# Presentation: 279792

## Title Slide

**January 16, 2002**

- 16 January 2002

## Who We Are

- Presenters:
**Ben Dean**, Director, Office of Policy Technology Management (OPTM) - SSA:_[Ben.F.Dean@ssa.gov](mailto:Ben.F.Dean@ssa.gov)_
**Terry Hynes**, Director, Center for Policy Management, OPTM - SSA: _[Terry.M.Hynes@ssa.gov](mailto:Terry.M.Hynes@ssa.gov)_
**Mike Leff**, Electronic Services Tech Area Manager - Lockheed Martin
- 	_[Michael.S.Leff@ssa.gov](mailto:Michael.S.Leff@ssa.gov)_

- Other Key Project Leads:
**SSA**
- Li-Ming Koo
- Linda Christy
- Ed McGuire
**Lockheed Martin**
- Henry Breton
- Cathy Preisinger
- Tim Marr
- Mike Flester

- 16 January 2002

## What We Propose Covering

- Challenges for the SSA business environment through 2010 & plans to meet them – the big picture
- SSA policy development, dissemination, clarification & evaluation challenges & plans to meet them – scope of the subject project
**	**
- Business case
- Systems solutions with emphasis on XML linking
- Conclusions
- References

- 16 January 2002

## Major Service Delivery Challenges Facing SSA by 2010

- Explosion of technology requiring new electronic interfaces
- Increase in preferred ways for dealing with SSA – Internet, wireless, video ...
- Increase in customer expectations – faster, more convenient services
- Increase in disability beneficiaries of as much as 46%
- Increase in retirement beneficiaries of over 15%
- Increase in SSI recipients of about 10%
- Expanded responsibilities for new mission requirements such as Ticket to Work & Work Incentives Act of 1999

- 16 January 2002

## Major Service Delivery Challenges Facing SSA by 2010, cont.

- Long-term solvency issues
- Probable loss of 38,000 skilled, experienced staff, out of 65,000
- The knowledge management challenge
- Policy and procedural instruction systems become even more important
- Maintenance of a workforce that consists of:
- Skilled staff capable of dealing with an increasingly complex technological environment
- Diverse staff serving a national population with differing social & cultural backgrounds and language skills
- Little or no likely increase in staffing levels
** **

- 16 January 2002

## Current Service Level Benchmarking – Highly Valued in SSA

**Relatively low processing times**
**High accuracy rates**
**High public satisfaction with our performance **
**Relatively low cost of doing business**
**Evaluated as one of the best managed federal agencies**

- Challenge – take an excellent Agency and make it better

- 16 January 2002

## How Do We Propose to Take an Excellent Agencyand Make it Better?

- Through principles of service and enablers of service (next two slides) driving well-executed detailed plans, found published on Social Security Online, _[http://www.ssa.gov](http://www.ssa.gov/)_, with achievement of measurable performance goals throughout the journey – hard, smart work.** **
- SSA Service Delivery Vision
- 	_[http://www.ssa.gov/2010/](http://www.ssa.gov/2010/)_
- SSA Performance Plan for FY2002
- 	_[http://www.ssa.gov/performance/2002/](http://www.ssa.gov/performance/2002/)_
- SSA Strategic Plan, “Mastering the Challenge” _[http://www.ssa.gov/2000asp7.pdf](http://www.ssa.gov/2000asp7.pdf)_

- 16 January 2002

## Service Principles

**Consumer Choice** - Public has expanded options for service that are broad in terms of the time, place, mode of access, and language.
**First Point of Contact** - Public completes their transactions at the first point of contact.
**Privacy **- Public has the confidence that SSA collects personal information only as needed for the Government’s business and discloses personal information only as allowed by law.
**One-Stop Government Service** - SSA works with other government agencies to move toward providing a wide variety of government services in a single contact.
**Proactive Service** - SSA ensures contact with hard-to-reach segments of the population, provides an automated application process and is proactive in researching issues and trends that impact its programs.
**Stewardship** - SSA safeguards trust fund contributions and tax dollars through effective management and aggressive preventative, investigative, and prosecutorial efforts

