Utah and Maine took the lead this year among the states in their e-government efforts, according to a new study from Brown University. The study looked at 1,559 state sites and 61 federal sites. Overall, the study found substantial improvements in e-government initiatives.

• Seventy-three percent of state and federal sites have services that are fully executable online, up from 56 percent last year.
• This year, 69 percent have some form of privacy policy on their site, up from 63 percent in 2004.
• Fifty-four percent now have a visible security policy, up from 46 percent last year.
• Eighteen percent of sites offer some type of foreign language translation, compared to 21 percent last year.
• Forty-four percent of federal sites and 40 percent of state sites meet the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) disability guidelines.
• The federal numbers are up from 42 percent in 2004, while the state numbers are up from 37 percent last year.

Notably, the federal FirstGov site, which was ranked #1 last year fell to ninth place. Researcher Darrell West told Washington Technology that the government's portal failed to add new features over the past year, while the White House site took substantial steps forward.

According to the report press release:

Researchers evaluated Web sites for the presence of various electronic features, such as online publications, online databases, audio clips, video clips, foreign language or language translation, advertisements, premium fees, user payments or fees. They also evaluated sites with regard to disability access, privacy policy, security policy, online services, digital signatures, credit card payments, e-mail addresses, comment forms, automatic e-mail updates, Web site personalization, PDA accessibility, quality control, and readability.

E-government White Papers

• Cisco Full Service Branch Networks in Government: Creating an Intelligent Platform for Operational Excellence in European E-Government - Cisco Systems
• Flash Platform Improves Government Efficiency - Macromedia
• The Era of E-Government Is Here - Sun Microsystems
• E-Government: The Next American Revolution - Council for Excellence in Government
• The Future of E-Government - University at Albany
• e-Government: The Promise and the Challenges - Government Electronics and Information Technology Association
• The Singapore Government - Beyond Traditional Electronic Service Delivery - U.S. General Services Administration
• Transforming the Face of Business-to-Government and Government-to-Business in Australia - Accenture
• Transformation to an Electronic Government: The Promise and the Challenge - Association for Federal Information Resources Management
• E-Government Strategic Action Plan: A Road Map for Delivering Services - U.S. Department of Energy