Online information services for the German government's audiences

The Internet is used by a great variety of people who play different roles and who have different interests. On the one hand, private users have different physical connections to the Internet; and on the other hand, professionals use the Internet as a source of information for their job. This paper describes how the German government's Internet offer meets these different user requirements. The Web site offers German, English, French, and Spanish information about Germany, its political system, its country and people, its institution, and its economic system for the public in general. Employees of the German government and of the communities can access more detailed data about political events and laws, whereas journalists are dependent on news in the forms of press releases, topical incidents, and political dates. Schools, universities or research institutes need printed information material for educational purposes. There are several mainstream technologies put into service to fulfill the demands of each user group: The Web site as a whole, which is updated around the clock, webcasting for the dissemination of timecritical information, and online ordering for printed material. Increasing user support is the focal motivation point to expand the services step by step. User acceptance shows how successful the whole implementation has been in the user's point of view. The described services have been integrated under consideration of high security requirements by GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology - together with its cooperation partners. We achieved the results during a two-year project with the Press and Information Office of the German government. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.