Abstract: The construction of digital government can never be finished without civil servants competent for Internet work, i.e. with Internet thinking, and ability of applying information technology, topics which, however, few studies has even touched. For that, a questionnaire data of more than 4400 civil servants in 112 cities in China is collected to evaluate the information technology ability of civil servants, and analyze the influencing factors from jurisdiction, organization, position and individual. The civil servants interviewed, the research tells, can well use information technology to carry out work, understand how to employ big data to improve government management, and know about the challenges of the Internet to public policy. The results show that civil servants’ ability of this sort is mainly affected by the work they pursue such as handling affairs that require contact with the ordinaries or holding leadership positions, and by organizational factors such as working in some municipal departments, followed by personal factors such as Internet usage, education background, while the influence of urban factors is not that significant. These findings show that there is still a gap between the information technology capacity and the construction of digital government. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen relevant training and enhance the attraction of government departments to information technology talents.

Key words: digital government, e-government, big data, information technology, civil servants