XML Web Services: Electronic Records and Document Management System ERDMS

1
XML Web Services Electronic Records and Document
Management System (ERDMS)

• Brand Niemann
• (from XML Web Services Evangelist to Solutions
  Architect)
• Office of Environmental Information
• US EPA
• July 1, 2002

2
Definition of Records

• The United States government defines records as
  any books, papers, maps, photographs, machine
  readable materials, or other documentary
  materials, regardless of physical form or
  characteristics, made or received by an agency of
  the United States Government under Federal law or
  in connection with the transaction of public
  business and preserved or appropriate for
  preservation by that agency or its legitimate
  successor as evidence of the organization,
  functions, policies, decisions, procedures,
  operations, or other activities of the Government
  or because of the informational value of data in
  them. Library and museum material made or
  acquired and preserved solely for reference or
  exhibition purposes, extra copies of documents
  preserved only for convenience of reference, and
  stocks of publications and of processed documents
  are not included.
• Source Section 3301 of title 44, United States
  Code, Definition of Records

3
Overview

• 1. EPA ERDMS Strategy
• 2. Multiple Standards and Requirements
• 3. Authoring and Conversion of Documents
• 4. Work Flow and Content Networking
• 5. XForms
• 6. Recommendations
• 7. Contact Information

4
1. EPA ERDMS Strategy

• June 2002
• The current islands of information need to be
  replaced by a single, searchable information
  repository accessible to all employees with
  collaboration and workflow tools.
• The core Electronic Records and Document
  Management System (ERDMS) would be composed of
  both a Records Management Application (RMA) and a
  Document Management System (DMS).
• The agencys standard desktop business
  applications would feed into the ERDMS.
• The legacy DMS would feed into the RMA.
• The legacy information systems would feed into
  the ERDMS.
• See next slide for the ERDMS Target Architecture.

5
1. EPA ERDMS Strategy
Core ERDMS
RMA
DMS
Word Processing
E-mail
HR, Finance, Etc.
Legacy DMS
Desktop Applications
Legacy Information Systems
Integrated Legacy DMSs
ERDMS Target Architecture
6
1. EPA ERDMS Strategy

• Implementation
• Phase 1. Initial System-Installation of the ERDMS
  so documents will be saved to the repository
  instead of local hard drives.
• Phase 2. Advanced System-Information systems
  outside the ERDMS will be linked with the ERDMS.
• In general, all Agency information systems will
  either integrate (link to the legacy system) or
  migrate (copy documents and metadata from a
  legacy system and discontinue use).
• Website content will be archived within the ERDMS.

7
2. Multiple Standards and Requirements

• 2.1 NARA and GAO
• 2.2 CIO XML Working Group
• 2.2.1 Comments
• 2.2.2 Records Management Metadata
• 2.2.3 XML Web Services
• 2.3 Accessibility Guidelines
• 2.4 E-Gov and FirstGov
• 2.5 Interoperability with EPA-State and Other
  Networks

8
2.1 NARA and GAO

• Preservation and Migration of Electronic Records
  The State of the Issue, Kenneth Thibodeau, June
  27, 2002
• The quantity of records is increasing
  exponentially and the types of information
  objects are also changing.
• The experience of archives is largely limited to
  relatively simple technical formats (e.g. flat
  files).
• Strictly speaking, it is not possible to preserve
  electronic records it is only possible to
  maintain the ability to reproduce electronic
  records (e.g. music score).
• An archival system should built in such a way
  that it is possible to replace any component of
  the hardware or software with minimal impact on
  the system and with no impact on its contents
  (called future proofing in the XML world).
• A record is recorded information produced or
  received in an institutional or individual
  activity and that comprises content, context and
  structure sufficient to provide evidence of the
  activity regardless of the form or medium.
  Extended to include the appearance of the record
  and a unique feature of electronic records,
  hyperlinks.

