Russian G2C e-Government Knowledge Portal ( ... · Google Adwords and Google Website Optimizer. The portal is visible on the Internet but it was launched about 5 months ago without

G2C portal analytics (June – December, 2010)

alex brudno_g2c_portal 2010_eng_v9.0 1/7/2011[Type text] Page 1

Russian G2C e-Government Knowledge Portal (www.rusg2c.ru)

Dr. Alex Brudno ([email protected])

Moscow, December 2010

www.rusg2c.ru

G2C project “Support to e-government in the Russian Federation”,

financed by European Union (EuropeAid/126204/SER/RU)

`

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.rusg2c.ru/



INDEX

Introduction. .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Portal overview ............................................................................................................................................ 4

Portal content analysis .................................................................................................................................. 5

Portal content by categories ...................................................................................................................... 5

Portal visibility .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Portal main dashboard ................................................................................................................................... 7

Portal visits and visitors trend (by month) ................................................................................................ 8

Portal visitors’ retention ............................................................................................................................ 9

Portal visitors and geography ...................................................................................................................... 10

Portal world access table ......................................................................................................................... 11

Portal Russian cities access table ............................................................................................................ 12

Portal Web characteristics ........................................................................................................................... 14

Portal access by browsers ....................................................................................................................... 14

Portal traffic sources ............................................................................................................................... 14

Portal pages ............................................................................................................................................. 15

G2C Electronic Learning System ............................................................................................................... 17

Leader in the ELS - Ulyanovsk region ........................................................................................................ 18

First G2C survey based on the ELS course “Introduction to e-government” ............................................. 19



Dedicated to my father Alexander Brudno

Introduction.

The overall objective of the G2C project is to contribute to the efforts of the RF government to improve

transparency, administrative efficiency, and accountability of the Russian public administration due to

(a) improved inter- and intra-agency cooperation, and

(b) improved state-citizen relations.

One of the main purposes of the project is:

“Creation and management of a network of excellence in the area of e-government to increase the

efficiency of the Russian public sector at the federal, regional and municipal level by disseminating

'best practices'. This network should be linked to existing national and international networks”

The G2C project has designed, implemented and now managing Russian e-government Knowledge portal

(www.rusg2c.ru). The portal has similarity with such European portals as E-practice

(http://www.epractice.eu/), OECD (http://www.oecd.org), dgCommunities, World Bank egovernment

portal (http://web.worldbank.org), and others.

The portal is one of the first Russian industry portals employing Web 2.0 solutions. All participants of the

portal can contribute to its content by supplying information about e-government news, events,

implemented solutions, post profiles of the commercial firms, specialist, and publish documents – on all

wide specter of issues related to e-government. This makes portal a real focal point for all Russian e-

government community free of particular corporate interests and administrative barriers.

The portal has a strong emphasis on the commercial firms which makes it different than many other

similar portals in Russia and EU. At the end citizens of all countries just need comprehensive and

continent e- services (regardless of multifunctional nature of e-government problems) delivered through

IT implementations. The G2C portal became a free market place increasing competition and decreasing

corruption for the vendor’s selection processes.

The beta-version of the portal became available on June 12, 2010 and it is fully operational since August

2010. The portal programming has been contracted to Insoft Inc. (www.insoft.ru ). The main software

package is freeware Content Management System (CMS) Drupal (www.drupal.org).

This article is just first five months review of the portal but it is already presents interesting results as well

as inviting comments/suggestions, very much important at this stage.

http://www.rusg2c.ru/

http://www.epractice.eu/

http://www.oecd.org/

http://web.worldbank.org/

http://www.insoft.ru/

http://www.drupal.org/



Portal overview

The e-government is a hot topic in Russia at this time. The G2C project with its portal portal made a

quick entrance into this area with several followers and strong competirors working in the same field.

The portal 6 months statistc: 8,541 visits and 4,206 visitors with average 40 vistors dayly

( about 2,000 visitors during December), (see Portal main dashboard).

