I. General Evaluation
C. Compared to other major cities, San Antonio compares favorably regarding electronic access, use and services. For example, in a recent evaluation (Yahoo Internet Life Most Wired Cities) San Antonio ranks 27th in the "Top 100" listing; with government services being one of our highest-rated aspects (The winner was San Francisco, with San Antonio placing immediately below Phoenix and immediately above Detroit).
D. While comparatively faring well to other cities, the City of San Antonio's WWW presence suffers from a lack of standardization. This lack of standardization presents problems with regard to navigation, the look and feel of the site, and the content of the pages for departments within the City. There appears to be no consistent formatting, content guidelines, or other standards that would ensure that the pages present on the site appear and act as a "whole" rather than a collection of unrelated parts.
E. Communication with departments and offices is highly variable. Telephone numbers are present for most, but email links are widely scattered. No standardization exists with regard to when, or what, or to whom, email links should be provided on the various pages.
F. No system of coordination of web activities within departments is apparent. Who is responsible for each page? What are the policies for modifications to the pages? What budgetary issues need to be addressed for all of this to occur?
G. Almost all of the City's electronic presence is descriptive in nature, rather than interactive (albeit the email links that allow for some electronic contact).
2. Procedures and personnel issues (who is responsible, and also training and software support for these efforts) for development, maintenance and modification of WWW pages
3. Budget lines for internet: currently email charges are made to each Department by the ISD at $10/month for every account. It is the opinion of the Committee that this serves to dissuade the use of email for communication purposes. While it is possible for individual departments to either reallocate funds for technology (including email) from other areas or to increase requests for funding during budget preparation activities, it is the experience of many on the committee that these actions are not as likely to promote effective use of electronic communication as would procedures that would not directly charge departments for such services (i.e., ISD provides service to all departments and most/all individuals (again, determined by a rational policy decision) in departments and this cost is an item itself in the budget of ISD; ISD should, of course, monitor costs for each department in this regard. Email/internet charges should not be lumped-in with other general technology items in one budget line.
4. Oversight of the WWW presence for the city should probably be Public Relations/Community Relations, although that depends on the "readiness" of that department (personnel and other resources) to take on that task. Nevertheless, a single oversight department/individuals need to be identified as soon as possible.
5. In addition to the issues mentioned above, just as important is the need for the City to begin to expand its electronic services beyond the basic descriptive information currently provided or to be provided in the future. City services and records should be more directly accessible via the internet and perhaps through the expansion of more "kiosks" across the City. An excellent example of cities that are moving in this direction is the City of Indianapolis/Marion County, Indiana. This governmental agency, in cooperation with the SCT Corporation and other community partners have engineered what many consider to be the best city internet site (1997 Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Award Winner in the Government category) in the country with regard to citizen access to services as well as descriptive information. We would encourage all to visit the site at: www.IndyGov.org or to visit a "review" of the site at: www.gii.com/cgi-bin/Tango.cgi/ApplicationBits/giia97/pub/p-e-view.qry?phase=Semi-Finals&entry_id=292459244
6. While budget issues certainly come into play, the issue is really the importance/priority placed on moving the City into the "information age." An investment in the infrastructure and in the organization of the City's offices and services needs to be made in order to facilitate this effort. Instead of having discussions FIRST regarding the details of budget responsibility, etc., there need to be general policy decisions made regarding the importance of providing these services which would then serve to guide budget preparation and priority-making.
7. The offices of the ISD need to be taking a very proactive stance in assisting in this effort without feeling defensive regarding what services are currently being provided or the budgetary/planning processes that have been implemented and are now being used. An open-minded, "thinking outside the box," approach to policy-setting and implementation needs to be engaged-in.
submitted by:
Gerry Dizinno, Ph.D.
Assistant to the President for Planning & Institutional Research
St. Mary's University
One Camino Santa Maria
San Antonio, TX 78228-8507
Phone: 210-436-3601
Fax: 210-431-2226
email: gdizinno@alvin.stmarytx.edu