Brown Study on eGovernment
I have always been a little uncomfortable with the weighting criteria that Brown University has used in rating state government presence on the internet, but was pleased to see that Utah had moved up seven spots in this year's report. The study focuses on issues like privacy, disability access, user fees, foreign language access, and email responsiveness. Although the State of Utah has spent time working on each of these issues, the primary emphasis has been on the development of online services. At least 79 new services have been added in the last 18 months with many more robust services on the horizon. The good news is that while Utah is about 17 points (on the Brown scale) ahead of Wyoming who rated last in the study (I hate to see our neighboring state rated that low), they are only about four points below the state that Brown rated #1.
Things that would probably move Utah higher on the scale:
- Language translation (this could happen very easily with online translation services, by the way we got a ZERO on this one)
- Assuring prompt response to online email requests (I would like to see us implement a live help desk using an instant messaging service)
- Eliminating fees wherever possible (we have a committee that is discussing solutions for this right now)
- Stressing disability access - we only scored a 19 here (the State Library has offered to do a review of state websites in conjunction with the CIO and provide assistance to state agencies to make their sites more accessible)
- We scored high in privacy and security, but could move up here with only a little effort (like adding the utah.gov footer to every site)
8:26:13 AM 
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