The portal has alreay attracted visitors from over 100 Russian cities and 54 countries

worldwide (see Portal’s visitors and geography)

The G2C Electronic Learning System (ELS) has 1,465 students and substancially

contributes to the portal’s popularity with more than 3,700 hits (see Portal ELS).

The portal is highly visible on Internet coming on top of popular search engines Google abd Yandex (see

Portal visibility).

With the first solid results, the G2C portal oject is just entered real phase of involvment and usability for

all Russian e-government commuinity. Additional efforts and resources (G2C project has several

proposals) are needed to make this portal compliant with the Russian and EU standards for the

governmental sites for peoples with disabilities.

This document is a “live” report, that will be produced on a regular basis and over the time incorporate

more analytical and statistical data using new portal’s features and available industry technical tools



Portal content analysis

Portal content by categories

As on November 1, 2020, the G2C portal consists of more than 1,000 materials.

Category Volume Short comment

Registered users 490 OK

News 201 Good

Events 62 Good

Solutions 192 Should increase

Documents 193 OK

Firms 51 Should increase

Specialists 23 Low

ELS participants 1,240 Good

These characteristics are shown on the Portal home page and represent most visible and tangible results of

the portal’s content. Most of portal’s users just brows the content but portal also has 490 registered users.

The well known Russian industrial leaders EOS www.eos.ru , FORS Ltd www.fors.ru, Insoft

www.insoft.ru among the portal’s leaders, and supply content on a regular basis and into different

categories.

The low numbers in the professionals category is clearly shows that the Portal has not yet attracted e-

government experts. This is very competetive area with well established leaders - government maintained

portal Regionalochka www.regionalochka.ru and professional siciety GosBook www.gosbook.ru .

The portal has montly updated section with profresional review and press digest, provided by well known

e-government specialists Irina Zadirako and Vladimir Drojjinov.

The G2C portal laso have special banners inviting firms and specialist to collaborate with the project on

different issues and a Forum for discussions. Conducting simple polls is also avalable through the portal.

The portal has participated in information posting exchange with the Russian associations and media The

G2C project has been an official “Information partner” mportant eGov events in Russia and exchanged

banners with its sites.

http://www.eos.ru/

http://www.fors.ru/

http://www.insoft.ru/

http://www.regionalochka.ru/

http://www.gosbook.ru/



Portal visibility

Most of the portal’s statistical data have been produced by using industry standard Google Analytics

reporting tools. The Google Analytics is a part of the Google standard Web package: Google Analytics,

Google Adwords and Google Website Optimizer.

The portal is visible on the Internet but it was launched about 5 months ago without any marketing

investment and promotional campaign. The main references to the portal have been coming through

conferences and other free public events.

Search engines results:

Search engine Key words Ranking

Google G2C, Russia, e-government 1, 2, 3

G2C, Россия, “электронное

правительство”

3, 5

G2C, Russia, e-government, e-

services

5, 7

Yandex (Russian leading

search engine))

G2C, Russia 1, 5



12, 17


services

4, 6, 12

Yahoo G2C, Russia, e-government 2



2, 4, 5, 8


services

8

Main portal’s references:

Project G2C “Support to e-government in the Russian federation” www.rusg2c.ru – 100s hits

G2C support for Gurievsk mobile services project (main source: http://mskit.ru/projects/p83639/ ) -

thousands hits (including CNews, IT-World, CIO-World, PC-Week, MSK-IT, and others)

Reference to the portal on European leading e-government portal

(http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/rusg2c) has more than 500 hits

Information about the portal has been presented on more than 10 international, federal and regional

conferences.

The G2C ELS program, announced on leading Russian e-government internet community site GosBook

(http://www.gosbook.ru/node/9171), has more than 100 hits.

The G2C portal and ELS have been announced on the Twitter.

http://mskit.ru/projects/p83639/

http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/rusg2c

http://www.gosbook.ru/node/9171



Portal main dashboard

Total number of visits (June – December, 2010): 8, 541

The graph below represents daily visits to the portal

The number of Visits is pretty good for 6 months project without direct investments to the portal’s

promotional campaign. The number is increasing especially after establishing of the G2C Electronic

Learning System (ELS).

