Page 19 - GAO-02-327 Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language

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

Figure 1: A Hypothetical XML-Based State Driver’s License System

Source: GAO.

Tagging data in a consistent, standard way can also make it much easier to
locate information that is dispersed among incompatible computer
databases and difficult to access. In the example of the driver’s license
application, the fact that an applicant had a criminal record might remain
unknown to the licensing agency if the information was stored in an
incompatible—and thus inaccessible—database. On the other hand,
consistent, standardized tagging would help make the information much
easier to find, because the licensing agency could perform a search based
on a standard tag definition, knowing that all relevant information should
be tagged in the same way and thus should be identified by that search.
The standardized tagging of data has the potential to bring a similar benefit
to individuals searching for information over the Internet. Instead of
simply finding instances of text that match a given string of characters,
Web-based search engines could locate and report on data by examining
tags reflecting the content of the data. In all likelihood, such searches
would produce more focused and useful results.

Page 15 GAO-02-327 Electronic Government