Excerpts:
www.charmeck.org " . . . ranked second in the 2003 e-government study with a score of 57.3%. The plethora of fully executable services combined with a thorough privacy and security policy helped it earn this spot. With an e-services link at the bottom of most pages, the ability to pay taxes and submit a resume for city jobs online is just a click away. Also readily available are searchable databases, such as one in which entering an address allows a user to access property information and demographic information about a given location. Charlotte's privacy policy promises to not rent, sell or give away personally identifying information, as well as has warning users that information received online might be shared with law enforcement. Finally, every page has a link to a feedback/comments page that provides users the opportunity to express their opinion about the website."
"In our analysis, we looked for material that would aid an average citizen or business person logging onto a governmental site. This included information, services, databases, features that would facilitate e-government access by special populations such as the disabled and non-native language speakers, interactive features that would facilitate outreach to the public, and visible statements that would reassure citizens worried about privacy and security over the Internet."
"The data for our analysis consisted of 1,933 city government websites for the 70 largest cities in America. The list of cities assessed is based on the most populous metropolitan areas determined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The sites analyzed in each city are those of executive offices (such as a mayor or city manager), legislative offices (such as city councils), judicial (such as municipal court) and major agencies serving crucial functions of government (such as health, human services, taxation, education, economic development, administration, police, fire, transportation, tourism, and business regulation). We looked at an average of 27.6 websites per city. The analysis was undertaken during June and July, 2003 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Tabulation for this project was completed by Emily Boness and Carrie Bersak."
"Websites were evaluated for the presence of various features dealing with information availability, service delivery, and public access. Features assessed included online publications, online database, audio clips, video clips, non-native languages or foreign language translation, commercial advertising, user payments or fees, premium fees, restricted areas, two types of disability access (W3C and Section 508), various measures of privacy policy, security features, presence of online services, number of different services, digital signatures, credit card payments, email address, comment form or chat-room, automatic email updates, personalization of website, personal digital assistant or handheld access, and readability level. The remainder of this report outlines the detailed results that came out of this research."
Darrell M. West, Center for Public Policy
Brown University
© 2008
