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Edited By Bob Monn and Dennis Jones
New teams at work on Access Washington portal updates | Other News
Note: The IPMA Board did not meet in July.
-- by Laura Parma, Assistant Director, Interactive Technologies, Washington State Department of Information Services
Access Washington is the state of Washington's web portal: a gateway to an extensive list of government services and information at both state and local levels. The portal can be located on the Internet at http://access.wa.gov.
Governor Gary Locke launched Access Washington in November 1998. Since that time DIS has continued to make additions and enhancements to the portal based upon feedback from people using Access Washington, as well as agencies who have applications and web pages that are linked to the gateway portal.
There are three teams currently at work to review and enhance the Access Washington portal. They are focused on the areas of business, citizenship, and life events. These multi-agency teams are reviewing specific government applications and service web pages for inclusion within the portal's new index structure. The continuing objective for Access Washington is to organize and index the new and existing services in a topical manner that makes it easy for constituents to complete the task they need to get done.
Access Washington Business Team
This team is working to organize the services that are oriented for business owners in Washington. They are reviewing agency sites that fit under the topics of starting a business, licenses and permits, and doing business with government.
Access Washington Citizenship Team
This team is indexing web pages and applications that provide information about how citizens exercise their citizenship in Washington. This includes topics such as voting, public affairs, and state records.
Life Events Team
This team is working on two paths. One path involves determining the URLs needed to better populate general life interest areas such as health and family. The other path covers pivotal life events that often require some contact with government such as "I just turned 18," "I am considering going to college," or "I'm getting married."
The teams have been created and supported by the Digital Government Executive Steering Committee. It is anticipated that the portal updates will be reviewed and implemented in the fall of 2000. We encourage your feedback to the teams as well as to Access Washington in general. Please contact us at aw@dis.wa.gov.
On July 11, 2000 The Progress & Freedom Foundation released the third part of the 2000 Digital State Survey. Washington received perfect scores in both portions of this part of the survey -- digital democracy and management/administration. Arizona also earned a perfect score in the digital democracy portion of the survey. See the complete PFF news release.
The final part of the survey will be completed in the fall and Washington is well-positioned to take top honors in the overall survey.
On July 14, 2000 the Information Services Board adopted an updated Internet-oriented security policy. See the complete story from DIS TechCentral.
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