Getting on the Internet

Using the Internet to aid Ohio Township Governance - January 28, 1999

Our notes and presentation prepared for the session have been placed on the Internet. If you have any questions, or would like additional information, feel free to e-mail Andrew Dudas.

Part A. Getting on the Internet

Question: What is the Internet and what should all Township Officials understand about it?
Answer: The Internet can be used for 4 major purposes: mail, discussion groups, long-distance computing, and file transfers. Through the use of a TCP/IP connection, users can communicate with citizens, various appointed or elected officials, administrators, and each other. Township officials can exchange ideas, collect data for policy analysis or simply provide information on township services and policies.

Question: What do I need to get "on the Internet"?

Answer: Users need at least the following: a computer or terminal, a modem or network card, physical connection (i.e., phone line or lan connection), browser and some type of account. At a minimum, local government users should at least have a 28.8 modem connection, a computer with 12 to 32 megs of ram, and 100 megs free hard disk space. The cost of a 56k modem is well worth it if users are going to be accessing the Internet from work. While not as quick as an Ethernet connection, it still affords reliable service at a fairly good speed. In fact, in many cases this might be the preferred form of connection. For example, even when a community's internal network (LAN) may be down, users can still access e-mail and the Internet by dialing out.

Question: I have a computer, modem, phone line and a browser, how do I get an account?

Answer: The simplest way to get connected to the Internet is via one of the big three commercial providers (i.e., America Online, MSN or Prodigy). All three provide basic access for around $19.95-$21.95 per month. For this users can send and receive e-mail across the Internet. They also get access to proprietary sites housed by the various services (not available on the Internet).

Another way to gain access is to obtain a dialup account from a local Internet Service Provider (ISP). Windows 95 users can setup "Dialup Networking"

A good place to find out which ISP's are in your "area code" is to visit The Ultimate WebISPList. The combinations of features versus price are provided there.

Part B. Using the Internet to aid Township Governance

Question: What can I find on the Internet?

Answer: Almost anything. Local government users can access a wide variety of information. One of the strengths of the Internet is asynchronous access to information anywhere in the world. Access is for the most part equal, once someone gets out onto the Internet. For example, the speed by which individual users can access the OTA Website, THOMAS or the State of Ohio Home Page is basically the same for citizens as it is for Legislators or Governors.

Information can be accessed from specific web pages. In addition to the OTA Website, Thomas and the State of Ohio Home Page, the following sites may be of interest:
FedWorld
Ohio Business
Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana Regional Council of Governments
Ohio State Extension
U.S. Bureau of the Census
WWW Virtual Library: Govt Sources
Local Govt Best Practices
American Planning Association
National Association of Towns and Townships
Short History of the Internet

Professional Associations
The following web sites may be of interest to local government officials.

Question: How do I find what I want if I don't know the url? And what is a url?

Answer: First, url stands for "uniform resource locator" and in essence means a web address. WWW.OTA.muohio.edu is the url for the OTA website.

Search Engines like www.excite.com, www.yahoo.com and www.hotbot.com are great ways of finding information on a particular topic. At these sites you enter keywords and the engine returns a listing of Web Pages that meet your criteria.

Part C - Providing Information on the Internet

Local governments can provide information to citizens via the Internet in a number of ways.

Question: How much information should we provide?

Answer: One of the best ways of determining the type and extent of information to provide is to visit other township websites. Of the approximately 355 municipalities in Ohio (with populations over 2,500) roughly 11% or 40 cities have a world wide web home page. Two good sources to find local government home pages in Ohio include: USA Citylink and City.Net.

Question: What ideas should we keep in mind when designing our township website?

Answer:

Appropriate internet focus is CONTENT driven -- whether accessing or providing information.
Appreciation of thinking strategically -- what's works, what doesn't and why in terms of the visitor's use. Remember, every question answered by your website is one less call to the township offices.
Phases of implementation follow patterns of use: e-mail first, ... then collecting info (browsing), ... then providing info (creating a web site).

Question: How often does a web page need to be updated?

Answer: A webpage should be updated as often as there is new information that citizens need to know. For instance, meeting times, special events, and township news should be updated on a regularly basis to keep citizens informed.

Question: What will the address of our Township's website be?

Answer: It depends. Some townships like Washington Township in Montgomery County use the .org extension (http://www.washingtontwp.org). Others like Delhi Township in Hamilton County follow The US Domain Registration Services' (hosted at the University of Southern California) naming convention (http://www.delhi.oh.us).