ComputerWorld: "Web 2.0 tools could significantly improve state and local government communications with constituents, as well as aid in recruiting top college graduates for IT positions, according to speakers and users at the Pennsylvania Digital Government Summit here last week.

However, speakers also warned that local and state government officials would have to move slowly, since they face perpetual IT funding and manpower constraints."

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Health Atlas Ireland is an open source application developed to bring health related datasets, statistical tools and GIS together in a web environment to add value to existing health data. The application is part of the PloneGov project, an international Plone based egovernment collaborative initiative.

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PloneGov is an awarded eGovernment open source initiative. The European
Commission recently released a detailed case study about this
innovative collaborative project. In the weeks to come, we propose to
publish excerpts as a serialized novel, this article being the first
episode.

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Computerworld and the National Policy Research Council (NPRC) recently completed a study ranking the Websites of state, county, and local governments on usability and other criteria. In the study, Michigan's site earned top marks.

According to the article, the "the e-government report card is based on an extensive examination of 11,227 official government Web sites." Sites were judged on 25 criteria, including "whether people could use them to pay taxes, bid for contracts, find government jobs and complain to local officials about concerns such as potholes." Also included in the article was a report card summarizing other top e-government performers among city, state, and local sites.

What separated the winners from the losers?

“What sold us on Plone was the user experience and versatility – open standards meant that integrating existing software modules was relatively easy. Plone, rather than the proprietary systems available meant we could have a seamless user experience without the need for using several windows and pop-ups. Under the other systems we found we couldn’t apply transactions and web management in the same window. Plone also fully complies with Government access requirements as set by the States Services Commission.”

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SYS-CON Media:

"Open source is a wave spreading though Government enabling dramatic cost reductions. Nebraska State Legislature wanted to be ahead of the wave with an open source strategy and we needed a true open source ECM suite," said Daren Gillespie, network administrator, Nebraska State Legislature. "Alfresco was the only ECM suite that met our requirements."

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