Federal Chief Information Officers Council

September 25, 2000

eXtensible Markup Language (XML) embodies the potential to alleviate many of the interoperability problems associated with the sharing of data within and across organizations. In order to capitalize on that potential more efficiently and effectively on a Government-wide basis, the CIO Council's Enterprise Interoperability and Emerging Information Technology Committee

(EIEITC) has chartered the XML Working Group to undertake four activities:

Identify pertinent standards and best practices
Establish partnerships with industry and public interest groups
Establish partnerships with governmental communities of interest
Education and outreach

The Working Group has established a listserv and, in cooperation with the National Institutes on Standards and Technology (NIST), will be developing an evolving strategic plan and set of associated tasks at xml.gov. In addition, monthly meetings will be held to hear informative presentations and engage in face-to-face (F2F) discussions on topics of common interest.

This is to invite your agency's participation at whatever level and by whatever means you see fit. At a minimum you may wish to suggest that members of your staff monitor traffic on the listserv. They may subscribe by sending a message to: listserv@www.gsa.gov with "subscribe xmlwg firstname lastname" in the body of the message. To foster cooperation and reduce the learning curve for all of us, we especially encourage you to notify the Working Group of XML-related initiatives within your agency.

Please convey any questions, comments, or other suggestions to the Working Group's co-chairs, Owen Ambur of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Owen_Ambur@fws.gov) and/or Marion Royal of GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy (marion.royal@gsa.gov.)