April 21, 2010
Science and Technology Committee Wins Platinum Mouse Award for Best Committee Website in the 111th Congress
(Washington, DC) – Today, the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) awarded the House Committee on Science and Technology the Platinum Mouse Award for designing and maintaining the best committee website in Congress.
“In this day and age of technology and digital communications, the Internet has become the first place people search for information. It is vital that Congressional offices and committees use their websites as a tool to regularly communicate with the public,” Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN). “Maintaining an up-to-date, user-friendly website is a top priority for the Committee.”
CMF is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to promoting a more effective Congress. CMF grades Congressional websites on how well they incorporate five core principles for effective websites: audience, content, usability, interactivity, and innovation. The top websites are awarded the Mouse Awards: Platinum (best of category), Gold (A+), Silver (A), and Bronze (A-). This is the first year CMF has awarded the Platinum Mouse Award: an award given to the best Committee, House, Senate, and leadership website.
CMF analyzed all 620 congressional websites, including those of all Senate and House Members, committees (both majority and minority sites), and official leadership websites. The Committee’s website (https://science.house.gov) is the number one website in the Committee Category. Previously, the Committee received the CMF’s highest honor, the Golden Mouse Award, for recognition of website excellence in 2006 and 2007.
“One of the key reasons for the awards is to highlight best practices so offices can improve their sites by learning from those already excelling in online communications. Websites like the House Science and Technology Committee website serve as a prime example that we hope other congressional offices will follow,” said Beverly Bell, CMF’s Executive Director. “The House Science and Technology Committee’s website shows that the Committee understands how to meet the needs of its various audiences. The Congressional Management Foundation congratulates the House Science and Technology Committee for having the best committee website on Capitol Hill, and we are pleased to present the Committee and Chairman Bart Gordon with the 111th Congress Platinum Mouse Award.”
“Our Committee recognizes the importance of Congressional websites and the service they provide to the people we serve,” added Gordon. “Over the past three and a half years, we have constantly incorporated new technologies and best practices to enhance the website, however, I think the best feature of our website is the most boring: consistency. People need to know what materials they can expect to find, and where, for the website to be useful.”
About the 111th Congress Gold Mouse Awards:
The 111th Congress Gold Mouse Awards are part of CMF’s Partnership For A More Perfect Union, which seeks to improve the quality of communication between Members and their constituents. For this project CMF partnered with researchers from the Harvard Kennedy School, Northeastern University, University of California–Riverside, and the Ohio State University to study how Members of Congress can use the Internet to improve communications with their constituents and to promote greater participation in the legislative process.
The CMF Gold Mouse Awards started in 2002 as an annual award; previously, Mouse Awards have been given in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007. CMF will now present awards once per Congress; so this year’s award is for the 111th Congress (2009 and 2010).
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