DIGITAL DIVIDE
Indian Drive to Bridge IT Chasm
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Big Blogger
INTERNET
Alice Myatt: OneWorld TV's Rebel with a Cause
COPYRIGHT
FCC Endorses Built-In Copy Controls
E-GOVERMENT FOR ALL CONFERENCE, DAY 2
Connecting Research with Policy and Practice
Federal E-Government Initiatives in the U.S.
International Perspectives on Achieving E-Government for All
"Open Space" Discussion Forums
Note: During the two weeks of the E-Government for All conference (November
3-14), the Headlines team will include highlights from the ongoing
conference sessions, along with our usual headlines. We hope you find the
additional summaries useful. For more information on the conference, please
visit http://www.egov4all.org.
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DIGITAL DIVIDE
INDIAN DRIVE TO BRIDGE IT CHASM
The government of India plans to spend more than USD $2.5 billion to help
bridge a growing technological divide between urban and rural areas. The
four-year plans were announced at a technology fair in the southern city of
Bangalore, which has benefited from India's high-tech boom. The plans
include developing a low-cost computer that could take voice commands from
illiterate people and operate in many languages. The device would include
email, voicemail, text-to-speech and Internet access. In one trial project
near Delhi, postal workers are using handheld computers to download and
deliver email messages to villagers. Secretary for Industrial Policy Rajeeva
Ratna Shah also announced that India would soon launch a portal to let all
corporations deal directly online with the government. "This will enable us
to cut corruption," Shah said.
SOURCE: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3235553.stm
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
BIG BLOGGER
Through the British Council's "Big Blogger" initiative, British, African and
Middle Eastern journalists will join forces to report from the World Summit
on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva this December. The news site,
www.dailysummit.net, will provide instant news and commentary from the
three-day event. The team of eight journalists includes representatives from
the news media in Qatar, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria and the UK. The British
Council hopes the initiative will encourage dialogue between young people in
the west and the Muslim world, and within the Muslim world itself. However,
it is important to note the Muslim world is not a homogenous body any more
than is the English-speaking world. Still, "by working together you realize
that human needs are basically the same, that human preoccupations are
basically the same, regardless of language and so on, and that is much
stronger than the differences. That is a very useful thing," says Adel
Darwish, a writer on foreign affairs.
SOURCE: The Guardian; AUTHOR: John Plunkett
http://media.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4788078-105337,00.html
INTERNET
ALYCE MYATT: ONEWORLD TV'S REBEL WITH A CAUSE
Alyce Myatt, previously vice president of programming at PBS, has humbly
taken over as OneWorld TV's multimedia editor. OneWorld TV, launched in the
spring of 2002, allows both amateur and professional filmmakers to upload
short documentaries to the Internet and categorize by topic. Some topics
include child labor, war, HIV/AIDS and water rights. Myatt, a 30-year
veteran of strategic planning and program development for some of America's
largest media organizations, left behind what others might spend their lives
hoping to attain. "Whether I'm working for OneWorld, PBS or MacArthur,
what's really important to me is having good relationships with the
filmmakers," she says. In its first year, OneWorld TV's online community
grew to almost 3,000 members in 57 countries. For Myatt, this position is
right up her alley because she specializes in building media projects from
scratch. She produced, wrote and directed programs for US mainstays such as
20/20, Nickelodeon, CBS, the Smithsonian, and New York's Channel 13. "With
the consolidation of media ownership, I think it's critical that people have
access to information, and that information should be reliable," Myatt says.
"OneWorld functions without having some broadcast distributor deciding if
it's worthy, or sexy, or if it'll boost ratings."
