History, Principles & Authority for the ET.gov Site & Process

History, Principles & Authority

Early in 2003 the ET.gov site and process were commissioned by John Gilligan, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the U.S. Air Force (USAF), and Norm Lorentz, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who co-chaired the CIO Council's (CIOC) Architecture and Infrastructure Committee (AIC) when the project was initiated. The status of the process and components identified within it were routinely discussed at the monthly meetings of the XML Community of Practice (xmlCoP) and briefly reported at the monthly meetings of the AIC. Discussions in the xmlCoP are documented to some degree in the notes from each meeting.

Among the principles observed in developing the site were the following:

conformance to a standards-compliant, service-oriented, component-based architecture;
avoidance of building yet another so-called "one-stop portal" that is in fact yet another stovepipe application that cannot readily share information with other sites and applications;
adherence to Raines' Rule number 7, with respect to the development of IT systems in relatively small "chunks," each of which adds value in and of itself without needless dependencies on other components; and
making reality speak more clearly for itself in terms of the interests of .gov agencies in emerging technologies and their willingness to work together to foster consideration of such technologies.

For example, Stage 1 of the ET.gov site was capable of standing on its own even if resources were not provided to develop subsequent stages of the process, and anyone could readily access, index, and reuse data supplied for Stage 1 -- since such data was posted in valid XML instance documents on the public Web. To make it very easy for others to provide value-additive services, we provided a listing of the URLs for each of those documents.

However, reality could have spoken more clearly for itself if Stage 2 could have been built out to make it very easy for government folks to subscribe to, participate in, and commit resources to communities of practice (CoPs) forming around ET components and specifications. If agencies are unwilling or unable to do so, that is a reality that speaks for itself and we should stop kidding ourselves and the American taxpayers about it. Likewise, if Congress refuses to fund interagency projects, that too is a reality that should be clearly recognized.

The history and authority for the ET.gov site and process are further documented in the following records, in reverse chronological order:

In conjunction with the Administration's initiative to reduce the number of .gov domains, GSA shut down the ET.gov domain early in 2013.
The redesigned site was re-opened to the public, but the content was last updated on March 14, 2011, and the component registration process was broken and rendered inoperable.
At the behest of the CIO/AIC, Brittany Roush took down the ET.gov site for updating, re-presentation, and rehosting, February 3, 2011

ET Subcommittee Workshop agenda, November 30, 2010

Walt Okon's overview briefing
Presentations and WebEx recordings

Twitter feed and gmail account establshed by Brittany Roush, November 23, 2010
The Emerging Technology Subcommittee's charter was updated, October 28, 2010
ET Subcommittee blog established by Brittany Roush, October 4, 2010
In 2010 Walt Okon of the Department of Defense (DoD) became acting chair of the Emerging Technology Subcommittee
Jim Disbrow and Owen Ambur briefed ACT/IAC's Emerging Technology Special Interest Group (ET SIG) on the ET.gov site/process, August 20, 2009

Also in attendance were Norm Lorentz, who commissioned the site, and Ari Knausenberger, who developed it

