E-gov efforts fall short, study finds

E-government Web sites aren't living up to their full potential, according to a new study released Friday by Brown University.

A research team, led by Darrell West, director of Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy, ranked 1,813 Web sites on a 100-point scale. What they found were varied levels of access and outreach, and poor levels of security and privacy protection.

Congress has enacted legislation requiring agencies to offer their services online by 2003, causing an ongoing shift to paperless operations. Most state government agencies have started Web sites as well, in an effort to improve citizen services, but according to the study, Web sites on all levels of government fall short of expectations.

"A number of government Web sites didn't offer basic features [such as] phone number, address and e-mail contact information," West said at a press conference Friday. "The amount of effort and the amount of resources the government put into the Web site made a big impact."

Only 5 percent of government Web sites examined post security policies and only 7 percent have privacy policies, the study found. Just 15 percent of government Web sites offer some form of disability access, such as text telephone (TTY) or telephone device for the deaf (TDD).

Federal government Web sites fared better than state government Web sites in the survey, though smaller states are at a disadvantage, West said, because they have less money to invest in technology.

Top-rated federal Web sites include those of the Treasury, Agriculture and Education departments, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission. Federal Web sites ranked at the bottom of the list include the National Security Council, U.S. Trade Representative, White House, U.S. Postal Service and Thomas, the congressional Web site.

"The agencies that had a clear public mission, that had a clear constituency, delivered a better Web site," West said.

Recommendations from the study include:

• Improving Web site organization and structure.
• Bringing state legislative and judicial sites up to the standard of the executive branch.
• Posting all phone, address and e-mail contact information.
• Increasing Web site accessibility.

If used to its fullest advantage, West concluded, e-government can help restore citizens' confidence in government.