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CENDI PRINCIPALS AND ALTERNATES MEETING |
National Library of Education
Washington, DC
June 4, 2002
WELCOME
Kent Smith opened the meeting at 9:15 am. Ms. McGarr welcomed the participants to NLE.
"Quality Guidelines from Agencies' Perspectives: What We Heard at
the Workshops
on Quality"
Anne-Marie Mazza, Science, Technology and Law Program, National Research Council
The Science, Technology and Law Program of the NRC was established to look at how science is used in the courtroom and how legislation impinges on the work of scientists and engineers. The STL Panel comprises a twenty-two member panel with 11 representatives from science and engineering and 11 from law. The Program is co-chaired by Donald Kennedy and Richard Merrill. Early work of the STL Program included a 1999 workshop on scientific evidence. In the Spring 2001, the Program held a workshop on the effect of the "Shelby" Amendment on public access to research data. Agencies representatives as that meeting indicated that they had received relatively few FOIA requests under the Shelby Amendment for scientific information (14 from NIH and 7 from EPA).
The National Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations became concerned about implications of the legislation directing OMB to develop data quality guidelines for information disseminated by the Federal government. The Academy submitted two comment letters to OMB expressing its concern about the standards imposed by the guidelines for influential scientific and technical information. After discussions with OIRA administrator, John Graham, the Academies Science, Technology, and Law Program held a series of workshops, funded by several federal agencies, in Spring 2002, where the agencies responsible for implementing the guidelines could share with each other their concerns about and approaches to the guidelines.
Approximately 300 people attended the first two March workshops, where there was a general sense of urgency since the Agency draft guidelines were due on May 1. The agencies were somewhat hesitant to discuss the issues from the agency perspectives because many had not yet finalized their plans, but most viewed it as an educational opportunity. Transcripts of the presentations from the March workshop are on the program's web site (www.nas.edu/stl) and a report will be issued in late summer.
Most agency guidelines have posted their guidelines on their websites. At the March meeting, agency-specific guidelines were in various degrees of completion, and they were very diverse in terms of their scope and detail. Some agencies have department-wide guidelines only, while others have department-level and individual subordinate unit guidelines. For example, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wrote department-wide guidelines but insisted that units have their own, and so FDA and NIH each have guidelines. The Department of Commerce, on the other hand, has department-wide guidelines but none at the unit level. The individual units can develop their own guidelines by October 1, 2002, or default to the department guidelines.
The approach for responding to requests that the agency correct information it has disseminated differ as well. Some guidelines are very specific, indicating target dates for the time between receipt of the request and the agency's response. Some indicated targets that they will try to meet. Most of the agency guidelines require a certain amount of information from the person requesting the correction, including contact information, information on the location of the data to be corrected, information on what is wrong with the data, etc. To reduce frivolous or nuisance filings, most agencies seem to be placing some "burden of proof" on the person seeking the correction.
A number of questions were raised during the workshops and are addressed differently by each agency. Who is an affected person? Who is the responsible person to make the denial? Is it the same unit as FOIA or is it the program office that was in charge of the original research? If there is an appeal, what is the process? In some cases, the agencies have the review conducted by an Assistant Administrator while others have an external panel. What if someone requests a correction to data used in rule making? Some agencies seemed to be saying that these corrections would be addressed during the rule-making process.
The question of what is meant by "influential data" was discussed. Some suggested that it is "big rules" or the number of dollars involved. In some cases, the definition will be determined on a case-by-case basis ("you'll know it when you see it" definition). The Department of Labor identified examples of influential information, such as the consumer price index. The Department of Transportation is trying to be more specific with regard to data. It is trying to identify the breadth (the number of people effected) and intensity (the cost of the economic impact).
The OMB guidelines require agencies dealing with health, safety, and environmental data to either adopt or adapt the approach specified in the Safe Drinking Water Act, which includes using the best available science supported by peer review science and studies, and use data collected by accepted methods. The SDWA also indicates the manner in which risk information must be presented. Most agencies implied that they would adapting the criteria spelled-out in the SDWA.
