La web y la intranet del ayuntamiento británico de Medway fueron elegidas entre 18 finalistas como el proyects más innovador y exitoso de entre los presentados al concurso en el terreno del Enterprise Content Management.
IXOS-Obtree C4 Content Management System fue la tecnología elegida por los responsables municipales para poner en marcha un proyecto que debía de satisfacer muchas de sus objetivos de e-Government. El ayuntamiento empezó el proyecto con la idea de que sus «clientes» a través de web serían muchos y variados (ciudadanos, empresas, proveedores, partners,..) y que por lo tanto sus contenidos deberían ser personalizados en cada caso.
Además de la posibilidad de personalización de la web para cada una de las diferentes audiencias, el jurado concedió también gran importancia a las posibilidades de accesibilidad para personas con discapacidades físicas. El desarrollo de la web del ayuntamiento de Medway ha sido llevado a cabo teniendo en cuenta los estándares de accesibilidad recogidos en la Disability Discrimination Act británica.
Para más información leer la siguiente nota de prensa en inglés.
IXOS Software Customer Wins Coveted Industry Award for Most Successful
Content Management Project in 2003
Medway Council’s «Web Review Project» by IXOS Wins Information Management
Award (IM2003) in recognition of Innovative e-Government-compliant Website
London, 2003/12/05 IXOS Software, a leader in Enterprise Content
Management (ECM), fought off stiff competition to win the content management
category of IM2003 awards, for its work with Medway Council. Beating 18
other finalists, including all the major content management vendors, IXOS
and Medway Council won the award for the most innovative and successful
content management project in 2003, with Medway Council’s «Web Review
Project.»
Presented by Content Management Focus Magazine on 4 December, 2003, the
IM2003 award is a showcase for the most innovative and successful content
management project in a real-world environment. Finalists must demonstrate
real business efficiency and competitive advantage through effective
implementation of leading-edge technology. Following a successful year
delivering enterprise content management solutions and building on its
presence in the public sector this award confirms IXOS’ expertise.
Medway Council’s «Web Review Project» is designed to meet various targets as
part of the council’s e-Government agenda, including the UK’s Disability
Discrimination Act and other accessibility standards. Medway Council
approached an important stage in the development of its Internet and
Intranet websites and services in early 2002. The council had a diverse
range of increasingly sophisticated and demanding web consumers including
citizens, customers, partners, businesses and agencies, each requiring
information and interactive services any time, anywhere and in many
different formats. The council needed software and hardware solutions that
would aid the delivery of all web based information and services to the
citizens and other web consumers, including internal staff. As a result, the
IXOS-Obtree C4 content management system was chosen as the foundation to
build the new Internet and Intranet websites. Its scalability and
object-orientated functionality made it easy to author web pages internally
and tailor to different audiences, thus adhering to Government regulations.
Sean Hale, Web Manager for Medway Council commented: «We are thrilled to win
this award. We faced a big challenge to deliver, within budget,
accessibility and Government standards online. However, with IXOS, 95% of
the council’s Internet website is now compliant with Level A of the W3C, Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This also helped us to support the
requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and provide more
accessible content to all.»
Government targets mean an immense leap for most UK public sector
organisations, moving from a ‘need to know’ to a ‘need to share’ attitude.
In responding to DDA, with the IXOS-Obtree C4 solution, Medway Council
achieved a positive step-change in its responsiveness, its agility, its
attitude to its customers, and its own management of information.
As well as preparing Medway Council for the new legislation, working
together with IXOS, the council has now been able to:
* Improve service delivery for customers.
* Solve problems associated with information architecture,
accessibility and usability, maintenance and development among others.
* Introduce a highly available and resilient web hardware
infrastructure and an enterprise-wide content management system that
underpins its Internet and Intranet web sites and services.
* Develop and approve a suite of new guidelines, policies and
standards to support future council and partner content management
operations and web service delivery hosted by the council.
The project is ready to meet the customer self-service deliverables that
will allow users access to personalised services and aid internal staff when
dealing with customer enquiries.
Medway Council has realised savings in many areas, including:
* Reduced costs of updating content and improved frequency of
publishing information by using consistent and trouble free methods and
processes. Medway claim that it now takes half as long to provide
information using a content management system over previous methods.
* Increased web content value with workflow and approval processes by
using consistent and secure processes.
* Standardised content structures to maintain design control and
branding across the council.
* Maximised effectiveness of skills by enabling staff to publish their
own content and information, thus freeing up the technical staff to
concentrate on site infrastructure and improvement.
* Reduced site creation, maintenance, and rollout costs by creating
automated processes.
* Increased resilience and availability of services to all web
consumers. Uptime increased to 99.5% from 98.2%.
Nick Ellis, UK Managing Director for IXOS, commented: «It’s great to receive
industry recognition for the work we’ve done with Medway Council. With the
2005 deadline looming, every Government agency and department is facing a
huge information challenge. Our work with Medway demonstrates that the IXOS
solution can help the public sector overcome these challenges and empower
non-technical users to manage their own content.»