http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Government A listing of the most recently indexed works about Government in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Government http://tc.eserver.org/35423.html http://tc.eserver.org/35423.html The reasons for the White House's decision to run its Web site, whitehouse.gov, on the open source content management system Drupal are being discussed on various Web sites. Alongside Drupal's functionality, flexibility and openness, some are suggesting that Drupal's documentation was also a key factor for deciding to use this system. http://tc.eserver.org/35130.html http://tc.eserver.org/35130.html This article discusses public policy writing as a genre of technical communication and, specifically, public policy development as a technological process. It cites DeGregori’s theory of technology to demonstrate the shared invention processes of technology and public policy, the work of public policy scholars to describe the policy-development process, and the work of human—computer interaction scholars to identify cognitive models of public policy development as a technological process. The article concludes with a discussion of e-rulemaking Web sites and the role of technical communicators in creating these blended spaces. http://tc.eserver.org/34987.html http://tc.eserver.org/34987.html Pedagogical and scholarly representations of collaborative writing and knowledge construction in technical communication have traditionally recognized consensus as the logical outcome of collaborative work, even as scholars and teachers have acknowledged the value of conflict and "dissensus" in the process of collaborative knowledge building. However, the conflict-laden work product of a Denver task force charged with recommending changes to the city police department's use-of-force policy and proposing a process for police oversight retains the collaborative group's dissensus and in doing so, illustrates an alternative method of collaborative reporting that challenges convention. Such an approach demonstrates a dissensus-based method of reporting that has the potential to open new rhetorical spaces for collaborative stakeholders by gainfully extending collaborative conversations and creating new opportunities for ethos development, thus offering scholars, teachers, and practitioners a way of reimagining the trajectory and outcome of collaborative work. http://tc.eserver.org/35001.html http://tc.eserver.org/35001.html A recent British national intelligence-based Assessment (2002) illustrates how one government agency communicated science to serve its policy goals. This article analyzes some of the values that drive science, public policy, and national intelligence, and traces how those values affected the Assessment writers' goals and communication strategies. Through close reading of the Assessment's foreword and first section, this study shows how the writers shaped scientific and technical information to satisfy their disciplines' values and to naturalize their "proper perspective" on the policy case. Further analysis of similar documents will extend current research on scientific rhetoric, multidisciplinary collaborative writing, and public communication. http://tc.eserver.org/33992.html http://tc.eserver.org/33992.html Many governments are moving to using XML for drafting and publishing legislation. SAIC has worked with a number of jurisdictions to facilitate the automation of legislative drafting and publication processes using XML. http://tc.eserver.org/33763.html http://tc.eserver.org/33763.html This presentation is based on a deployed enterprise system designed and integrated to support over 250 plus users for a west coast legislature. The system includes legislative authoring, legislative processing (Introducing, Amending, Enrolling, and Chaptering Bills), document publishing, and updating the State laws. http://tc.eserver.org/33778.html http://tc.eserver.org/33778.html The focus of this paper and the presentation will be to discuss how XML has changed and improved the legislative and regulatory document creation and management processes for agencies of the federal government. During the presentation, we will briefly describe the evolution of XML adaptation in the Legislative Branch agencies. A more in depth discussion can be found at xml.house.gov. http://tc.eserver.org/33780.html http://tc.eserver.org/33780.html Binary XML has been a controversial and hotly debated topic in the XML community for many years. The XML 1.x syntax is very flexible and provides a common information representation for a vast array of systems. The XML marketplace has generated a seemingly endless collection of low cost, high quality, rapidly evolving technologies that make creating, sharing, manipulating, securing and accessing information easier. Systems that have adopted XML are cashing in on the economic and interoperability benefits of the XML marketplace. Some believe the introduction of a second, more efficient encoding for XML information would drastically reduce or destroy the flexibility or interoperability benefits of XML. http://tc.eserver.org/33783.html http://tc.eserver.org/33783.html This session will provide base line information on how native XML customer-defined schema support in Office applications is enabling XML