Page 14 - GAO-02-327 Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language

Executive Summary

in the standards profile section of the architecture—the section that
defines the set of rules governing systems implementation and operation.

Agency Comments In oral comments on a draft of this report, officials from OMB’s Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs, including the Information Policy and
and Our Evaluation Technology Branch chief, generally agreed with our findings and

conclusions and stated that they would consider our recommendations.
The officials also provided information on recent OMB actions aimed at
promoting the adoption of XML by federal agencies. We have incorporated
this updated information in the report. We view these recent OMB actions
as positive steps. Nevertheless, we also believe that OMB can improve on
these actions by implementing the recommendations in this report.

We received oral comments from the co-chairmen of the XML Working
Group; officials of NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory; and the
deputy associate administrator, Office of Electronic Commerce, General
Services Administration. We also received written comments from the
chief information officer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration;
and the director for policy and communications staff, National Archives
and Records Administration. Letters from these latter two agencies are
reprinted in appendixes I and II. All of the agency officials who reviewed
the draft agreed with the overall content of the report. Officials from the
XML Working Group and the National Archives and Records
Administration expressed concern that the draft overemphasized the value
of a “top down” XML implementation strategy that emphasizes executive
direction and guidance as opposed to a “bottom up” approach relying on
individual initiative at lower management levels. We believe that it is
important to strike a balance between the two approaches. In response to
this concern, we are including language in the final report to emphasize
that a balance between the bottom up and top down approaches is needed.
In addition, each agency provided technical comments, which have been
addressed where appropriate in the final report.

Page 10 GAO-02-327 Electronic Government