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Principles
EPA's Web site, epa.gov, is the Agency's primary public interface. Its pages are a fundamental part of every Agency program; taken together, those pages are the foundation of the Agency’s environmental outreach program. The site conveys and amplifies the Agency’s mission, goals and work. It provides both opportunity and obligation to present timely information, data and interpretation to a globe-spanning audience. Increasingly, epa.gov is the interactive tool-of-choice for the delivery of Agency services to its many publics. Agency self-interest demands the design and implementation of a Web site that best facilitates the free flow of communications and information.
EPA Web governance principles maximize the creative use of people, policy, and processes to manage short- and long-range goals, mitigate ambiguity, and resolve conflicting cross-Agency needs and priorities. They provide a framework for establishing clear infrastructure and content management responsibilities, identifying and allocating necessary resources, promoting agency-wide standards for best practices, and recognition and support for the Agency’s web community.
Administrative Structure
Responsibility
Collaboration
Resources
Content
Infrastructure
Unified Design
Customer Service
Content Currency
Receptivity to New Ideas
E-government
Administrative Structure
- The Office of Environmental Information (OEI) and the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) shall be responsible for overseeing the governance of epa.gov, including the promulgation of Web policy.
- Day to day management of the Web shall be supervised by managers for infrastructure (in OEI) and content (in OPA). These national managers report directly to their respective Assistant Administrators. They will work collaboratively with their counterparts in program and regional offices.
- The Infrastructure and Content Managers, together with their Office and Regional counterparts, shall constitute a Web Council charged with implementing policies, establishing standards, and facilitating cross-Agency collaboration. The Council shall be supported by an advisory team of Web specialists.
- The Web Workgroup Chair sits on the Web Council, and the Workgroup at large serves as an important communications and advisory resource.
- The Web Council shall operate using an agreed-upon model for consensus decision-making.
Responsibility
- Responsibility for epa.gov content is distributed across all Agency programs, with ultimate accountability at the most senior level, typically at the AA, RA or Office Director level.
- Providing quality content is a core responsibility of all programs and regions, integral to the accomplishments and communication of their and the Agency’s work and mission.
- Office and regional managers must provide sufficient resources and ensure that Web resource allocation is aligned with Agency and program priorities.
- Cross-Agency collaboration, to include all program and regional offices, is the responsibility of every office.
Collaboration
- The epa.gov Web site is a holistic information resource which results from active collaboration across traditional intra- and inter-Agency boundaries.
- Collaboration is essential to accomplishing the goal of topical and geographic reorganization of Web site content.
- Such collaboration should be ongoing, facilitated by technology, and take place without regard to organizational or personal ego.
Resources
- EPA program and regional offices will designate sufficient professional staff and financial resources to fully utilize the Web to communicate their and the Agency’s work.
- Resources will include adequate funding for content, infrastructure, technology, and staff training. OEI and OPA will provide training in their respective areas.
- Agency charging and funding mechanisms should fully support public access and encourage cross-Agency collaboration and innovation.
Content
- The epa.gov site shall communicate the fullest array of Agency information, including: general information, program actions and activities, regulations, data, science and educational materials.
- The primary organization of content shall be along topical and geographic lines. Content must be coordinated across traditional organizational lines.
- This information should be engaging, easy to find, up-to-date, and presented with adequate explanatory text. Content should be useful, understandable and accessible to a broad range of audiences and interests. Outdated and redundant content should be avoided and eliminated.
- The growing informational needs of a multi-lingual population should be addressed as situations demand and resources allow.
Infrastructure
- EPA’s infrastructure shall support and enable the most effective and efficient delivery of Agency information.
- EPA’s infrastructure shall include information architecture, metadata, search and indexing functions, and compliance with Web policies and standards as well as the provision of hardware and software.
Unified Design
- The concept of consistency shall be applied across the full breadth of the Agency Web site, encompassing templates, navigation designs and terms and content organization.
- Program branding, if any, must be subordinate to the EPA brand.
- All Agency information will reside on the epa.gov servers, with exceptions granted by senior Web management in very rare instances.
Customer Service
- The epa.gov site will be responsive to its visitors' needs and interests, recognizing the wide range of audiences that seek information.
- The Web site will offer multiple ways of obtaining information and should promote interactive delivery of services.
- The Agency values visitor interaction and will ensure that responses to epa.gov communications will be timely and accurate.
Content Currency
- The Agency must make every effort to fulfill site visitors’ reasonable expectations that content is up-to-date.
- New content shall be prepared in anticipation of public interest or need. All major announcements, new initiatives, and topics in the public arena must be fully supported by supplemental information.
- Static information such as data, rules and regulations, and news releases and speeches must include the date of issuance. Dynamic information, subject to change, shall be reviewed regularly and updated as warranted.
- Outdated but useful content will be clearly identified as such and, where feasible and appropriate, will be aggregated in a separate area of the Web site.
Receptivity to New Ideas
- EPA recognizes that a supportive, creative organizational environment is vital to achieving and sustaining the goals established for epa.gov.
- Both management and the Web community should encourage visionary thinking, be receptive to change, and foster a culture that celebrates innovation and actively removes obstacles to implementing new ideas.
E-government
- EPA embraces the principles of e-government and encourages aggressive use of the epa.gov Web site to allow and encourage the electronic conduct of Agency business.