Taking the fast lane on the information highway.

With more and more people traveling the Information Superhighway, your agency may have increased access to its community through electronic communications. The same technology and capabilities apply to non-profit associations who represent educators as well as practicing professionals who work within local government departments, including city management, finance, municipal service, and parks and recreation. They also apply to the local government agencies which employ professionals in these areas.

You, your agency, your board members, regular members, professional associates, and any other interested parties may use this method to communicate with one another in a commonly and readily accessible electronic environment--a World-Wide-Web (WWW) site.

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a collection of fileserver computers interconnected world wide by a series of high-speed telephone links utilizing standard computer communications protocols to create a "world-wide-web" of readily available information to individuals at their computer workstations. The Internet began 30 years ago with 3,000 users accessing text-based workstations on less than 100 fileservers and has grown exponentially to an estimated 30 million users on personal computers viewing more than four million web sites on 300,000 fileservers. Today, the Internet has become the defacto information and communications backbone for the nation and the world. President Bill Clinton has referred to it as the Information Superhighway. Funding for these 300,000 fileservers and their interconnection is paid for by government, the military, universities, and commercial organizations. People who access the Internet to view and gather information do not directly pay for the fileservers or their phone links.

From its inception and by definition, the Internet is freely accessible and its information is usually free to obtain, much like the nation's interstate highway system. However, just as the interstate system sometimes requires payment of tolls and other use taxes, access to the Internet may carry a fee. Just as you need a vehicle to travel the interstate, you will need a computer, telephone modem communications device, a phone line, and an Internet access provider to get onto the Internet. If you find something of interest on the Internet, you may also be charged a fee to get the complete version of the described product or service.

The most common access point for end-users would be an access provider: America On-Line, CompuServe, Delphi, Prodigy or any regional or Internet-specific providers. These services charge a variety of monthly fees and on-line hourly charges. The fees paid to the Internet-Access Provider defray the cost of access phone numbers, Internet access fileservers, their high-speed access phone lines to the Internet, and a host of other expenses. The providers still make a sizeable profit.

Information initially becomes available to you on "the Net" in the form of text or graphical documents called "home pages." More detailed information is available by selecting options for sub-documents, choosing files to be transferred, interchanging of electronic mail, and participating in the sharing of ideas via public forums called Usenets. Various Internet sites include indexing programs that search for user-defined information via keywords.

Most on-line services and files are provided free on the Internet. However, to access the Internet most effectively, you will need computer software designed to work with the Net. A variety of computer applications are available to assist the user in navigating the Net. These include graphical web browsers such as NetScape Navigator or Spry Mosaic, text-based Gopher, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and others. Each Internet Service Provider typically makes these software tools available as part of their access package for the user to load onto their computer.

In the past, the Internet was primarily accessed by those in federal and state government, academia, and those with direct access to Internet fileservers. The general public typically accessed electronic information via private, independent bulletin board services such as CompuServe or agency/company owned Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) on their own computers and phone lines. With the President's mandate, even the BBSes have joined the Internet bandwagon to provide Net access to the general public.

The fragmented BBS information sources are rapidly being replaced or augmented by the Internet as the universal information soured of the future. Agencies who previously sought their own BBS or a forum on one of the major on-line service providers were limiting themselves to access by members or general public who had the right computer, software, phone number, and provider account with related usage charges.

Today, you can obtain the required computer software--and a free trial period including Internet access--on diskette from virtually all major service providers. Almost all of the major providers include software, Internet access, an e-mail address, and non-Internet services as part of their package. Many parks and recreation agencies and their members already have at least one PC and modem, and may already be on-line.

Project History

Members of the International City Managers Association (ICMA), the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), Illinois Park and Recreation Association (IPRA), as well as local municipalities and recreation and park agencies have been meeting over many years to discuss options for providing electronic communications with their public. Group FAXing has provided primitive one-way information dissemination. BBSes on agency-owned computers have met with limited success in only a few cases. Some agencies have funded forum space through commercial providers such as CompuServe, America On-Line, and Delphi. However, these commercial options have resulted in dismal participation, averaging less than 5% of potential member users, often at high cost to both the agency and user.

Alternatives were discussed and, as a joint effort, members of these associations' Information Resources Committees researched available commercial Internet provider options and found that they ranged in annual cost from $10,000 to $50,000 per agency for startup with typical annual support costs of $10,000 per year and more. These costs were considered prohibitive.

GFOA obtained sponsorship from FinanceNet and recently began prototyping an Internet World-Wide-Web (WWW) page on FinanceNet's WebServer, placing their information under FinanceNet's home page. This option exists independently for any agency, if they can find a sponsoring web server. A non-commercial provider option was suggested by the Committee and researched as a potential alternative.

NRPA and IPRA Information Resources Committee members attended a demonstration and meeting at the University of Illinois, the home of the Internet. U of I has been part of the Net since its formation. The U of I is on the Internet "backbone"--a fiber optic link with other primary Internet sites--and is where many of the original software and communications developers started and still practice. For local agencies, it is an example of the best logical place to get on the Net.

The Proposal

The University of Illinois proposed to provide a WWW page to interested agencies on a WebServer (computer) connected to the Internet through the U of I backbone at a shared cost of $1000 per year for 10 megabytes of data storage (enough for one or more agencies). This Web Server will be purchased, installed, maintained, and upgraded by the U of I for this and related projects.

Interested U of I students will be hired by the University to create and maintain Web pages as interns while earning money towards tuition and expenses. Participating agencies will submit information to the interns for Internet formatting in HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The interns will submit the pages to the WebMaster for updating the WebServer. The full Internet resources of the U of I will be available to the WebMaster, the interning students and, thereby, the agencies who participate.

