Australian first - Court documents served by Facebook

As reported in Friday's Sydney Morning Herald in the article, Australian court serves documents via Facebook,

Today in what appears to be a first in Australia and perhaps the world, Master Harper of the ACT Supreme Court ordered that a default judgement could be served on defendants by notification on Facebook.

Previously both email and SMS text messaging have been accepted as legitimate means for serving certain court papers.

However this appears to be a world first, lifting the status of Facebook in the eyes of the law.

It has some potentially interesting applications by government. For example where people are travelling or otherwise have no fixed address, but do keep in touch with friends via online social media, this is now a potential channel for sending at least some forms of official documentation.

Certain Australian agencies already use internet tools to track schemes and persons of interest - both for fraud and for criminal investigations, and in the future the platform may become more accepted, particularly as more people drop their landlines or in the case of people who are difficult to track down physically.

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WCAG 2.0 (finally) released

The W3C has finally released the final version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Announced in a press release this morning Australian time, W3C Web Standard Defines Accessibility for Next Generation Web, the W3C states that,

This new standard from the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) will advance accessibility across the full range of Web content (such as text, images, audio, and video) and Web applications. WCAG 2.0 can be more precisely tested, yet it allows Web developers more flexibility and potential for innovation. Together with supporting technical and educational materials, WCAG 2.0 is easier to understand and use.

AGIMO was surveying Government agencies regarding their views on mandating WCAG 2.0 for the Australian government. I'm looking forward to the outcomes from this.

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UK wikipedia ban dropped

In one of the more misguided approaches to internet regulation, the UK government banned the majority of UK citizens from editing Wikipedia earlier this week.

This was done, according to the SMH article, Wikipedia added to child pornography blacklist, due to the identification of a photo in one article (of the more than 2.6 million articles in Wikipedia) as being of a sexual nature and the entire site being added to the child pornography blacklist (ironically the same list that Senator Conroy has discussed using in Australia).

Fortunately this block was dropped very quickly, as reported in PC World, U.K. Wikipedia Blacklisting Dropped.

The image in question, of a 1976 German album cover, has not been banned elsewhere in the world, was publicly available in a physical form (as the cover of an album) and is digitally available at many other websites including Amazon.

Per the PC World article, in a facesaving effort, which ironically emphasises the difficulties of filtering the internet, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the nonprofit group that blacklisted the Web page, stated that,

The image in the Wikipedia article is hosted outside the U.K., an issue addressed by the IWF in its statement Tuesday. "Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted abroad, will not be added to the list. Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted in the U.K. will be assessed in line with IWF procedures."

The IWF lamented that while its goal is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the Internet, its decision to blacklist the Wikipedia article "had the opposite effect."

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How does the government maximise information distribution while minimising copyright risk?

It has always struck me as a little contradictory that while one of the government's primary goals is to build citizen awareness of various services, issues, initiatives and opportunities, at the same time many government communications and publications (than need to be) are protected under rigid copyright disclaimers.

I've even seen situations where government agencies require that organisations formally request permission before linking to their websites, although this is almost totally unenforceable and contrary to one of the primary reasons for using the internet.

These copyright disclaimers and reuse permission processes were designed for a useful purpose, to stop the misuse, misrepresentation or reselling of government material.

This is fair enough. However in many cases the copyright restrictions go so far (all rights reserved) as to work against government communications objectives, making dissemination of government information more difficult, costly, slower and less effective.

Who loses out? The public.

Who benefits? I'm not sure anyone does.

Do legitimate approaches exist to protect government interests but still allow appropriate reuse of information?
At least one does, Creative Commons licensing.

This issue of how do organisations and individuals allow selected but not universal reuse of content is not unique to government. It matured in the open source software area, with a solution devised by the Free Software Foundation named GNU General Public License.

This license was specifically developed for software, but prompted the creation of a similar licensing arrangement in 2002 for other creative works such as websites, audio, video and print publications named Creative Commons. Creative Commons is now in use in 43 countries around the world (and growing), including Australia, to allow selective reuse of otherwise copyright-protected content.

What is Creative Commons licensing?
Creative Commons is a flexible form of copyright designed for the evolving copyright needs of the modern world.

It allows a copyright holder to retain some of their rights, while permitting greater latitude for others to redistribute, extend and reuse licensed material in ways permitted by the holder.

