Requirements Specification for Service Transiton to E- Government Services: Case Study in Vocational Schools of General Directorate of Vocational Education / Ministry of Education in Iraq Marwah Mushtaq Talib Atila Bostan M.S, Computer Engineering Department, Department of Computer Engineering, Atilim Atilim University University Ankara, Turkey Ankara, Turkey E-mail: marwa.mushtaq@gmail.com Atila.bostan@atilim.edu.tr Baris Ozkan Department of Information System Engineering, Atilim University Ankara, Turkey baris.ozkan@atilim.edu.tr ministry, its main objective is to educate and graduate students in the professional and vocational fields. Despite Özet- E-devlet terimi vatandaşlarına daha iyi hizmet the benefits of e-government paradigm, still there is no sağlamak amacıyla devlet birimleri tarafından bilgi clear vision for how to adopt it in the education sector. teknolojilerinin kullanımı olarak tanımlanabilir. Diğer This work presents which and how e-services should be devletler gibi Irak devleti de e-devlet hizmetlerinden developed and deployed in Iraqi vocational schools by faydalanmak istemektedir. Temel amacı profesyonel analyzing the requirements and preferences of the service meslek alanlarında mezunlar vermek olan mesleki eğitim contributors and consumers. We have identified eight okulları, Eğitim Bakanlığına bağlı en büyük stakeholders in vocational schools and developed eight organizasyonlardan birisi olan Mesleki Eğitim Genel different questionnaires for each. Data were collected and Müdürlüğü bünyesinde faaliyet göstermektedir. E-devlet analyzed and the results were reported in this paper. paradigmasının faydalarına rağmen, bu yaklaşımın eğitim sektörüne nasıl uyarlanacağı konusunda net bir ön görü mevcut değildir. Bu çalışma hizmet katılımcıları ve Keywords—E-Government; E-Schools; Vocational kullanıcılarının ihtiyaç ve tercihlerini analiz ederek Irak Schools meslek okullarında e-hizmetlerin geliştirilme ve yaygınlaştırılması konusunda bir yöntem sunmaktadır. Biz bu çalışmada, meslek okullarındaki hizmetler için sekiz farklı katılımcı sınıfı belirleyerek, her bir sınıf için farklı INTRODUCTION anket uygulamları geliştirdik. Toplanan veriler üzerinde Nowadays, Information and communication technologies yapılan analiz çalışmasının sonuçları bu bildiride (ICT) are playing a major role in our daily lives [1]. Many sunulmuştur. governments are moving to use ICT to deliver their services to citizens and business. E – Government concept Anahtar Kelimeler-- E-Devler; E-Okul; Meslek Okulları is considered as one of ICT applications which is adopted Abstract— E-government concept can be defined as the by the government [2]. E-government means obtaining use of information technology by government agencies to government services throughout electronic means in order deliver services to the citizens in a better way. Iraqi to access to government information and perform government like other governments tried to benefit from e- government transactions any where any time [3]. It is government services. Vocational schools are one of the considered as a mean to efficiently and effectively formations affiliated to the Ministry of Education in Iraq improve the performance and the transparency of the and specifically to the General Directorate of Vocational government. Iraqi government has taken serious moves to Education which is one of the largest directorates in this adopt e-government project. These projects has a great importance in the elimination of administrative routine, simplification of procedures in government transactions, as institute in education sector, provide financial resources to well as the elimination of long queues of citizens in promote the e-government project, provide electricity for government departments and reduce the corruption and the whole country, proper framework should be extortion. established to apply e-governance project and strength ICT Education sector is considered one of the largest in the in the education system in Bangladesh. country; Ministry of Education is one of the vital Another study examines the factors affecting the adoption ministries serving a large segment of the Iraqi society. of e-government education sites by teachers in primary Ministry of Education has 30 general directorates each one and secondary schools in Greece [5].The study implied of them is responsible for delivering certain type of that the government should take into consideration the services. General Directorate of Vocational Education is needs of the user, enhance the services provided and one of the biggest directorates; its main objective is to provide adequate training to deal with e-government educate and train students in craft and professional fields applications. like electronic, mechanic, computer, agriculture, water In China, transforming working style and improving the purification, maintenance of elevators, nursing and trading. quality and efficiency of the