Website Policy
This policy is intended to:
- Establish the Countyofsb.org website as the entry point for
accessing all County information which is available on the Web.
- Make the website and those affiliated with the official links
from it appear as consistent in format, inter-linkages, and funcionality
as possible.
- Insure information available through the website is structured
in such a way that users can logically and quickly access specific
information which is available from the Santa Barbara County Government.
- Acknowledge that the Advisory Committee to Egovernment (ACE)
will provide the policy direction and the framework required to
develop and manage the implementation of the website.
Website Goals
The Countyofsb.org website is provided as a public service. Our
goals for the development of this site are:
- To advance the County’s activity on the World Wide Web and improve
public access to government information, programs and services.
- To make County government more efficient, effective, and responsive
to the public through the use of online business transaction applications.
- To provide a collaborative tool to encourage organizational
learning among County government employees.
- To promote the County to the rest of the world in a manner that
enhances economic development and tourism opportunities for the
County.
Advisory Committee to Egovernment (ACE)
County government is a broad and disparate organization, producing
volumes of data and information with many owners and maintainers.
A forum for interested participants to come together to provide
constructive input to that process was sponsored by the Information
Technology Services division of the General Services department.
ITS established an Advisory Committee for E-Government (ACE) to
provide the policy direction and the framework required to develop
and manage the implementation of the new County portal.
The Advisory Committee for E-Government will:
- Be responsible for providing input on developing the format,
content and organization of the Countyofsb.org web site
- Serve as an advisory function to the Chief Information Officer
of the County of Santa Barbara, currently the Assistant Director
of General Services, Information Technology.
- Consist of representatives from all interested departments and
agencies in County government.
- Have the authority to appoint sub-committees to discuss, study
and/or resolve assigned issues as needed.
- Hold regularly scheduled meetings which remain open to all interested
participants
- Provide guidance on the structure, organization, and location
of County department home pages and their linked components to
promote effective utilization of the Countyofsb.org website.
- Facilitate a shared responsibility for presenting the best representation
of the County through the use of the Countyofsb.org website.
- Strive to build on what is already in place and to provide a
forum for continuous improvement of the website.
- Provide policy direction that is democratic and distributed
and does not stifle or prevent “grass roots” contributions.
- NOT be responsible for specific approval or authorization of
content for a particular department of agency’s web pages. The
responsibility for content rests with the departments and organizations
who are providing the information.
Countyofsb.org Website Guidelines
The following guidelines are intended to assist in the development
and preparation of information for the Countyofsb.org website and
those pages linked to the Countyofsb.org website.
Design Guidelines
Uniform Design
Pages that have a consistent design application, at the top and
bottom of the page, establish the site as the Countyofsb.org website
in the user’s mind, regardless of the entry point.
Customization (proposed 11/26/01)
There are many areas of the site design that can be customized to
allow for department needs, while still maintaining a consistent
interface to the public. The following is a list of customization
options and recommendations:
- Masthead:
Customization option: Change the department name
and change the pictures that appear in upper right corner.
Recommendation: Keep the County seal and "County
of Santa Barbara Online" title, background color and Courthouse
picture.
- Right and Left Navigation Bars:
Customization Option: Use or remove as needed, change
color of bars. Several color schemes are available. On the left
nav bar: change the" Jobs" link to your department's
jobs page. Change contact us to your department's contact page
or email address. On the right nav bar, change the featured sites
to your department's featured sites. Replace the BOS map with
image of your own.
Recommendation: Provide a search box and link to
advanced search in upper left, below masthead.
- Stylesheets:
Recommendation: To keep a consistent look to fonts,
links, etc., use the stylesheets already developed.
- County Home Page Link:
Recommendation: create a link on each page to the
County home page, preferably a hot link on the County logo.
Standards for Each Page
Each page should include an e-mail address for a “Webmaster”, or
“responsible point of contact” (phone or fax optional and where
information is time sensitive the date of the last page up-date.
Link Back to the Countyofsb.org website
All official County web pages that have a link from the Countyofsb.org
website should incorporate, on each page, easy links back to the
Countyofsb.org website. This is designed to facilitate easy return
by a user to the Countyofsb.org website so that he or she may continue
exploration of the information accessible through the Countyofsb.org
website.
Webmaster Contact
All department web pages with links from the Countyofsb.org website
should provide a single point of contact for communications purposes.
A “Webmaster”, or “responsible point of contact” will be identified
on each department’s home page for questions or follow-up on the
part of users of the information. A method of contact (telephone,
mail, e-mail) will be made available.
Browser Independent
A goal of the Countyofsb.org website is to be browser independent.
At a minimum, the Countyofsb.org website should be HTML 4.0 compliant
in order to achieve the widest possible audience. In addition, the
Countyofsb.org website should be designed to accommodate non-graphical
browsers.
Information Maintenance
All official State of Countyofsb.orgicut agency/organizations with
links from the Countyofsb.org website are expected to maintain the
most current publicly available data and information on their web
site.
Use of County Logo
Board of Supervisor approval is required to display the logo on
a website. In some instances, Board approval may not be appropriate.
For example, it could be said that use of the County seal implies
the County's endorsement of a product--the Board may not want to
do that.
Please contact the Clerk
of the Board of Supervisors to pursue this matter further.
Legal Considerations
Disclaimer
The Countyofsb.org website will incorporate an appropriate disclaimer.
The disclaimer for the Countyofsb.org website may be used as a model
but the existence of that disclaimer does not relieve other official
state agency/organizations with links from the Countyofsb.org website
of the responsibility to incorporate a disclaimer on their respective
home pages.
Copyright
The Countyofsb.org website and its linkages are intended to present
County government information that is in the public domain. Information
that is not in the public domain should not be displayed without
the written permission of the copyright holder.
Definitions for the Countyofsb.org Website
The Countyofsb.org website is defined as the Welcome Page and the
Resource Meta Pages, as highlighted by the shaded area shown in
Figure 1. The Welcome Page is meant to be the top-level of reference
or menu with the subsequent Resource Meta Pages or menus branching
from that describing the resources of availabe through Countyofsb.org.
This top-level is identified by the domain address of http://www.countyofsb.org
Figure 1. Diagram of the Countyofsb.org Website
In the framework above, we have identified three specific types
of home pages to illustrate how each page type is related to the
other. These three page types are:
Welcome Page
The Welcome Page is defined as the single access point at the top
of the Countyofsb.org. This page contains a list of the available
high-level information domains (i.e., subject categories), hyperlinks
to Resource Meta Pages for these subject categories, and may have
some instructional information for getting started.
Resource Meta Pages
A Resource Meta Page is the first directory page linked to by each
subject category listed on the Welcome Page. The Resource Meta Page
provides an overview, context and/or index to that particular subject
category, hyperlinks to specific information covered under that
subject category, and instructions (if needed) for continuing down
the information tree.
Related Home Page
Related Home pages are defined as any additional pages that are
not a Welcome Page or a Resource Meta Page. For example, individual
department web sites.
Acknowledgements
DRAFT
World Wide Web State Home Page Policy. 1996. State of South
Carolina: State Budget and Control Board, Office of Information
Resources
ConneCT
Website Policy 1996 State of Conneticut: Department of Information
Technology
Last updated: July 30, 2001
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Auditor-Controller