SOURCE: One World; AUTHOR: David Alm
http://www.aivf.org/independent/archives/0311/0311_fitzellandalm.html
COPYRIGHT
FCC ENDORSES BUILT-IN COPY CONTROLS
The Federal Communications Commission voted to mandate technology that would
prevent users from sharing copy-protected digital broadcasts. The decision
orders hardware manufacturers of devices that can receive digital television
signals to incorporate technology that recognize broadcast "flags"
identifying copy-protected content. All vendors must comply with the
requirements in all equipment by July 1, 2005. "Products such as digital
VCRs, DVD players, and PCs must then contain copy-protection mechanisms that
prevent users from distributing broadcast copyrighted digital content over
the Internet," writes reporter Rita Chang. The ruling could reverse the
trend of declining prices of these devices. Existing devices will not have
to be updated under this new broadcast flag rule; this could make some
equipment obsolete. All recordings made on compliant devices will be
encrypted, which means they must be played back on compliant devices, says
Mike Godwin, a senior technology counsel of the consumer watchdog group
Public Knowledge. Gray areas in the rule's implementation have fueled a
debate about "fair use" and the incompatibility problems that could occur.
SOURCE: PC World; AUTHOR: Rita Chang, Medill News Service
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113285,00.asp
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E-Government for All:
Our free virtual conference is now open!
Over 950 participants from 70 countries
Information and registration: http://www.egov4all.org/
Conference Summary, Day 2
Connecting Research with Policy and Practice
Stephen Coleman of the Oxford Internet Institute replied to John Horrigan's
previous comment about governments' "headlong rush to rely solely on e-gov."
Coleman added: "Government should not be regarded as a substitute for a
range of other traditional -- and innovative, but 'non-e' -- ways of
presenting government information, delivering government services,
conducting government-citizen transactions and democratising governance.
Each of these ends are best achieved by a mixture of e and non-e-based
processes. The either-or discourse in e-government has been unhelpful in
recent years, with governments setting pointless targets to 'achieve'
e-government, rather than using e-processes where they are in greatest
demand and most appropriate."
Horrigan agreed, adding, "Policymakers and public administrators must keep
all channels open and responsive -- people use more than one channel and
expect more than one means to be available to contact government. Public
officials, being budget conscious, may be tempted to see online means as a
substitute for the traditional ways people contact government. Our data
suggest, however, that Internet users see the Net as a supplement to how to
contact government."
Returning to the issue of multilingual government content raised earlier by
Don Straus, adjunct professor of the College of the Atlantic, Darrell West
suggested that governments look towards voter ballot rules used in the US:
"I believe the threshold for providing ballots in a language other than
English is when a non-English-speaking population reaches 5 percent of the
community," he said. "That might be a standard webmasters might consider in
terms of which languages their sites should provide." Andy Carvin continued
West's idea, but noted that the "five percent rule" would have a greater
impact (and put greater pressure) on smaller jurisdictions that happened to
have a higher concentration of a particular immigrant group. "Armenians may
make up less than one percent of the population in California (I apologize
for not know the actual number, so this is just an illustration) but they
may make up 10% or 20% of the population in a city councilman's ward," he
presented as an example.
David Kitzmiller noted the problems the FCC has had with relying on language
translation software. "Two of our Bureaus have run trials with Babelfish
[translation software] and have found that it is not nearly accurate enough
for an official government site such as ours that often uses somewhat
technical terminology," he said. "We use professional, human translators who
translate our basic static consumer-type information and factsheets. We are
considering using a human-based translation service for our more dynamic
information, but funding is an issue."
Don Straus, however, cautioned against the rush to publishing multilingual
content, arguing that it might be a barrier to assimilating immigrants and
getting them to learn English. "Good participation demands verbal and
written exchanges among citizens of all national origins, incomes,
backgrounds, etc. If such exchanges are in multi-languages, it will of
course enable those who have not learned English to participate, but it will
also make it more difficult for the majority of citizens who speak English
but no other foreign language to understand those who are speaking in
foreign languages."
Andy Carvin disagreed with this argument. ""[T]he reality of our world today
is that there are millions of people in the US who are here legally, yet
haven't mastered the language yet," he said. "Does that mean they should be
expected to access important government information only in English, in the
hopes of them improving their English through essentially what could be
considered 'tough love' assimilation? I think there has to be a middle road
on this issue -- strategies to encourage the adoption of English for people
living in the US, yet doing so without denying non-Native speakers the right
to important government services simply because they haven't mastered the
language yet."
Federal E-Government Initiatives in the U.S.
