E-GOVERNMENT | A new governmental portal reflects a progressive, ambitious vision. Ahmad Humeid previews the site.
Most Jordanian government sites launched in recent years have been not much more than modest attempts to provide basic information about the ministries or organizations they represent. That’s not to say that the private sector in Jordan is doing much more.
That seems to be changing. Maybe even in a big way.
I recently stumbled across a site that I was not aware of before: The Jordan portal of the Jordan Information Center. Everything about this site told me that a different mentality is at work here. It must be said that the site is still in its test phase and has not officially been announced. Still, it is one big development that needs to be watched and encouraged.
Located at the easy to remember web address Jordan.jo, this portal is a totally interactive platform for publishing government information. More importantly, the makers of this site choose it to be very interactive. By ‘interactive’ I don’t mean that the site is full of blinking buttons and rotating logos. In fact the site is totally free of such gimmicks. Interactivity on this site is real, in the sense that visitors are enabled to really interact with the Jordanian government through this portal.
One major thing to notice here is that the site is totally in Arabic, which means it will be usable by all computer literate Jordanians. It also shows that the internet is becoming more of a mainstream tool in Jordan. In the early days of the internet, NETS (now Batelco Jordan) launched an ‘Ask the Government’ forum, which, being in English and only accessible to NETS subscribers was more of an elitist platform. Although it makes sense that Jordan.jo’s platform is fully Arabic, the absence of even a small English section is a bit strange.
The Jordan.jo site has its own extensive ‘Ask the Government’ forum. Since the site’s test launch in May, the site has already received over 250 questions from citizens, over 100 of which have received answers. What is remarkable about this forum, and indeed the rest of the site, is the absence of heavy-handed censorship. Sure, users are asked to adhere to clean language and not to slander anyone, still the questions published on the site are quite candid. One question asks the government why nothing is being done about corruption in a specific government department. The question is answered, saying that the specific cases of corruption were dealt with in that department and that the person asking the question should come forward if he has any additional information about cases of corruption.
Another question, this time directed to Government Spokesperson Minister Asma Khader concerning her feelings about the cartoons that are being published about her in the weekly press. This question too got an answer from the Minister herself.
Jordan.jo also includes an extensive news section, covering all governorates as well as regional and international news. Users can comment on stories freely, another revolutionary feature, considering this is a government site.
Other sections of the portal are an image gallery, document download center and a directory of Jordanian sites.
Technically speaking, the site is a little revolution in itself. It is completely driven by ready-made, open-source internet publishing tools, (based on the PHP web programming langue and the MySQL database). This choice of technology means that the site was probably built very quickly, without spending precious government money on expensive custom-designed or proprietary platforms. The choice of these open source technologies also explains the abundance of interactive features (like article rating, commenting, etc) which come as a standard in such platforms.
The site, in its current form, is lacking in the department of elegance. The site’s graphics look somewhat amateurish, yet this is not something that cannot be remedied.
The real test that this site has to face is not a technical one. It remains to be seen whether the government has the human resources and the long term will that is needed to sustain such a site can carry on the ambitious mission of running a truly large and interactive internet platform.
Will many government departments answer the questions posted by citizens? Will the moderators of the discussion forums be available to keep the discussions focused and constructive? Will the information on the site be regularly updated? These are real tests of such an ambitious project.
Comments
2 responses to “Jordan’s government goes interactive!”
Thanks for this nice post. I checked the site, I must say it’s great. This is one of the very few useful governmental sites so far. And the number is increasing.
This site also is well designed and programmed. Very impressive. Also it’s programmed using PHP, an open source technology. Great thing
I liked the forums & calender of events very much.
What would be really useful is that to create web services, so that people can reuse this content in thier websites, mobile phones… etc.
I’ve just finished going through some of the questions. The candid and honest questions are really refreshing, asking the government both specific and general questions.
The internet by its very nature is a democratizing (a cheapened word, I know) tool, and this site goes to show how a system of checks and balances can be established by giving citizens access to a seemingly more transparent government.
Thanks for the great posts, but just as a side note, I went broke from the Zinio post, I’m addicted and my credit card can’t handle it.