Six main types of Creative Commons licenses exist, depending on the level of control desired by the copyright holder (with a seventh type permitting totally open access). Licenses are country specific and a new version of these licenses for Australia recently completed consultation and is in draft.

Has Creative Commons been considered by the Australian government?
It has been discussed by government over a number of years - and adopted in Queensland.

For example it states in the Stanley Declaration, 13 July 2007, Australian National Summit on Open Access to Public Sector Information,

"The adoption and implementation by governments of an open access policy to public sector information (PSI) will ensure the greatest public benefit is derived from the increased use of information created, collected, maintained, used, shared, and disseminated by and for all governments in Australia."

More recently it was recommended in the Federal Government's VenturousAustralia report Review of the National Australian Innovation System released by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Recommendation 7.8) that,

"Australian governments should adopt international standards of open publishing as far as possible. Material released for public information by Australian governments should be released under a creative commons licence."

This was also commented on by the Minister, Senator Carr, in what others have termed a fairly strong endorsement.

"We are and will remain a net importer of knowledge, so it is in our interest to promote the freest possible flow of information domestically and globally.

The arguments for stepping out first on open access are the same as the arguments for stepping out first on emissions trading – the more willing we are to show leadership on this, we more chance we have of persuading other countries to reciprocate.

And if we want the rest of the world to act, we have to do our bit at home."

Where can Creative Commons copyright licenses be used on government products?
While the Queensland government has permitted use of Creative Commons Licensing for several years under the Queensland Information Licensing Framework, other jurisdictions are not as advanced.

Victoria is considering Creative Commons in the Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data, but this will not report back until 30 June 2009.

AGIMO is apparently looking at the national framework, though I have no information on their timeline or prioritisation of this work.

I am not aware of the situation in other jurisdictions - can anyone tell me?

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Is there a groundswell of demand for collaboration tools in your agency?

This is based on some thinking (and rewriting of a reply) around a post by Stephen Collins from Acidlabs on the topic of how and why to implement 'Enterprise 2.0 technologies in organisations, entitled Enterprise 2.0 - Identify problem. Determine solution. Then tools.

Stephen was making a good point - that it is important to identify the needs before introducing the solution (or the tools), also noting that it was necessary to engage in some experimentation and 'intrapreneurship', rather than spend months on painstaking research.

In my travels and conversations with peers I've become aware that many of them are seeing needs emerging within organisations for better collaboration tools - people are seeking better and more cost-effective ways to work together to achieve organisational objectives than via shared drives, email, telephones and cross-country business trips.

However in most cases this need is forming in a 'lumpy' manner. Some groups in the organisation are happy with the tools they've used for years, others are seeking something better - particularly where budget limitations and rising costs are making old ways of working too expensive.

Within my agency I've had around eight groups approach me over the last few months seeking tools to allow them to collaborate or communicate more effectively within the agency or with external parties.

Most of these groups were not aware of the others.

Each by themselves did not have a strong enough business case for an organisational investment in new technologies.

However by aggregating their needs I'm close to a position where I can demonstrate a strong organisational ROI to senior management.

I can picture other agencies being in a similar position. Many small groups expressing needs that could be met by 'Enterprise 2.0' tools, but without a clear big picture view across the organisation of the overall need.

I recall a story I once heard regarding a large bank back in the early days of personal computing. They brought in someone to audit the use of computing technologies across middle management and discovered that hundreds of line managers had individually bought Mac personal computers because the Supercalc spreadsheet was so compellingly useful for them in their jobs.

These purchases were not authorised by the central computing department (who managed the mainframe). The individual purchases were made out of petty cash as each manager could not demonstrate sufficient need to have the central department take notice.

This was a collision between rising staff costs, increasing demands on managers to perform more complex calculations, greater technology availability and growing workforce skills. It led to the perimeter of the organisation knowing more about staff needs than the centre.

I think that we are in a similar time now. Traditional collaboration and communications approaches are rising in cost, while agencies are being asked to increase their collaboration and transparency. (Free) social media tools are growing in popularity on the internet and more and more of the staff joining the public service are experienced users of these tools.

Therefore I believe it's important for government departments to review what staff need to do their jobs and aggregating the needs of different groups to build effective organisational business cases.

Otherwise we'll see agency staff doing as the bank managers did - finding what they need elsewhere.

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Are IT departments and web professionals their own worse enemies?

Forbes magazine has asked whether IT departments are their own worst enemies, in an article, The un-marketing of IT, citing examples such as,

• Promoting e-mail use but limiting inbox storage and file attachment sizes.
  
