Sandra Charvat Burke
Community Vitality Center
Iowa State University
Dept. of Economics
479 Heady Hall
Ames, IA 50011
(515) 294-9307, (515) 294-3838 fax

Governments are now developing internet capabilities to allow residents to find information, access records and conduct government business on the internet. This presentation will report research and observations on the issues involved, development process, and actual implementation of an internet site to access land and real estate records in Iowa. In addition to the usual issues surrounding costs and how to finance a records access system, many other concerns were voiced about privacy, security, accuracy, hardware and software purchase and maintenance, user needs, legal responsibility for records, linkage to other government offices and GIS systems, threats to private sector entities, and conflicts among various stakeholders.

Even with the issues and concerns, interest in online access to real estate records remained high and the Iowa Legislature, in 2003, authorized the collection of a $5 document fee to fund the development of an online access system. This presentation will include a discussion of how a taskforce proceeded to determine what the access system should do, select a vendor, and oversee the design and implementation of the system. Many of the issues raised in Iowa and much of the development process will be relevant to governments and communities in other states as they explore and implement online access to various types of records.

PowerPoint Presentation (PDF format, 464 kb)