Rethink Online: a new approach for government use of and investment in online channels

Office of the Government CIO, Department of Internal Affairs, July 2011

Contents

• Executive summary
• Introduction
• A new approach for government online
• Appendix A: Key roles
• Appendix B: Some of government’s customers

Defining online channels

Throughout Rethink Online, the term ‘online channels’ has been used as shorthand to describe the many individual locations where government information and services are provided to customers using Internet technologies.

This includes websites; online feeds and web services (such as RSS and APIs); mobile technologies (such as SMS, mobile websites and applications); and government use of third party websites and social media (such as YouTube and Twitter).

For the purpose of this document the term online channels excludes non customer-facing enablers such as data exchange between agencies and back-end service infrastructure. It also excludes business systems used within agencies (such as email, remote desktop access and VOIP).