Website Offers Community for Local Initiatives

Vol. 36, Number 3—March 2004

Website Offers Community
for Local Initiatives

A new website for courts developing information technology applications pays fond homage to a federal judge who saw the incredible potential in IT for the federal courts.

While chair from 2000 to 2003 of the Judicial Conference Committee on Information Technology, the late Judge Edwin L. Nelson (N.D. Ala.) championed the idea of an on-line central source of information where court personnel could find not only the software applications they need, but also the documentation and source codes, access to experts on applications, and answers to technical questions. Ed's Place, named in honor of Nelson, is the fulfillment of that idea. Accessible to all federal courts on the Judiciary's intranet, it is a website that now supports a virtual community of programmers and developers.

"Local courts are able to pick and choose the applications they want from the website and get solutions faster and cheaper than if they had to develop them alone or wait for a national program," said IT Committee chair, Judge James Robertson (D.D.C.). "We expect the cream of locally developed Judiciary applications to rise to the top on this website, to the benefit of the whole Judiciary."

The website is sponsored by the Committee on Information Technology. IT representatives from the Fifth Circuit, along with technical experts and IT personnel from several district and bankruptcy courts, and the Administrative Office collaborated to pull the site together. The AO provided the resources, including a server, and already-licensed applications to support the site.

Courts and their IT programmers are encouraged to post on the website information about local applications they have developed and retrieve programs they need. Users also are able to post their reviews of applications, along with any advice, problems they experienced, or suggestions for improvements.

The site's creators have designed features that turn a static website into a virtual community. The home page screen lists several interactive options. The Discussion link functions as a forum, a place to talk with people throughout the Judiciary about business issues, to contribute ideas, and also to identify potential candidates for software shareware solutions. The Technical Expertise link connects users with self-identified experts. For example, a visitor could search for and find an expert in JAVA programming in one of the Judiciary's court units. Then there are links to related websites and an index for easy searching. Eventually, the site will allow instant messaging and web conferencing.

Nelson once said that "technological advances continue, in many respects, to come faster than we can assimilate. We must make energetic but sound efforts to capitalize on developments in IT and use them to their fullest advantage." Ed's Place is doing just that.