- 16 January 2002

## Service Delivery Enablers

**Technology Enhancements** - SSA maximizes use of technology to automate workload and administrative processes to enhance service and to support the fully electronic, paperless processing of its work.
**Access to Electronic Records** - Public and employees have access to electronic records, with the necessary security, privacy, and authentication.
**Operational Flexibility** - SSA’s resources are integrated and restructured to provide maximum flexibility in meeting workload and service demands.
**External Alliances** - SSA works with other government agencies to move toward providing a wide variety of government services in a single contact. SSA develops strong alliances with government agencies, community-based organizations, tribal governments, and the private sector in areas that benefit SSA and those it serves.
**Public Communications** - SSA’s communications activities include using innovative means to ensure that the public has up-to-date knowledge about SSA’s programs and services.
**Internal Working Relationships** - SSA has strong working relationships across component lines, with its unions and employee associations.

- 16 January 2002

## Bounding Our Project

- 16 January 2002

## Some PolicyNet Challenges

**Assure the right policies and procedures, most current, are available:**
**To the right people** – “content consumers”
- Front-line SSA & State Disability Determination Service (DDS) employees such as claims reps, counselors, benefit authorizers, teleservice center reps, administrative law judges
- Other government entities
- Public transacting via Internet
**At the right time** – when needed; usually immediately
**In the right format** – context-related; not a set of manuals; linked to all related material, e.g., training, in as granular a fashion as required
**At the right cost** – fewer staff vs front-line employees, more efficient systems, islands of automation eliminated through productive linking and integration
**In a secure manner** – privacy & data integrity protected

- 16 January 2002

## More PolicyNet Challenges

- Assure the base system we develop is eXtensible to new & changing technology, standards & processes – productively and quickly
- Assure authoring community can work productively
- Assure current service levels are met or exceeded
- Assure the service delivery vision is supported
**What’s Next?**
- Our policy & procedure story
- How we propose to use XML as a technology enabler for meeting many of these challenges

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## PolicyNet Background

- What is PolicyNet?
- The full life cycle of a policy document
- Oracle DB and authoring system
- QuickPlace for collaboration and review
- Reference area

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## PolicyNet Background

- Program Operations Manual System (POMS)
- POMS is currently in SGML
- Authoring and maintenance

- 16 January 2002

## PolicyNet Background

- PolicyNet Dissemination
- Access within SSA
- Access by the public

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## Redefining How Policy is Produced, Managed and Consumed

- Efficient use of policy
- Across the agency
- Government wide
- Value to SSA, other agencies, the public
- Access
- Accuracy
- Eliminate redundancy
- Reduce the need for contacting others

- 16 January 2002

## Approach

- Unified Process
- E-Software Paradox
- Incremental and iterative delivery of a system's executable releases.
- Risk and use case driven
- Architecture centric
**Unified Modeling Language (UML)  **
- Graphically visualize, specify, construct, and document artifacts of a software-intensive system. (A standard language for writing software blueprints).
- Represent different views of system's design and implementation.
- Communicate with a common language

- 16 January 2002

**Notes:**
J2EE
Bureau of Indian Affairs

## Artifacts

**Artifacts**

- Process and Modeling
- Model business process  for understanding
- Summarize system functionality

- Use-Case Diagram

- Activity Diagram

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## Business and Technical Architecture

- Controls
- access to

- Supports

- Architecture-Centric** **
- NIST
- Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework
- Spewak - EAP
- Zachman Framework

- 16 January 2002

## System Models

**Current islands of automation**
**External systems copying policy content to repurpose**
**XML helps move toward data consolidation**
**Improved ability to link between disparate sources**

- Controls
- access to

- Supports

- As-is

- To-be

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## XML Repository

- Common Functionality
- Versioning
- Security
- DTD or Schema
- Notification of changes
- XLink link base processing

