Australian Government Department of Transport and Regional Services: Home
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Transport Regional Development Territories of Australia Local Government The Department

Functionality Information

This page is designed to assist you in navigating the Department of Transport and Regional Services Website.

The Department of Transport and Regional Services Web site is predominantly text-based and optimized for viewing at 800 x 600 resolution with at least 256 colours (every effort is made to ensure legibility at 640 x 480 resolution).

A frames-compatible browser is required for some websites hosted by the Department and some areas use Java applets and JavaScript.

 

Home Page


From the Department's homepage you can either use the structured links through our site, or you can use the index or search engine to assist in locating information. The information of the Department is arranged in broad subject areas, with lists of Related Sites on the left hand of all subject and information pages.   A link to the Latest Information can be found on the home page.

Contact details for the Department are provided through the Government Online Directory, and also on our Contact Us page on top and bottom navigation on each web page.

Browse Area Quick Search Quick Links Features Important Links Legal Statements Navigation Bar Browse Area Home Page Help Feedback Contact Us Search Index Page

Quick Search

Each page of the DOTARS site has a quick search tool enabling you to search on keywords from anywhere on the site. This will take you to the Search screen (with the search criteria specified for a Keyword search on the entered words), and the results for that search will be displayed. You can now use the search page as you wish – refining or widening the search or selecting an item of the Search Results.

Quick Links

This list allows you to quickly navigate to the most commonly accessed sites. As you move around the DOTARS site the list changes to provide Quick Links appropriate to the collection you are currently in.

Legal Statements

These links will take you to the privacy, copyright, and other legal statements relevant to the site.

Important Links

This collection of links will allow you to quickly access selected Federal Government sites of interest.

Features

This area contains links to current features of the DOTARS site. This may include the Annual Report, major news issues relevant to the Department, and other significant items of interest.

Browse Area

The Browse Area allows you to browse through the site by dividing it into five collections of related information. It provides a home page for the selected collection with links to news items, programmes, grants, services and so forth, as appropriate for that area.

Please note that the screen images show a tab for each of the four facets and a fifth tab for “The Department”. This is a link to the home page for Departmental content such as budget statements, annual reports, and organisation charts.

As you select links a content list of Search Results is displayed. You may select a link from the search results at any time to display the relevant page.

Navigation Bar

This provides direct links to some of the most commonly used pages on the site: the Home Page, the Index Page, a Help screen, Feedback forum, Contact Us information, and the main Search screen.

Index Page

This screen allows you to select an item from the DOTARS subject list and display a list of all content relating to that subject. Alternative terms are also shown and may be selected. These are then treated as though the original term had been selected.

The selection of an item from the subject list is aided by allowing you to select a character (A to Z) and display those subject list entries that begin with that character. It is also possible to display entries that begin with a digit or other non-letter character.

Only items in the subject list that have content are displayed. This is to avoid displaying an item for selection and getting zero results.

Help

The Help page provides a selection of useful information for navigating around the web site, a brief overview of pages of interest, and any issues relating to file formats or tools you may need to access information on the site.

Feedback

The Feedback screen allows you to send appropriate feedback to the area responsible for maintaining and updating the website, and is to be used for website related issues only.

Contact Us

This provides contact details for the public to use when communicating with the Department.

Search

The search screen is directly accessible from all DOTARS site screens. It allows you to specify a range of search criteria and return Search Results meeting the Search Criteria.

Search Criteria

Fields are as follows:

Search For The word or words to be searched for with a wild card character, *, accepted
Select a Search Method

Select one of the four methods as follows:

Search Within

Select one of the main facets or the whole site:

Return pages updated in the

Selection of:

The date used is the last modified date unless that is null, in which case the date created is used.

Return results where my terms occur

Enables selection of Metadata element as follows:

  • Title

Note: Document Type is included to allow a search such as show me all News Items within the past seven days.

The text search results are returned sorted by the date and time each item was created or last modified.

Search Results

In many cases you will not explicitly carry out a search, rather the search is performed as the result of a selection you make, such as clicking on a link in the Browse Area. When selecting an item from the search results the relevant page will be displayed.

The search results list displays items within all the DOTARS web sites, not just the main DOTARS web site. This includes content within the ATSB, BTRE and other web sites. It displays the Title, Description and last modification date of the item. Important pages will be displayed at the top of the list, and indicated with the term Key Page in brackets.

The list is generally sorted in date order from most recent to the oldest. The list is numbered and broken up into groups of results (default 10 items per group) with previous and next links as appropriate.

You can adjust the number of items displayed in result groups through a widget located with the previous and next page links. Options available are 10, 20, 50 200, or all results.

If the page displayed is on the main DOTARS web site (www.dotars.gov.au) it will open in the current browser window, otherwise a new browser window is created. This difference in behaviour is due to the main DOTARS site screens visually belonging to the same site whereas screens on the other sites do not.

 

Other Areas of Interest

Department

From the Department page on our Web site you can find all you need to know about us - the Commonwealth Department of Transport and Regional Services.  You will find information relating to the structure of the department, including the function, role and contact information for specific program areas in the department. We have online copies of our Annual Reports, Certified Agreement, Corporate Plan and Service Charter.  You can also check out the latest job vacancies and read about our Graduate Program.

Media Centre

The Department's Media Centre provides a range of information including media releases and speeches. 

Ministers

The Ministers' websites provide background and contact details for our Ministers as well as media releases, speeches and audio files.

 

Software

Adobe Acrobat

A standard for viewing formatted documents which have been optimised for delivery via electronic means. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader allows you to view, navigate and print PDF files across many different platforms. PDF files look exactly like the orginal document.

By using Adobe Acrobat Reader you can display bookmarks or thumbnails in an overview area to the left of the document. Beneath the menu bar at the top of the window is the toolbar; at the bottom left of the window is the status bar. At the right of the window is a vertical scroll bar that enables you to scroll up and down through a document. The overview area of the window includes an independent scroll bar that you can use to scroll through bookmarks or thumbnails.

PDF documents can maintain hypertext links connecting two parts of a document or to another application file, such as a spreadsheet or movie. Links also connect PDF documents to other documents on Web servers.

To use Acrobat Reader with your web browser you need to first download the Acrobat Reader  from Adobe's Website and install it on your computer.

To get the Acrobat Reader 5 you need to visit Adobe's Website:Get Acrobat Reader

Windows Media Player

A standard for playing multimedia files of various formats (MP3, WAV, AVI etc.) which have been optimised for delivery via electronic means.

To get the Windows Media Player Program you need to visit the Microsoft Website - Downloads, choose product: Windows Media Player, select your operating system (MS Windows 95/98/2000 etc.) and when downloaded, install the program. Once installed, you can save multimedia files to your local drive before playing to improve quality, or use streaming media (instant play), which begins to play while the file is still downloading.

Winzip

A standard for online data delivery, Winzip allows large files (or file sets) to be "compressed" to expedite delivery via electronic means. The ZIP file is downloaded (more quickly) by a user, then it is "de-compressed" to re-create the original file.

To get the Winzip Program you need to go to Winzip's Website: Get Winzip

Transport Regional Development Territories of Australia Local Government The Department