Introduction and Overview

The State of New Jersey, which was ahead of only Nevada of the 50 states in launching an official State Government Web site, has made significant progress in the development of its Internet resources and services. In September 2002, the New Jersey State Web was ranked as the second best Web (behind only Tennessee) of the 50 states in the third annual review, State and Federal E-Government in the United States 2002, conducted by the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University based on criteria including accessibility and availability of specific features and content. New Jersey's second-place ranking also was a significant improvement on its 18th place ranking in the prior year's survey. In 2001, the State Web portal or home page was ranked as one of the top three state portals with North Carolina and California, receiving an Eagle E-government Award from the Council of State Governments.

While the New Jersey Web is now overall one of the leading State government Webs, there remain areas of potential improvement in such areas as increasing consistency of organization and content of its component departmental Webs; adding transactional services for the most highly-used government services; consolidating databases with advanced search tools; expanding content in such areas as history and archives, elections and consumer resources; and incorporating additional multimedia and mapping features. This project is intended to support future revisions of the New Jersey State Web through a review of each of the major departmental Webs in comparison with features of similar Webs published by the federal government, other state governments and selected local governments. It is intended to highlight the best practices and innovative applications in Web publishing and the online delivery of public services, and to encourage development of new electronic services and content.

Summary of major sitewide recommendations:

1) improve search features to locate content, such as through uniform publication on home pages of 'most visited sites', 'most frequently asked questions', 'most requested documents', 'site maps' and 'quick links'; provide departmental search engines in addition to the sitewide search engine on all pages; evaluate additional search features such as plain language inquiries (Washington State Ask George™) or personal assistance (Virginia);

2) expand access to content through publishing in formats not requiring special software for viewing, particularly publishing all content currently available only in Acrobat™ PDF files also in alternative formats such as HTML;

3) consolidate various separately published databases to allow 'one-stop' searches for State and local statistics on taxes, income, environment, health, etc. (Massachusetts Electronic Atlas;US Environmental Protection Agency; Delaware; Florida; Michigan);

4) expand GIS mapping applications to allow geographic-based searches by county or municipality for data, facilities and services and custom mapping and analysis of data (US Census Bureau; Massachusetts Electronic Atlas; Michigan; New York City 'My Neighborhood');

5) increase transactional services for high-volume public interactions with government (New Jersey Municipal Courts Direct online parking and traffic ticket payment service; Tennesee);

6) provide customized e-mail update services for all announcements, events, hearings, press releases and publication releases (NJ Department of Education);

7) expand New Jersey historical content, including digital images of archival material such as manuscripts, maps, photographs and online exhibits on historical themes (Library of Congress American Memory Project; Florida);

8) publish consistent organizational directories, including an organization chart with name, title, biography, phone, mail and e-mail address of division directors and program heads (see NJ Department of Education);

9) publish additional foreign language content, particularly in Spanish for programs in health, human services, education, labor, etc., with high percentages of Spanish-speaking clients or provide access to online multi-lingual translation resources such as the BabelFish service of AltaVista (also see Tennessee; Florida; Texas);

10) improve content and integration of resources relating to election registration, voting, campaign finance, and lobbyist reports, including faciltating access to election and fundraising databases, providing real-time reporting of election returns, publishing registration data by municipal and legislative districts, and exploring potential online voter registration (Florida);

11) consolidate all licensing applications and services in a single inter-departmental portal with options for online submission, filing and payment of required fees (Connecticut);

12) publish interactive forms on all sites soliciting user input and suggestions on the existing quality of site content, organization and services (Tennessee);

13) redesign departmental and agency Webs to develop consistent formats and organization throughout all State Webs (Michigan; State of Washington);

14) explore further integration with county and local government Webs to develop 'one-stop' resources for State, county and local government information (State of Washington);

15) expand links to outside Webs (with appropriate disclaimers) of nonprofit organizations or commercial sites with significant resources of public interest (State of Washington);

16) provide link to relevant 'frequently asked questions' lists from each departmental home page;

17) consolidate all online product sales into single online mall with shopping cart and credit card payment features (e.g. eMall New Jersey State Museum; Office of Travel & Tourism; New Jersey Transit Shoppe);

18) evaluate live audio video Webcasts of all hearings, conferences and public meetings and potential online public input and comment (New Jersey Legislature; California Environmental Protection Agency).