9
2.1 NARA and GAO

• Preservation and Migration of Electronic Records
  The State of the Issue, Kenneth Thibodeau, June
  27, 2002
• Persistent Object Preservation expresses the
  structure of records using eXtensible Markup
  Language (XML) Document Type Definitions (DTD)
  which is the content model (metadata) for
  individual records to enter archival fonds.
• Multi-Valent Documents (MVD) technology that
  captures and maintains a bitmapped image of the
  document and the eXtensible Stylesheet Language
  (XSL) in the XML standard are being considered
  for preserving the appearance of the record.
• Demonstrations of these methods involves
  re-purposing a variety of collections of records
  (c.f. my XML Registry and Repository and Digital
  Library of the State of the Environment).

10
2.1 NARA and GAO
Source XML Spy White paper Document Frameworks
Unifying XML Content Management and Database
Systems for the Internet.
11
2.1 NARA and GAO

• GAO Report on Challenges in Managing and
  Preserving Electronic Records, June 2002, page
  24
• NARAs long-term strategic initiative is to
  develop an advanced electronic records archive.
  The agencys goals for this system are to
  preserve and provide access to any kind of
  electronic record, free from dependency on any
  specific hardware or software, so that the agency
  can carry out its mission into the future.
• Although the new archival system is not yet
  formally defined, agency documents, public
  presentations, and interviews with agency
  officials and staff indicate, in broad outline,
  how they envision this system. It will probably
  be a distributed system, allowing the storage and
  management of massive record collections at a
  variety of installations, with accessibility
  provided via the Internet. It may be based on
  persistent object preservation, an advanced form
  of file format conversion and encapsulation
  (described in Appendix II) that is the subject of
  research sponsored by NARA and other
  organizations. A leading candidate for performing
  this encapsulation and capturing the necessary
  information is the Extensible Markup Language
  (XML), which provides a means for tagging
  (annotating) information in a meaningful fashion
  that can be readily interpreted by disparate
  computer systems (XML is further discussed in
  Appendix II).

12
2.1 NARA and GAO

• GAO Report on Challenges in Managing and
  Preserving Electronic Records, June 2002, page
  30
• The importance of enterprise architecture
  development, implementation, and maintenance is a
  basic tenet of effective IT management. Used in
  concert with other IT management controls, an
  enterprise architecture can greatly increase the
  chances for optimal mission performance. We have
  found that attempting to modernize operations and
  systems without an enterprise architecture leads
  to operational and systems duplication, lack of
  integration, and unnecessary expense.
• Over the past several years, NARA has taken
  action to develop an enterprise architecture.
  NARA has drafted a current architecture and is
  working on a target architecture, but this work
  is incomplete. However, the process to develop
  the electronic archival system is well under way.
  Without an enterprise architecture to guide its
  development, NARA increases the risk that the
  planned electronic archival system will be
  incompatible with existing and future operations
  and systems, thus wasting resources and requiring
  that unnecessary interfaces be built to achieve
  integration.

13
2.2.1 Comments

• Owen Ambur, Co-chair XML Working Group, FedWeb
  Conference, September 2001
• 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 Standard 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 by the XML Working Group.
• 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.

14
2.2.2 Records Management Metadata

• An XML Schema for Electronic Records
  Management,DRAFT, Version 0.1, by Leila Naslavsky
  and Dorrit Gordon
• To be used as the basis for a records management
  application (RMA) compliant with the United
  States Department of Defenses (DoD) standards
  for RMAs, DoD 5015.2. Figure 1. Record Life Cycle
  (see next slide).
• http//www.cse.ucsc.edu/dgordon/ERM/ERMSchemaPape
  r.html
• XML Schema in XML Spy 4.4 (see slide after next
  slide)
• record.xsd
• dispositioninstruction.xsd
• file.xsd
• RMA.xsd
• RMAexample.xsd

15
(No Transcript)
16
2.2.2 Records Management Metadata
17
2.2.3 XML Web Services

• Why XML?
• The eXtensible Markup Language became a World
  Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard in 1998 as the
  universal format for structured documents and
  data on the Web (http//www.w3.org/XML/).
• The CIO Council created the XML Working Group in
  2000 to facilitate the efficient and effective
  use of XML through cooperative efforts among
  government agencies, including partnerships with
  commercial and industrial organizations
  (http//xml.gov/).
• GAO report to Congress urges government to adopt
  XML and that Federal Agencies address XML in
  their enterprise architectures (http//www.gao.gov
  /new.items/d02327.pdf).
• XML Web Services is what OMBs Mark Forman is
  encouraging in the E-Gov Initiatives and
  especially for the collect once, use many
  knowledge management projects like the Geospatial
  Information One-Stop (http//egov.gov).

