# Presentation: 401430

## What it is and how it works.

**First**

**Gov**

**Notes:**
Ever have a question for Uncle Sam?  
How do I get a passport?
What percentage of the GNP is entertainment?
Who is the Ambassador to Japan?
Will Yellowstone National Park be open Labor Day?
People are using the Internet to find answers quickly and efficiently.  However, the sheer volume of federal information makes searching the Web a time-consuming and often frustrating chore.  
FirstGov is the remedy.  Now, for the first time, Web users will be able to find authentic U.S. government information on every available federal topic and find it quickly and consistently.

## A metaphor: A Skyscraper & Its Lobby

- _The Information_

- _How to get to it_

- It’s in the skyscraper

- Go to the lobby first

- Great lobby picture

**Notes:**
Because FirstGov is all about how federal information is stored and how the retrieval system is designed, we use a familiar metaphor from architecture to describe the process.

## Where is government information?

- Imagine all the government’s publicly available information being in various rooms in a skyscraper.
- It is an imposing task to find any particular piece of information, so we’d like to make it accessible, even inviting.
- If you know exactly where it is, you can go directly to that floor, that office.
- If not, we’re here to help.

**Notes:**
While citizens have individual needs and questions about the U.S. Government, they may not know where to begin to find answers.  Because of the vastness and complexity of federal government information, we need a reliable, trustworthy gateway to begin our search.

## Making information easy to find

**That’s the metaphor.  The following slides describe how it will work.**
**Remember one thing: FirstGov will help you get started and be a familiar place if you get lost. And, it will provide answers to some obvious queries. **
**Also remember, the government’s Web pages are hosted and managed by the Federal agencies, who will welcome FirstGov having helped you navigate to their Web site.**

**Notes:**
FirstGov is a first step to all of the available federal web page information, and it will grow and evolve as agencies become more and more responsive to the particular needs of public visitors.  Just as a friendly or informative public lobby would help you find your way around a building, the key to a successful and customer-friendly government is to help citizens get to where they want to go.

## The 3-Facets of FirstGov

**The 3-Facets of FirstGov**

- _2. The Back Room_

- _1. The Front Lobby_

- _3. The Brand_

*The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov.*

*Where copies of the government’s Web pages are stored to enable rapid searches.*

*How commercial search portals get “certified”*

**Notes:**
FirstGov has three facets to its structure.

Front Lobby – an easy-to-use and understand place where people go to find answers to their questions concerning the Federal government
Back Room – a massive database where an index of federal web pages is stored.
The Brand – a seal of approval that certifies search services outside government are observing a simple set of citizen-centric principles.

We will talk about each in turn.

## The Lobby: a good place to start

**The Lobby: a good place to start**

**Notes:**
FirstGov works like a well-run lobby to a skyscraper -- helping visitors find their way, designed to be open, accommodating, friendly and inviting.  
You might look at a sign on the wall that lists all organizations, you might go to a kiosk that lets you search by name or keyword, you might see what the concierge thinks is currently “hot”, you might look at a directory of different departments that had listed information by topic, or you might choose a friendly booth, which was manned by people who were there for your interests and had the information to help you get to the right space.
If you still can’t find it, or you want to engage others in your experience, you could gather a crowd and talk about it, and provide feedback to the whole system.
If you have a question for Uncle Sam, go to FirstGov first.

##   1. The Front Lobby ... 

*The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**more description later, first a note about the concept of a multiple page portal ...**

- The FirstGov.gov page _might_ look something like this rough draft.

**Notes:**
When people arrive, they will have a variety of ways to look for answers:
A visitor who wishes to so a simple search by keyword, will be able to type in a word or words and get a list of “results” that link her to the agencies’ web sites.
Or, a visitor could go to a page that shows how to get to the government web sites that have categorized information by topic.
One who wishes to go directly to one of the three branches of the Federal government, can easily do so.
One could click on a list of certified branded partners who will provide their own version of searching these same government web pages.
Or, one could check the “bulletin board” to see what’s hot these days.
And, visitors will be able to praise, criticize or ask questions through a rich feedback module.
Let’s look at how this lobby page, this main page could work ...

##   2. The Front Lobby:  How it might work. 

**Think of it as a multiple page portal:**
- Let’s tip this page and look at it as the “top” page in a series of pages.  As most people do now, we can click on a button on the top page and be taken to lower pages.

*FEEDBACK*

*Partners*

*Topics*

*Keyword*

*Concierge*

##   2. The Front Lobby:  How it might work. 

**  ****2. The Front Lobby:  How it might work. **

*List of Topic Pages*

- Actual Web Pages (residing in the host agency.)