Taran Rampersad, a software developer, writer and consultant living in
Trinidad and Tobago, continued the conversation by saying that the FCC
website data integrates well, but he wonders if the FCC intends to continue
using proprietary file formats for some of its files. "Users who run
GNU/Linux may have problems in the future if the file formats are specific
to Microsoft," he said. "This does not seem to be a majority problem at this
time, Rampersad continued, but as Microsoft changes formats, this issue
could become important in the future. He also made reference to the Open
Data Formats initiative (http://www.odfi.org). "Accessibility to information
regardless of operating system is one of the factors we have discussed at
length; it's of great importance on a website of the magnitude of the
FCC's," he said. Rampersad also noted "PDF and HTML files are great."
"PDF files are great for those of us that can use them," responded Andy
Carvin. PDF documents cause problems for those with visual impairments and
the PDF-to-HTML converters currently available are not particularly
effective, he said. Carvin suggested that PDF documents should not be
published without a parallel, more accessible format, like plain text or
html. He noted that these formats sometimes cause problems for documents
requiring specific formats, like data tables, though.
FCC webmaster David Kitzmiller said FCC Web pages are typically in HTML
format and contain descriptions of subjects and links to FCC documents.
These documents are available in the native format, which is usually
Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, as well as ASCII text; and Adobe
Acrobat's PDF format. The PDF files are created from a digital source file
instead of image scanned files for better screen reader compatibility, but
Kitzmiller added, "I've found that people who are blind often have better
tools for working with the native format (MS Word) than with PDF or even
with the ASCII text -which can be a jumbled mess following conversion."
Given the limited resources, he says it is hard to sell management the idea
of offering more than the formats already available. He did, however,
express interest in the Open Data Formats initiative.
The discussion then moved into the question of policymaking and
"mainstreaming" accessibility and readability into current legislation.
"Neither the Bush administration's 2003 E-Government Strategy nor the
E-Government Act of 2002 specifically addresses these issues [accessibility
and readability]", said Jennifer Hill of the Benton Foundation. The
scorecard by which e-government initiatives are evaluated does not address
accessibility. "If it is not part of the evaluation, what is the incentive
for agencies to implement accessibility standard?," she asked. "What is the
enforcement mechanism? How can concerned citizens help get 'e-government for
all' on the agenda of Congress and the president?"
"You are correct - accessibility is not on that particular score card
(E-Government act)," responded Kitzmiller," but since June 21, 2001, Federal
Government agencies have been playing the game according to the [Section]
508 score card." He explained that in 1998, Congress amended the
Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic
information accessible to the disabled. The so-called Section 508 of the act
addresses "Electronic and Information technology" and the "Access Board
Standards," which became enforceable for all federal agencies in June 2001.
Enforcement of Section 508 is the responsibility of the disabled community,
Kitzmiller continued. "The act says that individuals with disabilities are
responsible for enforcing the requirements of Section 508," he said.
"Individuals with disabilities may file a complaint with an agency or bring
a civil action in Federal Court for an agency's noncompliance with the
requirements of Section 508." The section provides procedures for resolving
complaints, and requires agencies to adhere to those procedures to resolve
administrative complaints.
Kitzmiller added he is not aware of any special process that could get
e-government website accessibility and readability before Congress and the
President. He suggested that traditional methods of public advocacy could be
the most effective course of action.
International Perspectives on Achieving E-Government for All
Gopalakrishnan "Krishnan" Devanathan from Chennai, India, raised the topic
of e-administration, which he believes is the key to e-government.
E-administration is creating a paperless medium for registering, processing,
communicating and tracking all activities. Krishnan's company had developed
an e-administration tool that has been implemented on a trial basis in the
Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu. "The earlier we get away from
dependency on paper and individuals controlling papers, e-transparency will
set in, and this will eliminate corruption," said Krishnan.
Andy Carvin invited conference participants (now representing a total of 70
countries) to offer their own experiences with e-government. Glenn Conroy
from Australia related his personal experience with Land & Water Australia.