work, has made universities Despite the benefits of e-government paradigm, still there and colleges move to the construct of e-government is no clear vision for how to adopt it in the education applications [6].The study implied that the evaluation on sector in Iraq. This research is intended to present which educational e-government should focus on the and how e-services should be developed and deployed in “performance” not on the “output”. To ensure having high Iraqi vocational schools by analyzing the requirements and performance, verification and evaluation methods with preferences of the service contributors and consumers. The qualitative index must be applied. The results showed that contribution of this study is to propose a modular e- “information infrastructure” has the heaviest weight and services development design with module prioritization must be implemented at the first, while “safety” is and plausible transition path to e-environment for considered as the least important item. vocational schools in Iraq. Until recently, all Mohammed M. and et al. [7] addressed the issue of the administrative work is conducted on paper, when students centralization of the higher education in Iraq. Each want to register, get the exam number, set a transcript university is isolated from the others and they request … etc. they have to come to school to do the communicate with the Ministry of Higher Education only. paper work , The procedure is not different for teachers as To avoid this limitation, architecture presented to integrate well, when they want to request for a specific service they universities’ databases in one warehouse with E- have to come to the school and fill related forms. government information technology in order to increase This research is intended to represent a plan for smooth the efficiency of information sharing among university and cost effective transition to e-services in Iraqi departments and with other universities. vocational schools which is one of the important components in Iraqi e-government development plan. B. E-Schools E-School is an important type of e-government applications. It depends on information and LITERATURE REVIEW communication technologies (ICT) to deliver services for A. Studies and Scientific Researches in students and teachers as well as to promote the concept of Educational Sector e-learning. The goals of e-schools are: to promote students’ skills in ICT, enhance the abilities of teachers in Given the growing importance of using e-government, the use of ICT in teaching and improve school’s there are many attempts to adopt it, especially in the management [8]. education sector. Many studies in this area address the necessary aspects for the success of this project or Dimitrios z. and et al [9] argued that in order to develop e- presenting e-government’s frameworks and models. Some school digital information management services, ICT of these attempts are for higher education, some of which infrastructure must be provided to ensure the high level of are for primary and secondary education. electronic services and easy access to the Internet. The A study conducted in Bangladesh to verify how e- electronic system in e-schools offers many facilities that government is applied in the education sector [4]. Both increase the efficiency of the administrative process. qualitative and quantitative research approach was Registration of students, management of grades, conducted in this study. After analyzing the data, they management of absences, and management of human came up with some recommendations which are: training resources are examples of some administrative services for ICT should be arranged regularly, rural schools should provided electronically. Students can also benefit from e- be familiar with using E-governance not only using school facilities through access to updated information, computers, there should be an IT specialist for each effective communication and access to resources such as lesson information and lessons assessment. There are many examples for the adoption of e-schools C. Research Hypotheses in some countries, for example, e-school in Turkey [10], Eight hypotheses were conducted to extract information Palestine [11], Qatar [12], Singapore [13] and Kuwait [14]. from the respondents. Each hypothesis is specific for Although previous study pointed out how to verify e- certain group of stakeholders. government in education sector, up to our knowledge there is no study related to vocational schools specify the 1. Vocational Department Employees: requirements from each stakeholder’s prospective. Our H1: Website is the most preferred technology to study would represent service transition to e-government communicate with vocational schools. services in vocational schools. 