Page 51 - GAO-02-327 Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language

Chapter 3: The Federal Government Faces
Challenges in Realizing XML’s Full Potential

common data access techniques, (3) enabling integration of enterprise
applications, and (4) achieving cost savings for data conversion. They
identified XML’s biggest challenges as (1) the immaturity of related
standards, (2) the lack of IT staff qualified to develop and maintain XML-
based systems, (3) choosing among competing standards, and (4) security
for XML documents and XML-based transactions.

Governmentwide To date, activities within the federal government to promote broad
governmentwide adoption of XML technology have been limited. Neither
Actions to Promote OMB, which is responsible for developing and overseeing governmentwide
XML Adoption Have policies and guidelines for agency IT management, nor NIST, which is
responsible for developing federal information processing standards and
Focused on guidelines, have defined an explicit governmentwide strategy for XML
Education and adoption to guide agency implementation efforts and ensure that agency
enterprise architectures address incorporation of XML. Most
Outreach governmentwide coordination activities have been performed by the XML
Working Group, chartered by the federal CIO Council to facilitate effective
and appropriate implementation of XML technology in the information
systems of the federal government. The working group’s activities have
focused primarily on education and outreach. In addition, OMB officials
told us that, as part of the annual budget preparation process, they have
taken steps to encourage agencies to use XML consistently and share their
development plans with other agencies.

Given that the greatest benefits of XML adoption to the government may
derive from its promise of facilitating broad interoperability among
systems in different organizations, it is important that an explicit strategy
be developed for coordinating XML implementation across the federal
government’s many departments and agencies. However, most XML
development within the federal government to date has been undertaken
independently by separate federal organizations, with little or no
coordination with other agencies. OMB has not issued explicit guidance
regarding the use of XML, other than to cite ebXML in its October 2001
standards for success in expanding e-government, as previously discussed.
Rather than formulating a specific strategy, OMB has relied on informal
discussions with agency officials, as part of the budget preparation
process, to encourage them to use XML consistently and share their
development plans with other agencies. According to OMB officials, these
actions, along with the XML Working Group’s coordination activities,
serve as the federal government’s XML strategy. Further, NIST officials
told us they are not planning to develop any federal information
processing standards or other XML implementation guidance, which they

Page 47 GAO-02-327 Electronic Government