The requirement for "reproducibility" has been defined as "to the best of the agency's efforts". In many cases "reproducibility" is not appropriate for many types of scientific information, such as weather data. The need to be able to do this is being interpreted by many agencies as the capability to come to the same results through well-documented methods and reliance on peer review.
The issue of unfunded mandates was discussed. There has been some attempt to assign cost figures to the process, but no cost projections have been included. It appears that additional agencies resources will be required.
The discussions and presentations at the April workshop identified several key questions that remain, including the impact on rule making, the use of data from one agency by another in its rule making process, the impact on data collected before October 2002, the impact on the work of grantees both intramural and extramural, and agency resources needed to respond to requests.
OMB will be reviewing the guidelines prepared by the agencies over the summer,
particularly the exceptions, to see if they make sense and if they match OMB's
expectations. While this is an enormous review process, it appears that OMB
staff are seriously reviewing what is being received. In the spring of 2004,
the STL Program may conduct another review to see what the impact of the guidelines
have been on agency practices.
"S.803 E-Government Act 2002: Major Changes and
Rationale from the Initial Bill"
Kevin Landy, Senate Committee on Government Affairs, Senator Lieberman
The changes between the original introduction of the bill in 2001 and the amendment in 2002 are based on staff level negotiations that occurred between the introduction of the bill and mark-up. Senator Lieberman was pleased that some sections stayed the same. Changes were made because he felt it was important for Sen. Thompson and the Administration to be supportive. The most significant change was the removal of the Federal CIO position. Senator Lieberman still favors a Federal CIO, but the CIO has to do with larger information resource management issues of which E-Government is really a subset. The position outlined in the 2002 amendment would be at the same level as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
Another change is the introduction of performance measures to Sec. 202. The goal is to link e-government to overall agency objectives. This was requested by the Office of Management and Budget.
Sec. 215 in the original bill involved an ambitious process of categorization, permanent public access, etc., without well-defined goals. The new Sec. 207 is less sweeping and is considered more manageable. It sets up an interagency committee and allows OMB to set guidelines. They looked at consolidating other points in the section. They focused on the directory and a consolidation of government information, rather than databases with links. If e-government publishes something and it has to be linked, it might duplicate the work of the private sector. They also looked at refocusing the R&D initiative toward Radius and toward federal spending data. Landy looked at Radius and it seemed valuable. He wants to make some parts of it publicly available. They are still working on the details of this. These changes came about by committee and public input. The new section also represents a consolidation of several other sections.
Mr. Landy noted that the details of some of the subsections are still undergoing final wording changes. They hope to have the bill ready for passage by the Senate as quickly as possible. Rep. Turner has introduced the same bill in the House. They are having some ongoing discussion with Davis, Burton, and Waxman on how to get them interested in the bill. This plan for proceeding hasn't changed, but they are still discussing how this bill would be taken up this year. There is an information security component of the E-government Act, and it is conceivable that this language would be harmonized with other legislation on information security causing some delay. This is a key interest of Rep. Davis.
Discussion
CENDI members raised a number of points of specific interest (see following).
The goal is to increase public access by using electronic technologies to make it easier for the public. However, there is an issue of ever-changing technology. There is also the issue of ever evolving and existing standards. For example, there are categorization schemes or taxonomies that have been developed by the agencies over the years. Mr. Landy indicated that they tried to avoid being too specific with regard to categorization and avoided the term cataloging in this version altogether. Sec. 207 sets up a process for agency staff who understand the issues to be involved in the development of taxonomies and categorization schemes. He has written report language to make it clear that existing taxonomies and other vocabulary tools should be considered. The expert group could choose to suggest the use of existing schemes. While there is a two-year requirement for an initial directory, it is obviously an ongoing project. . He emphasized that standards must be open and non-proprietary. Changes in technologies will require re-looking at the results of the legislation, and the Act calls for annual reporting to Congress, which should address these issues.