based eGovernment interests from Europe, Asia, South and North America. Concrete and deployed examples will be shared to spark a new but real perspective on leveraging popular and user-friendly desktop applications to become, via XML and Web Services, the front-end to Government back-end systems. In short, real and effective solutions to enabling eGov Services in Government to Citizens, Government to Businesses and Government to Government scenarios. http://tc.eserver.org/33791.html http://tc.eserver.org/33791.html The more connected our computer systems become, the more we realise how *disconnected* our information really is. Disconnectedness is not new; it is simply far more apparent nowadays: so much so that it underpins a renewed quest for ways to integrate information - and knowledge. One aspect of this is the focus on information integration within large organizations. Another is the spread of portals whose task is not so much to provide information directly as to provide consolidated, indirect access to information that resides elsewhere. In the public sector, in particular, portals have sprung up like mushrooms over the last 3-4 years. http://tc.eserver.org/33309.html http://tc.eserver.org/33309.html As in finance, so on the web: self-regulation has failed. Nearly ten years after specifications first required it, video captioning can barely be said to exist on the web. The big players, while swollen with self-congratulation, are technically incompetent, and nobody else is even trying. So what will it take to support the human and legal rights of hearing impaired web users? It just might take the law, says Joe Clark. http://tc.eserver.org/33232.html http://tc.eserver.org/33232.html With the rapid spread of the Internet across society, government institutions are taking advantage of digital technology to distribute materials to citizens. Is merely having a website enough, or are there certain usability considerations site creators must keep in mind to assure efficient public access to online materials? This project looked at typical people's ability to locate various types of content online, in particular, their ability to find tax forms on the web. Findings suggest that people look for content in a myriad of ways, and there is considerable variance in how long people take to complete this online task. Users are often confused by the ways in which content is presented to them. In this paper, two common sources of confusion in users' online experiences with locating tax forms online are distinguished: (1) URL confusion and (2) page design layout. Ways are also suggested to decrease these two sources of frustration, yielding less exasperating and more productive user experiences. http://tc.eserver.org/32023.html http://tc.eserver.org/32023.html Government auditors collect data and assess, via written reports, the operations of a government; however, little is known about what can affect and govern their representations of those operations. This analysis examines research studies about author bias and government audit manuals in order to understand how government auditors' neutrality is threatened. While bias may be an overt function of preferential or prejudicial thoughts, most sources of bias that influence auditors derive from less explicit sources including prior expectations, media coverage, nondiagnostic information, and other significantly less direct channels. To determine how government guidelines address this issue for their auditors, the principle audit manuals for Canada and the United States were reviewed for their references to bias, impartiality, and objectivity. Neither manual provides a significant amount of guidance to assist auditors in addressing the problems of bias in data collection, interpretation, and representation. If bias is to be reduced in audit reports, more must be done. http://tc.eserver.org/31993.html http://tc.eserver.org/31993.html Discusses the importance of usability testing as a final check on ballot layout and instructions text. Many of the problems in the report would likely have been caught with even an informal test. The report highlights a usability testing kit for local election officials, the LEO Usability Testing Kit. http://tc.eserver.org/31994.html http://tc.eserver.org/31994.html The election calendar is very tight, with legally mandated deadlines and other constraints, all conducted in the public view. The UPA Voting and Usability Project wanted a way to fit usability testing into that schedule, and give election officials a way to do what they all want: run excellent elections. http://tc.eserver.org/31632.html http://tc.eserver.org/31632.html What has UPA done to encourage more useable and accessible government? Quite a lot, it turns out. UPA supports efforts to improve the usability of elections, support plain language, and remove barriers to civic access for people with disabilities through an alphabet soup of projects and events. http://tc.eserver.org/31153.html http://tc.eserver.org/31153.html A collection of resources for people interested in writing grant proposals toward U.S. government agencies. http://tc.eserver.org/30590.html http://tc.eserver.org/30590.html This presentation describes the present-day workplace for technical communicators at the United States Department of Energy's Hanford Site. