Evaluating the Quality of Digital Services During the Covid-19 Epidemic in Iran Based on Citizens' Opinions

At the beginning of the 21st century, which is known as the era of "Information and Communication Technology", we are witnessing the emergence of new attitudes towards the city. The e-city or digital city is an example of an emerging concept that reflects advances in information technology on the urban environment and the lives of citizens. Although information and digital technologies are gradually entering the urban system, the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in late 2019 has significantly highlighted the need to develop digital (not in person) services in cities. Apart from the advantages and disadvantages that can be enumerated for digital city, this article discusses the position of the digital city and its related components in the face of infectious and epidemic diseases. The aim of this research is to identify the capacities and bottlenecks of the digital city with regards to infectious diseases. As a result, attention to this issue will play a more prominent role in the decisions and policies of the country. The present study has used an interpretive analytical method based on documentary studies and field survey. The target population includes all Iranian citizens who have at least a basic knowledge of the internet and cyberspace. The validity of the questions was checked by receiving the opinion of experts (15 people) and the reliability was confirmed according to the Cronbach's alpha test for 25 experimental questionnaires (0.852). Since in the exploratory factor analysis model, the sample size should be at least three to four times the number of variables, the sample size of 160 people (approximately 6 times the number of variables) was considered. Due to the nature of the questions in the questionnaire, which are mainly related to the services provided on the internet, the samples were selected from people who had experience using the internet, especially during the Covid-19 epidemic. Then, the data obtained from the questionnaires were entered into SPSS software and evaluated by exploratory factor analysis model. According to the findings, the digital city can play a key role in managing the Covid-19 epidemic through the factors of "digital infrastructure services", "internet financial exchanges", "internet amenities", "non-attendance medical services", "electronic administrative services", "virtual education services" and "electronic transportation services".  The findings also show that the status of services related to the digital city during the Covid-19 epidemic in Iran has generally been associated with moderate public satisfaction. More detailed results also indicate that despite the relative availability of digital city infrastructure in Iran, policymakers in this area have not been very successful in the use of infrastructure and actualization of capacity, especially in the two factors of "digital infrastructure services" and "non-attendance medical services". Therefore, strategies in this regard have been proposed at the end of this article.