WASHINGTON, DC-The District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Technology
Officer (OCTO) today announced the release of a new Intranet portal that
will provide District employees a broad array of new tools and transform
the ways they communicate and work together.
The new portal will open to a home page that presents both Mayoral news
and up-to-date news releases from all District agencies. For the first
time, employees will have instant access to all the breaking news that
affects their jobs and their lives as residents of the District
metropolitan area-everything from health advisories from the Department
of Health to road work announcements from the Department of
Transportation to tips on summer fun from the Department of Parks and
Recreation.
Also available right from the homepage will be a brand-new video
training center. The portal will now provide video of virtually every
training class conducted in the District Government-from management
training required for MSS employees to Continuing Legal Education to
computer classes. Now employees will be able to complete training
requirements-and take all the elective job enrichment courses they
want-on their own schedules. No longer will they have to miss critical
classes because of meetings, illness, or vacation.
The home page will also link to a fast and multi-faceted search
capability. For example, employees will be able to search for any other
District official and get a handy information page complete with agency,
title, contact information, and even a picture of the individual and a
map to his or her office. Employees will also be able to search for
any address or point of interest in the District and get a picture of
the building along with a detailed map of its location.
Employees will also be able to use the new portal to obtain and provide
information about themselves, their agencies, and important issues
affecting the District Government. The portal offers a "DCpedia" that
is modeled on Wikipedia and uses the same technology. Like Wikipedia,
DCpedia is a free, open-content online encyclopedia created through the
collaborative effort of the user community-in this case, the more than
39,000 employees of the District Government. Any user of the new
Intranet can post information to DCpedia, and anyone can edit it. The
system contains an automatic check against misleading information-each
entry identifies the time, date, and individual submitting it.
Equally exciting is a new common platform for document review and
editing. With this new feature, employees in different units, agencies,
even buildings, will be able to collaborate on documents like contracts,
MOUs, legislation, regulations, press releases, and more, without the
need for long meetings or extended email chains.
The new home page will be a gateway to a wide variety of other
resources. It will connect directly to all agency Intranet websites and
to frequently used information sources like the District Personnel
Manual. The home page will also link to critical citywide applications
like HR, the PASS procurement system, the citywide email system, and
more.
"With our new Intranet portal, we're aiming to make work life in the
District richer, more efficient, and also more exciting," said District
of Columbia City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. "We're creating a
virtual community and an open market of ideas and resources to empower
employees so that they can deliver better informed and higher quality
service to our customers."
In building the new portal, OCTO used flexible, low-cost open-source
technology to make the portal functionally versatile and reduce
expenditures. The choice of open-source technology drove the total cost
of the portal down from an original estimate of $10 million to a final
total of only $500,000.
"The new Intranet is just one example of OCTO's ongoing efforts to
deploy the most cost-effective and innovative technologies to enhance
all areas of District operations," said District Chief Technology
Officer Vivek Kundra. "We are leveraging the successes of consumer
technology to create opportunities for collaboration and to impact
productivity District-wide."
To learn more about DC Government technology initiatives and resources,
visit www.octo.dc.gov.