18
2.2.3 XML Web Services

• What is XML?
• XML is a standard for preserving and
  communicating information encoding, tagging,
  and internationalizing that will be everywhere.
• Web Services provide communication between
  applications running on different Web servers
  that will bring the Internet to its new level.
• XML Web Services are applications running on
  different devices that communicate XML data using
  XML messages.
• XML Web Services for geospatial data use the
  OpenGIS Consortiums GML (Geography Markup
  Language) and OWS (Open Web Services) standards
  and specifications.
• Web Services can and should be interoperable
  across multiple vendor tools and platforms in the
  enterprise (see http//www.ws-i.org/Community.aspx
  ).

19
2.2.3 XML Web Services
20
2.2.3 XML Web Services The Web Services
Standards stack

• Commonly used by the major vendors
• Work Flow (WFDL-Work Flow Description Language).
• Publication and Discovery (UDDI-Universal
  Description, Discovery, and Integration).
• Service Description (WSDL-Web Services
  Description Language).
• Messaging (XMLP-XML Protocol from SOAP-Simple
  Object Access Protocol).
• Content (XML-Extensible Markup Language).
• Transport (HTTP-Hypertext Transport Protocol).

21
2.3 Accessibility Guidelines

• We applaud the efforts that Adobe has made to
  embrace XML technologies that provide open
  source, non-proprietary formats. We call on Adobe
  and other developers to commit to accessible XML
  practices, as defined by the XML Accessibility
  Guidelines (XAG) currently in public draft.
• Janina Sajka, Director, Technology Research and
  Development, American Foundation for the Blind,
  and Joe Roeder, Senior Access Technology
  Specialist, National Industries for the Blind,
  PDF and Public Documents A White Paper, Version
  1.1, published April 25, 2002.
• http//www.afb.org/AboutPDF.asp

22
2.4 E-Gov and FirstGov

• Portfolios
• Government to Citizen (G2C) (5)
• E.g., Recreation One-Stop
• Government to Business (G2B) (5)
• E.g., Business Compliance One-Stop
• Government to Government (G2G) (5)
• E.g., Geospatial Information One-Stop
• Internal Effectiveness and Efficiency (IEE) (8)
• E.g., E-Records Management
• Cross-cutting
• e-Authentication
• Infrastructure
• Federal Enterprise Architecture
• Source http//egov.gov/egovreport-3.htm
• Contributing to these efforts.

23
2.4 E-Gov and FirstGov

• FirstGov Whats Coming in September
• Content Management System
• Does your agency want to partner (need buy-in)?
• Some mandatory functionality like tools for
  Section 508 compliance, a visual tool to layout
  or model a Web site, documented Application
  Programming Interfaces, security services that
  meet applicable guidelines, Web services, loosely
  coupled connectors to help facilitate repurposing
  content, among others.
• Questionnarie (see next slide).

24
2.4 E-Gov and FirstGov

• FirstGov Content Management Survey
• General Questions (XML 1 of 12)
• 9. Intended use of XML How important is it for
  you to employ XML in the acquisition, management,
  and/or delivery of content?
• Author Questions (XML 0 of 20)
• Advanced Questions (XML 4 of 22)
• 1. Need for XML tools How important is it for
  you for the system to have native XML processing
  tools and functions built in?

25
2.4 E-Gov and FirstGov

• FirstGov Content Management Survey (continued)
• Advanced Questions (XML 4 of 22)
• 2. Need for XML Standards Support How important
  is it for you to support XML-based standards such
  as RSS, ICE, ebXML, and the Web Services family
  (e.g. SOAP).
• 3. Existing XML Usage Have you already
  developed DTDs or Schemas to validate your XML
  content?
• 4. Current Usage of XML Stylesheets Have you
  already developed XSL Stylesheets to transforms
  your XML documents?