2. Principal: H2: How much important is having a website for school administration RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3. Administrative Assistant: H3: Employees’ number affects the preference of A. Target Population, Research Instrument and automating official mail. Sample Size 4. Technical Assistant: In order to specify target population, we had to determine H4: Students number influence the preference of stakeholders in vocational schools and the role of each one automating the list of exercise materials required for of them. After studying the structure of vocational schools, practical courses we came up with eight different stakeholders (Vocational Department, Principal, Administrative Assistant, 5. Students’ Affair Assistant: Technical Assistant, Students’ Affair Assistant, Teachers, H5: How much important is the automation of Students and Students Families). authentication of the certificates In order to collect data from respondents, eight different 6. Teachers: questionnaires were conducted and delivered to the H6: How much important is the automation of human samples of targeted population. Each contains resources services demographic questions and survey questions; the 7. Students: distribution of questions is shown in Table1. H7: Gender impacts the preference of automating students’ registration. Although we prefer more than (50) samples for each 8. Students’ Families: stakeholder, Some samples were less than fifty because the H8: Student Families prefer the automation of Exam period of data collection was on the days of the final Results more than the other services examinations and therefore not all vocational schools were available for samples collecting. Sample size is shown in D. Data Analyses and Statistical Tools Table 1. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version B. Questionnaire Validation 22 is used to analyze data and represent the results in a In order to minimize errors, several steps have been taken graphical form. to assure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, As statistical analyzing tools, Least Square Regression was we will review them in detail as the following: used to show the strength and the significance of the relationship between two variables. Besides that, Median • The questionnaire was presented to three and Comparative % to set forth frequencies and percentage experts to ensure the correctness of the English and Chi- Square to test some hypotheses as intended. language used in writing the questionnaire • The questionnaire then translated to Arabic FINDINGS AND RESULTS version and was subjected to 3 experts to review We have distributed 320 surveys to the participants, 50 Arabic – English versions matching. for vocational department, 30 for the principals, 30 for • Before collecting data, pilot testing was done to Administrative Assistant, 30 for Technical Assistant, 30 assure content clarity. Questionnaire was tested for Students’ Affair Assistant, 50 for teachers, 100 for by delivering it for five samples from each group. students and 50 for students’ families. Some of the According to the results of pilot testing, some responses were excluded because they were invalid. The necessary alterations were done to the number of valid responses is illustrated in Table2 and questionnaire to make it more clearly for the Table3. respondents. TABLE1: Sample Size and number of demographic and Table3: Demographic information for teachers, students, survey questions students’ families and vocational department. Stakeholders Sample Demographic Survey Size Questions Questions Property Teacher Student Student Vocation Vocational 50 4 2 Family Dept. Department employee Count Count Count Count Principal 30 5 5 % % % % Administrative 30 5 7 Assistant 43 100 85 100 43 100 44 100 Answers Technical 30 5 3 Assistant 26 55.3 46 54.1 - - 8 18.2 M Students’ 30 5 5 Gender Affair F 17 36.2 39 45.9 - - 36 81.8 Assistant Teachers 50 5 4 1-5 6 14 - - - - 5 11.4 Students 100 3 3 Work Years 6-10 12 27.9 - - - - 9 20.5 Students’ 50 1 3 Families 11- 9 20.9 - - - - 12 27.3 15 >15 W 16 37.2 - - - - 18 40.9 Table2: Demographic information for Principal, Administrative Assistant, technical Assistant and Students’ 1st - - 24 28.2 - - - - Affair Assistant Property Principle Admin. Tech. Student Grade Level 2nd - - 28 32.9 - - - - Asst. Asst. Asst. 3rd - - 33 38.8 - - - - Count Count Count Count % % % % 24 55.8 - - - - - - 5-50 # of Students in Each Semester Answers 27 100 28 100 26 100 27 100 14 32.6 - - - - - - 51-100 M 19 70.4 21 75 18 69.2 20 74.1 Gender F 8 29.6 7 25 8 30.8 7 25.9 4 9.3 - - - - - - 101-150 1-5 2 7.4 5 17.9 1 3.8 7 25.9 1 2.3 - - - - - - Work Years >150 6-10 6 22.2 9 32.1 8 30.8 6 22.2 11- 8 29.6 14 50 9 34.6 7 25.9 1 - - - - 33 76.7 - - 15 # of Student in Family >15 11 40.7 0 0 8 30.8 0 0 W 2 - - - - 8 18.6 - - 3 - - - - 2 4.7 - - Demographic information are shown in Table2 and insignificant. Therefore, the hypothesis is rejected. The Table3, were Table2 related to Principal, Administrative results conducted in this study do not present enough Assistant, technical