Page 15 - GAO-02-327 Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language

Chapter 1: Background: Features and Current
Chapter 1: Background: Features and Current
Federal Use of XML
Federal Use of XML

Advances in the use of information technology (IT)—especially the rise of
the Internet—are changing the way organizations communicate, exchange
information, and conduct business among themselves and with the public.
The Internet offers the opportunity for a much broader exchange of
information than was previously possible, because it provides a virtually
universal communications link to the multitude of disparate systems
operated by private sector businesses, government agencies, and other
organizations.

However, although the Internet can facilitate the exchange of information,
much of the information displayed to users is delivered only as a stream of
computer code to be visually displayed by Web browsers, such as Internet
Explorer or Netscape Communicator. Without human intervention, such
information cannot be extracted and reused for other purposes. For
example, an economist might visit a Web page that displayed statistical
information about the production of various agricultural commodities over
a number of years. Typically, such a Web page would only display this
information to the economist to examine visually on his or her computer
screen. Without special translation software, it would likely be difficult for
the economist to transfer the information to a separate computer program
for further statistical analyses.

An agreed-upon standard for annotating or “tagging” each element of the
computerized data set could facilitate the automatic identification and
processing of such information. For example, the economist’s Web page
would likely display many numbers representing specific pieces of
information. The number “2,400,000.00” might appear, representing the
value of soybeans produced in a given place at a given time. Even if the
computer system had been programmed to analyze agricultural cost data,
it would not be able to recognize that “2,400,000.00” referred to a specific
value for soybeans at a given place and time, unless the number were
tagged with that descriptive information in a format that the computer
system understood.

Tagging data in a standard way allows any system that recognizes the
standard to readily understand and process data that conforms to that
standard. In tagging, a standard format is used to label each element of a
1
data set with metadata that clarifies what kind of information is being

1
Metadata are data containing descriptive information about other data. For example, a
block of numerical data might be identified in metadata as representing unit cost in dollars.

Page 11 GAO-02-327 Electronic Government