• Touting the Internet as a data goldmine, then blocking people from visiting so-called non-business sites.
  
• Providing people with a PC as a tool to make their job easier, then locking it down to stop them adding programs or even choosing their own wallpaper.
  
• Warning people of the dire consequences of not using an application properly, threatening them with legal action every time they use the application or start their PC.
  

I've seen IT teams engage in this type of behaviour time and time again over my career and the usual outcome is to reduce the business's trust and respect for IT practitioners - not because these actions are necessarily wrong, but simply because they are not explained well to business users.

As the article suggests, if IT teams committed to explaining clearly to users why these types of actions were necessary and provided alternate ways to meet business needs it would be easier to build bridges in other areas.

Extending this to web design and development, I've experienced many websites where unusual navigation or rigid processes are used to move users through a web service to their desired outcome.

These situations meet business requirements and allow the user to achieve their outcome, but are often painful and offputting journeys, which do not lead to repeat usage or goodwill.

Often the user feels like they have survived an obstacle course rather than had a pleasant walk in the sun.

When developing websites (or applications) it is as important to consider the journey - the user experience - as it is to consider the destination.

Simply adding contextual support, removing unnecessary steps and modelling navigation on well-understood models can do wonders to smooth the user's journey and vastly improve the user experience.

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Gershon recommends procurement integration

The first public comments from the government on the Gershon Report are beginning to emerge, with The Australian reporting on Thursday, Tanner targets agency wastage in bid to save $1bn.

The article basically focuses on duplication of effort and costs by departments who separately procure IT equipment, software, services and office rent.

My feeling is that another Gershon finding will be that there are insufficient links between departments to support more uniform procurement practices, which reflects the historical situation where most government agencies have been operated as discrete businesses, with separate and unique processes, standards and IT systems.

I am also hoping that internal systems will become a focus for efficiency improvements. While improving government's customer-facing IT systems directly improves visible delivery of services, improving internal services provides for indirect service benefits. 

This extends from;

• allowing public servants to spend more time being customer-focused through spending less time grappling with inconsistent and/or low usability internal systems, 
• through reductions in frustration and workplace stress (which impact service quality),
• through easier hiring and transferring of staff who need to adapt to fewer systems in job changes, and 
• better information flows within and between agencies to cut delays.

I am hopeful that we'll see some reform following the Gershon Report towards making government more efficient and more effective at service delivery. Supporting both cost savings and service quality improvements at the same time.

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Australian Human Rights Commission prepared to name and shame government publishers failing online accessibility

On Friday the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, at the Australian Human Rights Commission released a media statement, Climate change secretariat excludes people with disabilities, indicating the Commmision was prepared to 'out' government publishers who did not meet Australia's mandatory accessibility requirements for online material.

“I recently said that, if things did not start to improve, the Australian Human Rights Commission would have to start naming government publishers that are not taking the effort to make their documents sufficiently accessible for people with disability,” said Commissioner Innes.

In recent weeks there have been several accessibility-related media stories in Australia which have helped emphasise the importance of accessibility, not simply as a tickbox for web design, but as a baseline requirement for government material - published online or in other forms.

In this particular case the Human Rights Commission was targeting a specific document released originally only in PDF format. All that was being requested was that it be also published in another format as well (such as HTML) to improve accessibility.

"The Garnaut Review Supplementary Draft Report, Targets and trajectories, was released a week ago, but many people with disabilities still can't access it because it is still only available in pdf format", said Commissioner Innes. "These sort of documents should be published in RTF or HTML as well as pdf so that they can be read by all Australians."

For the record, I had a quick look at the Garnet Climate Change Review website and most of their documents are available in HTML as well as PDF.

It is possible to make modern PDF documents accessible, using the accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat Professional 7 or later. This requires an understanding of the tool and some time for larger documents - a straight PDF conversion of such documents from another format (such as Microsoft Word) generally doesn't meet Australia's legislated accessibility requirements.

Why is achieving accessibility so hard?

Given that PDFs can be made accessible, why does accessibility seem so elusive?

In my experience, across both private and public sector, I've found that generally that the webmasters, content publishers, designers and developers have a clear understanding of their obligations under Australia's mandatory accessibility requirements. They also generally understand and have access to the processes required to achieve it - although sometimes funding and timeframes are very tight.

