Agenda - 04-24-2007-7b - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: April 24, 2007 Action Agenda Item No. 7 - b_ SUBJECT: Report on Website Evolution Project DEPARTMENT: Information Technology PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Presentation on Website Evolution Todd Jones, 245-2285 PURPOSE: To inform the Board of County Commissioners of an Information Technologies initiative to improve the Orange County Website. BACKGROUND: The Orange County website (http://www.co.orange.nc.us) has steadily grown since its inception in 1996. The growth of the website was initially driven by individual departments working informally with the Information Technologies department in creating new content and services to address their customers' needs. While this process ensured each department was able to tailor their websites to their constituent communities, there was no overarching website strategy or formal web authoring standards to manage the growth over time. Several proposed initiatives were considered by the BOCC and the IT Advisory Committee to overhaul the website, the most comprehensive of which was put forth in February of 2001. This initiative, which was estimated to cost $137,796, would have involved the state's Information Technology Services (ITS) in a .wholesale redesign of the County's website. At that time, the County's website was 77Megabytes in size. In comparison, today's Orange County website is 2.2 Gigabytes in size (an increase of 2800%), as driven by enhanced content and new web services. While the ITS proposal was not funded, the issues that drove it have since remained unaddressed. Over the past year, the Information Technologies department has worked with departmental web administrators in a collaborative effort to address issues resulting from the historically ad hoc evolution of the County's website.