Local sites improve, but difficult road ahead: Socitm: Local authority Web sites in the UK have greatly improved in the past year, although there is still a long way to go to meet the e-government 2005 deadline, according to a new report. "Better connected," the Society of IT Management's sixth annual report on local authority Web sites, reviewed every local council site in the UK, placing them in one of four categories: transactional, content plus, content, or promotional. The study found that, compared to the previous year, the number of transactional sites (the most desirable category) had risen 23 percent. Overall, the number of transactional services offered was up over 46 percent from 2002. In spite of good progress in some areas, the Socitm report notes that performance in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's proposed 14 priority service areas is "patchy," and some proposed mandatory outcomes look certain not to be achieved by the end of 2005. There has been some controversy recently over priority services, with Socitm criticising an ODPM consultation paper on priorities for local government, accusing it of being too prescriptive and ignoring local needs.
EU to provide funding for public-private projects: The European Union has announced that it will provide EUR37.5 million in funding for new public-private projects that involve electronic services to benefit the public. The funding is being provided under the European Commission's eTen programme, which issued a call for proposals last May under five headings: e-government, e-health, e-inclusion, e-learning, and trust and security services. Proposals involving over 1,000 participants from 27 countries were submitted. As contracts are signed, details of the projects will be announced on the European Commission's Web site. The selected e-government services include electronic procurement facilities and services to citizens in areas such as e-democracy.
Europe must improve on-line accessibility: Liikanen: Governments across Europe need to improve the accessibility of on-line services, according to the European Commission. Speaking at a conference organised by the UK's Royal National Institute for the Deaf and the EC, Information Society commissioner Erkki Liikanen said that the European Union needs to have a coherent policy to ensure that people with disabilities have access to e-government services. "With the Internet becoming more popular and more and more services being made available by public authorities on-line, there is a risk that people with impaired hearing or sight are excluded from the possibilities that e-government and the information society can offer," Liikanen cautioned. He stressed the importance of a regulatory framework to support accessibility and noted that EU Member States have begun to require public Web sites to comply with W3C Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines. Liikanen also said that the implementation of common standards across the EU can help improve accessibility.
IBM helps bring Egyptian history on-line: The Egyptian government has partnered with IBM to bring more than 5,000 years of Egyptian history on-line. IBM funded the "Eternal Egypt" project through a USD2.5 million grant of technology and expertise from its Research and Services teams in the US and Egypt, while the Egyptian government contributed a team of experts who developed content for the project. The multimedia initiative, which took three years to complete, has three main strands: digital guides for visitors to major museums in Egypt, mobile phone guides of the Temple of Luxor and the Pyramids of Giza, and the Eternal Egypt Web site. The project has so far produced multimedia animations, 360-degree image sequences, panoramas of important locations, virtual environments, three-dimensional scans, real-time photos from Web cameras and thousands of high-resolution images of ancient artifacts. "The new technology has made it possible to see Egypt in ways we never imagined -- to see our country as it was thousands of years ago," said Dr Fathi Saleh, director of the Egyptian Centre for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage.
Security to fuel IT spending in Asia Pacific: Security will be a key driver of government spending on IT in Asia Pacific over the next few years, according to research company IDC, reports Computerworld Singapore. IT spending by governments in the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1 percent between 2002 and 2007, said IDC's Nathan Midler, research manager of Internet and Government at IDC Asia Pacific. Security solutions accounted for 10.6 percent of total government IT spending in the region in 2003. Midler stressed the importance of security to all governments, whether in mature or developing markets, and noted that authorities are looking to prevent network breaches and internal abuse. He predicted a strong demand for antivirus and firewall solutions, as well as a strong take-up of smartcard solutions.
Quelle: ElectricNews.net , 03.03.2004
