Demonstration Projects, Outreach and Equal Access Minnesota Government Information Access Council Working Group Draft Report - 10/24/95 Principle Minnesota government has the ongoing responsibility to inform, train, demonstrate and provide all citizens and communities -- without regard to barriers of geography, time of day, economic ability, physical ability, educational background, language, or cultural diversity -- guaranteed effective access to and use of interactive electronic information resources. Barriers to equal access must be eliminated. Funding must be provided to meet each of these responsibilities. Recomendations Outreach and Promotion: the responsibility to inform. 1. Involve all communities, neighborhoods and citizens in using information infrastructure. 2. Make public access terminals/kiosks available for online use by all citizens. 3. Hold "electronic town hall" interactive media dialogs beginning in 1996. 4. Involve mass media in peak outreach events that have follow-up online. 5. Involve businesses as sponsors of interactive outreach and online demonstrations. Citizen Education: the responsibility to train. 1. Utilize libraries, schools and colleges to train and support all citizens and communities. 2. Revise current practices to provide online support on a 24-hours/day and 7-days/week basis 3. Have human facilitators-- reference librarians, faculty, students, extension agents, etc. -- complement automated access -- during peak outreach events and be continuously online. 4. Train the trainers and facilitators on a geographically and culturally diverse basis by 1997. 5. Demonstration Projects: the responsibility to demonstrate. 6. Demonstrate applications from both citizen and agency perspectives. 7. Build infrastructure as investments that yield future cost reductions and process improvements for citizens, for governance and for business. 8. Include both training and the development of ongoing resources. 9. Focus on basic citizen, business, and re-invented governance needs. The term "basic" refers to needs that are essential either to individual citizens or to institutions. 10. Base projects on industry standards for information technology -- using available hardware, software, and networks to the extent possible. 11. Structure and monitor projects to demonstrate and evaluate usefulness of standards, as well as best methods for assuring the security of information. 12. Structure and monitor projects to demonstrate and evaluate acceptance of user interfaces and the usefulness of information accessed and the communications facilitated. 13. Encourage proposals from schools, colleges, libraries, agencies, nonprofits and businesses. 14. Exclude no organization nor place as a possible site in an open system of kiosks and public access terminal. 15. Involve both high-end and low-end technologies. (For example, multimedia webpage should include text in place ofimages for those with older text-only computers, and links to those without computer access can be through interactive mass media and public access kiosks/terminals.) Equal Access: the responsibility to provide. 1. Eliminate geographic barriers to access. 2. By mid 1996, all counties will have at least one interactive electronic public access terminal that is multiple use in accessing all levels and divisions of governance and local resources. 3. By the end of 1997, all rural communities and urban neighborhoods will have at least one interactive electronic public access terminal that is multiple use in accessing all levels anddivisions of governance and local resources. 4. By the end of 1997, all transportation-disadvantaged citizens -- not able to travel to public access terminals in every county, community and neighborhood -- will have guaranteed effective access to all levels and divisions of governance and local resources. 5. By the end of 1999, all citizens will have effective access -- via libraries, schools, homes, offices & mass media -- to all levels and divisions of governance and local resources. 6. Eliminate economic barriers to access by making tax incentives and funding mechanisms available to citizens, to government jurisdictions, to private businesses and especially to providers of content, connectivity and site access for linked community-business networks. 7. Eliminate disabilities as barriers to access in accordance with the American Disability Act of 1990 (ADA) requirements to support both demonstration projects and full statewide access, in order to accommodate people with impairment of vision, hearing or mobility. 8. Eliminate diversity of language and culture as barriers to access by including multilingual and multicultural components. 9. Eliminate educational barriers to access in both demonstration projects and full statewide access, in order to permit individuals of diverse literacy, education and training abilities to accessboth information and services effectively. Funding: the responsibility to fund. The State shall ensure fulfillment of the above responsibilities by a variety of public-private funding means -- to include tax incentives, low-interest loans, public appropriations, private foundations and charitable contributions. ----------------------------------------------------- Electronically Released 10/27/95. The above document has been forwarded to a GIAC final report composition team which includes two individuals from each working group. The composition team will send drafts back to the working groups and to the Executive Committee to ensure that the spirit of each groups work is covered in the final report. The final report will be presented to the legislature once the session begins in mid-January, 1996. Public comments are encouraged. All comments submitted about the working group drafts will be forwarded to the members of the composition team. Comments on the draft working group reports should be submitted as soon as possible. A draft version of the final report will also be made available for comment and will have a specific comment deadline. Please visit the GIAC WWW for more details at: http://www.state.mn.us/ebranch/admin/ipo/giac Public comments may be submitted via e-mail to: GIAC@state.mn.us - Or via the address, FAX, or telephone information below: Government Information Access Council Information Policy Office 320 Centennial Office Building 658 Cedar Street St. Paul, MN 55155 Telephone: 612-296-6451 TTY/TDD: 612-282-5599 or Greater Minnesota Relay 800-625-3539 and ask for 282-5599 Fax: 612-296-5800 E-mail: GIAC@state.mn.us