- Entities

- Attributes

- Elements

- Schema

- DTD

- Content

- Schema Write

- Document Write

- DTD Write

- Schema Read

- Document Read

- DTD Read

- Document Update

- Metadata Read

- Links

- Security

- Version
- Control

- Generic
- XML
- Repos-
- itory

- RDBMS

- POMS

- OTHER

- HALLEX

- MSGS/Q&A

- 16 January 2002

## XML Linking 

- XML linking effort started in 1996
- Provide enhanced linking functionality utilizing an XML vocabulary (XLink) and an addressing scheme (XPointer)
- XML Linking Working Group
- The objective of the XML Linking Working Group is to design advanced, scalable, and maintainable hyperlinking and addressing functionality for XML

- 16 January 2002

## XLink, XPointer, XPath

**XLink **_**[www.w3.org/TR/](http://www.w3c.org/TR/Xlink)**__**[xlink](http://www.w3c.org/TR/Xlink)**_
- W3C Recommendation (27 June 2001)
- Defines the linking language which allows elements to be inserted into xml documents and to create and describe associations between documents
**XPointer **_**[www.w3.org/TR/xptr](http://www.w3c.org/xml/linking)**_
- W3C Candidate Recommendation (11 September 2001)
- The definition of a language to be used to identify a resource
- Based on XPath
- Can return any user selection in a document
**XPath **_**[www.w3.org/TR/xpath](http://www.w3c.org/TR/XPath)**_
- W3C Recommendation (16 November 1999)
- Version 2 Working Draft  (20 December 2001)
- Used to address and select a specific groups of nodes and attributes in an XML document
**Linking Description **_**www.w3.org/XML/Linking**_

- 16 January 2002

## Linking Technologies

*http://example.com/document.xml/*
*                  **#xpointer**(poms/chap[3]/**range-to**(poms/chap[5]))*

*XLink*

*XPointer*

*XPath*

- (XLink using XPointer and XPath)

- 16 January 2002

## XPointer

- Granularity - (URL only points at a single, complete resource/manually insert anchors in target - requires write access)
- Precisely targeted addresses (address individual elements)
- Entire elements
- Discontiguous sets of elements
- Range of text between two points
- More Sophisticated connections
- Does not require targeted document to contain additional markup
- Concerns
- Protocol to handle Browser request from Web Server to send only part of document
- Does not ensure valid/well formed XML upon retrieval

- 16 January 2002

## XLink

- A namespace (usually prefixed as "xlink” ) with a set of elements and attributes anchored in that namespace  http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink/namespace/)
- Two kinds of links**:**
- Simple link elements (HTML like)
- Extended links
- Well-Formed XML** **
- XLinks described with attributes
- <!ELEMENT Authors>
- <!ATTLIST Authors
- xmlns:xlink		CDATA #FIXED _[http://www.w3c.org/1999/xlink](http://www.w3c.org/1999/xlink)_
- xlink:type		(simple | extended | locator | arc | resource | title) “simple”
- xlink:href		CDATA  #REQUIRED
- xlink:role		CDATA #IMPLIED
- xlink:title		CDATA #IMPIED
- xlink:show		(new | replace | embed | other | none ) “replace”
- xlink:actuate	{onLoad | onRequest | other | none ) “onRequest” >

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## type Attribute

**Type (required) defines the type of link:**
- simple             	 (Similar to HTML <A HREF=....> )
- extended          	 (allows multiple links)
**Sub-elements to extended links **
- locator		Locations to participate in an extended link
- arc		Define navigable connections between 				locations resources
- title		Human readable sub-element
- resource		Define participants in a link

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## XLink Attributes

- 16 January 2002

**Notes:**
what happens when the link is activated? 
when is the link activated? 

## HTML Linking Limitations < HREF= “...”>

- Static
- Unidirectional
- Single source anchor
- Single destination anchor
- Implied direction between them
- Automatic traversal
- No content embedding

