IN THIS ISSUE:

• Government Refreshes e-Accessibility Policy
• Legal Advice Sought Over Council Filming Arrest
• ‘Demographic Bias’ in E-Democracy Websites
• Unpredictable Media: Twitter use by rioters
• Good Writing: Join our web survey
• School Prize: pupil IT videos win award
• Helping Smaller ICT Suppliers: The EGB Masterclass

NEWS: UK Government Refreshes e-Accessibility Policy

A range of new UK government initiatives relating to access to technology by disabled people, including a new online forum to discuss key issues with government, was announced at last week's e-Access '11 conference....

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NEWS: Legal Advice Sought Over Council Filming Arrest.

A woman who was arrested last month for filming a public council meeting in Wales on her mobile phone is awaiting legal advice on whether she can take action against the authority...

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NEWS: ‘Demographic Bias’ Detected in E-Democracy Websites Demographic bias towards people with higher incomes and higher educational attainment has been found by independent research into usage of two of the UK's leading ‘e-democracy’ web services have found, it was revealed last month... Read full story here, ‘Demographic Bias’ Detected... Back to index

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NEWS IN BRIEF:

Unpredictable Media: The police cannot predict the result of the use of social media by violent protestors or rioters, a Leicester University academic has said. Dr Paul Reilly, a lecturer in media and communication, is due to present a paper to a conference at the university next week examining the use of Twitter and YouTube by rioters and protestors against the opening of a Tesco shop in Stokes Croft, Bristol in April. Rumours were spread of police brutality during the eviction of squatters. “The police can't pre-empt this kind of disorder, especially if Twitter is used. They can't predict where the posts will come from and how people will respond,” Dr Reilly said. ‘New Communications and Demonstrations’ is on 13 July:

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Good Writing: An online survey on the quality of web content written by public sector bodies is being run by E-Government Bulletin in partnership with consultancy Writing for the Web. Among other things, the survey aims to find out if government cuts are affecting the web writing training that public authorities give to staff. Early results will feed into a workshop at next week's Building Perfect Council Websites event, ‘Taking your content to the next level’, with final results published in a future issue. Please take part today at:

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School Prize: St. Julian's Primary School in Newport, Wales has won overall first prize worth more than £5,000 in this year's ‘Make IT Happy 2011’ awards, in which UK schools were challenged to show how they have used technology to connect schoolchildren with others in their community. Pupils there developed a series of short "how to" videos explaining how to solve common IT problems. The videos have been used both within the school and by other groups in the local community including an old people's home. Make IT Happy is organised by the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee (PITCOM) in partnership with e-skills UK, the sector skills council for business and information technology:

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Helping Smaller ICT Suppliers:The EGB Masterclass The government’s new ICT strategy states an aim to move away from ‘big bang’ solutions from the same few major suppliers to greater use of more innovative, flexible smaller suppliers. But will it really happen? James Bird (pictured), chief executive officer of IT provider Stone, assesses the prospects in the latest in our E-Government Bulletin Masterclass series..... Read full story here, Helping Smaller ICT Suppliers... Back to index