Improving access to government through better use of the web

Hi
I read about this working draft
http://www.w3.org/TR/egov-improving/ in the UK's E-Government Bulletin http://www.headstar.com/egblive/
The item highlighted was public sector access to Web 2:0 sites.

I would like to commend your suggestion that public sector organisations try to avoid blanket blocks of Web 2 sites.
As a researcher in eDemocracy and eParticipation, I am often trying to share information with people working for government (central and local) or parliament, using online community tools like lists or online groups. It is frustrating that some public sector employees cannot access these from work or using work email addresses.

I am currently involved in a new project -HuWY -which aims to provide a channel between young people discussing internet governance issues (in a broad sense) on their own web spaces and policy-makers with responsibility for those issues (in parliament and government). There's a basic outline on the HuWY web page: http://www.huwy.eu<http://www.huwy.eu/>

Obviously we will have to find ways to make our own website (with results on it) accessible to policy-makers, but it would be ideal if they could also visit the websites on which young people are discussing Internet governance issues as part of the project.

Finally, I'm sure you're aware that UK government is making moves towards encouraging its employees to interact with interest groups via social networking sites and has provided this code: Principles for participation online:
http://beta.civilservice.gov.uk/about/work/codes/participation-online.aspx
-Ella
Ella Taylor-Smith

International Teledemocracy Centre
Edinburgh Napier University
10 Colinton Road
Edinburgh, EH10 5DT

Telephone: +44 (0) 131 455 2392  Fax:  +44 (0) 131 455 2282
Email: e.taylorsmith@napier.ac.uk<mailto:e.taylorsmith@napier.ac.uk>
http://itc.napier.ac.uk
http://www.huwy.eu<http://www.huwy.eu/>





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