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Comments on Initiative D: Identify barriers that make it difficult for the public to complete critical tasks online (3JRD)
We know that a big barrier to doing good work online is the PRA. Specifically, we can't even conduct a simple and voluntary email survey without 6 months of red tape. Nor can we legally place a "rate this page" feature without PRA approval. Could the Office of Citizen Services get some kind of blanket approval for generic and simple customer feedback mechanisms? That would help TREMENDOUSLY! (3KIB)
Nicholas Johnson (3KIC)
Another major barrier to completing tasks is that information the customer needs to complete a task may be stored in a variety of government data bases. Environmental permitting would be an example of this. In this area, needed information could be stored at the federal, state, or local level. Improving the ability of customers to access various government data bases, and for those data bases to communicate with each other, is a critial barrier in the environmental area. EPA's approach to data sharing (in cooperation with state agencies) can be found at: http://exchangenetwork.net/ (3L68)
Another barrier is lack of transparency - decision flow documents that document how a transaction is processed would help customers understand what kind of results they might expect when initiating a critical task request. A good example of this, again in the environmental area, can be found at: http://www.ora.wa.gov/schematics/default.asp (3L69)
David Tetta, EPA (3L6A)