World Tour of Government Online

Tom Worthington

Immediate Past President of the Australian Computer Society

tom.worthington@tomw.net.au

Connecting Government at Internet World 98 Tuesday 11 August 1998 - Sydney

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Note: These are the "slides" of the talk, intended for display to an audience in 18 point font on a 640 x 480 video display. Draft of 21 May 1998 (comments welcome). The text of the talk is also available.

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Contents

• About the speaker
• Introduction
• The Three Eras of Government On-line
• Best and the Worst of the Internet
• Methodology
• See also

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About the speaker

• Special Adviser for Internet/Intranet Policy, Defence
• Immediate Past President of the ACS.
• Member of: ACS, ACM, Internet Society, IEEE-CS & SA Council.
• One of the 10 most influential IT&T people in Australia
• Work since 1994 on the policy and practice of the Internet
• Including appearances before three Senate hearings
• First home pages for: Defence, ACT Government, SBS, AIIA & NPC.

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Introduction

• What are local, state and federal governments doing on-line in Australia?
• How does this compare with the best in the world?
• Best way to find out is to ask.
• But first: How did Federal Government get on-line?

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The Three Eras of Government On-line

• pre-history (up to 1994),
• the conspiracy (1995-1996)
• e-publish-or-perish age (1997-1998)
• consolidation (1999-).

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Pre-history (up to 1994)

• Attempts to use on-line systems for government business
• Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile (GOSIP) failed
• Pre-history ended in 1994 by
  • ASTEC, & BSEG government enquiries
  • ACS's "Vision for a Networked Nation"

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The Conspiracy (1995-1996)

• Public servants, with a loose consortium of industry and academic enthusiasts
• putting the government on-line with "pilot" programs
• senior approval obtained after success
• Ministerial endorsement last
• ACS now appliying this to Information Industry policy

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E-publish-or-Perish (1997-1998)

• Every agency has to have a web page
• Agency staff compete to be in charge of the home page
• new "official" home pages to bury earlier pioneering efforts
• New Federal Government Home Page end of era

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Consolidation (1999-)

• More order & definition of government sites
• public web pages rivaling internal information
• Separate agency sites merging into topic based sites
• web to drive agency consolidation and outsourcing?

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Best and the Worst of the Internet

• Showing Internet pornography to the Senate
• Five Minute Tour of Australia for Interact 97
• high technology tourist report

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Methodology

Collect the replies < >

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The Nominations

• au
  • com
    • MAXI
    • Telstra White Pages
  • edu
    • Australian Legal Information Institute
    • EdNA
    • The Learning Gateway
    • Victorian Department of Education’s Schools web-site
    • http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/discuss/index.htm
    • http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/saltwatch
    • http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/steps
  • gov
    • Commonwealth Parliamentary website
    • http://www.business.gov.au
    • MetNet
    • BRS web site
    • National Forest Inventory
    • ERIN
    • NLA's government index
    • Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission
    • http://accessability.noie.gov.au/
    • radioactive waste
    • www.ogit.gov.au
    • vic
      • Food Victoria's Website
      • City of Melbourne
      • Moonee Valley City Council
      • Victorian Events Calendar
    • wa
      • Naturebase - CALM
      • Office of Youth Affairs - .U
  • net
    • Australia's Cultural Network
    • http://www.skills.net.au/
    • VICNET
    • http://home.vicnet.net.au/~family/
    • http://librariesvictoria.vicnet.net.au/
• edu
  • Planetary Image Facility
• gov
  • http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/
  • California State Senate Web site
  • World Factbook
  • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • NASA Image eXchange
  • Guide to Available Mathematical Software
  • http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/
• mil
  • US Naval Observatory Time Services site
• us
  • http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1994/10/22/2.text.1

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See also

• Text
• Connecting Government Forum
• Tom Worthington's Home Page

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Comments to Tom Worthington MACS, Immediate Past President of the Australian Computer Society tom.worthington@tomw.net.au.