research-article

Assessing the Readability of Policy Documents: The Case of Terms of Use of Online Services

Authors:

Wassim Derguech,

Syeda Sana e Zainab,

Mathieu D'AquinAuthors Info & Claims

ICEGOV '18: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance

Pages 247 - 256

https://doi.org/10.1145/3209415.3209498

Published: 04 April 2018 Publication History

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Abstract

Whether for using online services or dealing with legal issues, citizens are often requested to sign/accept policy documents that are intended to commit them to specific rights and duties. Usually such documents are difficult to read due to their nature, the length of sentences, complex terms used, etc. Since understanding is a prerequisite to making an informed decision, it is important to assess whether citizens, on average, would have the ability to comprehend those texts. We consider here that the authors of those documents should keep in mind their target audience and tailor their texts to their profiles. A good indicator that can be used in this context is the average education level of the citizens of a country. On the other hand, readability measures/scores of texts have been used to assess if educational material is suitable for the intended students' level of education attainment. In this paper, we use this information to assess the readability of terms of use of online services and correlate this information with the education attainment of the countries of their target audience. Our analysis shows that more efforts need to be put into making such policy documents understandable by a broader audience, uncovering a need for standards and tools in this area.

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Cited By

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Mbazu EOladokun BKakwagh VMohammed J(2024)Awareness and readability of privacy policy documents in mobile loan applications among undergraduate students in NigeriaJournal of Digital Educational Technology10.30935/jdet/141074:1(ep2403)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.30935/jdet/14107
Parker R(2024)Low Literacy Levels Among U.S. Adults and Difficult Ballot PropositionsJournal of Learning Disabilities10.1177/0022219424124995857:6(339-349)Online publication date: 7-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194241249958
Riddell CChan CMcGrinder HEarle NPoppe KDoughty R(2023) College‐level reading is required to understand ChatGPT 's answers to lay questions relating to heart failure European Journal of Heart Failure10.1002/ejhf.308325:12(2336-2337)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/ejhf.3083
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Index Terms

Assessing the Readability of Policy Documents: The Case of Terms of Use of Online Services
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Computing in government
      1. E-government
  2. Education
    1. E-learning

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Published In

ICEGOV '18: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance

April 2018

739 pages

ISBN:9781450354219

DOI:10.1145/3209415

Editors:
Atreyi Kankanhalli
National University of Singapore
,
Adegboyega Ojo
National University of Ireland Galway
,
Delfina Soares
United Nations University (UNU-EGOV)

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 April 2018

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Refereed limited

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Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

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ICEGOV '18

ICEGOV '18: 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance

April 4 - 6, 2018

Galway, Ireland

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ICEGOV '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 104 of 184 submissions, 57%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 350 of 865 submissions, 40%

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Cited By

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Mbazu EOladokun BKakwagh VMohammed J(2024)Awareness and readability of privacy policy documents in mobile loan applications among undergraduate students in NigeriaJournal of Digital Educational Technology10.30935/jdet/141074:1(ep2403)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.30935/jdet/14107
Parker R(2024)Low Literacy Levels Among U.S. Adults and Difficult Ballot PropositionsJournal of Learning Disabilities10.1177/0022219424124995857:6(339-349)Online publication date: 7-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194241249958
Riddell CChan CMcGrinder HEarle NPoppe KDoughty R(2023) College‐level reading is required to understand ChatGPT 's answers to lay questions relating to heart failure European Journal of Heart Failure10.1002/ejhf.308325:12(2336-2337)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/ejhf.3083
Heine MWessel D(2021)E-Government und Datensouveränität – Einblicke und LösungsansätzeE-Government and Data Sovereignty – Insights and SolutionsHMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik10.1365/s40702-021-00766-4Online publication date: 19-Aug-2021
https://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-021-00766-4
Bella GBiondi PVincenzi MTudisco G(2021)Privacy and modern cars through a dual lens2021 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW)10.1109/EuroSPW54576.2021.00022(136-143)Online publication date: Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/EuroSPW54576.2021.00022

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Recommendations

ICT policy in Africa: a comparative study of Ghana and Kenya drawing on lessons from developed countries

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Open data and its usability: an empirical view from the Citizen's perspective