If a standard format can be determined, as illustrated in the examples on page 32, each participating agency might use the same format and significantly reduce the shared cost of developing and maintaining their Home Page. Special requests for forms, surveys and other features would be billed directly to the requesting agency for an additional fee for the time needed by the student interns. Periodic information updates from each agency would be uploaded as word processing files to U of I mailboxes for formatting posting on the agency's web page by the interns. Forty hours of this type of support is offered for a $1000 annual retainer.

One suggested hierarchical approach to organizing these web pages is to define a Home Page for the sponsoring national organization, i.e. NRPA, with state organizations at the next level, i.e. IPRA, and local agencies at the next level, i.e. the park districts or city recreation departments. At present, prototype pages exist for NRPA, IPRA, and the local Illinois Park District of Highland Park. You may access these web sites at :

http://www.als.uiuc.edu/nrpa/ http://www.als.uiuc.edu/ipra/ http://www.als.uiuc.edu/pdhp/

Each organization could solicit sponsorship funding from their usual contributors and advertisers. These contributors could be acknowledged on each web page by their logo and company name. The user who highlights the sponsor's logo would be transferred to the sponsor's web page for related information. This type of sponsorship with a web page could be priced at $500 or more per sponsor per year, with multiple sponsors defraying all or part of an agency's Internet web site maintenance costs.

At present, nearly 50% of private homes and more than 90% of agencies have at least one personal computer. Approximately 25% have access to a modem, the cost of which is about $100 for 14,400 baud and $200 for the faster 28,800 baud speeds which are best for Internet access. America On-Line, CompuServe, and Prodigy provide free trial memberships, Internet access, and software to load on these computers. Agencies who participate in this project could secure sufficient diskette copies from these providers to include in their publication distributions at no charge to their members, or could simply provide the toll-free number for these services alongside the agency's web site locator address.

The agency's web-site could be advertised through demonstrations at conference general and educational sessions, general mailings, promotional brochures, agency magazines and demonstration kiosks at the facilities. On the Web, other related web sites advertise one another, leading to interested parties "surfing the web" to find your site and its usefulness to them.

Benefits of an Agency Internet Site

Interested agency members and the general public would be able to access your Internet site to find out more about your agency. Such information as organization mission, profiles of the elected board, available services, policies, publications, and other information generally available only through a variety of other hard copy media such as mailings or brochures is also available on line. In addition, on-line forms might be available to take new applicant information or requests for additional information, including orders for publications and services which are only available for a fee. Pictures, graphics and sounds can be included to entertain, educate and inform.

Agency and member electronic mailboxes provided by your Internet access provider would permit agency, members and other members of the public to exchange private correspondence to specific people or generally to the organization. Such e-mail might be initiated by pointing and clicking on an e-mail graphic displayed on the web page or through an extensive on-line directory of personnel or departments. These mailboxes would also permit transfer of private files including documents and orders for publications, merchandise, registrations or new memberships.

Separate Usenet sites could be set up for general forum discussions with suggested titles such as Local Government, Government Finance, Recreation, Parks, and others. These general forums would allow agencies, members and the general public to communicate via on-going public discussions and sharing of ideas. By using general Usenet sites instead of one per web page, a larger number of participants and more useful sharing of information is anticipated than if each individual organization attempted to attract interest and participation exclusively from their own members.

With the advent of secured transaction processing on the Internet this summer, you might take registrations, memberships, and sell publications or products directly to the public. The Information Superhighway is still under construction, but now is the time to prepare your organization to get on and communicate with your public electronically!

RELATED ARTICLE: NRPAGETS ON-LINE

It is hard to open a newspaper or magazine these days without seeing some mention of the Internet. The Internet is an effective means of accessing information pertinent to the parks and recreation field. With over four million web sites currently in existence, the Internet has become the backbone of information exchange across the world. This new electronic scope offers great opportunity and benefits for park and recreation professionals and their organizations.

For instance, the Internet allows you to observe programs offered by other organizations and stay current with information and services similar to yours. By having an Internet presence, you can attract new members or customers to your organization, as well as stay in close contact with your existing clientele. It allows you to publish data that may be constantly changing, such as news information, services and specific programming schedules.

The National Recreation and Park Association's web site address is:

htip://www.ntpa.org/nrpa.

It has been up and running since this past fall, with a significant number of "hits," or visitors to the site. This Home Page allows NRPA not only to market its own mission and objectives, but to provide an array of information and connections related to the park and recreation field.

The NRPA web site provides access to health and fitness, therapeutic recreation, legislative, and playground safety issues, as well as information about NRPA membership, regional offices, and programs.

Selected articles from Parks and Recreation magazine are posted monthly, as well as Dateline articles, an on-line Buyer's Guide,the NRPA training calendar, and NRPA publications information.

But perhaps one of the most useful aspects that the NRPA Home Page provides is a list of related web sites which links the user to other organization or agency Home Pages. Currently, there are over 34 related web sites, including links to state associations, university park and recreation departments, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and other related fields. And with more and more organizations using the Internet as a major source of information sharing, the number of related links continues to rise. These sites then have links to others, and so on. This advertising of web sites between one another allows users to "surf the net," quickly gathering relevant information.

Now is the time for your organization to start gaining Internet access, not only to promote your own organization, but to obtain valuable information from other sources as well. The Internet truly is the Information Superhighway, and your organization cannot afford to be left behind.

NRPA is compiling a list of our members' e-mail addresses and/or web sites. Please send you name, title and e-mail address and/or web site address to [e-mail].