Community Perception on Smart Engagement: Case of Kubang Pasu Local Government
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Implementing smart community engagement should consider careful planning and collaboration with numerous stakeholders, including the community. The technology and program must be designed to frame its purpose and should link back to specific goals of implementing smart community engagement. Digital services do not guarantee a smart engagement between the community and the local government. This is the case for the Kubang Pasu local government where several online services have been provided in their attempt to implement the smart community concept. However, understanding on the preferences of features and requirements of existing web-based systems and the impact of these systems is lacking. Therefore, a perception study needs to be conducted to obtain information regarding smart community engagement implementation. This study aimed to discover the community’s perceptions on smart community engagement, specifically for Kubang Pasu in terms of its local context. To achieve this, a combination of interview and online survey was employed involving stakeholders of several organizations and 309 respondents among the community in Kubang Pasu. Result of the interview and survey revealed moderate engagement between the community and organizations due to low awareness, moderate engagement between the community and local authorities, low exposure to online services, as well as the weaknesses of the current online systems. It can be concluded that the satisfaction level of the respondents with officers at the organizations was only moderate. The implementation of e-services could reduce face-to-face interactions, which could help to improve the satisfaction level. This could also help in moving toward the smart community engagement concept. Therefore, the smart communication method via social media, email, and website could be employed to increase the low rating of public engagement with the authorities. This move will foster the prompt implementation of smart community engagement.
Received 28/3/2021, Accepted 14/4/2021, Published 6/6/2021
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
References
Desouza KC, Bhagwatwar A. Technology-enabled participatory platforms for civic engagement: The case of US cities. Journal of Urban Technology. 2014;21(4),25–50.
Corbett E, Le Dantec CA. The problem of community engagement: Disentangling the practices of municipal government. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems New York, NY, USA: ACM. 2018;1-13.
Delitheou V, Bakogiannis E, Krriakidis C. Urban planning: Integrating smart applications to promote community engagement. Heliyon. 2019;5(5).
Falco E, Kleinhans R. Beyond technology: Identifying local government challenges for using digital platforms for citizen engagement. International Journal of Information Management. 2018;40(2018),17–20.
Norfatimah A. Consistent of economic achievements. Retrieved from http://www.bharian.com.my/bharian/articles/Pencapaianekonomikonsisten/Article. 2013.
Siti MR. The development of information and communication technology (ICT) in rural as well as issues related. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]:Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang. 2014.
Saunders T, Baeck P. Rethinking smart cities from the ground up. London: Nesta. 2015
Von Radecki A, Singh S. Holistic value model for smart cities. In: Vinod Kumar T. (Ed.), Smart economy in smart cities. Advances in 21st century human settlements. Singapore: Springer. 2017;295–316.
Mehra B, Sikes ES, Singh V. Scenarios of technology use to promote community engagement: Overcoming marginalization and bridging digital divides in the Southern and Central Appalachian rural libraries. Information Processing and Management. 2020;57(3),1–15.
Corbett E, Le Dantec CA. Exploring trust in digital civics. Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference. New York, NY, USA: ACM. 2018;9-20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196715
Cabitza F, Locoro A. Questionnaires in the design and evaluation of community-oriented technologies. International Journal Web Based Communities. 2017;13(1), 4–31.
Haltofova B. Fostering community engagement through crowdsourcing: Case study on participatory budgeting. Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management. 2018;13(1), 5–12.
Michelucci FV, De Marco A. Smart communities inside local governments: A pie in the sky. International Journal of Public Sector Management. 2017;30(1),2–14.
Christensen HE, McQuestin D. Community engagement in Australian local governments: A closer look and strategic implications. Local Government Studies. 2019;45(4),453–480.
Gobin-Rahimbux B, Sahib-Kaudeer NG, Chooramun N, Cheerkoot-Jalim S, Khan MH, Cadersaib Z, Kishnah S, Elaheebocus S. Assesing the smart readiness of local councils in Mauritius. In Tuba M., Akashe, S., & Joshi, A. (Eds.), Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Singapore: Springer. 2020;933,333–344.
Wood M, Fowlie J. Using community communicators to build trust and understanding between local councils and residents in United Kingdom. Local Economy. 2013;28(6), 527–538.
Lindskog H. Smart communities initiatives. Proceedings of the 3rd ISOneWorld Conference. Las Vegas, NV, USA. 2004;16, 14-16.
Williamson W, Ruming K. Can social media support large scale public participation in urban planning? The case of the #MySydney digital engagement campaign. International Planning Studies. 2019. doi: 10.1080/13563475.2019.1626221
Ertio T, Ruoppila S, Sarah-Kristin T. Motivations to use a mobile participation application. Electronic Participation, Lecture Notes in Computing Science. 2016;9821,138–150.
Neighborhood Improvement Services Equitable community engagement blueprint, City of Durham, 2018;1–16. https://durhamnc.gov/570/Neighborhood-Improvement-Services
Innovation and Technology Bureau Hong Kong smart city blueprint. Office of the Government Chief Information Officer. 2017;1–34. www.smartcity.gov.hk
Sekaran U, Bougie R. Research methods for business: A skill building approach (6th Ed.). Wiley. London, 2013.