Overall, policy issues were reported to be the weakest barriers to project activities. Most participants noted that the lack of internal policies, in fact, allowed a wide range of freedom in selecting objectives for Web-based services and in selecting and presenting content. While they would have liked some guiding principles, participants told us they were glad they were not hindered by premature or inappropriate policies. However, the participants expected that both a general government-wide information policy and agency-specific information policies will become more important in the future. They gave two reasons: (1) as more sites come on line, the linkages among them are likely to raise policy questions related to data sharing between programs and agencies; and (2) the maturation of their own sites will push them beyond information dissemination into more business areas where policy questions about documentation, ownership, privacy, and other concerns will become critical.

The early stages of these problems were evident in the project. Senior agency managers needed to become more familiar with these new technical capabilities, and were therefore often unable to give policy guidance about how to use them. Web services that involved service integration suffered from a lack of policies about data sharing. Agencies ran into problems trying to decide what kind of information, in what form, was appropriate for dissemination over the Web. Existing policies on Freedom of Information, copyright, and liability seemed inadequate for the new environment. Finally, hopes for transacting business over the Web brought new questions about records management and documentation of government actions and decisions.

 

As with most other technological advances, there is a dynamic interplay between what the technology can do and what government policy makers want to allow it to do. Usually technology advances more quickly than policy development. This project was no exception. Because the WWW places agency information and services in a new environment, policy makers need to be well educated about technological capacities in order to give sound policy guidance. While most governments strive for policies that are technology-neutral, our experience in this project shows that some technologies are more far reaching than others. The ubiquitous networking, communications, access, and data transformation capabilities of these new technologies represent a significant change in the nature of government information and therefore challenge the logic of policies that were devised mostly in the 1960s and 70s.

The participants were concerned that pre-existing information policies were not good models for the types of policies that are required to address this changing service delivery and technology environment. For example, they were particularly concerned that the cross-program and interagency nature of many service delivery objectives requires policies that promote the coordination of business functions and the sharing of information across program areas.

Many questions regarding content were posed by the project participants and most agencies struggled to find answers that were suitable for their situations. They noted that the lack of policies governing the content of Web sites would be an increasing barrier to expanded use of the Web as a service delivery mechanism. For example, they encountered or expected to encounter future issues related to Freedom of Information, copyright, and liability for information provided. Participants looked to policy makers for principles that would help them answer the following kinds of questions:

• What should the content of the Web site be? What information is appropriate for our customers and service delivery objectives? How is content to be selected?
• Can or should Web pages be copyrighted?
• Is a Web page or a Web site a record subject to the Freedom of Information Law?
• What should be the relationship between the Web version and other versions of the same information or documents? If they are different, which one is authentic?
• Does information on the Web site constitute “official” agency information?
• What external links are appropriate? What relationships should govern external linkages?
• What is appropriate information for the agency to collect from customers via the Web? How should personally identifiable information be handled?
• When both state and federal law govern a program, what role does the federal agency play in the policies governing the Web site?

There are no commonly accepted answers to these questions and it is likely they will continue to present challenges to government Web service providers for years to come.

Records management programs and policies developed to support traditional paper-based operations are not readily transferable to an electronic environment where a record may be comprised of database entries, electronic templates, e-mail messages, graphic images, or combinations of these formats. As a result, it is increasingly difficult to identify, maintain, and access records to document transactions or support evidentiary needs. From an archival perspective, this also means that electronic records of enduring value may be lost to future generations. The increasing use of the Web as a direct service delivery mechanism makes even more important the growing demand for electronic records management policies and tools.