European Journal of ePractice

This third issue of the European Journal of ePractice analyses attempts by local, regional and national governments and agencies to use new technologies to promote social inclusion. In its i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, the European Commission sets out a vision for the take-up and use of e-services across member states with the objectives of not only improving efficiency and saving taxpayers' money, but also expanding democratic participation. In order to achieve these goals, it is expected that by 2010 all citizens will have access to services through a variety of channels, such as digital TV and mobile phones as well as computers. Additionally, the European Commission has recently launched a European initiative on eInclusion. Contributors to this issue reflect on what has been achieved and what still needs to be done from a variety of perspectives and contexts.

Bridgette Wessels uses the case of South Yorkshire, England, to demonstrate how regional partnerships, linking public and private sector organisations, can play a role in fostering eInclusion in relation to local needs. Many people living in South Yorkshire do not already have access to ICT nor high levels of education. Thus, this case shows how a regional partnership can be effective in developing ICT capacity from a low base.

Staying at the regional level, but moving to Hungary, Marianne Posfai and Andrea Fejer show the importance of providing professional, individualised training to help people make effective use of eGovernment services. They describe the development of an eCounsellor network in which trained local professionals provide assistance to people living in small, underdeveloped, isolated, rural communities to help in the effective use of the Hungarian eGovernment portal which provides access to many basic government services.

The focus of the article by Beate Schulte, Ulrike Peter, Jutta Croll and Iris Cornelssen is the design of websites. They describe how a national competition is used in Germany to stimulate best practice in the design of accessible websites. The number of entrants to the competition has more than doubled since it began in 2003. The authors show how such a competition, involving people with disabilities in both the design of the criteria and in judging entries, can play an important role in improving overall accessibility.

Peter Verdegem and Pascal Verhoest provide the results of a Belgian study about non-adopters. In a country such as Belgium, and many other EU member states, internet use is already very high, so measures adopted a decade ago to stimulate take-up may not be appropriate for those who remain hard to convince of the utility of the technology. Verdegem and Verhoest propose a 'relative utility' approach for stimulating ICT acceptance, based on the needs of specific user groups, and suggest that customised packages developed by professional organisations, the industry and government will be more effective than 'internet for all' projects.

Ali Riza Cam raises an important area, often neglected in discussions of eInclusion, namely the role of technology in the modernisation of legal and judicial systems. He describes a project launched in Turkey in 2001 as part of its EU accession programme. Transparency, absence of corruption and equal treatment of citizens are all essential features of modern judicial systems. Through this comprehensive and ambitious national programme, Turkey is now ahead of many EU member states in its use of technology in the legal system, thus providing an example of good practice from which others could learn.