Also, the ELS has affected the Bounce Rate which was about 43 % before launch of the ELS and number

of total visits also was lower. Many of the ELS students just take the course and do not come back to the

site. Still Bounce rate shows that almost half of visitors come to the portal again using it as one of the

regular informational resources.

Also, many visitors spend substantial time on the portal with the Average Time on Site is 5:50 minutes.



Portal visits and visitors trend (by month)

Number of visits (June – December 2010)



Portal visitors’ retention

The portal loyalty (how many times users visit the portal)

The portal length of visit (how long visit lasted at average)

As usual, most visitors visit the portal just one time.

But the portal already has its audience with many users coming to the portal on regular basis and

spending substantial time on the portal (mostly due to the ELS).



Portal visitors and geography

The portal attracted 8,541 visits from over 100 Russian cities and more than 58 foreign

countries.

The actual map, only image presents below, is “clickable”). The number of countries worldwide is really

interesting as portal has only Russian interface. Fortunately, all modern browsers have built-in

translations.

There is a room for enhancements these characteristics by using industry standard Google AdWords and

Google Website Optimizer. These two tools require additional resources and investment.



Portal world access table



Portal Russian cities access table



The top portal’s cities are Moscow, Ulyanovsk region (main place of G2S ELS), St. Petersburg,

G2C pilot sites Petrozavodsk, Kaliningrad, and others



Portal Web characteristics

Portal access by browsers

The portal is supported by all main browsers. The portal also can be accessed from mobile phones and

infokiosks.

There are other interesting characteristic as server loading, OS, network types, mobile types and others.

Portal traffic sources



The above figure represents how portal’s visitors found it. There are no benchmarks for this category but

it is important to keep and monitor all three options.

The distribution between different referral sources (how people find this portal) is pretty typical: Google

and Yandex as the Search engines (total 18%), and 55.79% users are going directly to the Portal. All

others sources combine 25.25%.

Portal pages

Portal’s 1,010 pages have been viewed a total of 33,995 times

The results are the same for almost all categories of the portal’s content.

Surprising, number of visitors to Specialist section is almost the same as for News and Documents despite

the fact that number of materials in Specialist section is much lower. It could be interpreted, that portal

visitors want to see personalized information as much as other categories but less willing to

participate/contribute into this category.



It was interesting to notice, that even “empty page” on Educational category “Курсы” has attracted many

visitors which registered to be informed about coming ELS. This interest was one of the important factors

to implement ELS as soon as possible with the first course “Introduction to e-government” started on

October 14, 2010 (see G2C Electronic Learning System).



G2C Electronic Learning System

Russia has well deserved reputation of one of the most educated nations. Current government campaign in

mass media and on Internet made e-government education very much welcomed topic. On the other hand,

the average cost for 2-3 days e-government seminar is about $2,000 per student.

On October 14, 2010 first ELS course “Introduction to e-government” was announced on the G2C

portal (www.rusg2c.ru/moodle/). The ELS has had a very strong impact on the portal itself significantly

increasing number of portal’s visitors. With the ELS is operational for about 1month all following results

will represent just first overlook over ELS capability and efficiency:

As on December 31, 2010:

Total number of students: 1,465

Total number of students passed the course and received certificates: 1,220

Approval rate for the course (“Useful course”, see G2C survey) : 91%

The student’s geography: more than 25 cities over Russia and 6 foreign countries (France,

Germany, Ireland, Israel, Kazakhstan, and USA).

Example of the G2C ELS certificate:

http://www.rusg2c.ru/moodle



Ulyanovsk region is ELS leader

The G2C project has been exploring different ways to demonstrate need and efficiency of the ELS.

The government organizations (suggested by G2C project director P. Brophy) and educational institutions

(suggested by G2C expert A. Brudno) have been prime targets for building strong ELS community.

The project has privilege and honor to be chosen by Governor of Ulyanovsk region to participate in mass

educational efforts in the region. Learning G2C ELS course “Introduction to e-government”, passing its

Quiz and getting a G2C ELS Certificate are mandatory requirements for all regional and municipal

employees and important part of their regular evaluation review.

