The project produced key lessons about defining, developing, and managing Web-based public services.

This is a new kind of service, not just a new technology. The ability to integrate services and information from many organizational units and programs means that WWW services need to be guided by enterprise-level strategies and managed by teams with a broad range of expertise.

A Web site is a dynamic public representation of an agency and its programs. It needs to be developed and managed as a major organization-wide initiative. Clearly defining the business needs that the Web service will support and its relationship to the overall agency mission is key to this effort.

It is easy to underestimate the managerial and technical complexity of Web-based services. Complexity stems from several sources: a high degree of public visibility, rapidly changing technologies, the need for incremental and iterative development processes, and the tightly interwoven threads of policy, management, and technology concerns.

Web-based services can be expensive. Because it is easy to use, people often tend to underestimate the cost of developing an effective WWW service. Even the smallest projects demand substantial human, technical, and financial resources. Personnel and technical infrastructure costs tend to comprise the bulk of expenses.

Managing information content is the most fundamental and often the most difficult aspect of developing and managing a WWW site. This activity entails selecting content that satisfies a clear service objective and making it accessible to a well-defined intended audience. Often existing information needs to be reformatted or “reengineered” to take advantage of the linkages, search features, and navigation aids that the Web provides. It is also usually necessary to maintain the same information in two or more formats for different audiences.

Effective Web-based services demand appropriate computing and communications infrastructure. The condition of an agency’s existing infrastructure, especially on the desktop, can present a significant threshold barrier.

The use of the Web presents new policy issues and casts existing information policies (especially those related to access and intellectual property) in a new light. A clearly stated Internet service policy can help focus agency-wide efforts to create and manage this service. Both statewide and agency-level information policies need to be evaluated and refined in order to fully employ the data sharing and business transaction capabilities of the Web.

Security considerations are important, but manageable. The most common WWW applications (information and referral, downloading documents, e-mail forms, internal searches of a site) have few security risks. Other applications (such as providing public access to internal databases) entail major security concerns. However, rather than shy away from these applications, agencies should educate themselves about both the risks and tools for managing them.

Much basic information and many technical tools needed to create and manage a Web site are available at low or no cost on the Internet itself. Practically anything an agency needs to know about using the WWW or developing Web services is readily available on the Web itself including other sites, white papers, tutorials, style guides, discussion groups, software, indexes, and search tools.