New report: Congressional Web sites 'disappointing'
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(InfoWorld) - Many of the Web sites for members of the U.S. Congress lack basic information such as information on office hours or where to go if the reader has problems with a federal agency, according to a report released Monday. The overall state of congressional Web sites is "disappointing," said the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofit group advocating for a more effective Congress. The group gave only about 14 percent of the 615 lawmaker and congressional leadership Web sites it surveyed A grades for user friendliness. The top group of A-graded sites earn CMF's Gold Mouse award. Thirteen percent of the congressional sites received F grades, and another 25 percent received D's. "It's things that are missing, things that aren't updated," said Beverly Bell, CMF's executive director. In many cases, congressional offices seem to see Web sites as one-way communication mediums, she said. About 49 percent of the sites did not include sufficient information on how to contact the office about a problem with a federal agency, CMF said in its report. Just over 26 percent told visitors the best way to communicate with their offices, and 32 percent did not include links to sponsored or cosponsored legislation. Just 11 percent of House Web sites and 5 percent of Senate Web sites posted their office hours. "It's how you view your Web site," Bell added. "Are you seeing your Web site as a service center for constituents? There's not as much of that as we'd like to see. Or, are you seeing it as one big press release for yourself?" CMF produced two previous reports, in 2002 and 2003. Only three lawmakers have received awards in each of the Gold Mouse Reports: Representative Mike Honda, a Democrat representing part of Silicon Valley in California, Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, and Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat known for his interest in tech issues. But overall, Republican sites scored higher than Democratic sites, with 66 percent of Republican sites scoring at least a C compared to 56 percent of Democratic sites. In some cases, lawmakers seem to believe that Web sites create more work for their staffs, and congressional staffs haven't substantially increased in size since the 1970s, Bell said. But a well-designed Web site can reduce workload by cutting telephone calls from constitutions about information such as sponsored legislation or visitor tours, she said. The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the University of California-Riverside, and Ohio State University assisted CMF with the report.
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A senior Democratic lawmaker urged  the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to either  create a more accurate Web site identifying corporations with  investments in &quot;terrorist-financing states&quot; or pull the plug on  it.
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Americans think Congress is doing a pretty lousy job, according to a poll released Friday.
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Many government websites are still too complicated and difficult to use, says a report by the National Audit Office.
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The search site still lacks the right stuff.
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Yesterday consumer groups released a study saying broadband policy in the U.S. was failing. Here's a counterpoint from the conservative Heritage Foundation. [Broadband blog]
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Government fails to meet vast majority of political and military goals laid out by congress
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Government Computer News is reporting that a 15-page Inspector General's report on time wasted by workers at the U.S. Department of the Interior has raised such a stir that the Dept.'s own servers have seen major slowdowns due to excessive downloads of the report.
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Loren&#8217;s post and Matt Cutts comment about sites being de-listed from Google because of down-time and alsoÂ some discussions about problems with site moves from one domain to another and launches of big sites with a lot of pages plus the comments and recommendations from Search Engine representatives like Vanessa Fox from the Google Webmaster Central [...]
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Introducing The 404s, Wired's contest to find the least-informative sites on the military web. Strike a blow for open government (and win prizes).  In Danger Room.
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Important details in little-seen government reports.
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The Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress is funded by taxpayers to the tune of $100 million annually. But the reports are not public information. In 27B Stroke 6.
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By American News, Aberdeen, S.D.  Sep. 17--Giving citizens the ability to search and track federal spending through an Internet Web site is a wonderful idea.   Last week the House of Representatives passed a bill that will do just that.
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A Web site operated by Ron Harper Jr. was misidentified in a story in Friday's Intelligencer Journal. The Web site is 5thEstate.com.           The Intelligencer Journal wants to correct substantive errors of fact.
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A congressional report blames a litany of shortcomings at the Transportation Security Administration for security problems on a Web site set up in 2006 to help travelers remove their names from terrorist watch-lists.
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A Web site documenting the salaries of the roughly 20,000 Capitol Hill employees went live last week -- and almost as soon came crashing down.
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Government questions about ''basic data integrity&quot; derailed publication of a report raising safety concerns about arthritis drug Vioxx on the eve of a contentious congressional hearing, according to an e-mail exchange.