OS Web Board Meeting Notes - December 6, 2007

Introductions, Welcome, Opening Business

• Attendees introduced themselves, their agencies, and their roles in their Staff Divisions.
• The OS Web Board agreed to its new name in order to differentiate itself from the HHS Web Council.
• Documentation for the rationale for OS Web Board exists at http://www.hhs.gov/web/webcouncil/governance/principles/index.html.
• As was done with the HHS Web Council, it was suggested that a letter be sent to OS senior managers asking them to name individuals to the board. The letter would spell out roles, as well as specify when membership would begin, and the responsibilities of naming members to the board.

Organization, Logistics, Resources

• The OS Web Board discussed the Web Council formal structure, in that there are two votes per OpDiv, and the OS functions as an OpDiv on the HHS Web Council. The Web Board is advisory, thus any policies it sets would be internal to OS and should not conflict with the HHS Web Council policies and standards.The Web Board would employ a collaborative approach, voting as needed to reach resolution.
• The board will meet once a month – usually the week before the Web Council meeting – for approximately 90 minutes. The next is meeting tentatively scheduled for the second week of January, depending on the date that the Web Board will be meeting.
• The next meeting will discuss who will be representing their StaffDiv. We need to make decisions about who will sit on the Board from OS. In the meantime, Miguel Gomez represents the OS until others are named. The idea of staggered representation was brought up and may be discussed at the next meeting. There may be two representatives from each office (like Web Council); the substitute who would sit in your place would be allowed from time to time. It was stressed that by becoming members of this board, the representatives take on the responsibility of carrying important messages, policies, and advisements back to their respective offices.
• It was suggested that an email list be established to communicate with the other members of the board; it was also discussed that primary contacts, e.g., board members, Web Reps, liaisons, should be identified.
• Details will be provided in the near future, but participants were asked to reserve February 11 and 12 on their calendars to attend the Web Council conference. Keynoter Gerry McGovern will be speaking on Monday, February 11, on a variety of topics relevant to government.
• A list of contacts for specialist services provided by the WCD was distributed; it was recommended that the contact for Section 508 be first on the list. The resources were briefly highlighted. More information about the services can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/web/aboutus/services.html.

Section 508

• OGC indicated that some associations dealing with Section 508 have filed complaints that some Web sites are not accessible. HHS has 90 days to go develop a remediation plan. WCD will be communicating with senior managers about next steps.
• In the meantime, from this point forward, group emails and Web sites must be 508 compliant, which means not including attachments such as PDFs and PowerPoint files that are inaccessible to screen readers.
• Because of the recent Section 508 work across HHS sites, use of the Watchfire (WebXM) tool is highly encouraged. It crawls Web sites to find broken links and identify problems with Section 508 compliance. Training session in development, can do demo next meeting. Training and contract language are also being developed.
• If you have a new PC from ITSC (within last six months), you should ensure that your office uses Adobe Professional 8 instead of the CutePDF application to make PDFs compliant.

Security

• Several HHS Web sites have been defaced.
• It is better to host Web sites on servers maintained by HHS agencies; sites hosted by contractors must undergo security certification (C&A) based on the sensitivity of information being hosted or collected (such as conference registration information). Details of this security certification are being worked on.
• The CIO’s office is developing language to go into all contracts addressing the security needs of all content hosted or collected. It was suggested that the CIO disseminate a Secretary-level memo and that the contract language be posted on the HHS.gov/web site for those StaffDivs who deal with GSA or other contract vehicles.