Return to Web Managers Advisory Steering Committee HomePage (3ID4)
This page is part of a DRAFT Action Plan for the U.S. government web manager community. (3I12)
Goal 3 (3HK3)
No matter where they are, people should be able to quickly find and understand the government information and services they need and to have content delivered to them in whatever format they prefer (accessible via multiple channels). (3HL5)
Grassroots Initiatives (3HL6)
- Improve search engine optimization across government websites (3HL7)
An article on Web 2.0, tagging and the semantic web of interest: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060522/full/060522-21.html (3IW9)
This is very critical. We would have to accommodate structured and unstructured search. What about a search engine summit? There are so many tips and tricks, but which ones would give us the best user experience? Where is search headed in Web 2.0? (3IUK)
- Conduct “Spring cleaning” activities (3HL8)
- Promote localization--allowing people to access local information (3HL9)
Our www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil web portal has just completed two major "localization" projects: (1) Military Installations (& Point of Contact Directories) which holds local and regional information about military bases and surrounding communities around the world, and (2) a Plan My Move Tool which helps service and family members know how to research their next duty station, set up a move and relocate themselves and their children successfully. We have linked into national databases that hold information on K-12 Schools, Relocation Assistance, Family Support, etc. and are successfully working with program managers at DoD and specific Military Service levels to get correct government information about the mobile military lifestyle and military/civilian communities populated into these two online projects. Would welcome anyone interested in "kicking our tires" to send comments and recommendations to me so we can continue to improve this "localization" effort. Randy Eltringham, randy.eltringham@osd.mil, (703) 602-4949, ext 160. (3I4H)
- Allow “opt-in” approaches to track peoples’ preferences, so content can be more effectively delivered to them (3HLA)
- Leverage other sites and tools to avoid duplicating content. Cross-link to other websites to help people find what they need (3HLC)
- Do interagency critiques of websites to improve navigation and how people access government sites. (3HLE)
- Have USA.gov provide easy access to government-wide Top 25 Tasks (3HLG)
Government-wide Initiatives (3HLI)
- Adopt “lane” approach so its clear where the authoritative source is for a given topic (3HLJ)
That's a good idea, Randy. If folks have pseudo-portal audience pages, those would make sense to bubble up to USA.gov with a 1-2 sentence blurb. (3IUL)
Today, I sent Bev Godwin a list of key Military audiences and the URLs that are the sources of definitive DoD/government information (or starting places) for each of these audiences. Is that an example of how we can start implementing the referenced "lane" approach? In a parallel effort, my organization is currently working on press kit materials which will have the names of our key Military audiences along with our key portals/websites with one sentence descriptions that will let audiences, reporters, staffers, etc. know why they would visit one portal/website vs another. It will help us improve branding, marketing and should reduce Internet user confusion. Randy Eltringham This comment related to: Nid 3HLJ (3I4G)
- Do more to help people better understand government information and how government works, by doing outreach to teachers and librarians. (3HLK)
- Develop an “Educating our bosses” toolkit so they better understand the importance of having users find and access online information (3HLB)
How can Federal web managers get on agendas for some of the meetings that leadership attends? It'd be a great use for our speaker bureau. (3IUM)
- Promote state, local, tribal partnerships (3HLF)
- Promote universal plain language (3HLH)
GENERAL COMMENTS about this page (3I1E)
Feel free to express any general comments below or add new ideas: (3I1F)
We can't forget machine-readable data in this effort either. There was a great article in Science on avian influenza that talked about Google's data mashup feature. One of the comments on this from a related blog was about the difficulty in getting data sets because each agency used a different format: "Butler describes the challenges of producing the mashup on his blog. I think the most interesting part might be his difficulty in acquiring data sets that played well together. Each agency may use a different format, and require specific individual permission to access the detailed data, making production of a unified data set rather a pain. Let alone trying to make sure the data is actually comparable between sets, is represented using the same system of units, etc. Obviously an area of improvement for collaboration and cooperation to improve our understanding of influenza, and for getting sufficient information to make policy decisions within goverments and corporations. But a challenge for the moment. Bravo to Dr. Butler for making as much progress as he did." (3IUN)
Federal Data Standardization Effort: Interagency Working Group on Digital Data (IWGDD) To Be Formed Summary from Science.com The US government is considering a massive plan to store almost all scientific data generated by federal agencies in publicly accessible digital repositories. The aim is for the kind of data access and sharing currently enjoyed by genome researchers via GenBank, or astronomers via the National Virtual Observatory, but for the whole of US science. Scientists would then be able to access data from any federal agency and integrate it into their studies. For example, a researcher browsing an online journal article on the spread of a disease could not only pull up the underlying data, but mesh them with information from databases on agricultural land use, weather and genetic sequences. Nature has learned that a draft strategic plan will be drawn up by next autumn by a new Interagency Working Group on Digital Data (IWGDD). It represents 22 agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, and other government branches including the Office of Science and Technology Policy. MORE: http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070319/full/446354b.html (3IUO)
This partially stemmed from these article in Science on the challenges in getting machine readable government data: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060102/full/439006a.html and http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070226/full/446010b.html (3IUP)
There is a pressing need to publish content in an open, discoverable, machine consumable format. It is really critical for governments to publish content so it can be easily syndicated and remixed to ensure the greatest possible distribution. The goal 3 ideas focus more on improving federal sites which is important but insufficient. The "no matter where they are" part of this goal seems to be lost. This issue was briefly mentioned in Goal 4: "Encourage forwarding, reuse, copying of content (reminder that content is in public domain)" (see nid 3HN2) But it was buried and related more to social media than to the fundamental issue of content distribution. It really fits into goal 3 and if it's not specifically called out we'll fall short of that goal. [Steve Fleckenstein, 03/26/07] (3IC3)