Outside the web area it is often a different story. Generally most people across the rest of the organisation are less aware of the requirements. This can include document authors, communicators and senior executives.

There's no blame attached to this - accessibility isn't a large part of their jobs. These staff rely on the organisation's web specialists and graphic designers to tell them what they must do and assist them in meeting the requirements.

In fact this media release is a good tool to use in this education process.

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Making e-voting count

The US has had a number of voting dramas over the last ten years, probably none so well documented as that of the Florida recount in the 2000 Presidential election that saw George Bush Jnr win.

As a result of the paper ballet issues uncovered by this and other elections, the US has introduced e-voting systems, but from a report in Infoworld, could have open the door to larger and more dangerous threats to the democratic process.

The article, Let's impeach e-voting, considers a recent software patching issue with e-voting machines and how simple it would be for proprietary paperless anonymous voting systems to be deliberately manipulated to provide a result.

This isn't a theoretical possibility - there have been several cases where US e-voting systems have resulted in statistically curious results and at least two elections where the outcome was changed by the application of a software patch.

As the systems in use do not retain a physical copy of a vote, being entirely paperless, there is no effective way to validate that the machines are tallying votes appropriately. All that can be determined is whether the total votes submitted is correct.

This is an election disaster waiting to happen - or perhaps it already has, how could we tell.

I hope that when Australia seriously considers electronic voting we look into systems providing some kind of guarantee that the outcome bears a striking resemblance to the votes of citizens.

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Addressing customer service for the email channel

From my experience in government, both as a customer and as a public servant, I've discovered that when addressing emails from citizens, government agencies often treat email as surface mail rather than as a phone call.

This means that citizens who choose an electronic communications route can often expect response times measured in weeks or months, rather than in minutes or hours.

Personally I find this unacceptable.

In asking why this was the case I have been told that government cannot discriminate based on mode of contact. That we cannot respond faster to customers choosing to use email rather than surface mail - even though a wait of even a few minutes is considered unacceptable for phone calls.

I have also been told by some departments (by phone or via their websites) that they cannot respond by email at all. That to protect my privacy they must send messages via surface mail - that post is more secure, more convenient or more official - even if I am happy to accept the risks and choose to email them.

I saw a similar situation in the private sector five years ago. Companies were unsure whether to treat emails as a postal medium or a a telephonic one.

They did not have a clear understanding of how email worked technically and did not trust its reliability or security (compared to other mediums).

They did not have staff trained or processes in place to handle a high-speed written medium.

Fortunately, at least in the private sector, many organisations are now more mature in their understanding and application of email.

Treat email as a phone call, not as a letter

My solution to ensuring emailing customers get the right level of respect and service in both public and private organisations has remained the same - treat emails as phone calls.

Email is perceived by the community as a nearly instant form of communication, like the telephone or face-to-face.

None of us would let a phone ring for a month before answering it, so why subject customers choosing email to this?

Address security and privacy concerns in a positive manner

Email is often treated with suspicion by organisations, due to perceived security issues in how it is transmitted from place to place and the concern that it is easy to intercept.

However people have adopted email regardless of perceived risks due to its benefits - high speed and low cost with a fast response time. Today, throughout western countries, people send many times more emails, often of a personal nature, than they make phone calls.

Given that government organisations have a greater obligation to protect citizen information than do our customers themselves, how can this be addressed?

I have a three point plan I have successfully used in organisations (including my current agency) to begin to address these concerns.

Three steps to better customer service (by email)

1. Formally assess the risks of email alongside telephony and surface mail

Many organisations have a defacto email security policy, one that has grown from personal opinions, interpretations and often from misunderstandings about the medium rather than through an objective and formal risk assessment process.

This is easy to address - get the legal, technical and customer service people together in a room and assess the risks of each form of customer contact.

It is particularly important to assess relative risk, for example:

• Are the security risks of email greater than for mail, fax, telephony or face-to-face?
• Is postal mail guaranteed to be delivered?
• Is it easier to steal letters from a mailbox than emails from a computer?
• If people choose VOIP telephony, is this treated as email for security purposes?
• Can different levels of privacy be enforced for different mediums/security levels?

Consider different scenarios, for example:

• Are privacy considerations different when the customer initiates (email) communication (with personal information).
• Can customers explicitly provide permission to receive responses (by email) for a set period (even if done by phone or signed fax/letter), accepting responsibility for security?

