American Library Association's E-governement Toolkit

Are you looking for tips and best practices on how to make your government websites more functional? Check out the American Library Association (ALA) E-government online toolkit. The toolkit contains ten sections of E-Government best practices, tips, guidelines and checklists.

One interesting section, Civic Participation & E-Government, presents two models electronic citizen participation in government. The first is a structure in which government offers citizens the opportunity to access current, public documents and proposed policies so they can evaluate and discuss them. The other model stresses government consulting citizens for opinions on how to improve current policies and administrative procedures. Both models encourage citizen participation, not merely offering information. Suggestions offered for implementation of either model include:

• Connect citizens to interactive government websites that solicit citizen feedback and participation in policy making, design and innovation.
• Educate citizens about their civic role and provide opportunities for them to create their own mediated messages and interact with government agencies and officials using tools that fit individual or specific community needs.
• Provide citizens the ability to create a “My E-Government” page so they can personalize their interaction with government agencies and officials.
• Initiate “online town halls” for E-democracy which include agenda setting and discussion of public issues.

Another section of ALA's toolkit, Building E-Government Partnerships, stresses municipal governments networking with corporate and nonprofit businesses, educational institutions, and social services to offer centralized resources and forums to citizens. Roles these partners can play include electronic infrastructure improvement, training, citizen advocacy, assistance, translation, and assessment. Such partnerships can be sustained over the long-haul to ensure greater citizen exposure to e-government services. There is much more the ALA e-government toolkit has to offer. As is the case with all toolkits, the real value only comes if utilized, so check it out!

E-Gov Workshop

Many major universities offer workshops and seminars that broach contemporary issues in e-government by offering reviews of current research and presentations of case studies of successful implementation of e-government solutions. Here are PublicStuff, we think that Academic institutions' on going contribution to E-government is often overlooked and under utilized so we'd like to get the word out about some upcoming events.

On May 12, 2011, the Department of Public Administration in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago will be hosting the E-Government Workshop: Achieving IT Efficiencies Through Collaboration at the Hilton Lisle/Naperville in Lisle, Illinois.

According to the conference homepage, "This year's workshop will highlight ways that government agencies can achieve economies in the use of information technology through collaboration - collaboration with the private sector through cloud computing, and collaboration between levels of government through shared services arrangements."

Among the presenters will be Steven Clift - online strategist and founder of e-Democracy.org and Sam Ferguson – Schaumburg, Illinoi's first Director of Information of Technology. Schaumburg received the honor of begin chosen six years as one the top ten digital municipalities in the U.S. by the Center for Digital Government.

This workshop can fulfill the requirements for the ICMA Voluntary Credentialing Program and is an excellent foundation for the UIC e-Government online certificate program, and should be approved by any local government for in service and professional training credits.

The history section of the conference website contains files of presentations from the past two years. The 2009 theme was Beyond the Web Page and 2010 was Technology Solutions in a Time of Crisis. The 2010 plenary sessions are all available in streaming video. One particular 2010 presentation, Changing How Cities Work, is very informative and challenging with the City Manager of Dubuque, Iowa and the Sustainable Community Director of that city presenting.

Further information can also be found on the UIC E-Government Facebook page. The cost of the workshop is $109 which includes breakfast, lunch and workshop materials-- a steal, if you ask us!