A Study of factors affecting the usage of government information centre in Sri Lanka and guidelines for improevement

Abstract

The Government Information Centre (GIC) was launched to disseminate government information to every citizen's fingertips through a common interface, in a convenient, comprehensive and friendly manner. However, call history analysis of the GIC reveals a rather low usage pattern, which is far from reaching its maximum potential. Hence, the key objective of this research is to identify the factors which affect the usage of GIC, also to analyze their impacts and thereby suggest recommendations for improvement. In this research study, a conceptual model of citizen's usage of the GIC has been constructed by leverage of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and other aspects from awareness and trust related literature. Though the target population in this study is the citizens of Sri Lanka, it is due to various limitations such as time and resources, only 384 respondents have been used as the sample population. A questionnaire was formulated, basing it on the factors mentioned in the conceptual model and it was used for data collection in the pilot study. Following the analysis of the data, the conceptual model and the questionnaire were modified in conformity to feasibility, effectiveness and productivity. This paper discusses the results of the research study based on this suggested model and appropriate recommendations are proposed to improve the usage of GIC. The suggested model in this study has its own limitations because it has been based more on the users‟ perspective and further research could be done based on the study of organizational and employees‟ factors.