Consider organisational capability, for example:

• Are staff adequately trained to respond to emails?
  Just because people are good on the phone doesn't mean they are good at writing emails! An appropriate etiquette level may have to be taught.
• Is the organisation appropriately resourced to address emails in a timely fashion?
  International benchmarks indicate that optimally emails should be addressed in less than four hours, with two days the maximum timeframe people are prepared to wait for adequate service. Can your organisation achieve this - and if not, what mitigations does it put in place to communicate this to customers (who will email anyway!)

Assess customer expectations, for example:

• What do customers expect in terms of privacy in email and other mediums?
• Do they expect the same detail level in responses?
• How fast a response do they expect?
• Do they expect organisations to answer as much as they can can and then refer the customer to another channel?

Out of this it becomes possible to correctly understand the medium's characteristics, the real risks, what customers expect and then determine the mitigations which diminish, remove or defer any critical risks.

 

2. Change internal policies that do not reflect law

Often side-effect from not having conducted a formal risk assessment, internal email policies may not always reflect the current laws of the land (policy is often stricter).

Once a formal risk assessment has been conducted, you should review and rewrite internal policies on customer communications to reflect the risk assessment outcomes.

These policies should include details on when and how a customer can choose to accept the risks and take ownership of the security of the process.

If you find that there are no written policies, write them down and communicate them widely. They should include the background and 'myth-busters' as well as the code of (email) conduct.

 

3. Review laws to meet community expectations

Sometimes it's the actual laws themselves which are out-of-step with community sentiment and concerns.

Laws are living things, frequently being amended and adjusted to address new situations and changes in social norms.

Privacy and security laws  are no different to other laws in this and require regular review to match citizen expectations - there is no 'right' level of privacy, it is dictated by public opinion.

As such, if your customer sentiment reflects a different view and acceptance of (email) security than do Australia's laws, feed this information back into the policy process.

Change is possible, and it will allow your organisation to provide better customer service as a result.

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A new approach to benchmarking eGovernment in the Web 2.0 era

The European Journal of ePractice has published an intriguing article by David Osimo exploring a new approach to benchmarking eGovernment provision in the Web 2.0 world.

Moving away from measuring the number or complexity of government services made available online, David proposes that the transparency of public data should be considered as a flagship goal and suggests a simple and cost-effective method for measuring transparency.

It's an interesting read and provides another approach to assessing and comparing egovernment success.

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The future of the internet - and how to stop it

Jonathan Zittrain's new book, The future of the internet - and how to stop it, presents a compelling picture of how the internet has evolved from the 'sterile' and unchangeable computer systems of the 1960s and 70s into a 'generative' environment, enabling individuals around the world to freely develop applications and services and distribute them widely.

The book then looks at what may come next - the impacts of security and privacy holes and the increasing attempts to limit innovation in order to solve these issues.

It provides a compelling view of where we might be headed if we do not take steps at politic and managerial levels to change the direction.

The book is available freely online, notated by readers in an innovative collaborative approach to exploring the written word.

Jonathon has also presented many of the key themes of the book in various lectures, such as the one below.

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Ready for the Google Chrome web browser?

Google is releasing the beta of its first web browser on Tuesday 2 September - US time, and if the media information Google has released is accurate, the product could reshape the face of web browsing over the next few years.

Google Chrome is the company's first foray into the web browsing market - but represents a step to the left and a jump to the right of previous web browsing technologies.

The fully open source browser implements a range of new features to speed up browsing, reduce the impact of malware and prevent browser crashes - it's more of an operating platform for web applications than a window for viewing web pages.

Google's media release (shaped in the form of a comic) explains the features extremely well for a lay person, and has me quite excited as to the possibilities the browser opens for web developers.

The beta, set to be released on Tuesday - US time - appears to me and to others to be aimed squarely at Microsoft, taking the wind out of their build-up to Internet Explorer 8, which went into public beta last week.

Strategically, in my view, this is a great move for Google.

What does this mean for government web managers
More options requiring support
The first thing it means is that there are likely to be three major browsers to support over the next few years, Internet Explorer (in various versions), Firefox and Google Chrome - with some minor players including Safari and Opera.

Later note: Google Chrome is using the same (open source) rendering engine as Apple's Safari, which should simplify part of the process of supporting the browser.

Need to quickly review and align code to preserve user experience
Given Google's search dominance I expect a fast initial take-up rate, with up to 15 percent of website users trialing the product in the next few months (I'll reflect back on this in two months to see how accurate I was).