As on December 31, 2010

Number of students from Ulyanovsk region received G2C ELS certificates: 1,086

Geographical distribution: all regional and municipal organizations of the region.

The G2C project will continue to actively work with the region that could join this program, especially

targeting G2C pilot regions.

Ulyanovsk region quick facts:

Population (2010) 1 298 579 (36th in the Russian Federation)

Area 37 181 км² (59th in the Russian Federation)

Distance from Moscow - 900 km (South East)

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulyanovsk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulyanovsk



First G2C survey based on the ELS course “Introduction to e-government”

The G2C ELS course “Introduction to e-government” was designed with an intention to receive a

feedback from the students and serves also as a short survey of a public opinion in Russia on different e-

government topics.

Here are selected questions from the course with current statistic based on about 400 responses:

A. Not just in Russia, but everywhere in the world (except of USA due to established a long-time ago

Social Security reform with no automation “fear” at that time), there is a hot discussion on

necessity, security and private matters concerns of identifying all citizens (and information about

them) by one unique number (ID).

The result is well within the range of most developed countries worldwide.

Question A Comment:

Do you think that all citizens regarding of age and legal residents should have unique ID number?

It is common numbers for many

countries – privacy issues and

fear of a “Big Brother” versus

convenience and security matters

YES 77.97%

NO 22.03%

B. Very often people unaware about availability of information on their local authorities’ web sites.

Demands for improvement, timing and convenient of such governmental portals on all levels –

federal, regional, municipal, is a strong factor of e-government success.

The current result is very high (and honest!), but, of course, all participated students were

familiar with Internet in an order to take the course.

Question B Comment:

Have you ever used internet site of your local authorities? It’s effect of the survey

environment – government

employees,

The number for general public

will be different

YES 90.49%

NO 4.93%

No, but can easy do it. 4.58%



C. This question contributes into better understanding of the survey contingent and general

distribution of use between three main parts of e-government in Russia.

There is no surprise that with the many students being governmental employees, the G2G

option prevails over G2C and G2B. It also shows current weak in the G2B component.

Question C Comment:

Please describe which area of e-government you have used more often:

No surprises – it was a

training for government

employees

G2C (as a citizen) 29.79%

G2B (as a businessmen) 3.19%

G2G (as a government employee) 60.28%

none of them 6.74%

D. This question is deeply affected by ICT infrastructure of the country (“Digital divide”, including

cost of Internet), educational level, public trust and other factors. It is important issue for all

countries but especially for Russia, one of the world’s biggest, with many remote areas and with

highly diversified population.

The results are very similar to the recent USA results (similarity in size and distinctive of

population) while Europeans are more tending to use mobile services and Asian countries

providing special governmental services centers. Both – mobile services and infokiosks, are

actively discussed topics within Russian “Information Society” program now.

Question D Comment:

Do you prefer to access e-government services through: Interesting to know –

mobile preference

already exist!!

Special fully equipped governmental centers

11.96%.

Personal computer 86.59%

Mobile phone

1.45%



E. The Minkomsvyaz implementation of www.gosuslugi.ru portal is the first (2009) and the most

notable implementation of e-services in Russia. The portal has brought a lot of different opinions

from one extreme to another, so public statistical surveys looks like the best evaluation

mechanism.

The approval rate is very high but it should be taken in consideration that many students are

governmental employees.

Question E

Comment:

Do you consider government portal www.gosuslugi.ru as a successful project?

Good approval rate

YES 70.65%

NO 11.96%

No opinion 17.39%

F. The feedback from the students is important for all courses, off-line or on-line.

For many students it was first on-line course they have experienced in their life.

The approval rate is very high. The Appreciation Letter is very nice too; even it’s not electronic

(paperless) solution (see below). The course’s certificates, of course, were only electronic. Only

the first one was printed and framed for a special event in Petrozavodsk! (see G2C Electronic

Learning System)

Question F Comment:

Your opinion about the course is important for us. Please evaluate the course.

High approval rate

Useful course 93.14%

Not useful for myself 4.57%

No opinion 2.29%

http://www.gosuslugi.ru/

http://www.gosuslugi.ru/