banking:

Online banking is a feature of E-Commerce that has also been growing in popularity over the generations; but not as much as online shopping. The reason for this is that you are having to supply the bank site with all your details, just like you would do in a normal bank on the high-street, but you do not necessarily know how safe it is; as there is always the risk of your bank being hacked and your details stolen. However, banks are still able to get around this worry that customers may have by offering the best security and anti-hacking systems so that they will be safe when using their site. This usually involves many questions to be answered and passcodes to be entered by the user so that everything they are giving is completely safe and 100% secure to them and them alone. Along with high security systems the banks will also offer compensation if anything does happen to your bank details, money back guarantees, credit card details and much more; all so that you are able to bank confidently and feel safe whilst doing it.

Advantages of Online Banking:

-Using the online bank means that you do not need to travel there.

-Banks are known to have very unhelpful opening and closing times, and not open at all on Sundays, but online banking is open 24/7.

-You can get online statements to give you full details of your banking.

-Every so often the banks need to send out mail regarding information on how much money you have in your account. But with the online site, they can send you the information via the site or an email you have provided for them which is much quicker than mailing out the information; and in turn it also saves the business money on postage and paper.

Disadvantages of Online Banking:

-Online banks are always number one at risk of being overrun with virus’s and hackers trying to steal bank credentials.

-Transactions may take a long time to process with all the security checks you might need to pass.

-Banking online can sometimes be a very complicated system to get into.

-There is no professional advice or one to one advice for people with questions, which is something that banks are quite usually used for.

My Experience:

My only experience of using E-commerce is using online shopping, including Amazon and Ebay, but not online banking. I have bought many items from both sites, but it has not always been such a smooth transaction. I had once paid for a pair of trainers on Ebay, going by the picture of which was shown it had taken my interest. Though once it arrived it was not the same item as shown on the picture, so I needed to send an email asking what had gone wrong. Eventually, after waiting a few more days, I got the right shoes I had wished for and as an apology by the seller, got to keep the other ones too. This is a clear example of how people are so reliant on feedback and good reviews on these sites, as I could’ve given a negative review on the seller saying they had sent me the wrong item, but as they were deeply sorry for the incident and apologized, there was no need to write such a review.