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About CENDI — Highlights from FY 2002

In most of its years of operation, CENDI has carried over three main goals from one year to the next. The focus areas and objectives in how to meet these goals vary, however, depending on changing technologies, resources, agency missions and group participation.

CENDI CONTINUED TO PROVIDE COORDINATION AND LEADERSHIP FOR INFORMATION EXCHANGE ON IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION (STI) ISSUES

CENDI followed a variety of significant issues including:

• digital copyright
• information security
• e-government
• data quality
• online publishing initiatives
• emerging standards relevant to STI

In addition, homeland security and public access took on prominence for CENDI following the events of 9/11/2001, recognizing the need to balance the requirements for security with the need for free flow of scientific information in the public domain.

CENDI members shared information with Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and agency and department heads on a variety of information policy issues. CENDI worked with members of Congress and the Office of Management and Budget regarding the E-Government Act. The STI Policy Working Group drafted a paper comparing the revision to the E-Government Act of 2002 with the earlier version from 2001. A white paper was written on OMB's "Proposed Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies." Input also was provided to a detailed analysis of OMB A-130, Section 8(a).

CENDI's more formal activities included symposia and publications. CENDI co-sponsored a symposium with the Federal Library and Information Center Committee on the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. As part of this symposium, CENDI agency staff participated in a panel discussion on digital preservation in the federal government with the Government Printing Office, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Library of Congress.

Three CENDI publications were made available from the CENDI web site:

• CENDI/2001-2 Evaluating Our Web Presence: Challenges, Metrics, Results
• CENDI/2001-3 License Agreements for Electronic Products and Services: Frequently Asked Questions in the Federal Environment
• CENDI/2000-3 CENDI Copyright Frequently Asked Questions

Through these and regular CENDI meeting activities, the group collaborated with "information communities" outside the federal STI community including libraries, the telecommunications and technology industries, the scientific data community, federal information policy makers, and primary and secondary publishers. CENDI interacted with more than 100 representatives from non-CENDI organizations during FY02.

CENDI CONTINUED EFFORTS TO PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF IMPROVED STI SYSTEMS THROUGH THE PRODUCTIVE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF CONTENT AND TECHNOLOGY

CENDI's major effort in this area was the development of Science.gov, a web-accessible gateway to Federal scientific and technical information. Through significant financial and in-kind commitments, CENDI and its agencies provided coordination for this effort and formed the core of the Science.gov Alliance. This Alliance, created to provide direction for Science.gov, is made up of CENDI and other science mission agencies and programs. Selected, authoritative government science sites were catalogued into the scitechresources.gov catalog managed by the National Technical Information Service. Deep-web searching for numerous agency databases was developed under the auspices of the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information. The U.S. Geological Survey provided full text indexing of the selected web sites. The National Agricultural Library and the U.S. Geological Survey/Biological Resources Discipline contributed project management.

Science.gov worked closely with Firstgov to ensure the proper linking of the two sites, and discussions began with kids.gov to determine how the sites might collaborate with regard to the identification and cataloging of science content for children.

Usability testing, supported by the National Library of Medicine and the U.S. Geological Survey, was conducted in late 2001. This testing resulted in significant changes to the site. The phase-one Science.gov site was made available in early March for public comment and testing. Preparations continue for an official launch later in 2002.

In an effort to define future STI architecture requirements, CENDI members, the Defense Technical Information Center and the U.S. Geological Survey/Biological Resources Discipline, collaborated on portal development. At the 2001 American Society for Information Science and Technology Meeting, a session on federal STI portals was presented that included an overview of agency portal activities.

CENDI CONTINUED TO PROMOTE AN UNDERSTANDING OF STI AND STI MANAGEMENT

The CENDI web site is a work in progress as agency membership, issues, guidelines, and goals change. During the year, the web site structure was reorganized to reduce the levels of hierarchy, to provide more user-friendly access to the site's most popular pages, and to reflect changes made to the structure of CENDI working groups. The content of the site is constantly monitored and updated as needed to reflect changes in projects, addition of information about conferences, and changes in agency membership.

The Secretariat continues to enhance and maintain the STI Manager, which has over 375 references to high-quality, web-based materials. The STI Manager covers areas of interest to CENDI such as STI policy, information life cycle management, standards, etc.

Two successful CENDI-sponsored symposia were held this year. The first, on the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model, was jointly sponsored with the Federal Library and Information Center Committee. The symposium was held at the Library of Congress in December 2001 with over 70 attendees from a variety of agencies and organizations.

The second, developed and facilitated by the IT Security and Privacy Working Group, focused on Intrusion Detection. This workshop for CENDI members was held at the National Library of Medicine in June 2002, with approximately 13 agency staff in attendance.

The three previously identified publications were posted to the CENDI web site in FY02. A press release concerning the Copyright FAQ's availability was disseminated to over 30 organizations, publications, and listservs.