Just as technology in general advances at lightning speed—with some new device, software, mobile or web application entering the market every month—court technology in Indiana reaches new milestones on a weekly basis. For example, since the last issue of the Court Times was published:
- The Odyssey CMS went live in Tipton Circuit Court and Center Township Small Claims Court (Marion County)
- 28 law enforcement departments are now using our e-Citation system.
- 12 more counties are getting training to use the Protection Order Registry, already in place in 64 counties.
- JTAC began work on a public component of Marriage License e-file to allow applicants to fill out parts of the form online before going to the courthouse.
Because we want to report to our stakeholders on the day-to-day events at JTAC, we have published a blog to serve as an online diary of developments that coalesce toward the Supreme Court’s broader vision for court technology throughout the state.
Every new case or protection order filed, every traffic ticket processed end-to-end through JTAC’s e-citation and case management systems, every new user trained, and every grant dollar awarded for new and existing projects is another key achievement toward JTAC’s mission.
What is a blog?
The term “blog” is short for “weblog,” and is a type of website publishing technology used for content that is posted in a chronological order. Blog technology is therefore ideal for websites focusing on news and current events, because the most recent information is always posted at the top.
One of the major benefits of using a blog to communicate with our stakeholders—who include judicial officers, staff in the trial courts and clerk’s offices, attorneys, members of the public and the press—is that the technology enables website visitors to easily subscribe to receive updates by email or, for our technophile users, by RSS (really simple syndication).
What is posted on the JTAC Blog?
The primary content on the new Bits & Bytes Blog will be short progress reports categorized by project (e.g., Odyssey CMS, Protection Order Registry, e-Citations, etc.). This content will be supplemented by Frequently Asked Questions about Odyssey, statistics about our various projects, press releases and other news relating to JTAC or court technology in general, event photographs, and even system alerts—notices about outages, issues, or new features for any of our applications.
How can I use the blog?
To view the blog, go to courts.IN.gov/jtac/blog.
You can read the blog just like any other web page, or you can subscribe to receive articles in your email. To subscribe by email, click the “Subscribe” link found at the top of any page on the blog. There, you can choose to subscribe to all updates from JTAC, or you can subscribe to one or more individual categories.