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Minnesota Gives a Glimpse of New Web Portal

State residents and Web surfers able to preview next-generation North Star Web site.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The state's Department of Administration announced last week that residents got their first chance to try out the new-look North Star, the state's Internet portal.

Officials said the Minnesota Office of Technology is introducing the pilot site to highlight the new portal, which features an expanded list of services and functionality.

"We have been working hard on the new North Star," said David Fisher, commissioner of administration and Minnesota's CIO. "Now we have a model to display Minnesota's commitment to giving its citizens more convenient, easy, fast and cost-effective access to government information and services."

Visitors will find new features, including a state calendar, polls, surveys and a powerful search engine. Officials said that when the full site debuts later this year, a "My Minnesota" feature will allow each visitor to register and customize the North Star homepage, bringing the most useful information to the front for every visit.

Once registered, a user can subscribe to receive front-page notification when content of interest changes, providing interactive, up-to-date information for frequent-users of state information.

North Star's design and functionality were created by the Office of Technology's North Star staff and by Round Arch (Deloitte Consulting) designers, with input from the State web masters group. The site utilizes BroadVision software for presentation and content management.

The Minnesota Office of Technology in the Department of Administration is responsible for overseeing the creation and build-out of the portal. The demonstration project is intended to display the portal's expanded capabilities for delivering electronic government services to citizens and state agencies.

"Priority number one is making North Star useful to the citizen, linking them to the existing information and services offered by every agency of state government in ways we never could before," said North Star project manager James Kauth. "We expect the transition to be seamless, but people should be able to see right away that information is much easier to find."

Minnesota Department of Administration