Quality assurance model for e-governance projects: a case study on e-counseling

Ensuring quality for any software application, especially in the domain of e-Governance is a challenging task. This is because a slight mistake will not only jeopardize sensitive functions of a government but can adversely affect a large section of the society and may lead to aversion in the minds of the public towards use of ICT in governmental functions. Several standards have been followed in software development but quality assurance has remained as an active area of research especially for the e-Governance applications. In this paper we investigate certain quality parameters which are relevant to e-Governance applications and propose a quality assurance model which can be followed while developing different applications. As a proof-of-concept we have considered a very successful project called "e-Counseling" which was implemented in one of the backward states of India to facilitate student admission to different professional courses. The project not only helped in streamlining student admission but helped students in rural areas living at remote locations of the state of Orissa to participate in the admission process without having to travel long distances. Initial criticism because of unsatisfactory performance led to the present study to come up with a quality assurance model which can be followed for the success of the project.