Why Do Many Local Government Apps Feel Abandoned? Universitas Brawijaya Research Reveals the Keys to Successful E-Government in Malang City

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FORMOSA NEWS - Malang - Many digital public service applications developed by local governments across Indonesia end up as abandoned digital ornaments with minimal user engagement. This phenomenon has been comprehensively deconstructed by two researchers from Universitas Brawijaya, Bayu Indra Pratama and Muhammad Rizki Pratama, in a profound meta-synthesis study published in 2026. By collectively analyzing 60 undergraduate theses from Universitas Brawijaya’s Public Administration department graduating cohorts of 2024–2025, this research maps a complete overview of the Electronic-Based Government System (SPBE) or e-government implementation in Malang City. The findings are striking: locally originated platforms designed around the actual needs of the citizens prove far more successful in generating tangible impact (public value) compared to standardized apps created merely to fulfill top-down national mandates.

For a generation, assessing the success of digital bureaucracy in Indonesia has often been trapped within a checklist of technical features or architectural completeness. Consequently, local governments face intense institutional pressure to continuously churn out new applications simply to chase formal evaluation scores on the national index grid. The Universitas Brawijaya researchers observed that this rigid evaluation pattern routinely overlooks direct citizen interaction and real-world field demands. Through a comprehensive evaluation of 23 digital platforms operating across Malang City—ranging from the SAMBAT Online complaint system to civil registration services—this study delivers a portfolio-level diagnosis identifying the factors that truly dictate a successful digital transformation at the local level.

To extract accurate insights, Bayu Indra Pratama and Muhammad Rizki Pratama utilized a qualitative meta-synthesis framework operationalized through meta-ethnography, adhering strictly to the international eMERGe reporting guidance and PRISMA 2020 corpus selection standards. The researchers assembled 60 empirical field studies (undergraduate theses) evaluating the efficacy of digital platforms across various municipal agencies in Malang. Repository metadata extraction was executed via an automated Python pipeline to substantively read cross-cluster patterns. This approach transformed dozens of isolated, single-site case studies into a unified, large-scale evidence base capable of explaining bureaucratic dynamics objectively, bypassing overly dense academic jargon.

From the cross-platform structural analysis, the research highlights three main pillars determining e-government platform success:

• Citizen-Interface Depth Predicts Success Better Than Architectural Completeness: Platforms intentionally designed to facilitate active public engagement yield much higher success rates. Conversely, applications with highly complete technological architectures but superficial user interaction fail to capture public interest. A clear example is seen in the national digital identity rollout, Identitas Kependudukan Digital (IKD); despite its robust back-end architecture, local citizen activation remains low due to a thin, non-co-productive interface layer.
• Locally Originated Apps Outperform Centrally Mandated Platforms: Applications born out of local initiatives to solve specific community grievances trigger significantly deeper public value and citizen satisfaction. The crowning example identified in the corpus is the D-Cards program (Dispenduk CARe of Disabilities and Social Inclusion) developed by Malang's Civil Registration Agency (Dukcapil). This platform excels because it centers on social inclusion rather than performative compliance with a uniform national grid.
• The Pervasive Co-Production Gap: Most contemporary local government applications position citizens merely as passive transactional consumers or survey respondents rather than constitutive partners in service delivery. This deficit of active collaboration spans almost the entire municipal portfolio, with the notable exception of the disability-inclusion cluster, which inherently requires intensive two-way coproduction.

The implications of these findings are substantial for public policy and digital governance in Indonesia. The researchers emphasize that the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (Kemenpan RB) needs to re-evaluate the uniform 47-indicator SPBE evaluation grid. Assessment standards should shift from counting application features or back-end integration toward measuring the depth of the citizen interface and the direct flow of public value felt by the community. For businesses and society, this research acts as an essential guide proving that digital government reforms require a humanistic approach, targeted digital literacy, and active co-production to ensure that substantial public budgets allocated for digital initiatives are not rendered obsolete.

Short Profile of the Researchers:

Bayu Indra Pratama, S.I.P., M.A., Ph.D. – Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Administrative Science, Universitas Brawijaya. He holds deep expertise in digital governance, public policy, and advanced qualitative research methodologies.

Muhammad Rizki Pratama, S.A.P., M.A.P. – Researcher and Academic at Universitas Brawijaya whose work focuses on public service innovation, decentralized local governance, and information technology policy analysis.

Official Research Reference:

Article Title: Mapping the E-Government Portrait of Malang City: A Cross-Platform Meta-Synthesis of Sixty Public Administration Undergraduate Theses, 2024-2025

Journal Name: Indonesian Journal of Advanced Research (IJAR)
Year of Publication: 2026
Volume & Pages: Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 727-744

Official DOI: https://doi.org/10.55927/ijar.v5i5.16613

https://journal.formosapublisher.org/index.php/ijar