One of the emerging challenges for governments in the online age is managing the discrepancy between the speed of transparency and the speed of accountability. With digitalisation and the internet, the speed at which government information is made public is becoming faster, with it being easier to collect, aggregate and publish information and data in…
I regularly hear stories from people in government agencies and councils about how their organisation isn’t meeting mandated security and accessibility requirements for their websites and broader online presence. Often this is because there’s insufficient time, money or a lack of understanding of the mandated requirements by either the business owners or the vendor doing…
Gian Wild of AccessibilityOz made me aware of this awesome accessibility alphabet of mini-personas, reflecting a large group of people for whom accessibility in websites and documents is critical. This is the sort of material I think agencies should make available to all their staff to help them be more mindful of the range of…
Hi, today I’m featuring a guest post by Gian Wild of AccessibilityOz Gian is Australia’s leading specialist in accessibility and was on the working group that designed the WCAG 2.0 guidelines that agencies must follow. Gian will be speaking at a series of free breakfast seminars at the start of April in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney with…
I’ve been completing a survey for the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) related to the Queensland Government’s open data initiative, where one of the questions asked Can you list or describe any learnings that would be useful in Queensland? I’ve provided a number of my thoughts on this topic, having closely observed open data initiatives by government…
CSIR Mk 1 with Hollerith equipment, Sydney 1952 Source: Museum Victoria The Australian government was one of the earliest adopters of computers and computerisation. CSIRAC (or CSIR Mk1), the first computer in Australia (and now the oldest surviving first-generation electronic computer), was used by scientists within CSIRO, by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority and various…
It’s come to my attention that a number of automated sentiment analysis tools include ‘disabled’ and ‘disability’ as negative terms. This means that when calculating whether a particular statement in social media is positive or negative, the use of these words is used by these sentiment analysis tools as an indication that the statement is…
Guy Cranswick of IBRS has brought my attention to a media release about a new report from Fifth Quadrant, a leading Australian customer experience strategy and research consultancy, on social media and smartphone app customer service enquiries. The report looked at how many Australian consumers had used these channels for customer service enquiries and why they’d…
It took a little while to pull together, but November’s Canberra Gov 2.0 lunchtime event is now open for registration at: gov20november2012.eventbrite.com With a focus on mobile app development and digital accessibility, the event is being held in DEEWR’s Theatre at 50 Marcus Clarke Road from midday – 1pm on Friday, 16th November. That means there’s…
In a recent story in ITNews, Accessibility checker surfaces errors, John Hibbert claimed that a new Mental Health website, www.mindhealthconnect.org.au, operated by the National Health Call Centre Network and funded by the Department of Health and Ageing, didn’t meet the Australian Government’s minimum web standards. Based on a review using the ACheck tool for the minimum…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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