2001-2002 Seattle.Gov Annual Report

This annual report is also available in PDF format | WORD format
The Adobe® Acrobat™ (.pdf) format requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

2001-2002 Seattle.Gov Annual Report

Since the City began its website in 1995, we have prepared a short report every year or two to summarize our major initiatives and plans and challenges.

Mission

To provide a 24 hour City Hall for the citizens of Seattle.

Goals

To enable citizens to initiate every transaction required to secure City services

To be a central resource for Seattle community information.

To promote democracy on the local level by facilitating citizen debate on public issues and participation in government decision-making.

To promote the City’s core values, priorities and policies.

To promote Seattle world-wide as a good place to do business and to visit.

To assure that every Seattle citizen has access to the Internet, an e-mail account, and basic computer literacy.

Brief History

The City of Seattle created its Public Access Network (PAN) with a dial-in Bulletin Board (BBS) System that went on-line in December, 1994. The City's Web site was added in February, 1995. All of the work was done in-house by City staff. The initial staff of four FTE spent over a year creating PAN.

In part because of the initial difficulty of getting information from City departments, the City’s website always included content from other community and governmental agencies - for example, the Trade Development Alliance. Seattle also hosted many of the smaller jurisdictions web sites until they developed the capacity to do it themselves. As result, our initial web site functioned as a portal to government and community information from the very beginning, even though the term “web portal”, had not yet been invented. The portal concept proved very popular, and we have continued to expand it.

In 1996, we completed the first redesign of the website. We created a navigation structure around who the customer was - a citizen, business or visitor. Portal pages organized information functionally under these customer-centric categories.

By 1998, the web site had grown to containing about 32,000 documents and 30 interactive applications and forms. All departments except Law had a web presence, although the Library and Seattle Center maintained separate sites. We added several centralized features, such as the press release database, and translated our first document into Spanish. Today, we host the Library and Seattle Center sites, manage numerous domain names for specialized programs and services, have “Quick Facts about Seattle” in five languages - Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese, and a virtual tour in Spanish.

By the end of 2002, all City departments had web sites. Most of our content is no longer static. On a typical day, several hundred files are added or modified. Many of these files are dynamic information such as campaign finance reports, while others are single large documents packed with information, such as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

What information and services are available through the City’s Website

The city’s web site contains an enormous amount of information.

The site includes access to approximately 50 databases, from business licenses to community resources to legislative information. Simple databases, such as one from Seattle Public Utilities that allows citizens to look up their garbage, yard waste and recycling pick-up days, provide important access to information that otherwise could only be found by calling a City employee. Often these databases provide information that was impossible or very difficult for anyone to obtain. Some are very specialized, such as a Searchable database of all Fire Permits issues by the Seattle Fire Marshall or a Nutrition Web Database for ADS Congregate Meal Providers. In many cases, the databases did not exist before they were created as web applications; in other cases, the web provides a means for users to be able to access information that was in an existing database somewhere in City government.

Paying parking tickets and other Municipal Court citations remains the only financial transaction that can be done on the Internet. But there are many other business functions that can be carried out on the site, including checking the status of a building permit to registering as a City vendor to submitting campaign finance reports. A large proportion of City forms can be downloaded from the site, and an increasing number are interactive (that is, you can actually submit the form on line).

We continue to be involved in the support and facilitation of several sites that are not hosted on our server, but contribute to our mission and provide valuable information to Seattle citizens. These include non-profit sponsored efforts such as History Link, and intergovernmental sites such as “Taking Winter by Storm.”

We also host numerous community service web sites, including the Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Trade Development Alliance, Crime-Stoppers and several community and neighborhood non-profit web sites.

Use of the City’s Website

Use of the City’s website continues to grow. Its interesting to look back at our initial long term goal, established in 1996: to receive 1 million “hits” per month. That goal was achieved in January, 1997. By 2002, we were receiving an average of 18 million hits per month - more than twice the average for 2000.

“Hits” are a common way to count web site use, but they are not the best way. Two better measures are user sessions (each time a user comes to the site, regardless of the number of pages he or she accesses), and page views, which measures how many pages are looked at by all users.

User sessions averaged over 342,000 per month in 2000, growing to over 486,000 in 2002. Page views may be the best measure of the site’s use, as it measures pages looked at without including graphic files. The growth in page views followed the same trends, with an average of about 638,000 per month in 1999, 1.6 million per month in 2000, 2.4 million in 2001 and 2.9 million in 2002.