This means that website managers need to take a look at the rendering engine used by Google (WebKit) and ensure that their sites are compliant. Otherwise they may see falling traffic or increased help desk calls as users struggle to use forms and other functionality.

More ability to move functionality online
The new browser opens a number of new possibilities for website managers, with multi-threaded javascript allowing more complex and faster web applications. This opens the playing field for better web-based tools, allowing more functionality to move online.

It also, in part, ensures that Google's own stable, including Google Docs, Gmail, Blogger, Youtube and Gears, will run faster and more efficiently (sound familiar? Microsoft has a similar ecosystem with Windows and Microsoft applications).

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Australia rated 6th in global egovernment study

Brookings University recently released its report Improving Technology Utilization in Electronic Government around the World, 2008 (link to PDF).

This ranks the government websites of 198 nations, reviewing 6-10 sites in each nation.

Australia ranked 6th, behind South Korea, Taiwan, the US, Singapore and Canada, up from 8th position last year.

As a benchmark this is great - it's better than our Olympic ranking (on substantially less funds per website than we spend on medal winning athletes), and substantially better than our global population ranking of around 50th.

However this study compares governments against other governments, rather than with citizen expectations.

While I do use other governments' initiatives to stimulate my thinking, I'm more interested in what our citizens want.

I also regularly refer to AGIMO's fantastic work on the use of government services online, and the 2006 e-Government Strategy, Responsive Government. There was also the (now superceded) Guide to Minimum Web Site Standards.

However none of these provide a citizen-centric view of what government sites need to provide that can be used to provide numerical ratings for each government site.

I'd love to have such a ranking available as I used to have in the private sector - using Global Reviews - to provide guidance as to what our citizens want, and the relative importance of different functionality. This would greatly assist my team and I'm sure other online groups, to prioritise online developments inline with citizen desires.

Has anyone seen a study in Australia or elsewhere on the community's expectations of how citizens should be able to engage government online?

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egovernment online participation - New Zealand-style

I really admired the efforts of our New Zealand cousins in the egovernment arena as I've mentioned before.

One of their initiatives is their ParticipationNZ wiki, which is allowing NZ public servants to collaboratively develop, assess and reflect on the overall approach to online participation by government agencies.

If your agency is considering participating in the online arena, this is a great place to find global best practice examples of actual participation policy and initiatives.

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Lessons to be learnt from the Grocery choice website

The last few days have seen a number of media reports criticising the new Federal government Grocery choice website.

Amidst the noise there are several key takeaways for public sector website managers.

Note that I'm not involved with the Grocery choice website or program. I'm commenting from the perspective of a public sector web manager who needs to meet the same level of scrutiny for the sites I manage.


What is Grocery choice?
The purpose of the grocery choice website, in its own words, is to provide practical grocery price information to help consumers find the cheapest overall supermarket chain in their area. It does this by publishing prices for typical grocery baskets across supermarket retailers in different areas of Australia, updated monthly.

The website was launched on 5 August this year, at the same time as the ACCC Grocery Inquiry report was released.


The main criticisms of Grocery choice
Putting aside politics, criticism has fallen into several areas;

• Accessibility - whether Grocery choice is usable by vision-impaired people, as reported in the Brisbane Times, Grocery price watch website under fire,
  
• Usefulness - whether the information is sufficiently timely to be useful for consumers, as reported in the Daily Telegragh, PM's Grocery web of deceit,
  
• Channel choice - whether the online channel can reach the appropriate audience, as in the ABC's report, GroceryChoice criticism: Seniors 'don't use' internet.

What should government website managers take away from this?

• Accessibility is crucial - failure to meet the government minimum standards can place your organisation at risk.
  
  
• Usefulness is a function of both information and presentation - web managers need to consider how to best present and explain information and services within the capabilities of the online channel to convey maximum meaning and understanding.
  
  
• Select channels based on desired outcomes - web managers need to be able to convey an understanding of the online channel's capabilities and advise other managers when it is the most important channel, a supporting channel or should not be used.

Unpacking the takeaways

Accessibility
Accessibility is a legal requirement for government agencies. Compromising website accessibility, whether due to tight deadlines or changes in design or requirements, can expose a government agency to legal action and should be considered as a risk in any web project.

On that basis accessibility is a very important area for government website managers to understand and manage. Government agencies are required to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.o) developed by the W3C in 1999 in meeting the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

This is detailed in AGIMO's Web Publishing Guide within the Accessibility section.

