2003 Best of the Web Winners

2003 Best of the Web

A New Generation of Government and Education

The Center for Digital Education is pleased to announce the results of its 2003 Best of the Web contest.

K-12

1st Place:

Fresno USD

2nd Place:

Massachusetts Department of Education Virtual Education Space

3rd Place:

Irving ISD, Texas

4th Place:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, N.C.

5th Place:

Pasadena USD, Calif.

Higher Education

1st Place:

University of Miami, Fla.

2nd Place:

North Shore Community College, Mass.

2nd Place:

Montgomery County Community College, Pa.

(tied for second)

3rd Place:

Greenriver Community College, Wash.

4th Place:

North Orange County Community College District, Calif.

5th Place:

Oklahoma City Community College.

Honorable Mentions

Butte County Center for Distributed Learning
Wisconsin School Finance Data Warehouse
Grants Management Enterprise
Arizona State University
Global Access for the HBS Community

Best of the Web, Government

The Best of the Web includes several state and local government categories. Results from the government categories can be found at the

Center for Digital Government

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2003 BEST OF THE WEB CONTEST OVERVIEW

Increasingly, today's government and education Web sites are providing windows of efficiency for a wide range of services. The Center was looking for government and education Web sites that provide solutions and communicate well with citizens, businesses or educational communities.

Contest Rules

Applicants must be from a state or local government, or K-12 or higher education institution. Web sites must be actively functioning at the time of submission. First-place winners from last year's contest were excluded from entering in 2003 to make room for a new round of winners.

Contest Judges

The panel of judges included representatives from the following organizations: Center for Digital Government, Center for Digital Education, Government Technology magazine, NYWired for Education, Inc., State Technologies, Inc., and 2002 Best of the Web contest first-place winners.

Contest Criteria

1. A visible privacy statement

2. Actual online services (beyond downloading PDFs), so that citizens can complete transactions online from start to finish.

3. A written policy or program demonstrating your implementation or plan to implement Web accessibility standards, such as the W3C Level One guidelines or Section 508 accessibility standards.

Additional Criteria:

(20%) Innovation and use of Web-based technology to deliver government or education services:

What is new or cutting edge about the site?

(50%) Functionality (ease of use) and improved access

What steps have you taken to ensure customer satisfaction, easy navigation, and clean appearance?

How intuitive is the interaction between government and citizens or between the educational institution and its students, teachers and parents?

Where is your accessibility plan? Please state where we can find it.

Where is your privacy and security statement? Please state where we can find it.

(15%) Efficiency or time saved:

How is what you are doing shaping government or education efficiencies?

What has this website/application done to streamline services or business?

Give specifics on how you have measured the efficiencies and time saved.

(15%) Economy or money saved:

Was innovative funding or a public/private partnership developed?

How much did you save? What long term, continual savings have you projected?

The 2004 Best of the Web contest will open in March 2004.

For more information on the Best of the Web contest, contact Janet Grenslitt at

jgrenslitt@centerdigitalgov.com

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