26
2.5 Interoperability with EPA-State Other
Networks
27
2.5 Interoperability with EPA-State Other
Networks
28
2.5 Interoperability with EPA-State Other
Networks A Content Node for Every EPA Office,
Program, Region, State, and Partner
29
2.5 Interoperability with EPA-State Other
Networks
Web Browser
Mobile/Wireless Devices
IONIC Portrayal Engine (GML-to-SVG, etc.)
IONIC Web Services Framework (Proprietary-to-GML
Converters)
LandView/ Cameo CD/DVDs
State of PA PASDA
USGS
EPA Region 3 CBP
EPA WME
30
3. Authoring and Conversion of Documents

• 3.1 Document Framework Design Advanced XML
  Application Development (XML Spy)
• 3.2 WebDAV
• 3.3 Office XP
• 3.4 Adobe FrameMaker 6.0
• 3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0
• 3.6 Open Format for Office Documents

31
3.1 Document Framework Design Advanced XML
Application Development

• Four Steps
• Schema Modeling An iterative process which
  involves initial requirements analysis,
  use-cases, as well as examination of existing
  data schemas. Additional refinements are required
  to map all of the elements of your XML Schema to
  the underlying database (relational or XML-based)
  or content management system.
• Data Flow and Process Modeling The flow of
  information gathered by a document framework must
  be modeled from content author (non-technical
  domain experts), transported to the database, and
  then to content consumers (typically customers,
  partners, etc.).

32
3.1 Document Framework Design Advanced XML
Application Development

• Four Steps (continued)
• Transformation Modeling XSLT has a two-fold
  critical role in both the input templates that
  are used by content creators and the output
  stylesheets that are required by the content
  consumers and must be designed to fit the data
  flow and process model determined earlier.
• Implementation The business logic and user
  interface of a document framework application
  must be custom developed, but can be easily
  implemented using any of the leading Internet
  application development platforms (e.g., J2EE,
  Microsoft .NET web Services, Oracle Application
  Server, etc.)

33
3.1 Document Framework Design Advanced XML
Application Development
34
3.2 WebDAVhttp//www.webdav.org

• Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning
• It is a standardized set of extensions to the
  HTTP protocol - the core of the World Wide Web -
  which allows users to collaboratively edit and
  manage files on remote web-servers.
• Using WebDAV, content authors have distributed
  access to virtually any underlying database or
  content management system.
• See Jim Whitehead, University of California,
  Santa Cruz WebDAV Remote Collaborative
  Authoring and Electronic Records Management, see
  XML.Gov Presentations, November 14, 2001.

35
3.2 WebDAVWeb-based Distributed Authoring
Versioning with XML Spy
36
3.3 Office XP

• Whats New
• Closer integration with the Web. Each application
  in Office can save files in HTML format,
  streamlining integration with the Internet and
  corporate intranets. Excel and Access are also
  able to read and save in XML format.
• Excel works with more data types, including
  common data sources on the Web. XML is now
  supported as a data interchange format, and
  worksheets can be linked directly to XML data on
  the Web. The new RTD (Real-Time Data) function
  brings real-time data into Excel for analysis.
• Access now works with more data types, including
  common data sources on the Web. XML data can be
  either created from Microsoft Access format (Jet)
  or SQL Server structures and data, or can be used
  to import data or structure into either Access or
  SQL Server.
• Discovering Microsoft Office XP Standard and
  Professional, Version 2002.

37
3.3 Office XP

• Word
• The three basic ways of producing XML output from
  Word for multiple uses (data exchange over the
  Internet, archiving with NARA, etc.) are
• 1. Word Save as XML (e.g. a Visual Basic add-in).
• 2. A special version of Word like the Wall Street
  Journal uses to produce XML for content
  syndication.
• 3. A tool like XML Spy Integrated Development
  Suite that automates the conversion of
  Word-to-XML and provides other XML functionality
  needed to do serious XML work.
• Note See XML Spy White paper Document
  Frameworks Unifying XML Content Management and
  Database Systems for the Internet.

