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Simplifying access to online government
information and services: the California State
Library teams up to develop a new state portal
The
California state portal, the online face of
state government, has a new look and feel.
Under the leadership and direction of California’s
State Information Officer, J. Clark Kelso, State
and Consumer Services Agency Secretary Rosario
Marin, and State Librarian Susan Hildreth, the
California State Library (CSL) teamed up with
several state agencies and departments to help
with the redesign of the portal. The leadership
team’s vision was to recreate the state portal as
a virtual “service center” that would cater to the
customers’ needs, not what the government thought
those needs were.
Snapshot of new California State Portal.
First steps: CRB Framework report and CSL team
In 2005, Kelso requested that the California
Research Bureau (CRB) research and write a
framework document,
Policy and Management Issues Framework – Statewide
Portal Project (http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/06/05/06-005.pdf),
which was published in early 2005. A team of
people from the CSL and a staff member on loan
from the California Department of Motor Vehicles,
researched issues, trends and standards in areas
such as portal governance, design, development,
funding, and security. The CSL team interviewed
several state agencies to identify the “good” and
the “bad” of the then current state portal. They
spent hours researching what issues others in
state and federal government faced in redesigning
their portals, including an excellent presentation
by the Canadian team that developed New
Brunswick’s well-received
portal. The CRB framework report acted as a
guide for the next steps in the portal project.
Next steps: CSL team forms IOUCA, larger working
group of other state department reps
The CSL team’s next assignment was to establish and
lead a group that would research and recommend
standards and best practices in portal design. The
CSL team formed Information Organization, Usability,
Currency, and Accessibility (IOUCA), a working group
made up of members from several state departments
including Department of Rehabilitation, Department
of Health Services, Board of Equalization, Franchise
Tax Board, Department of Motor Vehicles, Department
of Food and Agriculture, Employment Development
Department, and many others. The IOUCA group’s task
was to write recommendations for standards that
would help create a state portal through which
customers would easily and quickly find what they
needed or wanted. The three standards were:
IOUCA presented their recommendations to the Portal
Review Board and Steering Committee. The Steering
Committee adopted the standards in July 2006. These
standards together with consultation from IOUCA
members helped the newly formed California eServices
Office and Portal Redesign Team develop the new
customer-centered state portal.
Going Forward: Executive Steering Committee sponsors
state portal
In mid-2006, Kelso formed a Steering Committee to
be the executive sponsor of the state portal. The
Steering Committee includes Kelso, Secretary of
State and Consumer Services Marin, and State
Librarian Hildreth. In addition to sponsoring the
state portal, the Steering Committee oversees the
development of “service centers” which bring
together information from several agencies and
departments so that customers need only look in
one place for the information. Several service
centers, such as the
California Tax Service Center, have already
been created and many more are in development.
The Steering Committee is taking an active role in
ensuring that the state portal will continue to
provide an entry into state government that all can
trust and that is responsive and courteous to
customers’ needs.
For more information about the California State
Library’s role in the State Portal redesign project,
please contact Kristine Ogilvie in California State
Library Government Publications
at (916) 651-6800 or email at
kogilvie@library.ca.gov.
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