UW-Madison wins digital government award

UW–Madison has received the 2001 Digital Government Award for higher education for its My UW–Madison Web portal.

The Digital Government Awards, presented by Accenture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recognize the most innovative, effective and accessible Web-based solutions for streamlining the business of government.

The My UW–Madison portal aggregates information from hundreds of Web sites into a secure, personalized portal. Students, faculty and staff can use the portal for essential tasks such as gaining access to course materials and class schedules, reading and sending electronic mail, checking financial aid, and scheduling meetings and events with an interactive calendar.

UW–Madison is a leader in the emerging field of full-service portals for higher education. A Gartner Group survey indicates that only about 5 percent of universities now have campus portals.

The My UW–Madison portal provides useful features:

• Electronic mail is accessible through the Web. Mail is stored on campus servers, and students can read it from anywhere in the world using an Internet-connected computer.
• Calendaring and scheduling is accessible to the entire campus community.
• Privacy is preserved. With so much information in electronic form, users must be properly identified and able to see only the information for which they are authorized. The portal is more secure than the paper-based processes on which the campus has long relied.
• Users can customize the look and feel of the portal. They can specify what content will be shown on their portal pages and can change the display to suit their own preferences.

“The Digital Government Award reflects the outstanding value that My UW–Madison has brought to the experience of our student body as well as the benefits it provides to our faculty, staff and the university as a whole,” says Dirk Herr-Hoyman, Division of Information Technology project manager. “We were able to integrate the portal with the university’s diverse technical environment, flexibly deliver different types of Web services and empower our end users to personalize the portal to suit their needs.”

My UW–Madison was launched June 18 after several years of development and testing. Available now to incoming freshmen and transfer students, My UW–Madison will be rolled out for all students in late August and to faculty and staff later this fall.

To see a preview of My UW–Madison, visit: http://my.wisc.edu. Under Guest Accounts, click on Annie Student.

The Digital Government Awards were presented July 12 at the E-Gov Conference held in Washington, D.C. The awards recognize best practices in digital government and higher education.

About 100 nominations were considered for awards in five categories. Digital Government Award criteria included ease of navigation, savings and efficiencies realized by the organization, user empowerment, interactivity, and customization that meets individual needs and preferences.

To participate in the awards program, government organizations, public corporations, and higher education institutions in the United States submitted nominations for existing, Web-enabled, digital solutions or services. Nominations were viewed and judged online by a panel of leaders in academia, government and other organizations.