38
3.3 Office XP

• Word
• Menu Convert, Import Microsoft Word Document,
  Select a Word document, and Open.
• Do View, Text view and View, Browser view.
• This command enables the direct import of any
  Word document and conversion into XML format, if
  you have been using paragraph styles in Microsoft
  Word. This option requires Microsoft Word or
  Microsoft Office (Version 97 or 2000). When you
  select this command, the Open dialog box appears.
  Select the Word document you want to import.
• XML Spy automatically generates an XML document
  with included CSS stylesheet. Each Word paragraph
  generates an XML element, whose name is defined
  as the name of the corresponding paragraph style
  in Microsoft Word.

39
3.4 Adobe FrameMaker 6.0

• When it shipped in 1998, Adobe FrameMakerSGML
  5.5 was one of the first publishing tools to
  support XML.
• Standard General Markup Language (SGML) is a
  descriptive markup language that is the precursor
  to XML.
• FrameMakerSGML 6.0 now allows the creation of
  content for true interactive documents and
  manuals. FrameMaker 6.0 comes in two versions
• Standard FrameMaker, which is used by many
  companies for publishing large documents using
  multiple mediums (such as print, Web, and
  CD-ROM).
• FrameMakerSGML, which adds SGML and advanced XML
  capabilities to FrameMaker software. It also
  supports CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and XSL
  (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) for display of
  content.

40
3.4 Adobe FrameMaker 6.0
41
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0

• Repurposing and Extracting
• Acrobat 5.0 gives you powerful commands for
  repurposing or extracting text and graphics in
  PDF files.You can use the Save As command to save
  all text in a PDF file in Rich Text Format (RTF)
  for import into your favorite authoring
  application. If your PDF files use tagged Adobe
  PDF, you can extract the text without losing the
  formatting. For example, you can save pages of
  tables from a PDF file for import into an
  application such as Adobe FrameMaker or Microsoft
  Word and the table formatting will be preserved.
  Both PDFMaker and Acrobat Web Capture create
  tagged Adobe PDF automatically. (See About the
  different types of Adobe PDF documents on next
  slide) You can also use the Save As command to
  save each page in a PDF file to an image format.
  You can use the Export command to export all
  images in a PDF file each image is saved in a
  separate file. In addition, Acrobat provides
  several toolsthe text select tool, the column
  select tool, the table/formatted text select
  tool, and the graphics select toolfor copying
  and pasting small amounts of text and graphics
  from a PDF file to your clipboard.You can also
  paste text from a PDF document into a comment or
  bookmark name. While in a PDF document, you
  select the text or graphic and copy it onto the
  clipboard. Once the text or graphic is on the
  clipboard, you can launch the other application
  and paste the text or graphic into a file.

42
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0

• About the different types of Adobe PDF documents
• There are three types of Adobe PDF documents
  unstructured, structured, and tagged. These
  document types differ in what they contain and
  how their contents can be repurposed. In general,
  the more structural information the Adobe PDF
  document contains, the more options you have for
  repurposing its contents.
• 1. Unstructured Adobe PDF You can save
  unstructured Adobe PDF files to other formats
  such as RTF with good results. An unstructured
  Adobe PDF file saved to RTF recognizes
  paragraphs, but not basic text formatting, lists,
  or tables. You cant reflow unstructured Adobe
  PDF files into different-sized devices, such as
  eBook reading devices. Unstructured Adobe PDF
  files arent reliably accessible using a screen
  reader for Windows.
• 2. Structured Adobe PDF You can save structured
  Adobe PDF files to other formats such as RTF with
  results that are better than unstructured Adobe
  PDF files but not as good as tagged Adobe PDF
  files. Structured Adobe PDF files saved to RTF
  recognize paragraphs and basic text formatting,
  but not lists or tables. You cant reflow
  structured Adobe PDF files into different-sized
  devices. Structured Adobe PDF files can be
  accessed using a screen reader for Windows, but
  without the reliability of tagged Adobe PDF
  files.
• 3. Tagged Adobe PDF You can save tagged Adobe
  PDF files to other formats such as RTF with the
  best results, including the recognition of
  paragraphs, basic text formatting, lists, and
  tables. You can reflow tagged Adobe PDF files so
  that theyre readable in different-sized devices
  Tagged Adobe PDF files have been optimized for
  accessibility, so they can be accessed reliably
  using a screen reader for Windows.

