Courtney Lomax of the Express-Times writes in the Sunday, August, 27, 2006 Express-Times, "Town site updates unseen: Outdated data plagues municipalities' Web sites. Public funds produce mixed results in the area." (Read the full article here)
Unfortunately for Nazareth, the borough's web site is prominently discussed as a result of its snow emergency information that continues to be presented on the home page during the summer.
Also noted is the Mayor's vision to have the site as a hub of emergency information and news and his thought to have a high school or community college student hired to update the site to achieve this.
In little to no better shape according to the article are Easton, Bethlehem, and Phillipsburg, but Phillipsburg does receive a grant to hire a site manager for $50.00 per hour and Bethlehem has an intern who is paid $30.00 per hour to update, which infers no programming.
The one place where I personally would have liked to have seen the article go, and maybe this could be a follow-up piece (hint-hint, Courtney), is the opening it provides to a site like NewsOverCoffee.com.
This site has a different purpose than the Borough's site, but they are in my book compatible. A well-developed borough site would be a place with information such as board meeting agendas, minutes, committee reports, and information on zoning, ordinances, etc. that people should have access to without having to visit Borough Hall. A site like NewsOverCoffee would reference these documents by linking to them in posts discussing the topics.
In the future I hope to expand the municipal coverage from the borough to the surrounding townships and municipalities of the school district, as well as the School Board meetings and having well-developed, updated municipal sites working in tandem with a community site like this one will make for a very informed and more engaged public. While some officials may not like the extra attention, it is good government at its best.
In fair disclosure, I did contact the Council President and Secretary on June 1, offering to put a proposal together to provide the service of updating the site. I had further correspondence in late July and at that time offered some guidance as the Council moved forward on the subject. Specifically, I expressed the need to identify exactly what they want the site to achieve and then assess the ability (and cost) of the current service to do this in comparison to other options. It was a very general overview as I didn't have detailed information to work with and it was offered to help ensure the site did not go from being out of date to a money pit, which can happen fast if you aren't careful.
I think its important that the site be revised to the point that it is easily managed and provides materials online for the residents. I don't think hiring a kid is the solution. I might be surprised, but I'd guess today most teens are more adept at modifying and hacking (changing code, not doing anything wrong) a myspace page than they are updating straight HTML or working within a business level web site content management system.
I also don't believe they will have the life experience to understand what content is important for the residents to have. Take a look at the Nazareth High School web site (here is a link to the sports area). Most pages are developed by students. They include color, flash, graphics, and pictures, but from a business perspective they often lack basic information such as e-mail addresses to key individuals, identifying coaches, linking to current schedules, historic information on team achievements, or where to get additional information. Not all sports have a page and from page to page they also lack consistency. In short, they meet the kids' needs, which is to see their name and team picture online, but they serve no informational purpose to the media or public trying to learn more about them.
What do you think? To what extent should the borough work to improve its web site? Can you live without it given a site like this one, or would you want to have source documents available to discuss and read?
4 comments:
Ross,
It is my opinion that if the boro officials who are hoping that the web sight become updated and informational are wise they would try to get your help. It's in front of their noses and I've even personally recomended your talents to them. I don't know if you would be interested in helping them but it's obvious that you could. Why they don't move on that info is beyond me. I don't know. But I know you could do the job. If they are goint to hire a student why not hire someone instead who knows what is needed and has the experience?
What do you think? How do you feel about this? Would you be interested? (or are you too busy already?)
Cindy Werner
First, I'd like to point out that the students are most likely prohibited from posting their information in order to prevent predators from learning too much about them- and if that's not the case, perhaps it should be. Second, your average student is indeed more familiar with altering HTML that's already in place, but that doesn't mean that's the case for every student. Besides, there are programs that allow for the creation of websites through visual means. Third, I'd point out that if a student were picked to maintain the website, that doesn't mean they should be deciding what's on it- they shouldn't. Someone should define for them the sort of information the site needs, and then let them put it up in an attractive, useable format. Finally, although I've spent this whole comment picking holes in your argument, I feel that the town would be best off finding someone with more experience than most young students can boast. Cindy obviously knows far more than me about your experience, but my suggestion would be that there must be a web developer (even a hobbyist) in the borough somewhere who would be willing to work for free or a relatively small gratuity and the recognition webmastering the borough's site would bring.
Thanks to you both for commenting on this dreary Sunday morning.
I think first and foremost, the decision needs to be made about what the borough wants the site to be and what they are willing to commit to get it there.
I work for a non-profit and alot of people help us out by providing pro-bono services. The drawback to this is that paid jobs always come first. So if the borough takes the approach of finding someone to do it for free, we'll most likely get what we've paid for.
Technology can be a trap. You can get into a system that looks great, but requires an IT department to run or you have one person that can use it and you are up the proverbial crick when that person leaves.
There are a lot of different things out there, but the Borough will need to determine what they want the site to do, how they want it done, and then find out what options are available.
I'm more than happy to help think this through, but to commit to doing something at this stage would be premature.
My initial thinking was that I'd be willing to manage content for a reasonable fee, since I'd wind up searching it ought for my site anyway. If you get into having to program because of the system you have though, that fee obviously goes up.
As I said earlier though, I'm more than happy to discuss the business needs and help identify potential solutions. At that point the Council can make a decision and I would assume would post the position/solicit proposals like any other borough related work.
But I do think they need to do something about the site.
The last person I would want updating my borough's website would be a highschool kid. They could work on the site in terms of design and getting the basic look and template of the site together. But they would not be qualified to maintain the site's information over time. And to make a point about the water-boil advisory: I knew about that advisory a few minutes after it was made because I check mcall.com about 10 times a day during work (I have a boring job). And for information such as this, which is dynamic and literally changes in split second, could not be handled by a highschool or even a college student...they're in class all day! Immagine the advisory being relayed to the mayor at 9AM. The mayor (who knows if he even has a computer??) would contact the "student" immediately most likely leaving a mesage with his parent or voicemail. The kid would probably get to updating the site some time after supper (and certainly after his home work was done). The advisory could be lifted before the site gets updated. My point is, maintainance of the site is not a job for a kid. It is the perfect job for someone who has access to a computer all day...perhaps an savy retired person, homemaker, or otherwise. Heck, we have someone manning the compost dumpsters al day, why can't someone do this. For emergency information the website i not the answer...it is a good place to start, but it is not the answer. Not when so few residents have online access.
P.S. I think hits to the Nazareth site should simply be re-directed to NOC...that's the true borough website.
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