**Introduction for July 21 Presentation by Ipedo**

Who We Are, What We Do

Brief description of MSPB's mission, and the important documents it
generates.

Reasons for Investigating XML (Problems with Current Electronic
Architecture)

-   The MSPB's electronic information is scattered among four document
    repositories---the LAN, the document management system (Docs Open),
    Lotus Notes, and the Board's Website---plus our case management
    system, which is a relational database, and e‑Appeal, a web
    application for electronic filing.

-   Many of the documents on the LAN can't be meaningfully searched at
    all; the ability to search the rest is quite limited, and search
    techniques and syntax are different; only one repository can be
    searched at a time.

-   As a result of the dispersal of electronic information, and the
    limitations on searching it, many employees are unaware that a lot
    of the agency's electronic information even exists, and **most**
    employees are not adept at accessing and searching it.

-   Much time is wasted copying Board documents from one electronic
    repository to another, and converting it from one format to another
    (typically Word to PDF and/or HTML).

-   We can't be confident that our electronic documents will continue to
    be accessible in the future.

Why we became interested in XML as a Solution

I've been reading about XML for several years, and thought it held great
promise for legal and government documents. But while the literature
described the wonderful things you could do with data and documents that
were in XML format, I was always left wondering how we're going to get
all our legacy documents, and the ones we continue to create, into XML
format. I got very interested when I became aware of software that
could:

(1) Convert virtually any common electronic format into XML, while
    preserving the formatting and look of the original document;

(2) Put the XML versions of the documents into a native XML database in
    which you can run sophisticated searches with an X‑Query compliant
    search engine;

(3) Has several mechanisms for incorporating metadata from the source
    documents into the XML versions and can set search criteria based on
    that metadata;

(4) Can easily output any of the documents in the XML database into any
    format that you need at a particular time, including PDF, word
    processing, and web page formats;

(5) Keeping the XML database synchronized with the "legacy" framework;
    and

(6) Allows users to run a full‑text search of one set of documents
    subject to a condition based on information in a second set of
    documents, or on information from a relational database.

The **primary benefit** of an XML solution at the MSPB: For the first
time ever, **all** of our agency's electronic information would be
readily and easily accessible from a single, user‑friendly interface. A
second major benefit is that we would have all of our critical
electronic documents in a vendor-neutral, open standard that would be
accessible for years to come. A third benefit is that it would be easier
to exchange documents and information with other federal agencies and
the general public.

How employees could use Ipedo solution

From a single interface, Board employees would be able to do any of the
following:

-   Easily find a particular document and read or print it.

-   Browse through the contents of document collections, like a table of
    contents, and access whatever they want.

-   Do research, combining full-text search queries with field
    restrictions. Field restrictions would include information from CMS,
    e‑Appeal, and other document collections. Although today's
    presentation focuses on legal documents, system would not be limited
    to those Specialized search screens could be designed for each
    office or Board function.

-   Find and access a document for editing in its native application,
    e.g., Word.

What XML Working Group will see today

After describing its application in general terms, Ipedo is going to
demonstrate some of its capabilities using several sets of example MSPB
documents we provided. Emphasize that this was a quick mock-up to
demonstrate some of the capabilities of an XML system. A completed
application would be much more polished in appearance, and much more
sophisticated in what it would be able to do.