E-government

What is E-government?

Definition: “E-government consists of the digital interactions between a citizen and their government, between governments and government agencies, between government and citizens, between government and employees, and between government and businesses/commerce.”

Uses of e-government

As the purpose of e-government is to give remote interaction with your government, the uses of it can range hugely. For example for Tunbridge wells, a resident is able to go to the Tunbridge Wells borough council website to perform a whole manor of tasks which includes reporting a problem, reviewing a parking ticket and even requesting a new bin which my family has done in the past to be met with a speedy response and action. This carries over to the fact that doing government processes online is more fast, simple and convenient. The fact that anyone with an internet connection can interact with community is as a result making modern life largely more functional than before where problems would arise such as timing constraints and your transport to and from the council building.

E-petitions: This is the most direct way to interact with the government through E-government. It works by someone or a group of people have a request or problem for a government department. They will then start a petition online for the public to sign electronically. This way of holding a petition means it is easier for the public to get signatures because it can reach more people in a smaller amount of time. This as a result means more petitions will reach the amount to be discussed in parliament, this as a whole improves public and government relations.

Not only can the public get to the government, but information from the government can be sent out too. This works in ways such as for a user to print out a form that is needed for a process, instead of having to physically go to the council and find it. Furthermore, another example of this is for the public to look at crime maps for a specific area to do research on it, on websites like http://www.police.uk/ you can find how many what specific acts were committed do to the accuracy of a road.

Dealing with fraud

The problem that faces e-government is trust, this is because some people feel disconnected because of the services now being on the web and as a result do not believe it is secure enough for their information. The way they combat this is to include large security measures whenever someone is logging in or performing a task on an e-government website. This includes password protecting and email verification so that the account gets bound to the user. This in turn provides a safer e-government experience.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government
http://www.police.uk/kent/245/crime/
http://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Online education services

Online education services are widely used by teachers to inform their students and also for students to educate themselves. These services offer a huge convenience as people studying a course are able to have access to the content and information they need 24/7. These are being used more frequently in primary and secondary education because people are becoming computer literate at younger ages meaning they aren't being needed to be taught how to use primary functions of a computer.

BBC Bitesize

Bitesize is one of the most used online education services in the UK, it is mainly used by primary and secondary education but other course are available also. Bitesize gives students access to slide shows, tests and even games so that they may learn the subject to a better standard, the primary format the information is given in a simple page format with short paragraphs and bullet points to give the main facts and improve the speed at which people can learn from it.

Although Bitesize provides free notes and information for public courses, it has a huge lack of specifics for people to work from. This Is because they don’t provide defined exam boards, this limits hugely to people trying to learn because they are unable to know whether the information given is relevant to them or not.

My maths

My maths is used wisely in secondary education to set mathematics homework. While providing homework tasks, to accompany this they also give an online class with homework for students to learn from before they take on the main task. Furthermore they also give maths tasks and questions in the form of games to make the learning experience a more fun one.

The difference between this and Bitesize is that it tackles a specific subject of education as opposed to entire academic years and key stages. This makes way for them to concentrate better on the overall experience so that students can teach I the most efficient way possible while Bitesize has to take on and monitor over 20 different subjects which in turn makes for a less fulfilled and thorough experience.

Non-education specific websites

Websites like YouTube provide hundreds of channels made by individuals that educate on many different subjects. One example of this is My GCSE Science. This channel contains tutorials and note videos of every subject and topics for AQA physics, Biology and Chemistry. I used this service to revise all of my notes for my science GCSE exams and achieved and A grade in each of them.

YouTube provides so much variety that you will be able to find the information you need on thousands of subjects with and actually person talking about it to you which takes gives a physical element and as a result sets this apart from both Bitesize and My maths.

Online banking

Banking was originally where people would go to store their money in a large vault to keep it safe, and the more money you had the more you would be able to make with investments and interest. When you were paid it would be done with a physical check would then be paid to the bank and the money put into your account. This system has evolved over time produce the modern online banking service you see today.

Modern online banking
Nowadays rather than a physical payment people get their salary via an electronic signal which goes to the bank to tell them put money into your account. Similarly when you bank in an amount of physical money like a £20 note, that will be converted to data and then you bank balance will increase by £20. The newer, faster and more convenient system allows people to control their bank account whenever and wherever they want to due to it being simple data rather than notes and coins in a bank which is harder to track and count.

