LegalXML and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration will host a one-day conference highlighting current XML and XML-related initiatives of the legislative branch on April 24, 2001. The purpose of the conference is to discuss the current use of XML by the legislative branch and the advantages of using of open and standard XML. Congressional organizations, federal agencies, private sector, and non-profit organizations will participate in the conference. The conference will have three panels. 

Panel One: Legislative Branch Current Use of XML

The first panel will consist of the various stakeholders discussing current XML initiatives. Panel participants may include representatives from the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service and the Law Library (GLIN), the Clerk of the House, the Government Printing Office, Office of Legislative Counsel, the Senate, and the House Information Resources. A web site has been set up to highlight the activities of the COAX conference and the initiatives currently underway in each of the stakeholder organizations.

Panel Two: Summary of XML Tools and Value Added Republication using XML

The second panel will include two panelists who will summarize the current state of XML tools, capabilities and major development efforts. The first panelist will describe the current tools available for creating and using XML, document management tools and XML specific coding tools. The second panelist will discuss the current uses of XML by companies that provide value to government information. The summaries will be followed by question and answer periods. Stakeholders may choose to direct questions to vendor representatives.

Panel Three: Importance of communications and open standards

The third panel will include panelists that describe the advantages of using open, industry wide XML standards. The panelists may include representatives from XML.org/OASIS, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), LegalXML, a state government (Ohio), federal agencies (XML.gov) and a non-profit group advocating the use of XML documents to better serve the public. The panelists will concentrate on the current XML standards such as citations, UDDI, GLIN, SOAP, and EbXML.

Vendors interested in having their products mentioned in the second panel should provide information to the panelists through Daniel Bennett.  The information provided should briefly describe XML supporting products, capabilities and major XML related development efforts. The panelists will summarize the information and present an overview for the stakeholders. Vendor information to be included in the second panel summary should be directed to Daniel Bennett no later than March 30, 2001.

Participating vendors may provide links to their corporate or product web sites to Daniel Bennett at the e-mail address listed below. These links will be available on the COAX conference web site. Vendors sponsoring conference activities will have a special link area on the conference web site indicating their sponsorship.

Participating vendors may provide product descriptions and contact information to the conference attendees. The information will be organized by the hosts on a vendor table. All distributed information must be provided through the hosting organizations, no other handouts will be permitted at the conference. 

No panelists will be using audiovisual presentations (e.g. Powerpoints). Panelists may be providing  materials electronically for inclusion on the web site and distributing handouts (paper and/or CDROM’s) at the conference.

Attendance is limited to 80 people, seating must be requested through Daniel Bennett. Due to the desire to accommodate as many requests as possible, organizations may be limited as to the number of participants.

There will  be a vendor-sponsored buffet style lunch and breakfast. Sponsoring vendors will be introduced prior to introduction of the luncheon speaker. Vendors interested in sponsoring some portion of the event should contact Gary Poindexter.

This is the first LegalXML conference focusing on XML initiatives and standards used by the legislative branch with the stakeholders. We look forward to being the co-hosts for this historic event. We hope that you will join us.

Gary Poindexter
Co-chair, Legislation Workgroup, LegalXML

Daniel Bennett
Chair, Taskforce on COAX Conference,  LegalXML

Daniel Greenwood
Board Liaison to COAX Conference,  LegalXML

Conference location

Committee on House Administration hearing room
1310 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Conference Agenda

Contacts:

Contact for the COAX conference:

Daniel Bennett
DotGov Communications
1601 Argonne Place, NW #518
Washington, D.C. 20009

E-mail: daniel@citizencontact.com

Vendors wishing to participate as sponsors should contact:

Gary Poindexter
KPMG Consulting

E-mail: gpoindexter@kpmg.com