The minimum standard for a government website is an 'A' rating, with 'AA' rating recommended (personally we're gradually shifting our agency websites to 'AAA' level). There are some great tools available to analyse sites to ensure they meet the standard, such as the VisionAustralia web accessibility toolbar and, as I've discussed previously, a list of tools from AIM.

Web managers should also note that the W3C's update to their guidelines, WCAG 2.0, is nearly here. There are already a useful reference on how to meet the WCAG 2.0 guidelines available from WIPA.

The criticism of Grocery choice is clearcut - if the site doesn't meet the 'A' minimum level then it does fail to meet Australian government standards and this needs to be addressed as a priority.

If it remains unaddressed then legal action is possible, similar to the accessibility court case around the Sydney Olympics website, well described and documented by Tom Worthington.


Usefulness
Does the website serve a useful purpose? Does it provide relevant, timely and usable information and/or services for citizens and customers.

This is something all web managers should be considering when building or developing websites.

In meeting the goals of a government agency web managers need to consider the needs of multiple groups of stakeholders and audiences. We also need to consider the capabilities of the channel itself - online is not the best channel for every engagement.

In Grocery choice's case the debate has centred on whether the information in the site - which is published monthly - is useful to citizens.

This is a debate with two sides, Choice magazine, as quoted in the Livenews article, Grocery Watch is a great tool: Choice, has expressed that they believe the website is of use, whereas other commentators has said that monthly basket data is not as useful as visiting the local supermarkets.

The information is collected as part of a set program, over which I would expect the website manager has little control.

However I think the site manager has done an excellent job of presenting this information in a useful way, and explaining the collection process such that website visitors can make their own determinations of the usefulness of the data.

The presentation and organisation of information is often the area over which website managers have the greatest influence in helping make a website more useful for citizens.

The value of information or services can be greatly enhanced - or greatly diminished - through presentation and all website managers need to have a firm grasp of how to best use the online channel to maximise this value, even when they have no control over the information itself.


Channel choice
The specific debate in ABC's article (mentioned earlier) is related to claims that seniors cannot benefit from the Grocery choice information as they make limited use of the online channel.

Online has always been a controversial channel as not everyone chooses or is able to use the internet. For example it has higher barriers to entry than other mass media - you need to purchase a computer and pay for an ongoing ISP account. Television, radio and print media have a lower upfront investment and shallower learning curve.

Despite this, internet has been adopted in Australia much faster than radio, television or print media. Industry reports are fairly clear that both television and print readership are declining. The advertising industry are also very clear that 18-35 year olds are very difficult to reach via other media, as has been discussed in ABC's The Gruen Transfer.

So therefore online is an important and growing channel - but is not a universal channel.

My experience has been that ]in management there are internet 'bulls' and internet 'bears'. The first group seeks to use the internet wherever possible, is more supportive of the channel and more inclined to fund online initiatives. The second group is still cautious of the internet, is more dismissive of whether it is used and how it is used and is inclined to use traditional channels.

Effective website managers need to steer a middle course, advocating use of the channel where appropriate, and advocating the use of other channels where not. They also need to ensure that other managers understand the capabilities of the online channel so that good channel choice decisions can be made.

The primary goals of organisations generally involve reaching, communicating and engaging with customers and stakeholders - providing what is needful and supporting the conversations necessary to make improvements over time in an effective and cost-efficient manner.

On this basis the channels selected are less important than the outcomes achieved.

I personally remain mindful of this, and believe other web managers should also.


Did you have other take-aways?
I'd appreciate comments from other web managers regarding the takeaways they've had regarding the Grocery choice media coverage.

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AGIMO releases consultation blog report

Earlier this month AGIMO released a report regarding consultation with government online.

This concludes a yearlong consultation program during which AGIMO has consulted a range of stakeholders to assist development in the online consultation space.

It's taken me a little while to get to it, but the report has been very useful in directing my thinking regarding how my agency can more deeply engage customers and stakeholders in meaningful dialogue.

The report indicated that people did feel it would be of value to have an online consultation space for government, In fact 96.9 percent of those responding to the online survey were in favour.

This space would potentially involve blogs, discussion forums and details of public consultations, similar to that already in place for QLD's Get involved consultation website.

The report also suggested that there needed to be steps taken to encourage participation as people not already engaged in online or political discussions may not participate in such a site.


