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A Cyberstep in the Right Direction
by Sarah Left - Guardian Unlimited
July 31, 2002.
"Citizens of the UK, I bring you glad news: there is video on the
parliament website - and it works."
The parliament homepage - a site that should provide a direct line
to the democratic process, but never has - has been revamped. Where
the site before contained little more than piles of reports and notices,
utterly unsearchable by anyone other than a career civil servant,
it now includes a video explaining parliamentary democracy, and extracts
from past great moments, including Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech.
When parliament reconvenes in October, the site will broadcast live
from the chamber floor, allowing anyone interested to watch debate
in action.
Design group Epic have overhauled the navigation and provided links
to what citizens need most, including a very useful frequently asked
questions section. The site now includes better navigation, although
in truth it had no navigation to speak of just one month ago, so any
change was bound to improve matters...
Back in April, as part of our open up parliament campaign, I critiqued
the site and found it frustrating to anyone hoping to take part in
democracy. I tried a test at that time to find out the name of my
MP, how she had voted on a particular bill and the contents of the
bill. The site failed to provide any information about how my MP had
voted on any piece of legislation, much less the specific bill in
question. So I try it again with the new, improved site. The navigation
to find my MP is much smoother, and in no time at all I have located
Tessa Jowell.
Big improvements here include an email address - noticably missing
before - and a phone number.
In that critique in April, I suggested that the parliament homepage
should contain seven types of data at its most basic:
- A phone number and address
- A button tagged "Find my MP"
- Another tagged "Bills now before parliament"
- The latest parliamentary news Information
for visitors
- A search engine that produces accurate,
targeted results from keywords and phrases
- And an interactive guide explaining how
government works.
I am pleased to see that many of these have made
it onto the new site in one form or another."
See the revamped
website.
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Corporate brochure: E-Learning at Epic
Data sheets: Epic Consulting, Accessibility Lab,
Arena, Blended Learning ROI Calculator (‘The Blender’),
Epic P2P, Hosting, Thought Leadership Programme, Testing (x4)
White papers: Blended Learning, Blended
Learning in Practice
Survey report: The Future of E-Learning
Go to downloads |
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