A new Michigan State University class is bringing the Spartans out of their classroom and into the technology world of Oakland County.
Five students have adopted the county's eGovernment initiative as part of their course work in a semester-long information technology class. Oakland County hopes to eventually have about 5,000 county forms - everything from birth and death certificates to land deeds to facility rental requests - available to residents online in the coming years.
The county currently has about 750 government forms available on its Web site, and residents downloaded those documents 1.2 million times in 2003, according to Phil Bertolini, director of the county's information technology department.
"People fill these out on the computer, print it out and send it to us. We're going to change all that," said Jim Taylor, who is the county information technology liaison working with the MSU students. "We want a system where people can fill these out online, digitally sign them and digitally postmark them to meet all legal requirements without ever having to deal with a paper document."
Bertolini and Taylor estimate a complete menu of eForm options could save the county up to $900,000 annually by cutting the time needed for staff to process and file county documents.
"This is really important work for a customer who's looking into some really cutting-edge stuff," said Mike Cover, an MSU student from Troy who is heading up the Oakland County eForms team. "We're not just updating a Web site."
The Oakland County eForms team is one of six in professor Brian Pentland's class, which is designed to give students from all majors a specialization in information technology. Each team has been matched with a client to perform information technology-oriented work in exchange for real-world experience and class credit.
Representatives from 14 businesses, schools, nonprofits and governments pitched projects to the class, and students and Pentland chose the six projects from that pool.
"We started this program due to the perceived need that employers need people with IT skills, but not necessarily an IT major," Pentland said. "We narrowed our pool of clients to the projects that seem plausible and not geographically way out of line."
Three Oakland County organizations were matched with the students for various information technology projects. In addition to the Oakland County eForms team, another student team is working on Web site enhancements for Child Abuse and Neglect Council of Oakland County in Pontiac and another with Novi-based 3IS, a subscription Internet service company for the automotive electronics industry.
The remaining teams will work on the redesign of the MSU Museum of Vertebrate Natural History division Web site; a Flash tutorial development for Global Compliance Network, an East Lansing-based company that develops and licenses out Internet-based training; and on Web site enhancement for the Clinton Township-based National Council for Continuing Education and Training.
Both Oakland County and the Child Abuse Neglect Council learned of the program through radio advertisements that aired last spring. The council, which runs CARE House in Pontiac, runs a $1 million budget to provide education, intervention, treatment and advocacy to 3,500 abused children and families each year, according to Diane Bedenbaugh, director of development for the nonprofit.
"That doesn't leave a lot of money for technology. To have the service of the students is a tremendous advantage to us," she said. "It's wonderful to partner with a class to improve things for the community."
The council's Web site was originally designed by Walsh College students, but has some limitations, she said. The council would like to accept donations online and have interactive training online to educate individuals who are required by law to report suspected cases of child abuse, Bedenbaugh said.
"We just aren't able to meet the demand in this area," she said. "We value the fact that those people make reports, but we'd like to have a greater ability to assist in getting them done accurately and appropriately."
Cover, the MSU student from Troy, said that he and many of his classmates have had information technology-based internships and that many are eager for real-world experience. His group is researching companies that may be able to service Oakland County's needs for a generic eForm for a variety of county documents and will generate a preliminary vendor list of companies the county may one day do business with.
"To say, We did this for Oakland County and here's a reference from Oakland County, that's huge to students like us who are looking for jobs," Cover said.
Autor: Amy Lee
Quelle: The Detroit News, 08.10.2004