43
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0

• See Acrobat 5.0 Help
• Repurposing Adobe PDF Documents (pages 82-90) and
  Working with PDF (pages 103-107)
• Creating tagged Adobe PDF documents (need to do
  for accessibility anyway).
• Saving Adobe PDF documents to other formats (RTF
  and XML). See next slides.
• Viewing Document Metadata, Help, page 192.
• But still need XML authoring tools and expertise
• I have done this for lots of EPA documents in my
  XML Web Services training.
• Need industrial-strength XML tools and software
  platforms for efficient cost-effective
  electronic document management solutions (c.f.)
• eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Web Services for
  Legacy Document Collections, Brand Niemann and
  David Eng, April 5, 2002, to appear in InfoAccess.

44
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0
45
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0

• Repurposing PDF to XML
• Adobe PDF Document as HTML
• http//access.adobe.com/simple_form.html
• Save As XML Plug-In for Windows (B2)
• http//www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?
  hexID89a2
• Install and do Help and About Adobe Acrobat
  Plugins and select SaveasXML.
• Do File, Save as, XML-1.00 without styling
  (.xml) or XHTML-1.00 with CSS-1.00 (.htm).
  (Note Must be a tagged Acrobat PDF.)
• See SaveAsXML Developer Information for Creating
  and Modifying Mapping Tables (DeveloperInfo.pdf).

46
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0
47
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0(Re-purposing of Superfund
PDF files with XML)
48
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0(eXtensible Index Language
for large PDF collections)
49
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0(XIL hit list from search
of large PDF collections)
50
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0

• Document Metadata
• Viewing Document Metadata In Acrobat 5.0, Adobe
  PDF files contain Document Metadata in XML
  format. This Document Metadata contains (but is
  not limited to) information that is also in the
  Document Properties. Any changes made in the
  Acrobat Document Properties dialog box are
  reflected in the Document Metadata. Because
  Document Metadata is in XML format, it can be
  extended and modified using third-party products.
  You can copy and paste the Document Metadata XML
  source code.
• To view the Document Metadata
• 1 Choose File, Document Properties, Document
  Metadata.
• 2 The Document Metadata dialog box displays all
  the metadata embedded in the document. (Metadata
  is displayed by schemathat is, in predefined
  groups of related information.) The information
  associated with each schema is visible by
  default it can be hidden by clicking the
  triangle next to the schema name. If a schema
  doesnt have a recognized name, it is listed as
  Unknown. The XML name space is contained in
  parentheses after the schema name.
• 3 To view the XML code, click View Source. You
  can cut, copy, and paste XML code from the
  Metadata Source View dialog box. Click OK to
  return to the Document Metadata dialog box.
• 4 Click OK to close the Document Metadata dialog
  box, and click Cancel to close the dialog box
  without making any changes.
• See next slides.

51
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0
52
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0
53
3.5 Adobe Acrobat 5.0

• ltrdfRDF xmlnsrdf'http//www.w3.org/1999/02/22-r
  df-syntax-ns'
• xmlnsiX'http//ns.adobe.com/iX/1.0/'gt
• ltrdfDescription about''
• xmlns'http//ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/'
• xmlnspdf'http//ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/'gt
• ltpdfModDategt2001-07-30T173238-0600lt/pdfModDat
  egt
• ltpdfCreationDategt2001-07-30T173204-0600lt/pdfC
  reationDategt
• ltpdfProducergtAcrobat Distiller 4.05 for
  Windowslt/pdfProducergt
• lt/rdfDescriptiongt
• ltrdfDescription about''
• xmlns'http//ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/'
• xmlnsxap'http//ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/'gt
• ltxapModifyDategt2001-07-30T173238-0600lt/xapMod
  ifyDategt
• ltxapCreateDategt2001-07-30T173204-0600lt/xapCre
  ateDategt
• lt/rdfDescriptiongt
• lt/rdfRDFgt

