It’s a step toward two of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s goals: Make it easier for the public to do business with state government and allow state workers to be more efficient by spending less time on routine tasks. The “e-government” effort began a few years ago under Kulongoski’s predecessor, John Kitzhaber, but is taking effect now.
The most visible service, which began a few months ago, is online registration of vehicles by the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services branch.
But users are divided about the new Oregon.gov Web site, judging from a dozen responses to the Statesman Journal.
“It is not an improvement, and it is user-friendly only for geeks,” said Jule Youngren of Salem, a geographer, who spoke for many critics. “However, it does typify what should be the motto of Oregon’s government: If it works, break it. They seem to think: ‘If we call it new and improved, then it must be, right?’”
Steven Tacy, a 33-year-old claims examiner from Salem, said he uses the site daily.
“Finding the links (to agencies) that only took seconds are now either impossible to locate or take more than 10 minutes to find,” he said. “I do not recall any problems with the old Web site and would love to see it return.”
But there are positive reviews as well.
“The Web site was pretty informational, easy to get around on,” said Deb Lyndes, 50, a Salem homemaker.
Another Salem homemaker, Barbara Ray, described it as “attractive, comprehensive and user-friendly.”
According to 4,900 households sampled in the 2002 Oregon Population Survey, conducted for the Oregon Progress Board, about 70 percent use computers for access to the Internet.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that almost 80 percent of Internet users in the nation went to government Web sites in 2003 to obtain information. That’s a jump of 50 percent from the previous year.
But 51 percent prefer to call or visit in person when doing business with state governments, and 65 percent with local governments.
Until now, state agencies have maintained myriad computer servers and platforms — and the quantity and quality of their Web pages varied greatly.
Officials acknowledged that some problems have not been resolved in the redesign.
Pages can be slow to load on a computer and agency sites can be harder to find. Not all agencies have converted to the new standard format, forcing users to rely on old sites. The transition period will run to the end of this year.
“Without a doubt, it will facilitate our business,” said Mary Ellen Glynn, Kulongoski’s spokeswoman.
“With any government Web site, the breadth of users is so wide. We have schoolchildren trying to write reports, and we have businesspeople figuring out what permits they need. So we need to segment their needs.”
State agencies collectively post more than 1 million pages of content on the Internet. Many of them are for the Department of Human Services, the largest state agency.
But the content on some agency Web sites was not updated regularly, often because it took a specialist in information technology to write code before changes were made. Agency sites also did not offer comparable information.
“No coherent image was projected by that collection of content,” said Don Fleming, the state’s chief information officer, based at the Department of Administrative Services.
“So the ‘Brand Oregon’ concept was born. It’s pretty typical of what other states have been doing. As people conduct more and more of their business electronically, it’s an important channel that needs to be managed better and more coherently than it has been.”
Fleming, however, did not design the new Oregon.gov Web page.
Fleming said that the system’s capacity will be upgraded “to provide the same response you would normally expect if you were to go to any other Web site.”
Fleming said that in addition to providing information, the new state system will provide for more electronic transactions by public users with state agencies.
“We don’t have all the applications up at the time,” he said. “But one of the reasons we have invested in this is that it is part of the governor’s strategy to improve government performance and make services more accessible to citizens.”
DMV’s registration renewal requires owners of vehicles to have their notice and a credit card handy, although online renewal is not available for vehicles subject to state emissions testing.
A study of state and federal e-government efforts ranked Oregon 38th in all states in 2003, down from 18th the previous year. California dropped from third to fifth, Washington from seventh to 16th and Nevada from eighth to 36th. Idaho moved up from 39th to 34th.
The 2003 study by Brown University in Providence, R.I., gave greater weight than three previous ones to availability of online services, readability and access by people with disabilities.
Oregon’s rank
Oregon ranked 38th among states in electronic access to state agencies, according to a 2003 analysis of 1,663 state and federal Web sites by Brown University in Providence, R.I. Its 2002 analysis put Oregon 18th.
The 2003 report, whose author is Darrell West, gave greater weight than several previous studies to three factors:
- Online services: Oregon had just 1.1, compared with 25.4 for No. 1 Massachusetts. Also, 68 percent of Web sites of federal agencies offered online services, but just 44 percent of state sites did so. “As more and more services are put online, e-government will revolutionize the relationship between government and its citizens.”
- Readability: At 11.2, Oregon is among 19 states with readability of Web content at the 11th-grade level or higher. The report said half of Americans read at or below the eighth-grade level. “Readability should be improved so that Web sites are understandable to a wide range of individuals.”
- Disabled access: Oregon provides some audio and video content, but handicapped access to federal Web sites still exceeds that of state Web sites, 47 percent to 33 percent. “Visitors who are visually or hearing-impaired need help in being able to access and make use of the tremendous amount of information and growing number of services that are online.”
