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AGIMO's Excellence in e-Government Awards are on again for 2010, with nominations opening on 1 February (and closing 1 March).
This year the categories have been revised. There are now five project specific Awards plus a team or individual Award for outstanding achievement in an Information Technology area within the Australian Federal Public Service.
Details of the e-Awards are available at AGIMO's section in the Department of Finance's website.
While nomination forms are not yet available, if you're considering entering the awards you may wish to get a head start in understand the project specific criteria.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Get your entry ready for the Australian Excellence in e-Government Awards (from AGIMO) | Tweet |
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Guide to creating your own 'Apps for Democracy' contest | Tweet |
The organisers of the US-based 'Apps for Democracy' competition have released a guide for other governments and organisations on how to run their own similar contests.
The Guide to Creating Your Own Apps for Democracy contains many useful tips based on how to setup a content and what worked and didn't work in the contests run in the United States.
There's also a related presentation available from the link above.
Separately, there's also a document available with a summary of insights from the contest in Washington.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Documentary: the US Open Government initiative - one year on | Tweet |
January 21 was the one year anniversary of the US Government's open government initiative, measured from when President Obama released his first memorandum in office, committing the US government to an approach involving openness, transparency and collaboration.
In recognition of this anniversary, Delib, a UK Open Government consultancy, has released a short documentary about the progress of the initiative.
Speaking with public servants and independent commentators, including Beth Noveck (White House Head of Open Gov), Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media) and Jeffrey Levy (EPA), the documentary provides an insight into the level of leadership and the depth of commitment from the top of the US government, and how the initiative has take shape.
Delib's website contains more information on the video.
"Open Gov the Movie" - from Delib from Delib on Vimeo.
Friday, January 22, 2010
A majority of US government agencies now using social media | Tweet |
A recent report from talent management companies Human Capital Institute and Saba indicates that a majority of US government agencies are using social media.
The report estimates that 66% of US government agencies use social media tools, with 65% using more than one tool.
A graph from the report (see below) indicates that the US government still trails US corporate use of social media - which provides some indication of the direction for the future.
I wonder how we're tracking in Australia - anyone seen research on the topic?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Microsoft 'strongly recommends' customers upgrade web browsers from IE6 to IE8 to solve security issues | Tweet |
In their strongest advisement yet, Microsoft Australia has issued a "strong recommendation" through its Government Affairs Blog that customers upgrade from the nine-year old Internet Explorer 6 web browser to Internet Explorer 8.
This is because the security flaws now being discovered in Internet Explorer 6 are such that they leave organisations more vulnerable to successful co-ordinated hacking attacks - the potential theft of confidential or sensitive information and intellectual property.
The risk isn't from a 17-year old hacker in their bedroom, but from crime syndicates, corporate interests and, potentially, other governments.
Google and at least 33 other companies have experienced co-ordinated attacks, originating from China, in the last week. Google believes these attacks were launched, or at least endorsed by, the Chinese government - although they cannot prove it beyond doubt. However the concern is great enough that the US President has asked the Chinese government to comment on the attacks and Google is considering leaving China.
These attacks exploited a security flaw present in Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8. Microsoft reported that attacks only seem to be effective against IE6. Information out of Google agree with this, as do comments by other security specialists.
This security flaw has no fix at this time and it is unclear when a fix will be available.
Defence Minister John Faulkner was recently quoted in the media (including this Brisbane Times article) as saying that cyber attacks were a worsening global problem. "Cyber intrusions on government, critical infrastructure and other information networks are a real threat to Australia's national security and national interests."
Both French and German governments have advised their citizens to stop using Internet Explorer 6.
In Australia some government agencies are still using Internet Explorer 6 as their standard web browser.
So why do government agencies (and some large commercial organisations) still use a nine-year old web browser with dubious security, that isn't compliant with modern web standards and is soon to no longer be supported by major websites (including YouTube and Gmail owned by Google and Facebook)?
I can't speak for any agencies, however while most modern web browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5, Opera 10 and Chrome are free to users, there are often switching costs for organisations to change even free software on a large scale.
They may have designed internal software around a particular web browser or have costs associated with rolling out new software across thousands of computers.
Switching from IE6 in particular can be quite involved as it has a number of features (developed in ActiveX) that may be exploited by organisations in websites and other software. South Korea in particular built around Internet Explorer 6 and has had difficulties in migrating to modern browsers or operating systems.
There is also the need to test how modern browsers work on a network and ensure that their security models are understood so new vulnerabilities do not arise. This costs time and money - at a time when Australian government departments are expected to save money in IT as a result of the Gershon Report. It's another choice they have to make on where to allocate their limited funds.
Plus as many government agencies block sites like YouTube, Gmail and Facebook, citing concerns over staff wasting time (as previously was the concern over access to personal telephone calls), improving agency capability to engage in social media may not create any urgency to upgrade.
However, given the clear and present dangers linked specifically to Internet Explorer 6 I'm hopeful that 2010 will be the year where many Australian organisations still using this old, less accessible and insecure technology decide to implement modern web browsers.
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