1.3: Website Content
Ensure that website content is readily accessible, updated, accurate, and routinely improved. Other Information:
How does your Agency currently ensure that website content is readily accessible, updated, accurate, and routinely improved?
For nearly 20 years, the NRC has embraced the precepts of the .Gov Reform Initiative through our use of a single website as
our primary means of keeping the public and other agency stakeholders informed of and involved in our regulatory, licensing,
and oversight activities. This steadily expanding resource currently encompasses more than 40,000 pages of information on
a variety of mission-related activities, and we regularly incorporate more than 650 updates and additions each month. In accordance
with Management Directive 3.14, "U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Web Site," our subject matter experts (SMEs) regularly
review content under their purview. Our Web Content Services Group monitors, coordinates, and implements all site updates,
and periodically notifies the SMEs of their responsibility to ensure that our online content remains readily accessible, updated,
accurate, and relevant to our site visitors. We also periodically redesign our public website to implement current best practices
in web design. The most recent redesign, deployed in April 2011, features a modern look-and-feel, streamlined navigation,
and rich features and functionality to make it quicker and easier to find the information user want. Many of the upgrades
and changes reflect public input that the agency received through online surveys, interviews, and focus groups. In addition,
improved search capabilities allow site visitors to use a single search to easily retrieve information from the NRC's entire
public website, as well as more than 665,000 documents in the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Since
the redesign, the site's scores on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/open/evaluating-progress/site-satisfaction-survey-results.xls)
have continued to improve: * Content Satisfaction reached a new high of 83 in August. * Look-and-Feel reached a new high of
79 in August. * Online Transparency reached a new high of 78, and ForeSee Results ranked the NRC 11th out of 32 Federal agencies
in this key Open Government metric. * Overall Satisfaction reached a new high of 75. In addition, we continually implement
innovative technologies as part of an incremental improvement cycle to efficiently manage our web resources and ensure that
valuable content is available and readily accessible through our public website. In introducing these innovations, we adhere
to the agencywide web strategy set forth in the "NRC Information Technology/Information Management Strategic Plan," as well
as interim guidance developed to address the unique considerations associated with emerging technologies such as social media.
In 2011, the NRC has enhanced relationships with stakeholders by promoting a sense of community through social networking
technologies. The NRC implemented the use of a new public blog, Twitter, and a YouTube channel to offer even more ways to
interact with and inform the public and raise awareness about the agency and its mission. In fact, these new communications
channels have achieved greater levels of interest than originally anticipated. Since the NRC Blog debuted on January 31, 2011,
it has had more than 130,000 views and has proven especially useful in enabling quick public communications during and after
the events at the nuclear facilities in Fukushima, Japan, and during U.S. events this year: * On average, the blog has just
under 500 views per day; immediately after the event at Fukushima, views peaked at just over 5,700 in one day. * During the
week of August 22, 2011, blog posts provided information on earthquake response and hurricane preparation at nuclear power
plants. * Daily views of the blog peaked at more than 1,000 during the Missouri River flooding event. In August 2011, the
NRC began sending news and information via Twitter. Tweets announce new blog posts and press releases, speeches, reports,
public meeting notices, and other content posted on the NRC website. Other information, such as important notices in the Federal
Register, is also tweeted. Within 2 days of its introduction, the NRC had 400 followers, and many different organizations
and individuals were "retweeting" agency tweets, greatly expanding the reach of the agency. In September 2011, the NRC began
posting videos on YouTube. The agency's YouTube channel joins the blog and Twitter as another social media outlet the NRC
is using to enhance communication, collaboration, and information exchange in support of the agency mission. In addition,
in our ongoing effort to improve online content and enhance the public's experience, we've implemented the following recent
enhancements: * New subscription-based services and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to enable stakeholders to stay abreast
of the most current news * Expanded use of web-based virtual meeting technologies to enhance outreach and stakeholder involvement
in public meetings * Use of web conferencing technologies to expand collaboration within industry and government workgroups
* Enhanced Facility Information Finder for operating nuclear power plants Among our planned enhancements, we're currently
conducting a pilot to assess the value of using Quick Response (QR) codes to enable the public to quickly and easily access
NRC information and websites from their smartphones during public meetings or other events. QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes
that can be read or scanned by smartphones with a bar code reader application. These barcodes can be placed on publications,
marketing materials, posters, websites, or any medium that provides sufficient contrast to be scanned by the smartphone reader.
An individual can use a smartphone with a camera and reader to quickly access content such as a website (via a URL), contact
information, a text message, or a video (via a URL).
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