Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Tennessee tops states in Web info The Tennessee.gov Web site took first place this month in a study of "State and Federal E-Government" by the Center for Public Policy at Brown University. The state replaced Massachusetts, which dropped to sixth place. The study praised the Volunteer State's "front and center" menu of online services, such as state park reservations and driver license renewals, as well as features like Spanish translation and multimedia. The state pages, which also can be addressed as http://www.state.tn.us/, were among 1,629 state and federal sites addressed by Brown's Darrell M. West, whose InsidePolitics.org site hosts the fifth annual report. West also is the author of a forthcoming book-length study, Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance. West's team of researchers evaluated sites for presence of online publications, databases, audio and video clips, foreign language material, disability access, privacy policies, personalization and other factors. Massachusetts was still the leader in sheer number of online services, with 25 to Tennessee's 19. Other states ranked high on the "e-govt" list were Maine, Utah, New York and Illinois. Tennessee had ranked fourth last year and first in 2002. Among federal agencies the FirstGov portal, Social Security Administration, Department of Education, Federal Communications Commission and Department of Agriculture ranked in the top five. Tennessee's Web site didn't make the top five of a separate study by the Center for Digital Government. Maine and other states took the top Web rankings, but Tennesee was still ranked seventh among "digital states." 6:22:23 PM

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