1、PDF外文：http:/ Study of Government Website Information Disclosure in Taiwan Yuan-Fa Chen1, Sandy Yu-Lan Yeh2, and Kuo-Ching Wu1 1 Department of Information Management, Central Police University, Taiwan wkcmail.cpu.edu.tw 2 Department of Foreign Affairs Police, Central Police University, Taiwan
2、sandymail.cpu.edu.tw Abstract. Taiwans Freedom of Information Act (TFOIA) aims at protecting peoples right to know and making the information easily, evenly formulated and obtained by the public. The access to government information not only enhances peoples understanding, trust, and supervision on
3、public affairs, but also promotes their participation in democracy. The goal of open and transparent administration can be achieved only by sharing the information with the public. All government agencies must have everything set, especially after one-year adjustment of TFOIA that was passed in Dece
4、mber 2005. In expectation of publicizing governments efforts and achievement, we design a score card on the basis of regulations made by TFOIA for all governmental websites. Meanwhile, we also conduct a survey of 248 governmental websites to see whether the websites offer legal and proper info
5、rmation to the public or not. The findings of the research confirm that the information disclosed on government websites still remains insufficient, except for data on official organizations, duties, addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, websites, e-mail addresses, and the like. Moreover, the i
6、nformation disclosed on the websites has a remarkable connection with organizational levels and functional attributes of all government offices. In general, according to the score card, TFOIA scores only 1.25 on the average, far from the regulated full score 3.0. Apparently, TFOIA still has much roo
7、m for improvement. 1 Introduction In the World Economic Forum (WEF) rating of competitiveness, Taiwan was ranked as the third in the world in 2004 when the total of internet users was approximately 10,330,000 and the population to surf the net was up to 9,050,000. With the rapid growing nature
8、 of network, much more investment on human resources, facilities, and services are urgently needed. Taiwan is presently at the third stage of planning to promote the advanced type of electronic government. Retrospectively, at the first stage, the electronic government brought forth innovations
9、 in the networking of public services, expanding and promoting government information disclosure. At the second stage, the function and convenience of the electronic government helped encourage peoples participation in public affairs and remold Taiwan government thoroughly, making possible progressi
10、ve transition and development of a civic society. 2 Research Motive and Scope Government information refers to governmental organizations which produce, during their operations, obtain, utilize, propagate, keep and are responsible for the information that they possess. In
11、2006 Taiwan claims the primary goal to promote the infrastructure construction for governmental network. Most of the government institutions and offices are equipped with wide-band facilities with 85% setup their own websites. 14,000 government institutions and more than 20,000 academic instit
12、utions are integrated altogether, capable of providing electronic delivery and exchange of document. Survey result indicates that 75% of the major offices affiliated to the Executive Yuan are available in electronic document exchange system； compared to 65% in the county or municipal government offi
13、ces and agencies； 63% in local governments. Taiwans Freedom of Information Act (TFOIA) was passed in December 2005. People have easy access to know about the administrative information from the websites at any time since then. This research evaluates how TFOIA works so far by surveying 250 governmen
14、tal websites in accordance with the Law. 3 Literature Review Historically, US and Europe were the pioneers in the formulation of the law regarding information and the demand for the transparency of government information. But obviously there were some differences. The US Freedom of Info
15、rmation Act (FOIA) was passed in 1966, which decreed the government to announce its rules and orders and to ensure citizens access to government information. The citizen had the right to claim extensive information which the government was supposed to release, except for state secrets and individual
16、 privacy materials. According to the testimony of the American Bar Association, the US administrative agencies should act in accordance with the obligation to disclose and spread government information which was extended from traditional media to electronic forms, and must provide information in eas
17、y access, such as the global information network on the internet.US made a relevant regulation to simplify the paperwork in 1995, namely Paperwork Reduction Act. It specifies the federal organizations to implement the policy of information flow, encourages the government department based on public i
18、nformation, and tries to combine the information resources of the government department and individual enterprises. The main idea is based on the assumption that government information is a kind of resources belonging to the people, thus any interests generated by the governments information certain
19、ly go to the entire society and should be open to the public. Hence, the United States is in conflict with peoples interest to disclose federal information, offering original information to any individual enterprises so as to enable them to make decision for their best commercial interests. To sum u
20、p, “freedom of information” and “the Paperwork Reduction” make possible to widely spread information through public network. In contrast, European countries are not active in this respect (Perritt & Rustad, 2000: 403-417). 4 TFOIA Measurement and Statistical Analysis 4.1 &nbs
21、p; Sampling Method and Survey Design This research starts with investigating Taiwan government organization websites. Since there are too many governments agencies in Taiwan, it is impossible to do a comprehensive study of all government agencies due to the limitation of time and resources. He
22、nce, this research employs the purposive sampling method to get information of 250 government websites, including administrative organizations, public hospitals, judicial units, police/fire offices, county and municipal governments, congress, etc. This research examines the total amount of 25
23、0 samples collected from central government websites, among them 248 samples are valid for analysis. The only two invalid samples indicate that these websites do not have the function to provide any service. The research uses a 3-point scale in survey design. The questionnaire of
24、the study, taken from Article 7 of TFOIA, corresponds to the diction and phrasing of the said law about the information that the government should disclose publicly, except for some wording commonly used in questionnaire (Table 1). Table 1. The Content of Article 7 of TFOIA
25、 Item no o Contents Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Whether or not the website offers treaty, documents of foreign relations, law, emergency order, and order, regulation ordering and local autonomy regulation decreed in accordance with the Standa
26、rd Law of Central Regulation. Whether or not the website offers the explanatory stipulations and judgment criteria regarding the unified the explication of the law, recognition of facts, and the exercise of executive judgment, which are decreed by the government to help the government agency
27、at a lower level or its subordinates. Whether or not the website offers data on its organization, duty, address, telephone number, facsimile number, website, and Email account. Whether the website offers administrative guidelines to documents and paper work related to the agency or not. Whether the website offers its administrative plan, business statistics, and research paper or not.
