NCJ Number
222964
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 35 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2008 Pages: 32,34,36,38
Date Published
April 2008
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article presents the history and lessons learned from the Sheriff's Office of Contra Costa County's (California) creation of an intranet, which is a Web site inside a department's firewall that allows digital transmissions within the department that are not available to the public.
Abstract
In May 2007, Sheriff Warren Rupf asked Undersheriff George Lawrence to conduct a departmental communications survey, because e-mail and FAX were proving to be ineffective due to staff rotations and work site changes. The core issues in the survey were how departmental personnel communicated with one another and how communication could be better. Survey findings led to the sheriff's endorsement of a departmental intranet. A Technical Advisory Committee was established to provide constructive input into the intranet's layout, functionality, and content. The first task was to develop a project plan and define the project's scope. Steps in the project scope were to create an intranet development and deployment strategy with existing resources; to create a one-stop shop where employees could access information; to define a project timeline and task list; to identify effective content layout; to research existing intranets used in law enforcement; to develop a plan for editing and adding content; to develop a plan for ongoing server maintenance and support; to develop an editor training plan; and to research and plan for risk management. In describing the implementation of these steps, aspects of the intranet's technology and software are described. The project stayed within its budget and on its timetable. The article offers advice based on lessons learned from this intranet project. They pertain to gaining support from personnel, consolidation of forms and manuals, the creation of all forms with Acrobat PDF, design of the main menu, pages, image size, spell check, and limiting input after plan implementation is underway.