- Topic Button

## That’s how the lobby                might work ... with its concept of a multiple page portal.
Now, let’s look at the second part of the 3-part idea that is the FirstGov system, the very important “Back Room.”  That is where information from all those floors, rooms, file spaces is kept.  
Let’s look in.

- Now, let’s look at the second part of the 3-part idea that is the **First****Gov** system, the very important “Back Room.”  That is where information from all those floors, rooms, file spaces is kept.
- Let’s look in.

**Notes:**

As important as a well-run lobby or gateway, is the Back Room where all of the information is organized.
This Back Room, as described on the next slide, will be a comprehensive, continually-updated index of all information published by the federal government.  It will be the foundation upon which FirstGov is built.

## 2. The Back Room (Fed-Search)

**2. The Back Room **_***(Fed-Search)***_
*Where copies of the government’s web pages are stored to enable rapid searches.*

- The
_***Fed-Search***_
**Big** **dB**
- (Database/
- Index)

- The Fed-Search project will spider or crawl to as many as 100 million agency web pages.
- Copies will be brought back to the Big dB

***Eric Brewer’s ***_***Fed-Search***_*** NPO ******(Not-for-profit Organization)***

- Other branded search portals

***... ******see slides 23-28 for a description of how commercial web searches work and how FirstGov searches would work.***

**Notes:**
What’s going on when users search FirstGov?  University of California Professor and co-founder of Inktomi, Inc., Dr. Eric Brewer, has created a not-for-profit organization called Fed-Search.  Fed-Search is creating a huge index to reach the 100 million or more federal web pages.  These pages will be accessible either through FirstGov or through certified branded partners.
By providing and maintaining the first comprehensive index, Fed-Search should help make all government-focused web sites better.  It should also make developing new and innovative views of the government much easier and less costly.
We’ll describe this in more detail in the last few slides of this presentation.

## One more digression ... to part 3 of the 3-part FirstGov system, Branding. 

Along with the Lobby (                  ) and the Fed-Search Back Room, this whole FirstGov concept will use a unique branding approach.
We expect private sector partners to operate their own portals that will be permitted by the government to use the FirstGov brand.  
Here’s how that will work.     

- Along with the Lobby (                  ) and the ***Fed-Search*** Back Room, this whole **First****Gov** concept will use a unique branding approach.
- We expect private sector partners to operate their own portals that will be permitted by the government to use the **First****Gov **brand.
- Here’s how that will work.

**Notes:**
One of the unique features of FirstGov is that its searching power will not be restricted to the FirstGov.gov site.  Partners outside government will be able to use the FirstGov brand to help their users easily find and identify federal sites. 

## 3. The            Brand

*How search portals might get certified to provide assurance to users*

**Imagic Howdy Citizen**
- A full-service portal designed for a  broad set of users.

**Lib of Cong: *****First******Gov***
- A portal designed for users familiar with asdfsda sdfj asdfa afa .

**Buckeye ****GovPlace**
- The Ohio State University Medical School emphasizing medicine and biomedicine.

**WKRP**** Press Table**
- A press-oriented  portal designed for working journalists

**Certified Partners**

*Private or other public portals may use the FirstGov brand in exchange for meeting certain conditions.  These portals will innovate to offer the best search environment to their customers.*
_*Certification Conditions *__*(abbreviated description):*_
- 1.INTEGRITY: must use the government information “as is”
- 2.	FREE ACCESS: must provide uninterrupted free access
- 3.	PRIVACY: must not track individual actions on the site.
- 4.	POSITIONING: not associated with inappropriate content
- 5.	ATTRIBUTION: must attribute to U.S. Government
- 6.	ACCESSIBLE: must comply with Section 508
- 7.	FEEDBACK CHANNELS: establish methods for user feedback.

- Simply Examples

**Notes:**
By encouraging search engines to become certified partners with FirstGov, we are enabling users to select their individual and preferred method of searching.
The private, commercial sector has shown its ability to innovate to meet customers’ styles of searching.  The non-profit, library and academic sectors have also shown an interest in making their means of sorting government information easily available.  Citizens will benefit from this wide variety of quality choices.
Because this information portal is designed to serve the public interest, FirstGov will ensure that our partners meet conditions that address citizen’s concerns.  (The conditions listed above are in draft form and may be revised.) 
Making the search index available to those who comply with the FirstGov brand conditions, will reduce the barriers to entry in this market space.  That should result in increased competition and innovation as firms gain competitive advantage through the presentation of information.

## Now back to the lobby or main portal

Let’s look at the DRAFT mock-up and see how each module might work.  First, we’ll see a full page mock-up and then show one slide for each module.