While the title of Sec. 207 still includes Preservation, it is not mentioned again in the text of the section. It seems that this section is now less specific, with an emphasis on electronic records and not all government information. It also suggests a larger role for the Archivist. Mr. Landy indicated that there was concern at OMB about seeming to establish requirements for other branches of the government. The question of why there should be more rigorous preservation and access requirements for materials in electronic form than in physical form was also raised. He stated that the Rules Committee may need to look at this again.
The R&D database described in the Act was discussed in terms of the new version increasing the focus on funding data rather than technical information. If this is the case, then it was suggested that any future system would have the same inconsistencies as the current Radius system. The current problems result from the variety of approaches to undertaking R&D across agencies and, therefore, the lack of a standard accounting process across the government. The amount of detail and what it means can vary from agency to agency. Depending on the committees who have jurisdiction over agency appropriations the requirements for presentation of budget exhibits, how they are shown and how they are broken down, can vary. There are also issues of who should have access and to what parts of the information in the database. There are others issues such as submissions by FFRDC and contractors and whether the reporting includes dollar amounts that are in the decision making process. R&D management should be participants in deciding how this should work. If you are trying to improve science by providing early information regarding research in progress, there are also opportunities related to connecting the project information to published results. This raises issues related to access and linking to literature. Mr. Landy indicated that the linking issues will not be addressed in the bill. He also indicated that OMB guidance should dictate how accounting practices would be resolved and what level of information would be included.
It was also noted that the appropriations requested for this is at the same level as current NSF funding to Rand for the maintenance of Radius. Mr. Landy acknowledged that this was the case.
It was noted that Sec. 207F no longer includes educational resources. This subsection will likely be deleted.
The current draft Act does not have any special provision for sensitive but
unclassified information. This should be considered and an orderly process for
making these determinations should be established. Similarly, there would be
questions about the interaction of this Act with data quality guidelines. Mr.
Landy indicated that other laws and regulations would continue to apply and
need to be considered in combination with this Act.
"S.803 and A-130: A Perspective from the Evolution
of Information Policy"
Bruce McConnell, McConnell International LLC
S.803 is the latest in a long line of IT and information policy bills. These date back to the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act and include more recent legislation such as GPRA (Government Performance and Results Act), the Clinger-Cohen Act and derivatives, such as GPEA. In general, legislation may do one or more of the following: set policy, provide oversight, tell agencies what to do, require reporting, and provide funding. In the information policy arena, there is a leap-frogging process with OMB over time, with OMB directives and legislation alternating in setting the most advanced policy.
S.803 does not change or set policies. Its focus is on management. It authorizes funding but that does not mean that funding will be forthcoming. The E-Government fund is mentioned, but there is no agreement with appropriators to find this portion of the bill.
The OMB directive that equates to S.803 is A-130 Section 8A. This Section is working pretty well though it is a little antiquated. If the E-Government Act were passed it would require changes to A-130. The Act as currently drafted requires more action and oversight on the part of OMB. The question arises as to whether OMB has enough and the right resources to do this. Mr. McConnell suggested, with respect to creating a government-wide CIO, the Administration should accede to the Congress since the official named in the Act does everything that the CIO would do.
Mr. McConnell went on to comment on specific portions of the Act. Sec. 205 includes fees for judicial information. It is important to find a balance between private and public sector and a lot of ambiguities exist here.
In the evolution of information policy, S.803 continues the approach of non-integrated requirements in this complex environment. In part, the bill covers a wide variety of areas, since its genesis was the online survey that Lieberman and Thompson conducted several years ago, when the public was asked to comment on issues of concern for them. The bill requires performance measures but there is no recognition of how it integrates with GPRA. Priorities and schedules for dissemination are established as a separate and cumbersome process. There is an attempt to avoid diminished access caused by the digital environment, but there is no specific section that calls for increased access. The bill addresses different issues of interest, but the vision isn't clear and there has been no cost benefit analysis.