Assistant and Students’ Affair evidences for the significance of the relation between Assistant, while Table3 related to teachers, students, employees’ number and the preference to automate students’ families and vocational department. official mail. After analyzing the hypotheses we came up with the following results: Table6: Least Square Regression test results for hypothesis H3 H1: According to Table4, significance values for the whole technologies are less than 0.05 including for the Depend In depend Std. web site technology and this means website is the most R Sig. preferred technology for communication. Therefore, the Variable Variable Error hypothesis is accepted. Official Employees’ 0.633 0.156 0.428 Table4: Chi-square test results for Hypothesis H1 mail number WhatsApp Phone call Facebook Website H4: As clear in table 7, the level of significance is greater Twitter Email SMS than 0.05 and means the relation is insignificant, thus the hypothesis is rejected. It cannot be indicated students’ number has an influence on the preference of automating the list of exercise materials required for practical Chi 8.551 30.694 27.429 40.240 71.653 55.280 62.837 courses. df 3 4 6 7 7 6 7 Sig 0.036 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 Table7: Least Square Regression test results for hypothesis H4 H2: Table5 indicates that the significance value for Depend In depend Std. R Sig. importance of the web site for the school administration is Variable Variable Error less than 0.05; this means the relation of the answers is statistically significant. As a result, the hypothesis is exercise students’ 0.576 0.217 0.288 accepted. It could be concluded that the presence of a materials number website is important for respondents as the answers have shown H5: As shown in Table 8, the significance value is greater Table5: Chi-square test results for Hypothesis H2 than 0.05, which means the relation of the answers is statistically insignificant. Therefore, we cannot conclude it Hypothesis H2 is important to automate the authentication of certificates. Chi-Square 26.364 df 4 Table8: Chi-square table for Hypothesis H5 Sig. 0.000 Hypothesis H5 Chi-Square 2.444 df 4 H3: As table 6 clarifies, the level of significance is Sig. 0.655 greater than 0.05, which means the relation is H6: For this hypothesis, significance value is less than Table11: Chi-square test results for Hypothesis H8 0.05, as Table 9 shows; this indicates the relation of the answers is statistically significant. Therefore, automating human resources services is considered important from information Leave request teachers’ prospective Exam result attendance Contact Table9: Chi-square test results for Hypothesis H6 Chi-Square 8.047 14.558 8.628 0.605 Hypothesis H6 df 4 4 4 4 Chi-Square 31.535 Sig 0.090 0.006 0.459 0.963 df 4 Sig. 0.000 CONCLUSION The main concern of this study is to present a plan for H7: Table 10 clarifies that the level of significance is smooth and cost effective transition to e-services in Iraqi greater than 0.05 and means the relation is insignificant; vocational schools. We have developed and implemented thus, hypothesis is rejected. It cannot be concluded gender eight different questionnaires for each stakeholder in impacts the preference of automating registration process vocational school system. Moreover, hypotheses were for student’s section. conducted to extract information from the respondents. After analyzing the hypotheses, the findings reported that vocational department’s employees prefer website Table10: Least Square Regression test results for technology to communicate with vocational schools. hypothesis H7 Similarly, school administration results showed that it is important to have websites for vocational schools. The results also showed there is no relation between Depend In depend Std. employees’ number and automating official mail, the same R Sig. thing for students’ number and automating the list for Variable Variable Error exercise materials and gender with automating students’ Automate registration process. Automating human resources services Gender 0.819 0.076 0.488 is configured importance according to the participants, Registration while automating authentication of certificates is considered not important. Finally, for students’ families section, getting exam results in an automated form is the most preferred service to be automated. 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(2010). has more than 50 Perceptions of Teachers and Administrators national/international journal and Regarding the E-School conference publications Applications. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 6(30), 5-15. Asst.Prof.Dr. Barış Özkan received the bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Middle East Technical University in 2000. He finished his Ms studies on Software Management in 2005 and PhD on Information Systems in 2012 in Middle East Technical University (METU).