- Let’s look at the DRAFT mock-up and see how each module might work.  First, we’ll see a full page mock-up and then show one slide for each module.

**Remember, this FirstGov.gov main portal page is just a draft.  The whole FirstGov system will be designed by design professionals.**

**Notes:**
These concepts about searching on the web are new to many.  To help get a sense of how this will “look and feel,” let’s look at a draft mock-up. 

## Full-page “mock-up” of how the main FirstGov.gov page could look.

**Full-page “mock-up” of how the main FirstGov.gov page **_**could**_** look.**

**Notes:**
FirstGov.gov is rich with options to suit a person’s particular style and preferences for electronic searching.  Some people want to search by simply typing in a key word, some want to be guided by a list of topics, others want an easy click to a government organization, and others want the flexibility to choose one or all methods. 
And, some people want to provide feedback.
FirstGov.gov will try to accommodate all those needs - and more as they emerge.  (Keep in mind that the above drawing represents a draft of potential FirstGov functions. The actual site, when launched, may or may not include everything on this page.  Furthermore, it will probably not look anything like this page.)

Let’s explore these options section by section.

## 1. The Front Door  The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov

*To get to FirstGov, users simply type* FirstGov and get to the main portal. Then, they can choose from several options.*

- *  Users may also type FirstGov.gov or FirstGov.net or .org or .com and get to the main portal.

**1. The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**Notes:**
It will be easy to get to FirstGov through Netscape, Explorer or any other browser.  Once there, the site will give users clues as to how best to search for information.

## Pointers to a few Big Places

**Pointers to a few Big Places**

- These sites would be maintained by the “owner.”  As an example, the White House could maintain the Executive site, Thomas could be the destination when the user clicks on “Legislative Branch.”

**1. The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**Notes:**
For visitors looking for organizational information, the site will also provide an organizational chart of the major elements of the federal government, such as the White House site (Administration), the Thomas site (Legislative) and the new site for the Judiciary.  This will be a simple gateway to access federal agencies’ sites.
FirstGov may also have some “click-to” pages that provide basic organization information.

## Keyword Search

**Keyword(s)**

**Keyword**** ****Search**

**1.The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**Notes:**
For users searching for specific information, we will provide a simple keyword search that directly accesses the Fed-Search index in the “Back Room.”

## Topics

**Topics**

**1. The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

- Pages would be specific to an agency or be a combined page where various agencies had banded together to provide easy navigation to government information for specific subject areas.

**Notes:**
For users searching who prefer to look for information by topic, FirstGov will point to existing and new sites that group government information by category.

## The Certified Portal Partners

**The Certified Portal Partners**

- One or more portals could be general purpose sites.
- Others could tailor their look and feel and their content to specific constituencies.

**1. The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**Notes:**
Certified partners will provide familiar as well as innovative approaches to finding federal information.  With access to the entire Fed-Search index in the Back Room, these partners can focus on tailoring the presentation of federal information to specific needs and interests of their users.

## The Concierge Bulletin Board

**The Concierge Bulletin Board**

- One button might take the user to a site where all agency press releases had been listed.
- Another might take you to a site where information for a particular emergency was listed.
- Another might have collected useful information about exporting products.

**1. The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**Notes:**
The Concierge “Bulletin Board” is intended to provide direct, temporary links to specific sites containing information that is of particular interest to visitors.

## The Feedback Section

**The Feedback Section**

- The FirstGov team will moderate the online discussions.
- Partners, users, and agencies will be responsible for responding to useful criticism.

*“**Learning in the Internet age means *_***you***_* are ****in charge ****of it.”*

**1. The Front Door****  ***The citizen’s first entry to FirstGov*

**Notes:**
As part of our public responsibility, we will encourage users to provide feedback for improvements to FirstGov.  Feedback may include comments about FirstGov, agencies’ sites, information that may or may not be available on the web, or even the relative strength of certified partners.

## How do searches work?
The following 5 slides describe how searches work in the commercial sector and how we imagine searches working in the FirstGov system - very similarly, in fact.
The first 3 slides describe the process using the huge Inktomi scalable search engine. The next 2 describe the process we see for government Web pages.

- The following 5 slides describe how searches work in the commercial sector and how we imagine searches working in the **First****Gov** system - very similarly, in fact.
- The first 3 slides describe the process using the huge Inktomi scalable search engine. The next 2 describe the process we see for government Web pages.

**Notes:**
One of the unique features of FirstGov is that its searching power will not be restricted to the FirstGov.gov site.  Partners outside government will be able to use the FirstGov brand to help their users easily find and identify federal sites.
For economic reasons today, they do not, however, attempt to collect and hold information about all commercial web pages. That would cost too much.  That is why, sometimes when you search, you can’t find a page that you know exists.

