Overview of the electronic public services in agriculture in Jordan

Abstract

Currently, the use of information technology is essential and offering electronic services which has become a necessity for all governments around the world. In Jordan, ICT sector is advanced in the Middle East and provides electronic services in various sectors. The goals of this paper are to find out the current situation and evaluate the quality of electronic public services for the Jordanian agricultural sector. In this paper, the government websites providing electronic services were analyzed to check the readiness of these websites and identify and verify electronic services in the agricultural sector. Seven main sites have been selected concerned with the agricultural sector in Jordan. Only three websites offer electronic services and in order to check these websites a survey of these websites was conducted based on literature criteria. These criteria checked the readiness of these websites from technical aspects, services, information security and ease of use for people with special needs. After the portal analysis, these websites showed general weakness in the management of sites, weakness in security tools for personal information, weakness in updated information and no websites showed any features for people with special needs. In addition to it, farmers and agricultural businesses in Jordan are currently not obliged by any law to use any electronic service, and they can still opt for traditional paper mail or personal visits.