I had a very interesting visit with Susan Morgans and staff today. I was unaware of all the services that the Public Information Office provides. Besides mtl Magazine, I asked lots of questions about the Municipal website. Having two websites and a blog, I was interested in the possibility of web streaming meetings instead of watching meetings on the Mt. Lebanon cable station, or relying on the podcasts on lebocitizens.com. I know that the podcast section of my website attracts the most hits. People want to know what is going on, but it has to fit their schedule, not the TV schedule. I try to record all the meetings in Mt. Lebanon, but when there are meetings scheduled simultaneously, or I can't get someone to cover for me (usually David Huston) when I have a conflict, it creates a problem. The Municipality has been great about transparency, and today after talking to Susan Morgans, I was thrilled to hear about a program that she has discovered. The company that she has been talking with, is Granicus. They would provide web streaming of all the meetings, with full access on the Municipal website. Here is the cool part. The agenda would be attached to the web streaming. If you were interested in one particular part of the agenda, you would click on that and it would take you to that part of the meeting. You wouldn't have to go through the whole meeting to find that one item on the agenda. Also, there would be an interactive part, allowing residents to submit comments up to the meeting. Elected officials could get citizen feedback minutes before a meeting. So cool!!!
Transparency, citizen involvement on their own schedule, live indexing...now that's what I'm talkin' about!! We need this!!
6 comments:
I'm all for government making better use of technology, but I'm concerned about vendor lock-in. I'm also concerned that, without people in government who understand the implications of their technology choices, the public's ability to access and participate government will be artificially restricted.
Already on the Mt. Lebanon web site, for example, documents are being published in formats that discriminate against people with vision impairments. The 2011 Recommended Budget was posted as an insanely huge 80-MB compressed Zip archive that contains a PDF file containing not the text of the budget – something that would be usable by screen readers and other assistive technologies – but pictures of photocopied text, which are like information brick walls. Likewise, I see an increasing number of documents being published on the site in "Flipbook format," a format that requires the use of proprietary browser plug-ins (Adobe Flash) and also makes life difficult for people who require assistive technologies to read documents.
There is absolutely no reason why those documents could not have been posted as simple textual documents or text-containing PDF files. That they weren't suggests that the people running the site don't understand the exclusionary implications of their technology decisions.
I'm not blaming them – it's a tricky subject – but for a functioning democracy it's an important subject. It's worth the thought and effort to get right.
On this subject, I think I'm going to stop here because I feel a full-blown blog post coming on.
Yes, but will it allow you to download it as a podcast and take it with you?
Matthew,
I found this in the literature:
"Reach low broadband and mobile users with Podcasting" so I think you would be good to go.
Tom,
Mt. Lebanon realizes that there are issues with the current website and is trying to make improvements. Did you notify the Public Information Office with your concerns? I am reasonably sure that you could make an appointment and stop in the office.
Elaine
Tom, pictures of photocopied text are like a google search compared to the brick walls of Office of Open Records appeals and the threat of being sued by your own government. David Huston
You want to talk about brick walls, go to http://www.mlfe.org/
Tragic. Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education is supposed to "pick up the tab when the push is beyond the district's budget" according to
Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education
Elaine
Elaine,
Good question.
On December 18, 2010, I emailed the commissioners about the problems with the format in which the 2011 Recommended Budget was posted to the municipal web site. I received no response.
More recently, when I went to the municipal web site's page on accessibility, I was surprised to find that (1) there was a page on accessibility, and (2) at least at one time, somebody was really on the ball. For among the page's "Accessibility Design Guidelines" I found this item: Wherever possible, we use live text instead of graphics to reduce the download time of pages and increase your control.
Yes! That's exactly right.
Also a good sign: that the page mentions Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act, which requires that state and local agencies that receive federal funding make their web sites accessible.
But not all is good news. Also provided on that page is a "contact us" link, with instructions to click it should you have any concerns about the site's accessibility. When I clicked it to report my concerns about the municipality seeming to have strayed from its accessibility goals, I got this: "We're sorry, but there is not a web page matching your entry."
Cheers,
Tom
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