54
3.6 Open Format for Office Documents

• Corels Vision
• Proprietary content is rapidly becoming the
  greatest barrier to managing, reusing,
  repurposing, and dynamically generating content.
  Enterprise knowledge workers, including designers
  and developers, interact with a variety of
  desktop content creation products, each designed
  for a single purpose, and each outputting a
  specific file type. Companies quickly amass
  collections of multiple file types.
• Proprietary files trap corporate knowledge and
  intellectual property in content islands,
  resulting in increased costs and reduced
  productivity.
• XML can also be seamlessly integrated into any
  workflow or any technology infrastructure.

55
3.6 Open Format for Office Documents

• OpenOffice.orgs Mission
• Create an open and ubiquitous XML-based file
  format for office documents and provide an open
  reference implementation for this format.
• Core Requirements
• Must be capable of being used as an office
  programs native file format and support the full
  capability of a StarOffice/OpenOffice document.
• Structured content should use XMLs structuring
  capabilities and be represented in terms of XML
  elements and attributes.
• The file format must be fully documented and have
  no secret features.
• OpenOffice must be the reference implementation
  for this file format.

56
4. Work Flow and Content Networking

• The Challenge (June 5, 2002)
• Include all the requirements at the EPA ERDM
  Project Webpage (access restricted to EPA only
  with password).
• Use several of the general records schedules
  (plus those suggested by the team).
• Assume you want to create two sets of OIC/OEI
  documents
• The first are simply documents that have to be
  retained because they are FOI-able (retrieved
  from a repository).
• The second are documents that must be retained
  for a period of time and then sent to NARA.

57
4. Work Flow and Content Networking

• The Challenge (June 5, 2002) (continued)
• The workflow is
• You create, your supervisor edits and approves,
  their supervisor edits and approves, and their
  supervisor approves and it ends the document
  process.
• The document is then sent to all the regions, the
  AAs office, and several state officials and then
  to NARA in XML format.
• In summary create the documents and demonstrate
  the workflow, accessibility at different levels,
  scheduling, distribution, and archiving. Also do
  the same thing with PDF files while retaining
  their appearance.
• I am convinced that XML is the only viable
  choice to transfer future documents.

58
4. Work Flow and Content Networking

• Team efforts to date
• At least 6 months of experience working with XML
  on Superfund documents (see Training Units 18 and
  others).
• Discussed the challenge and offered suggestions
  and support.
• NextPage visited Region 6 (Steve Wyman) to learn
  more about EPA requirements.
• Interpretation of The Challenge (as modified on
  June 25th - All I was interested in was the
  softwares that convert the documents and their
  metadata from their proprietary formats to XML)
• Not required to demonstrate the workflow (use
  NextPages slides and WebEx files to explain).
• Focus on the XML aspects (see Sections 3, 4, and
  5).

59
4. Work Flow and Content NetworkingNextPage NXT
CM Workflow

• Automatically routes data to ensure defined
  practices and approvals are followed.
• Graphical interface and stored templates simplify
  set-up.
• Due dates, history routing tracking.
• Triggers automate critical processes.
• Between each step, there is an opportunity to use
  triggers.
• Triggers are able to execute external scripts,
  programs, perform formatting and translations, or
  call CM functions.

60
4. Work Flow and Content NetworkingNextPage NXT
CM Web Interface
Web-based UI
Work on multiple projects at a time
Know what to do and when!
Assign work. Provide Feedback
61
4. Work Flow and Content NetworkingNextPage NXT
3 Enterprise Content Networking an end-to-end
solution
62
4. Work Flow and Content NetworkingNextPage NXT
3 Distributed Search and Navigation
63
4. Work Flow and Content NetworkingNextPage NXT
3 Content Management

• A Content AND Document Management Engine.
• Secure and flexible workflow environment.
• XML metadata support.
• Optional Interfaces to MS Word, Arbortext EPIC,
  SoftQuad XMetaL, HyperVision WorX and other
  structured and unstructured editorial
  applications.
• Manages XML Documents and subdocument components,
  multimedia objects and binary files.
• Manages the relationships between content,
  metadata and collections of information objects.
• Extensive standards based API.