I found the section detailing techniques to make people more interested in participating particularly useful and relevant to any such website, and will be applying them as my agency moves towards greater online consultation - both with staff and with stakeholders and customers.

The points raised included that people would be more likely to participate if;

• the discussion topic were relevant to their personal circumstances;
• they had the opportunity to nominate the topics for discussion;
• discussion forums included the participation of Government officials;
• a range of registration options were available;
• the site was well designed, easy to find and use;
• participants were free to express their opinion without censorship; and
• it were unbiased in its operation.

Of all of these points, the one that came through most clearly to me from the report was the need to establish credibility - that any online consultation was being taken seriously by the Minister and senior public servants involved.

As it stated in the report:

It was seen by many respondents, especially those participating via the online survey, that Government officials and Ministers would be able to prove their interest in, and commitment to, the various topics under discussion by participating. Many noted the need for political impartiality. The success of any public online forum was seen to depend on the willingness of those in power to participate in the debate and respond to the issues presented.

While many respondents expressed their cynicism about Government actually participating in the discussion, some respondents were optimistic and believed that Government officials would take the website and its discussion forums seriously.

In other words, participation proves commitment to process.

I am looking forward to further guidance from AGIMO as to how they intend to move forward to develop such a consultation site.

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US releases eGovernment satisfaction results - useful benchmark for Australian sites

ForeSee Results has just released the findings of the latest quarterly US eGovernment satisfaction survey, looking at citizen satisfaction with over 100 US government websites.

Available as a PDF download, the E-Government Satisfaction Index (PDF 1.2Mb) uses a uniform system to compare satisfaction across US sites and was selected as the US government's standard measure in 1999.

Based on the results of this latest survey, there has been a small increase in average satisfaction to 72.9 percent, the first rise in a year.

The report does a good job of identifying the US government sites with the highest level of citizen satisfaction, which can be used by Australian government as good benchmarking examples.

It identifies the major priorities for improvement across agencies, with search topping the list (88% of agencies identified it as a top priority) followed by functionality at 59% and navigation at 41%.

The benefits of higher satisfaction have also been identified in the report, being that highly satisfied customers (scores of 80 or more) are;

• 84% more likely to use the website as a primary resource
• 83% more likely to recommend the website
• 57% more likely to return to the site

The use of a standard government website satisfaction methodology, as I have previously suggested, makes it much easier for government agencies to compare their performance, identify and learn from successes and address issues. It is also an excellent accountability tool for Ministers and agency heads.

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No future for paper invoices?

These days the majority of postal mail people in Australia receive is either advertising material or bill. In the future, this may be cut even further to only ads.

In the European Union there's a major project underway to create a whole-of-government standard for all EU government invoicing, that can also be propagated across the private sector, creating savings estimated at EUR65.4 billion per year for businesses.

That's a staggering amount of savings simply for removing those paper bills - not to mention the environmental benefits of saving all of that paper, printing and transportation.

If successful it will mean that the EU government will strongly encourage all of its suppliers to move to e-procurement - at some point mandating the change. This will be propagated out to national, regional and local governments in the EU area.

The impacts of this are likely to be global. Any business with a relationship with EU governments will have to move towards the EU invoicing standards to maintain their billing arrangements. In turn this will influence them towards adopting a standard system across electronic billing for their other government and private customers around the world.

It will be interesting to see how far-reaching the effects will be, whether other governments will mandate other e-procurement invoicing standards - raising new barriers for organisations dealing across national boundaries, or will support the EU approach to potentially create global e-invoicing standards.

More information about the initiative is available at the European Commission website in the e-Invoicing working group site.

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Nextgov introduces security assessment tool for government websites

Over in the US, Nextgov has released an online tool explicitly for US public sector website administrators can use to check the security of their website versus the stipulations of the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act.

As hackers do not restrict themselves to national boundaries - or to government legislation - this tool is useful for government webmasters around the world as a simple test of their security levels against the standards applied by professional security analysts.

As stated in the Nextgov release,

Nextgov and the SANS Institute, a nonprofit cybersecurity research organization in Bethesda, Md., have teamed up on a Web-based tool. It's designed to provide federal officials a means to compare how secure FISMA says their systems are to what professional security analysts would say. As Alan Paller, director of research at SANS, points out, an agency can get an A on FISMA compliance, but receive an F from security analysts on how secure its systems are.

How secure are your systems?

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