Press Release

Oakland County & Michigan State University eGovernment Partnership a Huge Success

Pontiac, Michigan, December 20, 2004 -- Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announced today the successful completion of an eGovernment project involving Oakland County's Department of Information Technology and a group of Michigan State University students. 

As part of their coursework at MSU's Broad College of Business, the students worked alongside members of Oakland County's eGovernment team to research the project requirements for eForms, an Internet-based digital postmark and signature application.  eForms was one of six projects selected by MSU students from a pool of 14 proposals submitted by businesses, schools and non-profit organizations.

"I'm very happy that Oakland County was able to participate in this program," said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.  "The students had a chance to contribute to the planning of a real-world technology solution for the residents of Oakland County, and I'm pleased with the outcome of their hard work.  This was an all-around success."

"This project was a great fit for our new Information Technology Management program.  I hope our students will have more opportunities like this when we do the course again next fall," said Brian Pentland, Professor of Accounting and Information Systems at the Broad College of Business, Michigan State University.

The students, who are all seniors completing their specialization in Information Technology Management, functioned as a team of consultants working with Oakland County to research the feasibility of the eForms project. 

The unique hands-on learning experience called for the students to pass an unusual "final exam" they presented the eForms scope of work and project requirements to a group of prospective vendors who will bid on the software development and implementation of eForms for Oakland County.

"We were really impressed with the student's professionalism in presenting their work at our eForms vendor session," said Phil Bertolini, Oakland County Director of Information Technology.  "Programs like this one really take classroom experience to the next level, and provide students with opportunities to contribute to real projects in a very real way."

The eForms project is the County's latest step towards a paperless government.  eForms will allow Oakland County residents to fill out and submit forms with a digital postmark and signature via the Internet.  This simplifies the often cumbersome process of completing printed forms and mailing copies back to the County.

Oakland County estimates that citizens will use the eForms system to submit up to 600,000 forms annually.  This represents enormous time savings for those doing business with Oakland County, and is expected to shorten the waiting time for those in need of government certification, permits or registration information.  Once it is implemented, eForms will join a host of online services already offered by Oakland County via its Web site at http://www.oakgov.com/online_services/. 

Find more information about the Oakland County eGovernment Initiative at http://www.oakgov.com/egov/.

Find out more about Oakland County online resources at http://www.oakgov.com.

For media inquiries only, please contact Bob Dustman, Oakland County Media and Communications Officer, at 248-858-1048.