Assignment # 8 - web design and Internet use policy

Overview

1. Work in a virtual team  and design a new web site for your agency.
2. Review Web Style Guides for ideas on the appropriate "look and feel" of your web site.
3. Survey "cutting edge" web sites for models on what services your web site might deliver.  
4. Examine several Internet Use Policies so that you can prepare such a document for your own agency.

Resources

1. Conduct your own search.  Search the web for web sites of organizations comparable to where you are employed.  Pick these sites for their creativity and effective delivery of services to their targeted audience.  Use these sites as models in the development of a web site for your agency.  
2. Surveys by the Civic Resource Group. Scan these surveys to understand how local governments are using the Web to deliver services.   These are recent studies and should give you insight on the level of current practices.  Also, they provide management guidelines for improving an agency's strategies for building and maintaining an effective web site.  
   • Cities on the Internet 2001: E-Government Applied  (pdf file - 4 pages)
     • This survey focuses on cities over 100,000.  Click on "View Executive Brief in PDF".  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don't have it, there is an adjacent link for downloading this software.
   • City Government Websites in Southern California (html file - 5 pages)
   • Internet Usage by County Government in California (pdf file - 12 pages)
3. Guidelines for designing an agency web site.  The author of these guidelines is the Center for Technology in Government at the University of Albany.  They provide a detailed, step by step set of management guidelines for developing and delivering government services on the web.  "Untangle the Web:.." summarizes the experiences of municipal officials while the longer "Developing & Delivering . . "  draws from the experience of state agencies.  Both sets of recommendations are remarkable similar which suggests to me that similar guidelines would apply to nonprofits as well.
   • Untangle the Web: Delivering Municipal Services Through the Internet (pdf file - 16 pages)  
   • A WWW Starter Kit  (html file - 5 pages)
   • Developing & Delivering Government Services on the World Wide Web: Recommended Practices for New York State  (html file - 4 pages)
     • This link will take you to the abstract of the report.  Near the bottom of the page, you have the opportunity to download the full report as a  pdf file that contains 103 pages.
4. Best of the Web. These prize-winning sites illustrate "state of the art" practices.  Use these sites as examples of best practices when evaluating what services should be offered by your agency's web site.
   • Government Technology's Best of the Web
   • Muni Net Guide and Review This organization recognizes  sites that increase both government accountability and citizen involvement. 
5. Web Style Guides.  These documents focus on the technical or mechanical standards of web design.
   • Yale's Web Style Guide
   • Library of Congress Web Style Guide
   • Web Style Guide at Sun Microsystems This is one of the best guides on how to write for the web.  It is short yet comprehensive and models how you should write for the web.
   • SIUE's Web Publishing Guidelines
6. Internet Use Policies These documents provide policy guidelines for every day Internet use at an agency.  These documents typically include policies with respect to the objectives of the Internet services, protection of privacy, security issues, access guarantees, protection of intellectual property and penalties for inappropriate use of the facilities
   • A Brief Survey of Government Internet Policies by the Center for Technology in Government
   • Internet Acceptable Use from the Lawletter.  This site provides arguments for developing an Internet use policy.
   • A Sample Policy Memo for Internet and E-mail Use
   • Internet Use Policies for schools and public libraries.  (This area has received a lot of legislative as well as judicial attention.) 

Tasks

1. Form a team consisting of two to five individuals.  
2. Choose any agency that needs to upgrade its web site and to develop an Internet use policy.
3. Report 1:

   Write a 5 page report in which you present the following: 

   • the web site's target audience.
   • the services that should be provided to serve this audience.
   • the layout and design of the proposed site.
   • the URL's of web sites that provide these services and show how these services might be provided.
   • the URL's of web sites that provide models for layout and design.
   • for bonus points, if someone on your team has web editing skills, provide some sample web pages showing the "look and feel" of the proposed site.
4. Report 2:   

   Collaborate with your team mates and write a two page Acceptable Internet Use Policy.  This report should make reference to objectives of the agency's Internet services, protection of privacy, security issues, access guarantees, protection of intellectual property and penalties for inappropriate use of the facilities

Grading of this assignment:

1. Points for Report 1 = 0 to 20 points.
2. Points for Report 2 = 0 to 10 points. 
3. Points for the quantity and quality of collaboration on the bulletin board and chat room = 10 points. 
   These points will be assigned on the basis of your collaborative efforts.  WebCT keeps a record of each member's postings and also creates a log of the conversations in the chat rooms.  These records shall determine the score that you receive for the quantity and quality of your contribution.
4. You will have four weeks to complete this assignment.

last revised by dhostet@siue.edu
January 10, 2002