- 16 January 2002

## XML Linking Model 

- XLink allows definition of Links
- XLink is simply an association between a number of resources (Locators)
- Link does not imply traversal
- Link Source & Link Destination Optional
- Given link may contain a number of different arcs

- XLink separates associating resources (using a link) from traversal amongst resources (using arcs)

- 16 January 2002

## XLink Functionality

- Simple (short hand notation for extended)
- Extended
- Multi-source: multi-destination link
- Arc traversal can be activated from multiple different locations resulting in the presentation of multiple new resources rather than just a single resource** **
- Dynamic Links
- Destination resources are resolved when traversal occurs.
- Structure and/or behavior can change over time
- 	(e.g. link destination is a service rather than a document; cgi scripts, servlets)
- Generic Links - Participating resources are defined by a particular pattern rather than a location

- 16 January 2002

## Association

** **
- <siblings xlink:type="extended">
- 	<child xlink:type="locator"
- 	xlink:href="people.xml#xpointer(id(’anna’))"
- 	xlink:title="Anna"/>
- 	<child xlink:type="locator"
- 	xlink:href="people.xml#xpointer(id(’bill’))"
- 	xlink:title="Bill"/>
- 	<child xlink:type="locator"
- 	xlink:href="people.xml#xpointer(id(’carl’))"
- 	xlink:title="Carl"/>
- </siblings>

- Three locator elements, each of which uses an XPointer as part of the locator
- No traversal between these elements specified.
- No link “source”
- No link “destination”

- 16 January 2002

**Notes:**
3 locator elements, each of which uses an XPointer as part of the locator required to specify the remote resource that is participating 

## Multiple Resources - Multiple Traversal

- <extendedlink xlink:type="extended">
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:href="a.xml" xlink:label="x"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:href="b.xml" xlink:label="y"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:href="c.xml" xlink:label="z"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:href="d.xml" xlink:label="z"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:href="e.xml" xlink:label="z"/>
- 	<go xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="x" xlink:to="y"/>
- 	<go xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="y" xlink:to="z"/>
- </extendedlink>

- Two arc specification
- Second arc specification actually creates three arcs
- End up with one arc from a.xml (to b.xml), and three arcs from b.xml (to c.xml, d.xml, and e.xml).

- 16 January 2002

## Multi-Ended

- <family xlink:type="extended">
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="parent" xlink:href="Ann.xml"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="parent" xlink:href="Bob.xml"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="child" xlink:href="Gina.xml"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="child" xlink:href="Hank.xml"/>
- 	<loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="child" xlink:href="Irma.xml"/>
- 	<go xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="parent" xlink:to="child"/>
- </family>

- Five participating resources
- Single arc specification which results in six arcs (Ann–Gina, Ann–Hank, Ann–Irma, Bob–Gina, Bob–Hank, Bob–Irma).

- 16 January 2002

## Extended Link - Example

- <CONTAINER xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink”
-         xlink:type=“extended”
-         xlink:label=“container for other xlinks”>
-     <NAME xlink:type="resource"
- 	xlink:label="source"> Cafe au Lait </NAME>
-    <HOMESITE xlink:type="locator"
- 	xlink:href="http://ibiblio.org/javafaq/"
- 	xlink:label="us"/>
-    <MIRROR xlink:type="locator"
- 	xlink:title="Cafe au Lait Swedish Mirror"
- 	xlink:label="se"
- 	xlink:href="http://sunsite.kth.se/javafaq"/>
-    <CONNECTION xlink:type="arc"
- 	xlink:from="source"            xlink:to="us"
- 	xlink:show="replace"          xlink:actuate="onRequest"/>
-    <CONNECTION xlink:type="arc"
- 	xlink:from="source"            xlink:to="se"
- 	xlink:show="replace"          xlink:actuate="onRequest"/>
- </CONTAINER>

- 16 January 2002

## Case Study - Policy and Training Linkage

- SSA has requested bi-directional linkages between policy and training material
- Policy Repository – Contains Program Instructions for processing claims maintained in XML
- Training Material  – Claim processing training material maintained in Microsoft Word (being converted to XML)
- Training material linked to policy using in-line links
- Cannot modify underlying documentation