## A Typical Commercial Web Search Sequence

- _A Typical __**Commercial**__ Web Search Sequence_

*Before anyone ever asks for a search of any kind, a lot is happening in the “back room.”*
*A major search engine (in this example, Inktomi) is out there “spidering” or “crawling” all the worldwide web sites.  It brings back full-text, and text-only, copies of the sites’ web pages.  This full-page text is stored in the Big Database.*

_**How Searches Work      **__(next 5 slides)_

**Universe of the World Wide Web Sites**

**Notes:**
All search engines mine the vast storehouse of information that makes up the web, and they create an index of the most requested web sites based on different theories of how people look for information.

## How Searches Work

- Yahoo
- ---   ---
- ---   ---

**Alta Vista**
- ---   ---
- ---   ---

- AOL Govt.. Guide
- ---   ---
- ---   ---

- Ask Jeeves
- ---   ---
- ---   ---

- _Info Portals_

- Users access Info Portals, which usually access a big search engine.

- _A Typical __**Commercial**__ Web Search Sequence_

_**How Searches Work**_

**Universe of the World Wide Web Sites**

**Notes:**
Users either choose a search engine or accept their browser’s default engine.  Users type in a keyword or concept and are given a list of potentially relevant web sites.  Depending upon the keywords and the engine’s sophistication, those lists can help narrow or expand the list, and be just what the user wanted (relevancy) or be semantically related but not useful to the user.

## How Searches Work

**Alta Vista**
- ---   ---
- ---   ---

- 	The Big database returns a list of “results” to the 	user, based on her search criteria.  These results 	are short summaries of the web page plus a “URL”, which is the *address* of the original web page.
- When the user selects a “result” and clicks on the URL, she goes directly to the site of the original web page and this page shows up on her screen.
- Now the user is directly connected to the original web site.

- List of results with **URL’s**

- _A Typical __**Commercial**__ Web Search Sequence_

_**How Searches Work**_

**Universe of the World Wide Web Sites**

**Notes:**
At times, the results can be perplexing.  Let’s say you wanted to know about the “superfund” from the Environmental Protection Agency that is earmarked for cleaning up the nation’s toxic waste sites.  Typing in superfund will get you 79,000 web pages on one powerful search engine, including some commercial firms.  
Or “passport” will get you 466,000 on another.  
“Gross National Product” produces over 259,000, and a Washington DC comedy troupe is listed ahead of the Bureau of Economic Analysis which actually reports on the GNP.
The FirstGov system aims to make this process work better for those seeking web-published government information.

## A Typical FirstGov Web Search Sequence

- _A Typical __**First**__**Gov**__ Web Search Sequence_

- Same_ system_: after ‘crawling’ and ‘spidering’ the government pages, full-text copies are brought back to the **Big dB**.

**Universe of ****Government**** Web Sites**

_**How Searches Work**_

**Notes:**
What Inktomi and others do as a business, Fed-Search will do as a not-for-profit organization for the federal government. FirstGov narrows the results to only U.S. government sites and pages, which gets you the information as quickly as possible.  Superfund will take you to the portion of the EPA’s web site devoted to that effort.  Passport takes you to the State Department passport site, and GNP sends you to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The Fed-Search index has, as its core objective, indexing and maintaining references of 100% of all federal information published on the web.  No commercial entity does this, today.

## How Searches Work

- _A Typical __**First**__**Gov**__ Web Search Sequence_

**URL**

**Universe of ****Government**** Web Sites**

_**How Searches Work**_

*Same *_*process*_*: user gets results via a user-friendly portal, either the FirstGov.gov portal or one of the branded sites to which the FirstGov.gov portal guides the user . *

- Keyword

- Topics

- Partners

**Imagic Howdy Citizen**
- A full-service portal designed for a  broad set of users.

**WKRP**** Press Table**
- A press-oriented  portal designed for working journalists

**Lib of Cong: *****First******Gov***
- A portal designed for users familiar with asdfsda sdfj asdfa afa .

**Buckeye ****GovPlace**
- The Ohio State University Medical School emphasizing medicine and biomedicine.

**Notes:**
FirstGov.gov is truly a “portal” or gateway to government information.  And, it’s designed to help each person search the way he or she likes best.  
The benefit of Fed-Search is to bring this government information in one place to make these various search methods most effective.
If you make a direct keyword search, use one of the topic tree sites, or any of these methods, you will be getting what you need faster and more efficiently because of FirstGov, and the great help of Fed-Search. 

--  The End --