However, whilst these advancements are making our lives easier they are in fact taking a long time to do so. This is mainly due to people not trusting the system, the disconnection from their money makes it seem like it’s harder to control and as a result this makes them feel it may be tampered with easily. This highly untrue as the only breach in security to someone’s account can only be cause by the person themselves. A system called phishing is used by hackers and thieves to trick the user into giving their details by giving out a link which sends them to a mimic site to then type in their details. This can be avoided in a number of ways, for example to avoid phishing you may get free antivirus to scan the link to check if it is legitimate or not, or simply learn how to differentiate the real emails
from the fake ones. Furthermore to increase security even more, card readers are used by some banks to get a newly generated passcode every time someone wants to log in and this is further reinforced by memorable information where people must recall the character of a sentence or phrase they chose.

Whereas most banks would have started off years ago as large physical building such as Barclays or Lloyds, they have now moved to smaller locations and moved more online. Due to this less money is stored in banks and there is no need for large vaults. Furthermore gold is also used as a real valued currency to trade with and similarly in recent years oil has been used in the same way, this is better than actually money because it has physical value rather than virtual.

Some banks like first direct have never been and are not physical and are purely online and this makes way for them to put more money into their security systems and therefore makes them a slightly more trusted online bank. The lack of a physical bank also hugely reduces running costs of the business as less people are needed to maintain the company.

Virtual currency
Bitcoin is a currency that was created by the public and while it does not use a bank it is purely online and virtual. The original way to get Bitcoin was for a computer to solve algorithms and earn Bitcoin for doing so. The landscape for the currency involves no banks and all Bitcoin is either still locked by an algorithm or owned by someone to be traded in E-commerce. This system makes Bitcoin the only currency used worldwide with no bank or government involvement, the public have complete control over it, and where it goes.

Online banking has huge advantages with it giving people access to their accounts to make transfers and payments to others. Furthermore it’s much cheaper for banks to have online banks as it creates less demand for physical banks to go to and therefore less staff is needed to manage them. However this exposes massive drawbacks for the workers at banks as they will end up being paid less or even being out of the job.What is more, its advancement is taking a lot of time due to people being less trusting of it.

Sources:
http://www.norcimo.com/blog/archives/2006/04/more_lloydstsb.shtml
http://sketharaman.com/blog/2014/06/

E-commerce

E-commerce is a commercial transaction that takes place electronically over the internet. This revolutionary system allows anyone to purchase goods from anywhere at any time in a secure system. E-commerce is performed when two sides, a buyer and a seller do business and this usually involves the sale of physical or digital goods. It allows anyone from around the world to buy products from anywhere and is carried out using a credit or debit card.

 

Online Shopping (Ebay and Amazon)

One of the most used platforms for e-commerce is Amazon which oversees transactions between buyers and sellers. It originally started off as an online book shop but branched off to sell the millions of products you can find today. Amazon works by connecting individual buyers and seller from around the world and lets them do business their payment system.

Another well-known online shopping website is Ebay, this works in a similar fashion with individual buyers and seller but with one large difference, they use a service called PayPal to transfer the money from point A to point B anonymously. This is when the buyer will give the details and money to PayPal and they then will pass the money on to the seller with their details. This system ensures no fraud and theft of account details will occur and thus makes Ebay a viable and safe option for people.

 

The success of these two websites is also due to the fact that they almost entirely run on trust and feedback. For example if somebody on Ebay sells a product and while doing so they provide good communication, polite service and they actually give the product described, they will as a result receive a good review and therefore gain better reputation. The reputation of a seller on amazon and Ebay is so vital because without good reputation nobody will want to buy from them and no further sales will be made. This system further ensures less fraud will occur due to the act only being able to take place once per account made.

 

Click and collect and Brick and click

These types of transactions involve the buyer purchasing and item and them having to go and physically collect it as opposed to having it mailed to them. This is still more convenient for some as it allows the avoidance and large aisles and the amount of time it takes to find a specific item. Furthermore companies like Argos use this service a lot and in turn it saves them huge amounts of money on delivery costs.

 

Brick and click involves a physical store such as Sainsbury’s starting off as a store and then moving to online services for people to order their shopping for it to be delivered at the user’s convenience. This type of shopping allows people to have the choice between a physical shopping experience and a virtual one.

 

These Types of E-commerce can be very useful to people with a busy lifestyle and let those with a distance between them and the nearest store to relax and wait for their products. However much these further broaden the idea to people that it is good to stay indoors often and it takes away from a possible social aspect of shopping with friends and family. Furthermore if this type of shopping becomes even more popular it will mean less staff will be needed to maintain the physical shops because even less are needed to uphold a website and this in turn means less jobs to go around.


Sources:
http://www.panovistamarketing.com/news/2013/06/219/
http://jomec.co.uk/life360-2014/food/delivery-truck-or-garbage-bin
http://www.abolsitsolutions.com/services/ecommerce-services/