A study the university released on Monday ranked San Antonio's "e-government" portal 12th among the country's 70 largest metropolitan areas, 45 places better than what the Web site earned in the school's inaugural study last year. Only Cleveland's Web site, which jumped by 49 places, and Dallas' Web site, which improved by 47 places, made greater strides than San Antonio's, researchers said.
Dallas had the top-ranked Web site of any Texas city at seventh, and Houston finished three positions better than San Antonio. Austin's Web site at 28 and El Paso's site at 58 trailed San Antonio.
Minneapolis' Web site secured the top ranking this year after finishing 11 last year.
Darrell West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown that conducted the study, said the San Antonio site did "very well" when researches evaluated the amount of city business that could be performed online.
He also said San Antonio took privacy and security concerns seriously and did more than many cities to see that users with disabilities have access to online information.
Jim Campbell, the city's external relations director, said the Web site was thoroughly redesigned about a year ago in response to directions from City Manager Terry Brechtel to improve both internal and external communications.
Campbell and Gary Moeller, director of the city's information services, were pleased by the Brown study.
West said it was surprising, however, that so little online information was out in Spanish.
Campbell said costs have as yet kept the city from putting more Spanish language information on the site.
The site's address is www.sanantonio.gov.
Quelle: My San Antonio