The ET.gov site/process "success story" was maintained in the CIO Council's update of its strategic plan for FY 2008 - 2009, under Goal 3, Interoperability
Presentation by Susan Turnbull, Co-Chair, Emerging Technology Subcommittee, at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Blue Sky forum, October 24, 2007
Presentation by Susan Turnbull, Co-Chair, Emerging Technology Subcommittee, to the CIO Council's (CIOC) Architecture and Infrastructure Committee (AIC) leadership, October 18, 2007
Jim Disbrow appointed to manage ET.gov site/process, September 2007
The ET.gov site/process was included as Objective 3.9 and cited as a "success story" under Goal 3, Interoperability, in the CIO Council's Strategic Plan for FY 2007 - 2009. See pages 12 - 14 (PDF pages 14 - 16).
A statement of enhancement requirements was drafted on September 26, 2006
Archives of listserv whose use in support of the ET.gov site/process was reinitiated in March 2006.
Multifaceted Information, Search, Discovery and Retrieval for the ET.gov Site and Process, Presentation to the xmlCoP, September 21, 2005
Leveraging ET.gov for Collaboration, September 20, 2005, Presentation at eGov Conference - [HTML] | [PPT]
The Chief Architects Forum and the Federal Enterprise Architecture Glossary of Terms, Ira Grossman, May 3, 2005 - ET.gov Reference
ET.gov site unveiled by Joe Chiusano at GovCon05, March 29, 2005
ET.gov Overview and Status, Presentation to the CIOC AIC, February 17, 2005 - [HTML] [PPT] [Local Copies - HTML & PPT]
ET.gov Scope and Requirements Specification, February 9, 2005
Description of Task 1 in support of the FY 2005 Spend Plan for the CIO Council's Architecture and Infrastructure Committee (AIC) [Local Copy]
Statement of Purpose & FY 2005 Spend Plan, Architecture & Infrastructure Committee (AIC), CIO Council (CIOC) [Editor's Note: The latter document (local copy) is the basic authority under which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided the funding for Stage 1 of the ET.gov site. See Task 6. At the time, Mark Day, Deputy CIO (DCIO) at EPA, co-chaired the Emerging Technology Subcommittee.]

U.S. Federal Government XML Efforts in 2004, Ken Sall - ET.gov Reference
Archives of listserv whose use by the Emerging Technology Subcommittee ended in October 2004.
Charter of the XML Community of Practice (xmlCoP), as revised and extended, September 22, 2004
[Editor's Note: This extension directed the xmlCoP to focus on the ET.gov site and process.]
Develop identification and validation process for emerging technologies, Tasking Proposal to the AIC, September 17, 2004
Agenda, ET.gov Project Planning Meeting, August 18, 2004 [Local Copy]
Proposal for the Emerging Technology Subcommittee, Architecture and Infrastructure Committee, Support for the Development of a Process to Identify Emerging Technologies, Technical and Cost Estimate, June 9, 2004
The Emerging Technology Lifecycle Management Process, Emerging Technology Components Conference, January 26, 2004 - [HTML] [SHW]
The Emerging Technology Lifecycle Management Process, XML 2003 Town Hall Meeting, December 9, 2003 - [HTML] [SHW]
- Pilot Site/Submission Form
Stage 3 of the ET Process: Stewardship, October 29, 2003 DRAFT [Local Copy]
Draft XML schema developed by Ken Sall and Betty Harvey, October 26, 2003 [Local Copy]
The Second Step in Managing the IT Innovation Life Cycle: Schema/Form for Subscription to Proposed Emerging Technology Components Emerging Technology Subcommittee, September 18, 2003 - Elements and Comments [Local Copy]
The First Step in Managing the IT Innovation Life Cycle: Emerging Technology Component Proposals Schema/Form, Emerging Technology Subcommittee, September 15, 2003 - Element Names and Comments [Local Copy]
Managing the IT Innovation Life-Cycle: Proposed Stages/Schemas, Emerging Technology Subcommittee, Architecture & Infrastructure Committee, U.S. CIO Council, May 27, 2003 - DRAFT [Local Copy]
Mapping of ET.gov elements to elements of Exhibit 300, March 6, 2003
First draft of elements of ET process template by Jonathan Smith, February 28, 2003, documented in first footnote at
http://et.gov/history/etsc300form.htm
Archives of listserv whose use by the Emerging Technology Subcommittee began in February 2003.
Paragraph 3602(f)(4) of P.L. 107-347, the Electronic Government Act of 2002 (eGov Act), signed into law on December 17, 2002, requires the Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government to:

Promote innovative uses of information technology by agencies, particularly initiatives involving multiagency collaboration, through support of pilot projects, research, experimentation, and the use of innovative technologies.

Click here to search the xml.fido.gov site for more information on the ET.gov site and process, here for references to ET.gov on USA.gov, and here for sites on the Web that have linked to ET.gov. Google deems these links to be "similar" to ET.gov and identifies these links as containing the term "ET.gov".

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