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9 June 2003
Conference Report: Internet World 2003
By Shamit Ghosh
Case Study: The Open University - Developing Online Learning for the Public Sector
Jim Flood, Director of Learning, COROUS (Corporate Open University Services), The Open University
Key Points:
Failure rates for e-learning are high with 80% of those commencing online courses failng to complete them. Public sector staff face many barriers to learning - their access to ICT is variable, often limited, to some a Windows environment may be completely alien; incentives to take training courses are few, as reward structures are not linked to learning. E-learning students must be confident their IT systems will work first and every time - otherwise they are unlikely to complete the course.
Jim outlined the five P's to overcoming obstacles to e-learning:
| · | Presentation - students must be comfortable with the onscreen enviroment and navigation: good graphic design, visual appeal and intuitive controls are extremely important |
| · | Promotion - courses need to be heavily promoted to get off the ground |
| · | Preparation - learning how to learn online is essential |
| · | Props - learning support is critical, students need frequent support and encouragement, some may face disapprobation from colleagues seeing them not at work |
| · | Praxis - students must be able to apply their learning to real situations |
How to Utilise Broadband Data Solutions to Enable Joined-Up Government
Christopher Small, Director of Public Sector, Telewest Business
Christopher presented three corporate case studies of network infrastructure projects from the health, police and education sectors involving integrating services and connecting users across organisations:
| · | Bradford Health Community are extending their existing Virtual Private Network, set up in 1999, which provides health practitioners with email and internet access and secure data exchange. Some 130 sites previously connected by Telewest Business will be upgraded from 128kps connections to 2Mbps circuits, with 75 sites already up-and-running on the new service. |
| · | West Midlands Police have implemented a Wide Area Network carrying voice and data traffic between its main call centres and other primary sites within the region, which is to be extended to link up with Coventry police stations. |
| · | Education Bradford is developing a secure, high-speed network providing access to digital educational resources to schools in the Bradford area and the wide community. The first phase involving 59 schools is now complete, with a further 84 to follow. |
Regional Portals - How Government and Agencies are Using Portal Technologies to Deliver Competitive Advantage to Regional Business
Roger Williams, Managing Consultant, PA Consulting Group
Using the example of a small business based in Australia trying to locate information via a regional government portal, Roger attempted to show the difficulties of trying to connect with government online, as he embarked on a frustrating and fruitless search through a maze of confusing and out-of-date webpages. Companies dealing with UK-based government agencies would not fare much better, he added. Some conclusions that could drawn from the experience were the need for regional portals to consider signposting services effectively, deploy content management controls to keep information up-todate and relevant, provide support for new users and give visibility to popular services. Finally, public sector organisations need to question whether their online services add value in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.
Open and Close: A Guide to Delivering Accessible and Secure Public Data
Alex Watson-Jackson, Product Manager for Hosting & Security, Telenor Business Solutions
Key points:
Making data more accessible to citizens and staff presents great opportunities for the public sector in delivering joined-up, more customer-focused, services, but also considerable security risks. Technical solutions and strategic planning will help to manage the latter, while creating a security culture, both inside and outside the organisation, is important for long-term sustainability.
Multimap in use at Brent Council
Ije Okechukwu, E-Government Co-Ordinator, The London Borough of Brent
Ije explained to delegates how Brent's website is integrating online mapping data from Multimap to provide localised information services to residents. The technology is powering other services such as an email alert system, which enables residents to request notification of events based on information categories or location. Users can, for example, receive alerts details of entertainment licence applications and also email objections if they wish. Brent community website 'BRAIN' has integrated Multimap data to allow residential associations or other registered organisations to be listed by postcode.
Applications Built for Local Government with Witango Rapid Application Development
Charles Stanley-Smith, CTO, Piercom
Key points:
Piercom's Witango product, a web-based development suite, was used to develop the Irish Government's E-Forms Project which provides a system where local authorities and other government bodies can define and store the forms they use in electronic format. Citizens complete and submit the forms online when applying for a service and an electronic version is sent to the appropriate authority for processing.
Case Study: Wychavon District Council - Delivering a Secure Head Office Computing Experience to the Remote or Home Worker
Steve Jennings, Business Development Manager, LANsition Ltd
Key points:
| · | The Employment Act 2002 gave, from 6 April 2003, the right for parents of children to request to work flexibility and requires that employers consider such requests seriously. Around 500,000 requests for flexible working are estimated per year, with some 8 per cent expected to go to tribunal. With home working becoming increasingly popular, it is important that organisations make provisions now to handle these requests. |
| · | Home workers also need to be able to work effectively - limited IT facilities may impact on productivity. |
| · | A case study of Wychavon District Council illustrates the type of solutions available. Councillors working from home can access centralised IT resources remotely and securely through a web browser over a dial-up internet connection with no degradation in performance. |
Creativity/Accessibility - Mutually Exclusive?
Neil Davis, Commercial Director, Reading Room
Key points:
| · | An accessible website does not have to mean a 'boring website'. As well as the legal imperative to cater for users with disabilities, it makes good business sense all-round to reach as many potential clients as possible, and finding ways to achieve this can lead to creative services. |
| · | Designing with accessibility in mind helps you to focus on the needs of users. By integrating design with purpose, you should be going a long way towards meeting the general guidelines for an accessible website. |
Outsourcing Internet Hosting for Councils and Local Government
Peter Perdue, Area Sales Manager - Public Sector, Host Europe
Key points:
| · | Outsourcing to a specialist provider has the potential for significant cost savings as well as improved performance and many additional indirect business benefits. |
| · | Many local authorities have reservations about outsourcing a crucial service such as internet hosting - loss of control, personnel issues and dependence on a third-party - but with a quality service provider these concerns could prove to be unwarranted. To identify a quality web host, company reliability should be top priority. Other aspects to look for include financial stability, their level of expertise, scalability and the Service Level Agreements and customer support offered. |
Case Study: Rotherham Metropolitan Council: Rotherham Connects to the Future
Jonathon Prew, Strategic Services Manager, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and Greg Gianforte, CEO and Founder, RightNow
The local authority's RotheramConnect initiative is a major service transformation programme providing residents with 'one-stop', access to their council through sophisticated telephone and online technologies. Previously a "inefficent and ineffective" council, Rotherham need to strip out the cost of bureaucracy and sought a low cost and maintenance, high impact solution that would provide a quick return on investment. The website has been live for a year , RotherhamConnects offices are now open longer (8am to 8pm) and customer service representatives, formerly the lowest graded staff, have been given specialist induction traning and financial rewards in recognition of their valuable role. Key to the Council's success had been 'buy in from the top' and commitment from the Chief Executive, although Jonathon admitted that attempts to dismantle 'mini-empires' had been met with some resistance. The Council will be implementing further significant upgrades to services through its £40 million partnership with BT.
Greg provided delegates with an overview of the technology on which Rotherham has chosen to base RotherhamConnects, a simple and effective eCRM solution, RightNow Web eService Centre. Using this solution Rotherham had compiled a knowledge base of 6-700 frequently-asked questions which are organised, tracked and filtered according to current concerns, offering a very fast response rate to individual queries from members of the public and streamling operations.
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