On the afternoon of September 19, Tim Sprehe called and asked me to filled in for Ed Arnold on the panel entitled "Web Sites and Citizen E-mail - Surviving the Avalanche."  Ed was unable to participate due to other priorities resulting from the events of September 11.  The conference program is at http://www.fedweb.org/fall2001program.shtml and the session descriptions are at http://www.fedweb.org/fall2001sessions.shtml  Time did not permit me to prepare a formal presentation, but here is a recapitulation of my talking points:

• My interest in this topic stems from my co-chairmanship of the XML Working Group as well as my vice chairmanship of FIRM.
• One of the two original proposals that I made which led to formation of the XML Working Group was to use XML metatags to classify and manage E-records Government wide.
  • The other was to render all Government forms in XML and gather the data from them in XML.
• At my prompting, Jim Whitehead, the "father" of WebDAV, is exploring the development of an open-source alternative certified for records management purposes under DoD Std. 5015.2.
  • As a first step, he has proposed convening a workshop to render the 5015.2 metadata elements in an XML schema.
  • Hopefully, the records management schema will be made available in a registry/repository at xml.gov for use in records management applications.
  • With technical support from NIST, GSA has issued a request for proposals to develop the registry and the pilot should be operational soon.
• Contrary to Tim's remark, I am not suggesting that E-mail should be abolished -- merely that it should be used appropriately.
  • E-mail is designed for quick informal messages.
  • E-mail is not designed and should not be used to transmit business-quality records.
  • E-mail should not be used as a quasi-document/records management system.
  • Just because it is possible to grow bananas on Pike's Peak doesn't mean that anyone should try to do so.
  • Instead the proper tools should be used appropriately.
• Some of you may have heard of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).
  • E-mail is a stage of immaturity through which we must pass.
• E-mail messages are "records" but generally should be treated as short-term records.
• I call the notion that individuals must "declare" records to be records the "Capone Consultancy Method."
• In the context of electronic information systems, the terms "management" and "metadata" are virtually synonymous.
  • The question is how much "management" (i.e., metadata) any particular class of records warrants.
  • I submit that most E-mail messages warrant relatively little metadata.
• E-mail attachments are a primary means by which viruses are transmitted.
• Here's a headline and quotation from today's edition of The Washington Post (p. E3):
  • Computer Worm Called More Potent Than Predecessors -- Like many previous viruses, Nimda arrives via e-mail as an attached file.  E-mail programs that use Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 ... to display HTML formatted messages will automatically open the viral payload... Web browsers visiting a site already infected by Nimda may invisibly download the virus mistaking it for a multimedia file.
• Forrest Gump has a saying for this: "Stupid is as stupid does."
• E-mail attachments also greatly complicate the records management problem, since they needlessly replicate records in an uncontrolled manner across the network.
  • It is unclear whether anyone or everyone is maintaining copies and for how long they are doing so.
  • Nor is it possible to tell which version is the final one.
• If I had my way, E-mail attachments would be prohibited and E-mail messages would be limited to plan ASCII text.
• Instead, all business-quality records would be created and managed throughout their full life cycles in Web-based, XML-enabled, DoD-certified E-records management systems.
  • DoD Std. 5015.2 is not perfect or complete, but it is a good basic set of requirements.
  • XML-related enhancements to the standard will be considered at a meeting of the XML Working Group
    • Due to the events of September 11, that agenda was postponed from September 19 to a date to be determined.
    • Such issues as interoperability, long-term accessibility, E-FOIA, privacy, and dissemination of records will be considered.
• ISO 15489 is an international standard for records management that parallels DoD Std. 5015.2.
  • Australia proposed it.
  • The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted it.
• Several years ago the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) established a best practice in the use of a Web-based document management system enabling citizens to file their comments on the National Organic Program (NOP) directly into the system.
  • Citizens provided their own metadata, including for example the sections of the proposed rule on which they were commenting.
  • In turn, citizen comments were posted back to the Web for the benefit of subsequent reviewers.
  • The system pre-dated DoD Std. 5015.2 and XML.
    • Now that XML and the 5015.2 standard are available it will be much easier to implement such applications and they will have much better functionality.
  • It is disappointing that others have not picked up on the best practice established by AMS several years ago.
• The Administration is developing a Citizen-Centered eGovernment Action Plan.
  • One focus is likely to be improvement of FirstGov.
  • The key to making FirstGov more effective is for agencies to use Web-based, XML-enabled, DoD-certified electronic records management systems to manage and embed the appropriate metatags in all of their records.