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## Case Study - Analysis 

- Client side linking versus server side linking
- Implementing XML linking

**Case Study - Analysis**** **

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**Notes:**
All HTML links embedded in document
Hard to maintain
Requires another application or inherent knowledge of source and destination
Read/Write permission on all documents
Client side linking
Requires Mozilla or Amaya browser (SSA is Internet Explorer only)
Lose control of the presentation layer
XSLT is removing the XLink information
Server-side linking
Nothing to resolve XPointers so XLinks are of limited use standalone
Required writing limited XLink and XPointer processorsImplementations researched
X2X
XLinkIt
Fujitsu Xlink Processor
None completely work

## Case Study

- Unstyled Office of Training documentation as XML
- Inline XLinks
- Uses XPath, XPointer, and XLink** **

- Program Instruction fragment (destination)

- 16 January 2002

## Case Study - Office of Training Contentwithout XLinks resolved

- 16 January 2002

## Case Study - Office of Training Content with XLinks Resolved 

- textInsertion

- nodeInsertion

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## Case Study - Links Resolved and Transformed 

- * XSL must be aware of the inserted node or it will be stripped out

- textInsertion

- nodeInsertion

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## Case Study - COTS Solutions

**X2X **(_[http://www.](http://www.empolis.co.uk/products/prod_x2x.asp)__[empolis](http://www.empolis.co.uk/products/prod_x2x.asp)__[.co.](http://www.empolis.co.uk/products/prod_x2x.asp)__[uk](http://www.empolis.co.uk/products/prod_x2x.asp)__[/products/prod_x2x.asp ](http://www.empolis.co.uk/products/prod_x2x.asp)_)
- Features
- Author links without modifying documents
- Dynamically insert links in documents from linkbase
- Link any documents together
- Issues
- Limited online support
- Samples did not work
**Xlinkit** (_[http://www.](http://www.xlinkit.com/background.html)__[xlinkit](http://www.xlinkit.com/background.html)__**.com/background.html **_)
- Rule based link generation
- Consistency Checking
- XtooX (_http://www.xlinkit.com/xtoox/index.html_)** **
- Tool to be used with Xlinkit
- Fujitsu XLink Processor (http://www.labs.fujitsu.com/free/xlip/en/index.html )
- No API access, no toolset

- 16 January 2002

## Case Study - Implementation

- XLink processor
- Inline Xlink processing
- Role attribute as either “textInsertion” or “nodeInsertion”
- XSL processing
- XPointer processor
- Built as an extension to XPath
- Resolve to specific characters

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## Case Study - XLink Implementations

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## Observations

**All processing done on the server**
**Unclear how stylesheet processing should be integrated with XLink**
**Embedding documents can be problematic and cause undesirable results**
**Client side linking is not well supported**
**Security, authentication, and trust issues**
**Ownership of linkbases**
**Tools required to insert and maintain links**

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## Path Forward

- Establish XML-based architecture
- Review and apply XPointer/XLink implementations
- Implement linkbase functionality
- Continue to monitor and evaluate tools

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## Questions

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## Resources

**XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.0****	****	****http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/**
**XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0****	****	****	****http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/**
**XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0 ****	****	****http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath**
**XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0****	****http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr/**
**W3C Extensible Markup Language (XML)****	****	****http://www.w3.org/XML/**
**W3C XML Pointer, XML Base and XML Linking****	****http://www.w3.org/XML/Linking**
**XML Linking Implementations ****	****               ****http://www.w3.org/XML/2000/09/LinkingImplementations.html**
**SSA Online****	****	****	****	****	****http://www.ssa.gov/onlineservices/**
**XML.GOV****	****	****	****	****	****http://www.xml.gov/**
**XML Linking and Addressing Languages ****	****	****http://xml.coverpages.org/xll.html**
**     ****(XPath, XPointer, XLink)**

- 16 January 2002