Federal e-gov initiatives number in the thousands

E-government initiatives are spreading like wildfire across the federal government. And to prove it, the federal Chief Information Officers Council this week debuted a database with information on more than 1,300 such initiatives. "The database turned out much better than we hoped," said Alan Balutis, director of the Advanced Technology Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and co-chair of the CIO Council's E-Government Committee. Users can search the database for e-government initiatives in four categories: information dissemination, forms, transactions and transformation initiatives that have transformed the way an agency previously did business. "A number of the initiatives are transactional," Balutis said, meaning citizens or businesses are able to perform a financial transaction with the federal government online. The initiatives are searchable by method of delivery, such as Web, telephone or kiosk, as well as by customer types served: citizens, businesses, other government agencies and federal employees. The Bush administration has announced its support of e-government many times. Now, it has a tool to investigate how e-government is actually proceeding at the program level. "This database catalogs what the previous administration did with e-government and sets the baseline for the incoming administration," Balutis said. The inventory is available online.