Mr. McConnell believes that the bill can be improved. There are areas that lack precision, such as Sec. 207E that gives the Archivist the ability to give Title 44 guidance to the agencies. It isn't clear what the overall business case is for the bill or what the mission impact will be. Changes would be needed to A-130 to integrate the guidance required for this Act.
Mr. McConnell estimated that passage of the bill by the Senate passage is 60-70 percent probable. It may be conferenced with the security bill and then some bigger bill may result that could be stuck at the end of the session. An alternative is that Congress goes straight to the Security Act (GISRA) instead of dealing with the E-Government bill. In general, the bill isn't likely to raise public/private controversies. The E-Government Czar as outlined in the draft is not primarily interested in policy, so who, then, is to care about this?
The E-Government Act suffers from the same problem as e-government activities in other countries. Governments are trying to do e-government, but they are starting with "e" and not with government, and so are emphasizing technologies rather than missions.
Discussion
Mr. McConnell was asked to identify the areas of information policy that he
thinks need attention. There are two areas needing legislation. The privacy
area needs a more comprehensive framework in this country that goes across sectors.
Permanent public access also needs attention.
"Overview of NLE Activities"
Sheila McGarr, National Library of Education
The NLE was created by Public Law 103-227 in 1994. It is Congressionally mandated to provide a central location for education information and to serve as a central federal repository specializing in education. NLE supports its mission by offering electronic and print reference services, collecting, preserving, and disseminating educational research, statistics and other information, and promoting dissemination through the ERIC database and its ED Pubs program. While it shares similarities with the other national libraries, it is primarily a virtual national library built on a departmental collection.
The NLE has six major activities: the ED Reference Center, ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center), the ED Pubs Program, the U.S. Network for Education Information, the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, and the National Education Network (NEN).
The ED Reference Center supports telephone, mail, e-mail and walk-in customers. As a Federal Depository Library, it provides free access to government information. It also performs standard functions such as interlibrary loan and formal and informal training on using electronic databases and the NLE collection. It has a physical collection of over 600 journal titles, including e-journals; 75,000 books; 500,000 microfiche titles (primarily ERIC); and access to over 500 commercial electronic databases that focus on education, the social sciences and public policy. The ED Reference Center is part of the Library of Congress (LC) digital reference project.
The ERIC (www.eric.ed.gov) database of over 1 million bibliographic citations to educational literature was launched in 1966. It is a system of 16 subject-specific clearinghouses hosted at a variety of mostly academic facilities. The ERIC Program, through 19 multi-year contracts, supports the ERIC processing and reference facility, the ERIC document reproduction service and Access ERIC, the online database. The full-text of reports from 1993 to the present are sold by a vendor through an e-subscription service. The system has a shared, computer-based online editing system, which has speeded the process of entering records from more than 90 days in 2003 to 30. In 2003 they expect to accept their first digital products.
ED Pubs was launched in 1998 to centralize the customer service and mailing of the publications of the Department and to consolidate the inventory into a single storage and distribution center. The service supports toll free access, including Spanish and TTY/TDD, and e-mail and web site ordering. Fax and print on demand make the receipt of the materials very timely for the customer. Materials are brought under bibliographic control to facilitate tracking, ordering, cost management, and archiving.
The U.S. Network for Education Information dates from 1996. It is a treaty-based network of collaborating federal agencies and national education policy organizations providing official information on foreign and US education systems. The lead is at the State Department. Many questions regarding degree equivalency are received by this network.
The National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities was started in 1998 to provide information on K-12 school planning, financing, design, environmental issues, etc. It maintains a web site, develops conferences, and produces educational resources.
