Marcelo Henrique de Araujo

Categorization of Brazilian Internet Users and Its Impacts on the Use of Electronic Government Services

This paper explores the micro-data from the ICT Households Survey in order to categorize the Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of activities undertaken by these users on-line and assess the propensity of these Internet user groups to use e-gov services. The Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach was adopted as theoretical framework for its consideration of people’s freedom to decide on their use of the available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-government services. This paper uses a positivistic approach a descriptive and exploratory analysis of secondary data (micro-data) from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of the ICT Household survey.

Serviços de governo eletrônico no Brasil: uma análise a partir das medidas de acesso e competências de uso da internet

This article aims to analyze how measures to promote Internet access, and users’ competencies influence the use of electronic government services in Brazil. We adopted the Sen’s Capability Approach as theoretical framework in order to analyze the microdata from the ICT Households 2013, a national-wide survey coordinated by the Regional Center for Studies on Development of the Information Society (CETIC.br). The results indicate that for social classes C (middle class), D and E (lower class) the increase in the odds ratio of the use of e-gov services is strongly influenced by both internet access preferably at home or work (individual access) as well as the users’ internet skills.

CATEGORIZATION OF BRAZILIAN INTERNET USERS AND ITS IMPACTS ON THE USE OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT SERVICES

This paper aims to categorize Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of their online activities and to assess the propensity of these Internet users´ groups to use electronic government (e-gov) services. The Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach was adopted as the theoretical framework for its consideration of people’s freedom to decide on their use of available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-gov services. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to perform data analysis from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of ICT Household Survey. The results showed that Internet users belonging to the advanced and intermediate use groups were more likely to use e-gov services than those who belong to the sporadic use group. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the Internet user group of intermediate use presented a higher tendency to use e-gov services than the Internet user group of advanced use. This tendency is possibly related to the extensive use of interactive and collaborative activities of leisure and entertainment performed by this type of user. The findings of this research may be useful in guiding public policies for the dissemination and provision of electronic government services in Brazil.

UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION SOCIETY IN BRAZIL: AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSE ON URBAN BRAZILIAN INTERNET USERS

This paper outlines the socioeconomic profile of Brazilian Internet users and relate it to theirInformation and Communication Technologies (ICT) service usage behavior, focusing on theusers’ locations of Internet access. The research is based on the data from the survey on “ICTin households and enterprises”, conducted by the Center of Studies on Information andCommunication Technologies (CETIC.br). Based on a descriptive statistical analysis, thestudy concludes by identifying patterns of users’ internet location choice based on socioeconomicvariables. The results of this research are useful to understand the characteristics ofthe Brazilian Internet users and may help in the design and evaluation of public policiesaimed at Digital Inclusion.

A DOCUMENTAL ANALYSIS REGARDING INFORMATION QUALITY PERCEPTION IN OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA STUDIES

This paper aims to analyze which aspects of Information Quality (IQ) are included in documentsthat address the Open Government Data (OGD) subject. The approach used in this paper wasthe documentary research, in order to support the assessment of the IQ dimensions. InformationQuality is fundamental to the success of initiatives whose priority is to make available and/orprovide information for use by others parties, as is the case of OGD. The documentary analysisundertaken in this paper is based on the dimensions of information quality proposed in thePSP/IQ (Product and Service Performance Model for Information Quality) model. The resultsindicate that there are few studies in the OGD literature that discuss the following aspects of IQ:Credibility, Objectivity, Free of Errors and Reputation, which are critical aspects to the successof Open Government Data initiatives (OGD).