"E-communication for this agency is still very much in parallel publishing
mode, i.e. paper publishing as well," wrote Conroy. "But the main benefit to
date is how many more people we can reach with e-publishing (in addition to
paper publishing) for a similar price." In the Open Space section of the
conference, Gloria Bobbie gave some information about efforts in Canada and
the European Union to address accessibility and e-government. "It appears
that the Canadian government is making inroads and is heading in the right
direction by mandating that ALL sites are accessible by citizens with
certain disabilities," she wrote. "One of the problems is in judging
accessibility and common standards for assessing quality rather than
quantity."
Gail Watt, meanwhile, provided the 12 Swedish entries to the e-government
category of the 2003-4 Stockholm Challenge Internet competition
(http://www.challenge.stockholm.se). There are about 130 projects in the
e-government category from around the world entered into the event. Entries
from Sweden include DirectDemocracy online, Open City Hall, Residential
e-parking, and the Virtual Customs Office.
"Open Space" Discussion Forums
Along with the panel sessions organized by the conference team, participants
are able to establish their own discussions in the "Open Space" section of
the conference.
Regarding the December World Information for the Information Society (WSIS),
Rik Panganiban, chair of the WSIS civil society working group on
e-government and e-democracy, described his experience with the
negotiations. "In general, the level of interest of government delegations
in e-government issues has been quite low, mostly related to efficiency and
cost-savings gained from using e-government applications," he said. "There
is the view of some that more basic infrastructure and funding issues should
take precedence over government ICT applications. A notable exception is the
Swiss delegation, which has pushed e-government again and again as a
priority."
On the topic of "21st century skills," Andy Carvin defined these skills as a
"broad set of cognitive and technical skills necessary to participate in the
information society. It's often seen as a combination of traditional
literacy skills; information, communication and technology (ICT) skills;
interpersonal skills and workplace skills." He described the Partnership for
21st Century Skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) , commissioned by the US
Department of Education and a consortium of IT companies, which is working
to help schools meet the technology literacy requirement of the US "No Child
Left Behind" education law.
Andrew Pincon gave an example of state-level work on 21st century skills --
the Illinois eGovernment Working Group. Chicago's Technology Council has
developed a successful and sustainable program of recycling and refurbishing
computers for deployment to schools and colleges. The state's network of 65
Small Business Development Centers have adopted a proactive technology
policy, including webcast seminars and workshops reaching the desktops of
some of the state's 678,000 small businesses at no cost to the small
business community. In addition, Illinois has the "largest private education
telecommunication network of its kind in the world with over 6,000 full
wired end points at K-12 schools, colleges and universities, museums and
county offices," he said. "This network is increasingly being put to use by
state agencies and NGO nonprofits as they adapt to 21st Century technology
and the convergence of voice and data networks."
Mark Headd offered participants an e-government success story. The State of
Delaware is starting to use a relatively new web markup language called
VoiceXML to provide phone-based access to content and service previously
only available on the Web. VoiceXML is a non-proprietary, web-based markup
language for creating vocal interactions between humans and computers. This
technology is at the core of the "Access Delaware" project, which provides a
number of important services for Delaware citizens. "As one example, we took
an existing visual web application that provided information on voter
polling places and created a VoiceXML implementation," wrote Mark. "This
voice application received several thousand phone calls during the statewide
general election last year."
Tim Erickson of Politalk discussed an innovative project of city governments
in Minnesota. During snow emergencies, citizens must move their cars off
designated streets to make way for the snow plows. Citizens who do not get
the communication about the snow emergency often face the prospect of having
their cars towed and paying a hefty fine. "The city of St. Paul is currently
experimenting with ways of using email to ensure that word of snow
emergencies gets out as effectively as possible," he said. "Email is being
used in addition to radio and television announcements. The introduction of
email only adds an additional channel of communication that did not
previously exist." In addition, the city has begun to use the flexibility of
email to encourage neighbors to spread the word among themselves, by phone
or door-knocking, when a snow emergency is declared. "I can't say for sure
that this has yet to make a difference in our community; however, I think
there is real potential for this combination of traditional media,
e-government, and grassroots neighborliness," Tim added.
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