64
4. Work Flow and Content Networking(XIL of the
EPA History Web Site on a regular schedule)
Recall Slide 6. Website content will be archived
within the ERDMS.
65
5. XForms

• FedForms.Gov (http//www.fedforms.gov/searchresult
  s.cfm)
• Eleven forms for EPA (two require Adobe Acrobat
  Reader).
• XML Spy Document Editor Tutorial
• XML-based e-forms development tools.
• eXtensible Forms Description Language (XFDL)
• Part of the W3Cs HTML Activity.
• Vendor Activity
• Adobe Re-tooling PDF Forms (Approval, Accelio
  Corp. acquisition, and support for online
  transactions).
• PureEdge is a leading implementor (Air Force
  awards contract to convert 14,000 electronic
  forms into XML).
• Blue Oxides XML Design Tool (Beta) (similar to
  XML Spy or Turbo XML) for creation of
  data-oriented documents.

66
5. XForms

• XML Spy Document Editor Tutorial
• The aim of this tutorial is to fill in the
  OrgChart template supplied with XML Spy IDE.
• This will be achieved by
• Entering data into the predefined tables.
• Adding additional persons to the department
  table.
• Adding a new company and filling in all the
  relevant data.
• Prerequisites
• The OrgChart template necessary for this tutorial
  is supplied with XML Spy IDE.
• Any other templates you want to edit must have
  been created using XSLT Designer and saved there
  (thus creating a .sps file).
• There is also a Datasheet Template.

67
5. XForms

• W3C XForms 1.0 (January 18, 2002)
• http//www.w3.org/TR/xforms/
• Forms were introduced into HTML in 1993. Since
  then they have become a critical part of the Web.
  The existing mechanisms in HTML for forms are now
  outdated, and the W3C started work on developing
  an effective replacement. This document defines
  "XForms", W3C's name for the next generation of
  web forms.
• XForms is an XML application that represents the
  next generation of Forms for the Web. By
  splitting traditional XHTML forms into three
  parts - data model, instance data, and user
  interface - it separates presentation from
  content, allows reuse, gives strong typing -
  reducing the number of round-trips to the server,
  as well as offering device independence and a
  reduced need for scripting. XForms is not a
  free-standing document type, but is intended to
  be integrated into other markup languages, such
  as XHTML.

68
5. XForms

• Introductions (Micah Dubinko, Cardiff Software,
  Inc.)
• What are XForms (January 16, 2002)
• http//xml.com/pub/a/2001/09/05/xforms.html
• Interactive Web Services with XForms (January 16,
  2002)
• http//xml.com/pub/a/2001/09/26/xforms.html
• W3C The Next generation of Web Forms
• http//www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/
• http//www.w3.org/2000/04/xforms-testimonial
• Some Demos
• Mozquito Technologies
• http//www.mozquito.org/html/lang-english/xforms.h
  tml
• X-Smiles
• http//www.xsmiles.org/

69
6. Recommendations

• Expand the ERDMS Strategy to include the
  additional standards and requirements and
  integration into the EPA Enterprise Architecture
  efforts that contemplate the addition of an XML
  Web Services Application Layer.
• Implement an XML-based Document Framework for the
  Agency, including the need to implement the new
  XForms standards for agency forms and
  transactions.
• Follow my lead with implementing XML Web Services
  standards and multiple requirements in my pilot
  projects with EPA content and in several e-Gov
  initiatives that involves re-purposing a variety
  of records collections.

70
7. Contact Information

• Brand Niemann, Ph.D.
• USEPA Headquarters, EPA West, Room 6143D
• Office of Environmental Information, MC 2822T
• 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
  20460
• 202-566-1657
• niemann.brand_at_epa.gov
• EPA http//161.80.70.167
• Outside EPA http//130.11.44.140