E-Notification

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E-Notification

Definition:

Based on personal content preferences, e-notification services send timely e-mail, SMS, or instant message alerts with links to highly relevant updated information.

Summary: E-mail notification is one the most powerful technical solutions to improving public access to and use of government information. Notification does not change what information is legally public, it simply promotes wide dissemination of government information in a timely and relevant manner. Timely access to government information, particularly information of a direct interest or relevance to a citizen, is politically empowering.

Rationale and Objectives:

What can you use this feature for?

• Reducing citizen anger about "not being told" about new policy decisions, development or licensing applications, etc., before an action is taken.
• Increasing dissemination of frequently released information such as meeting notices, agendas, minutes, press releases, and service announcements.
• Increasing awareness and use of periodically updated information such as contact lists, answers to frequently asked questions, major planning documents, or consultation progress reports.

Why use it? (Compared to other options)

• Without significant content usage, the effort required to place information online may not justify the staff costs - notification is proven to increase content usage.
• Convenience for citizens, the media, and civil servants alike.
• Fresh content is easily buried on a site outsite the regular online visitor surfing patterns - a notificiation index allows a citizen to better understand and select content of interest for notification.

Benefits - Describe the top benefits for each group

• All Users: Convenience. The information comes to you.
• Citizens: The ability to gain access to information when it is still politically relevant. This levels the playing field for interested citizens compared to insider "usual suspects" or paid lobbyists.
• Councillors: Increases the ability of elected officials to monitor the information being produced by government departments and to better facilitate citizen access to that information.
• Local Administration: Increases use of updated content and reduces telephone and e-mail queries if online notification is prompt and given at the same time that notice is given to the media or sent via the postal service.

Limitations and Cautions

• Requires a content management system (database driven web site) if run directly.
• Third-party services are available, but pricing levels may be a concern for smaller governments or web sites.
• Builds citizen and internal organisational expectations that regularly produced information is produced and distributed on time.

Successes ^{collected projects}

- Successful Implementations

• Example: City of St. Paul, Official Publications
  • Link: http://www.stpaul.gov
  • Link: http://www.govdocs.com/service/category.html?code=STPAUL_C24
  • Usage and Results: The City of St. Paul provides e-mail notification on 400 changing documents to more than 11,000 users. Example documents include city council agendas and minutes, department and library newsletters, mayor's news releases, snow emergency alerts, etc.

More: http://home.govdocs.com/Info/Success_Stories.asp#6

• Example: MyOECD - OECD Direct E-mail Alerts
  • Link: www.oecd.org
  • Usage and Results: This international government policy and research organisation encourages users to personalise the alerts they receive based on keywords and topics of interest.

• Example: Info4Local - Information for Local Government UK
  • Link: http://www.info4local.gov.uk
  • Usage and Results: Info4local provides local authorities with quick and easy access to information from more than 50 government departments, agencies, and public bodies. It is run by a group of six departments, with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in the lead. This unique service demonstrates the value of structured aggregation of publication announcements. This enables dissemination from multiple sources to be provided via one reliable interface.

Further Information

Top Related "How-to" Online Resources

• GovDocs.com Case Studies
  • http://home.govdocs.com/Info/Success_Stories.asp
• Social Science Information Gateway Example
  • http://www.sosig.ac.uk/help/custom.html#3
• Additional non-government notification examples
  • Google News Alerts - search for a keyword and turn it into personalized alert from the bottom of any search page or see this example for "e-democracy"
  • http://www.google.com/alerts?q=e-democracy&hl=en

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