The National Education Network links major education information providers and develops collaborative resources for sharing projects. It involves public and private entities that collect, produce and disseminate education information. The NEN is developing cooperative metadata standards. AskNEN specializes in answering "reference stumpers".
Ms. McGarr noted that the library staff will be moving, but the library will
remain in this building. The program fund is $1 million. The individual activities
have their own funding. For example, ERIC is individually funded at $10.5 million.
The NLE has been level-funded for the fifth year. Its home organization is awaiting
reauthorization. The Senate wants to write its own bill, so there is concern
that the reauthorization will not be passed in this Congressional Session.
OMB Letter on the Government Printing Office (GPO)
The group briefly discussed the OMB guidance letter to agencies regarding the formal requirement to use GPO. Separation of powers means that this is no longer a requirement and the agencies have the option to go elsewhere to procure printing. The issues include constitutionality, technology, long-standing procurement processes, and the broader effort to change how things are currently done. Senator Dayton has scheduled a hearing for June 18, 2002. Prue Adler of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) raised the issue of the feed to the depository library program. This is an issue, but there are also ramifications resulting from the ever-decreasing number of tangible (non-digital) items that are received by GPO. The Printing Industry Association web site has a detailed response to the OMB letter, which is informative about their point of view.
Update on the European Union (EU) Database Directive
Paul Uhlir updated the group on the EU Database Directive. The Directive was enacted in 1996 by the Commission of European Communities. It was finally implemented in all member countries by 2000. The review of the Directive for anti-competitive effects is to be conducted every three years. The first review was delayed until 2002 because the EU member states took extra time to implement the Directive. An external consultant is handling the review process, which is scheduled to conclude at the end of July. It isn't clear whether the input submitted to the contractor will be made public or not. Issues and concerns could simply be summarized.
The review is unlikely to lead to any significant changes in the Directive but might lead to attempts to harmonize implementations across the states. For example, the Scandinavian countries are much more liberal in their interpretation. The language change proposed by the International Council for Science (ICSU), which was distributed by Dr. Uhlir, is unlikely to occur. Some changes may occur at the urging of the commercial sector, representing users and transformers of information who would benefit by having less restrictions. However, it isn't clear whether these organizations are really actively engaged.
The NRC has expressed its concerns about the Directive and its impact on science since 1996. However, they have not had a lot of success in mobilizing the scientists in the EU. The NRC is working indirectly with its EU counterparts and with ICSU. The International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) and ICSU have been involved in this, and CODATA conducted a workshop at its 2000 annual meeting in Italy in an attempt to inform European scientists about the Directive.
Ms. Adler was asked to address the Directive and any US legislation from the standpoint of the library community. She indicated that there is an International Scholarly Communications Alliance, which brings ARL together with Japanese and EU partners. Key stakeholders met several times last year. On the Congressional front, committee staffers are working to achieve a compromise between the House Commerce and House Judiciary versions. The expectation is that this will follow the regular order with hearings in both committees. However, it isn't clear when this will come up.
The pro-database protection side is shopping a draft bill in the Senate. This draft represents wording and approaches that were rejected earlier by the library community, and so this effort appears to be a non-starter since it is unlikely to achieve compromise.
The library community has seen very fragmented lobbying at the EU level with regard to database protection. There is a definite reluctance to criticize the Commission. There is no tradition of involvement in the political process and there is much less transparency in government. Until there is a case where science or education gets "bit", there isn't likely to be much engagement.
Dr. Siegel noted that INSERM (Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale) is concerned about public access to information and is suggesting that results of scientific research (which is government funded in France) should be exempted from database protection. There is also an OECD Working Group looking at publicly funded research data.
The World Summit for an Information Society will be held in 2003. While this
is being sponsored by the telecommunications industry, there is significant
involvement on the part of UNESCO. UNESCO is promoting the summit and appears
to be developing the program, with a heavy focus on access and developing country
needs. ICSTI is working with UNESCO and ICSU on input to this process.