We do not have recent figures on the number of Seattle residents using the website. In 1997, survey data indicated that 10 percent of residents had been to the City’s website. In 1998 nearly one out of five (18 percent) City residents had been to the website - representing over one quarter (26 percent) of those with Internet access. By late 2000, 30 percent of all Seattle residents (36 percent of those with internet access) had visited the City’s website. These figures remained steady in 2001. We will be collecting new data in 2003.

Our users come from all over the world. Excluding the users from unknown origins, about 7% of our users come from 150 countries outside the US. Not surprisingly, the highest number come from Canada, followed by the UK, Netherlands (central European ISP connection), Australia and Japan.

What On-Line Services are People Using?

Employment information, the City Directory of phone and e-mail addresses, maps of all kinds and a variety of tourist information are among the most heavily used functions on the site. Construction and Land Use, Police, Fire and City Light are the department home pages with the most traffic.

The reasons people come to the City’s web site have remained fairly constant over the years. In surveys conducted between 1997 and 2000, 40-51 percent of users said they were looking for a name, address or contact, and 39-46 percent said they were looking for an event or calendar. Our 2000 survey showed that the majority (83%) of Seattle residents visiting the city’s web site are looking for specific service information. However, a significant number (68%) are simply browsing.

Surveys capture the reason local citizens are using the web site, but can not give us a picture of total use since they do not include visitors and some business users of the site. The data below shows the top pages accessed in 2001 and 2002. These top pages are consistent with the top pages from previous years.

Both the Mayor and City Council web sites were just below the top 20, and were among the most visited portions of the web site. The following table shows visits and page views for 2001 and 2002.

Citizen Comments and Desires

Seattle’s web site has always been user focused, so the needs, desires and comments from our citizens and businesses are important to us. Many of the features and links on our site have come from the suggestions of citizens, through e-mail or surveys. One tool we use is a 60 second on-line survey form, which is included as Appendix B. We began the survey just after we redesigned the site in 1999, and continue to use it to obtain user feedback.

About 45 percent of users indicated that they were very satisfied with their visit; 27.5 percent were somewhat satisfied and 27.5 percent were not satisfied. A representative sample of comments from those who were not satisfied is listed below. Note that in many cases, the information that these users were looking for is available on the site, but the users could not find it. We use this information to help make improvements to the site navigation, as well as to add new material to the site.

Video Archives of more City Council meetings - like the Transportation Committee!

List of outdoor artwork in Seattle

Statistics- Census 2000 results for Seattle

The rate 27 program guidelines should be listed on the website. Calling in should be done after.

Self-Guided Walking Tours

Accommodation for an RV so we can ride cycle trails

Addresses of City Staff are incorrect

Zoning map or ability to find out the zoning on parcel XXX

Unable to locate address of XXX company

The public library

Too much text, very boring to look at

Wanted to send an e-mail to Police Department

How to report people who park too close to my driveway.

make it possible to report out streetlights WITHOUT the streetlight number.

Pending legislation, independent analysis, objective facts

Couldn't find a place to allow me to state my opinion on the activity of the council

Adoption, and how to go about finding or getting in contact, if possible, with ones birth parents.

Your design is to official, to burocratic. Put some live in it.

Regards from the city of Varazdin, Croatia

And of course, the perennial favorite

POLICE FILES ON THE DEATH OF MR COBAIN

Suggestions

Get all of the city council meetings on the internet archives (at least, a rotating set of the last month's worth or so). It's a great way for the community to know what's going on with the council if we don't have TVSea on our home television, or don't have time to get down to the TVSea office.

Some people in the Puget Sound region are too disabled to get around much and will never get to see Sand Point Park, with or without the accessible Tranquil Garden. Actual photos that are easily accessible to the Website user would be far more welcome (to me) than text discussing funding and whatever.

With the "Baby Boomers" approaching "Senior" status, maybe a review of links to Senior Programs or Services.

What do we do with this information? We use it to make improvements to the site. In some cases, comments tell us that people can not find information that is available, leading to improvements in navigation or the creation of new portal pages. In other cases, we identify additional content for the site, usually contacting the appropriate department to request that information or on-line forms be added.

In the technology survey conducted in November of 2000, we asked citizens who had been to the City’s website what additional features and functions they would like to see.

The most common request that we receive through both surveys and comments is for more geographic information. Departments also identify this as their number one desire for their sites. Finding information about meetings and/or cultural events; applying for licenses and permits; and reserving park facilities also are highly desired by users.

Appendix C contains some additional useful information from a national citizen survey about what people want most and expect the benefits to be from electronic government.

INTEREST IN NEW CONTENT AND FEATURES ON CITYOFSEATTLE.NET

Budget and Staffing

The budget for 2001 and 2002 remained relatively constant over funding available in previous years - not recognizing the dramatic increase in volume and complexity of information and services provided on the website. These figures do not include the appropriation of $300,000 for the purchase of Content Management software, described towards the end of this report.

The staffing problem became critical in 2001, and to address the most critical need for help in redeveloping applications, the department redirected resources to bring in a contractor, who worked full time in 2001 and through most of 2002. The table below shows actual FTE working on central web team functions.

A more detailed look at the functions of staff is below: Note that this does not include the director of the division (me), who spends a significant portion of her time on web related work.

Most of the larger City departments now have full time webmasters; both Utilities have web teams with several dedicated staff. A few mid-size departments have part-time and/or temporary staff assigned to manage their web sites. Most of the smaller departments continue to rely on the Central Web Team to post their content.

Web System Architecture

With the growth of content and applications on the City’s web site, the number of servers required to manage the system has grown from a single internal and single external server in 1996 to 19 servers at the end of 2002.

The expansion was necessitated by three basic factors: demand (large increases in content and use), the number of internet services offered and system reliability.

From its humble beginnings in late 1994 with a few hundred pages, the City of Seattle’s external web has grown very large, indeed: more than 80,000 pages and 150,000 files strong here in mid-2003. All of the City’s departments, agencies and offices are represented. In addition the City provides hosting services to a number of community organizations. Over the same period, use of the City’s web sites has consistently increased in the neighborhood of 10% per year. In April 2003, some 625,000 users viewed nearly 2.7 million pages.

Similarly, in 1996 all of the City of Seattle’s web presence was housed on two servers, one each for internal and external use. Web services were limited to basic delivery of static web pages, and a small amount of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) traffic. Over the years the Citywide Web Team has added, at our customers’ and/or clients’ request, a number of additional tools and web services, including separate platforms for development/QA of web sites, Web applications, SQLServer databases, large-scale FTP, media streaming, Web statistics, and GIS-based mapping applications.

One result of all this growth is that the reliability of these services, and the system as a whole, has become ever more important. To address these concerns, the Citywide Web Team implemented a strategy calling for:

An individual server platform for each service offered

Consistent configuration and maintenance of servers

Separate environments for

Web development

Web database back-ends

Web applications

Redundant systems with automatic failover for mission critical services

While requiring a considerable investment in hardware, software and personnel resources, these steps have resulted in a City-owned web hosting platform with an uptime rate that compares favorably with commercial providers.

Highlights of Major 2001-2002 Accomplishments

Democracy Portal

The most significant initiative in 2001-2002 began with the City’s TV channel, but quickly expanded to create a vision to inform and engage citizens in the governmental, civic, and cultural affairs of Seattle through compelling use of television, Internet, and other media.

The Seattle Commission on Electronic Communications' (SCEC) charge was to develop a short-term and long-term vision and direction for the City's television station and its web site in order to increase public awareness, understanding and participation in government, community and cultural affairs. The Commission was also asked to explore areas of structure, finance, programming, marketing, teledemocracy and emerging technologies. The 14 member Commission began work in early 2001, and its recommendations were published mid-December. The Commission gathered information for its recommendations from numerous sources, including: guest presenters; research conducted by City staff and consultants; subcommittee work; review of other cities' stations and web sites; and independent reading. Click here for more information on the SCEC complete report (PDF file).

The Commission’s vision was embraced by Mayor Greg Nickels and the City Council. Councilmember Jim Compton, coined the term “Democracy Portal” to embrace the use of web, TV and other technology to engage citizens in our City government. In late 2002, we launched www.seattlechannel.org, a website designed to encourage and support citizen interaction with government. In addition to serving as an improved website for channel information such at the broadcast schedule, the website has interactive features such as polling; issue-based content, and highlights Videostreaming. Although just launched, the site received 26,000 page views in December, 2002. An Executive Summary of the Commission's recommendations is included in Appendix A and you can get more details on the project by clicking here.

Video Streaming

Seattle was one of the first cities to video stream its government access TV channel programming, beginning in 1998. In 2000, we added the capacity to stream our live TV channel signal - meaning you could watch whatever was on TV on the Internet at the same time. In 2001, we added another live stream of the City Council, since Council meetings were not routinely broadcast live on the channel (this has changed in 2003). During a two month period in mid-2002, there were 1151 viewers of the City Council live stream and 915 viewers of the channel live stream.

In addition, many videos are archived and available on-demand. At the end of 2002, over 500 videos of Council meetings, Mayoral press conferences, and various programs produced by the Seattle Channel were available via web streaming. It is interesting to note which videos are watched the most; a sample from mid-2002 showed these were the top choices:

Project Impact - Roofing

Beyond the Badge (monthly police show)

Mayor’s press conference

Program about ball fields

Cool Experience Music Project video

Emmy winning show on homeless man

Other Languages

One area of increasing interest has been to provide some information on the website in other languages. The Seattle Data Sheet produced by the Office of Intergovernmental Relations provides basic facts about the City, its population, economy and other general information. The datasheet has been translated into five languages - Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese and Italian.

Web Communications Strategy

In early 2001, the web team worked with the Mayor’s Office to produce a Web Communications Strategy. The goals of this project were: 1) to make sure that all City department websites are customer-focused, easy to use, and frequently updated, allowing users to find what they need quickly and easily, and 2)to reduce unnecessary paperwork and conduct more City business over the web. The project identified three desired results: 1) Improved content: Posted information should be useful and usable, emphasizing the City’s key messages, e.g., affordable housing, transportation, social services, delivery of basic services. 2) Improved compliance with design guidelines: Within the City’s web & design standards, departments are encouraged to have their own identity and creativity within the City family. 3) Improved site maintenance: Department sites are to be maintained and updated regularly.

Departments were asked to complete a self-assessment form tool to get an understanding about the current status of their own site, and to help think about what they could do to improve its quality and expand their on-line services. Department directors were asked to sign the forms - so one useful outcome was that web staff had the opportunity to brief their directors and discuss web priorities with them.

The completed forms have provided information about issues and plans for application development that have been useful to the central team so that it could align its services most appropriately given its limited resources.

Electronic Government

Parking ticket payment remains the only financial transaction available on the web at this time. Payment processing is now completely automated. Use of the web for ticket payment has been growing since it was implemented in 1999.

Web payments were 12% of the total credit card payments in 1999 (approximately $120,000), rising to just over 40% (and over $1 million) in 2002.

Brown University Study of Urban E-Government

In 2002, Brown University conducted a very comprehensive survey of local government e-gov programs. The City of Seattle’s web site was rated second in the nation of the 70 largest US cities included in the study. The study had the following to say about Seattle:

2) Seattle: http://www.cityofseattle.net/

The city of Seattle was the second ranked e-government city at 85.9%. The page is easy to navigate and provides citizens with a variety of information and services. As seen on the portal page, Seattle has a large number of services, and contact information, search options, and feedback mechanisms enable citizens to find what they are looking for. The site also offers audio and video clips, privacy and security policies, four foreign language translations and access for the disabled via text only and TTY services. The site does not restrict users or charge premium or user fees. The page separates local citizens, business, and visitors in order to make the site easier to navigate. Also, email updates are available through this site. Overall, there was a lot of information offered to citizens, and it was laid out in a way that was easy to follow.

Appendix E shows the rankings of cities included in the study and the scoring of Seattle's website. The full study can be found at http://www.insidepolitics.org/egovt02city.html

Content Management Software

In 2000, the Citywide Web Team identified the need to implement some type of content management system to handle the increasingly large volume of material on the site. $300,000 was included in the department’s 2001 budget for this project. Staff spend several months that year drafting detailed specifications for inclusion in an RFP, and proposals were received late that year. In March of 2002, we purchased a Content Management System from Stellent. Unfortunately, the funding was sufficient to cover only software, installation and a limited amount of training for staff. Proposals for system conversion had ranged from one to several million dollars, well beyond our resources. Therefore, an interdepartmental staff team spent the remainder of the year planning the project implementation, examining issues such as the design of the meta data model and the administrative model. Late in the year, senior technology managers from several City Departments requested that we establish an Executive Committee, to oversee the project scope and implementation plan.

Web Governance Board

For its first few years, an interdepartmental group known as the PAN Management Committee helped provide guidance to the web team on the creation and evolution of the site. The committee did not meet for the last few years. In 2002, we established the Web Governance Board, part of the overall IT governance structure in the City. The board includes three each of IT, business and public information plus the director of the Office of Electronic Communications, and is chaired by the Acting Chief Technology Officer. In its first year, the board identified Citizen Input/Marketing, Departmental Needs Assessment and Policies and Standards as the three areas of main concern. The departmental needs assessment brought together several departments interested in scheduling and reservation systems; common needs were identified but none of the departments had the resources to pursue system development. Citizen Input/Marketing developed a new survey form, which was the source of the comments described earlier in this report. It also identified materials in other languages as a priority. The policy group approved a new Domain Name Policy, described below.

seattle.gov

In 1999 we got a new web address for our site - cityofseattle.net. Originally our web address, or more technically, our domain name, followed the standard city naming convention: www for world wide web; ci for city; seattle for us; wa for washington , and; us for united states. In 2001, we were able to register seattle.gov and cityofseattle.gov during a short open window when the federal government allowed cities to register dot gov domain names. The City decided to make seattle.gov our primary domain name for both the web site and e-mail. Old domain names for both continue to function.

Domain Name Policy

Like other cities, Seattle has struggled with conflicting goals of needing to show one comprehensive and seamless presence on the web to its citizens and businesses, while departments want to market their unique identities. Seattle has long had a policy of requiring all departments to be part of a single site, adopted in 1997 by City Council resolution. Most but not all departments complied with the policy. With an increasing number of requests for alternative domain names, particularly for intergovernmental or public-private sites, a new policy was developed that specifies under what circumstances such domain names will be approved. This has led to an increase in domains that are supported by the central team; most new names approved are for marketing purposes, and are redirected to the appropriate section of the main City website. The full policy is included in Appendix D.

Awards

For the third straight year, CityofSeattle.net has been named one of MUNINet Guide and Review's "Top Picks" on the web.

Balanced E-Government Index (BEGIX)

In an international benchmarking study conducted in 2001, the Bertelsmann Foundation surveyed e-government approaches all over the world and selected twelve best practice examples. All of them were rated using the specifically developed Balanced E-Government Index (BEGIX), which measures the performance of online portals in five basic categories identified as key components of good e-government: Benefits, Efficiency, Transparency, Participation and Change Management. The City of Seattle scored exceptionally well on the BEGIX, especially on the fields of Transparency and Participation.

Appendix A

Recommendations of the Seattle Commission on Electronic Communications

Executive Summary

Recommended Goal

To be a national leader in using technology to dramatically expand civic engagement and public discourse by transforming TVSea into a multimedia organization that provides compelling content and two-way communication opportunities.

Recommended Mission Statement

To inform and engage citizens in the governmental, civic and cultural affairs of Seattle through compelling use of television, Internet and other media.

Recommendations

Content & Production

• Create a multimedia resource that provides linkages to public information and opportunities for citizens to interact with their government and each other across all media platforms.
• Improve programming and content, making it engaging and informative for television, Internet and other digital media.
• Enhance City Council meeting coverage by placing meetings in context, providing interactivity with viewers and web users, including online access to briefing materials, using graphics and crawls to increase understanding, and improving production values (lighting, camera angles, etc.).
• Consider new content, such as: weekly council highlights; top 10 questions from citizens; backstage at Bumbershoot; “Day in the Life” programs; and instant feedback.

Branding & Marketing

• Develop a brand (new name, professional style, logo and graphics) that is consistent across television, Internet and other digital media.
• Develop and implement a comprehensive marketing plan to draw new users and viewers.

Technology

• Use integrated technology-e-mail, Internet chat, indexed video on demand, instant polling, wireless services, television, etc.-to promote civic engagement and participation.
• Incorporate new technologies as they emerge.

Partnerships

Establish partnerships with local television and radio stations, high-tech companies and community and non-profit organizations to leverage operational, content and technical resources.

Finance

• Maintain the current level of support from City funds and the cable franchise fee.
• Use any revenues above projections for 2001 and 2002 to implement improvements in 2002.
• Increase the cable franchise fee in 2003 and 2004 and dedicate the revenue to improving quality and content, expanding interactive services, marketing and creating partnerships.

Governance & Evaluation

• Maintain the TV/democracy portal as a part of City government.
• Restructure the current TVSea organization to create two functional units-content development and engineering/operations-that serve both television and web.
• Establish a citizen review panel to report on the organization’s performance and independence.
• Set measurable goals and conduct regular evaluations to measure and improve performance.

SCEC Commission Members

Appendix B

60-Second On-Line Survey

1. How satisfying was your visit to the City of Seattle's website?
Very Satisfying - I easily found what I was looking for
Somewhat Satisfying - I had difficulty finding what I was looking for
Not satisfying - I didn't find what I was looking for

2. To help us better understand how the City of Seattle's website is used, please tell us what information were you looking for:

3. Is our website easy for you to read? Yes No

4. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for making the City of Seattle's website easier to use?

Appendix C

Extract from:

E-GOVERNMENT: THE NEXT AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Prepared by Hart-Teeter for The Council for Excellence in Government

September 2000

Americans see the benefits of e-government as more than better or more cost-efficient services-they regard e-government as a way for citizens to become better informed and more involved in government.

While the public sees e-government as simply better government, they also see it as making an important contribution to a more participatory democracy. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of adults, including two in three (64%) who do not use the Internet, believe that people’s ability to communicate with their elected representatives will get better with e-government. That the public evaluates e-government not only as consumers of government services, but also as citizens is confirmed by the following results.

When asked to name the most important outcome of e-government, 59% of adults choose greater participation (36% more accountable government) and a more informed citizenry (23% greater public access to information), compared with 21% who opt for a more efficient and cost-effective government and 13% who select more convenient government services.

2. Nearly three in four (72%) Americans believe that their ability to communicate with elected representatives will get better with e-government, and a majority (54%) believe that government accountability will improve.

Appendix D

Domain Name Policy

Introduction:

Seattle City Council Resolution 29563 establishes the policy that the City of Seattle will maintain a single web site. The policy embodied by this document supports and reinforces the resolution, and provides interpretation regarding the use of alternate Domain Names. In recognition of the diverse offerings and people served by the City’s web site, this interpretation provides for exceptions to the use of the City of Seattle’s primary domain name, cityofseattle.net, in limited circumstances. Therefore, this policy establishes exception criteria, an exception process, and means by which an organization seeking an exemption can appeal exemption determinations directly to the City’s technology policy makers.

Policy:

Requests for separate domains should be made consistent with the process outlined in section I.

Requests for separate domains should be evaluated consistent with the criteria outlined in section II. Organizations with existing separate domains should be evaluated against these same criteria and, where appropriate, be given direction by the WGB on how to comply with the ordinance and this interpretation of it.

Organizations whose request for a separate domain is accepted should comply with the conditions set forth in section III.

Section I: Process for Applying for an Exemption

All applications for an exemption from the single domain policy should be signed by the director or top executive of the Department, office, or organization.

All applications for an exemption from the single domain policy shall state in writing which exception criteria the organization believes applies to its request.

Applications shall be submitted to the City’s central web team (CWT) who will make the preliminary decision of whether an exemption should be granted. If the City’s CWT determines that the application does not conform to the exception criteria, the CWT shall give the applying department options as to how they can achieve their purpose without the exception.

Appeals from the preliminary decision are to be made in writing to Web Governance Board. The CTO is the final step in the appellate process.

All domain names exempted from the policy should be owned by the City and managed by the central web team.

All registrations for exempt domain names shall be made by the central web team. This is to avoid the complications that arise when multiple organizations interface with registration companies.

Section II: Exception Criteria

This section outlines criteria for evaluating applications for exception to the City’s Single Domain Name Policy. Each criterion would not need to be present for the exception to be granted. Conversely, an application identifying one or a few of the stated criteria would not automatically be approved. Rather, each application should be viewed from the totality of the circumstances as guided by the criteria below. Further, applicants should feel free to suggest additional criteria they feel are appropriate to their application.

Requests to purchase separate domains to “park” or otherwise take out of the public domain:

The City’s central web team should purchase and hold on to any reasonable alternative domains suggested by City organizations to keep them out of the public domain. This should be done to protect these domains from misuse by others.

Domain aliases:

It is assumed that a City organization employing a domain name alias would have the alias domain point back to the organization’s web site on the City’s web site. Therefore, issues of look, feel and navigation do not arise. Criteria for an exception to the policy for an alias domain include:

The site provides or markets a service that one would not necessarily expect to be provided by a municipal government.

The site provides or markets services to large or focused customer base.

The applying organization should be long term and stable in nature.

The site or service should involve a single line of business.

The site should not conflict with City’s existing branding efforts.

Separately hosted domains:

In addition to the criteria listed above applications for a separately hosted domain should have one or more of the following:

The site is overarching all or a large portion of City government and has a functional domain name with a specific purpose (example: seattlearts.net).

The site is an intergovernmental organization or some type of partnership targeted at a regional audience. For intergovernmental sites, our first consideration would be whether this is appropriate for www.govlink.org, an existing regional site hosted by King County.

The majority of the site’s content is provided by organizations outside City government.

The site’s content is maintained by both City and non-City sources. The site’s communication plan or originating organization has a separate marketing budget.

The sites originating organization has a separate governance structure or board.

The site competes for business against organizations in the private sector.

The site is not in conflict with the will of the Mayor or City Council.

The site conforms to the conditions stated in section 3 of this document.

Note: It is our expectation that requests for separate domain names would be very rare. If numerous requests for separate domain names are received, the central web team is requested to bring this issue back to the Web Governance Board for review.

Exceptions generally would not be grant for:

Events (www.funrun2002.xxx) - too much resource is required to market a site for a limited period of time.

Dot com - we are not a commercial enterprise and should stay away from the .com ending (we don’t want businesses using .gov)

Entire or substantial parts of City departments

Section III: Conditions Applied to Exempted Domains

All City web sites utilizing an exempted domain name shall be clearly labeled as being affiliated with the City of Seattle and contain, at a minimum, the official seal of the City of Seattle and a prominent link back to the City’s main web site.

Unless the originating organization can comply with the criteria indicating that it is sufficiently independent from the City (e.g. section II, 3, e), exempted City web sites utilizing an exempted domain name shall make reasonable efforts to comply with the general look, feel and navigational standard developed for the City’s main site.

Appendix E

Urban E-Government, 2002

Center for Public Policy, Brown University

September, 2002

Top E-Government Cities

In order to see how the 70 cities ranked overall, we created a 0 to 100 point e-government index and applied it to each city's websites based on the availability of contact information, publications, databases, portals, and number of online services. Four points were awarded to each website for the presence of each of the following 24 features: phone contact information, addresses, publications, databases, links to other sites, audio clips, video clips, foreign language access, not having ads, not having user fees, not having premium fees, not having restricted areas, disability access, having privacy policies, security policies, allowing digital signatures on transactions, an option to pay via credit cards, email contact information, search capabilities, having a link to a portal, areas to post comments, broadcasts of events, option for email updates, and personalization. These features provided a maximum of 96 points for particular websites.

Each site then qualified for a bonus of four points based on the number of online services executable on that site (1 point for one service, two points for two services, three points for three services, and four points for four or more services). The e-government index therefore ran along a scale from 0 (having none of these features and no online services) to 100 (having all 24 features plus at least four online services). This total for each website was averaged across all of a specific city's websites to produce a 0 to 100 overall rating for that urban area.

The top city in our ranking is Minneapolis at 89.5 percent. This means that every website we analyzed for that city has nearly 90 percent of the features important for information availability, citizen access, portal access, and service delivery. Other cities which score well on e-government include Seattle (85.9 percent), Denver (85.3 percent), San Diego (79.3 percent), Boston (77.6 percent), Kansas City (75 percent), Dallas (74.6 percent), Washington, D.C. (74.3 percent), Houston (73.8 percent), and Tampa (72.9 percent). Most cities showed improvement in their score compared to the 2001 results. The Appendix lists each city's ranking for 2001 and 2002.

The lowest ranked cities in our study included New Orleans (44.8 percent), Norfolk (45 percent), Raleigh (45 percent), and Detroit (46.4 percent).

Top 20 E-Government Cities

Seattle City Profile for Selected Features, 2002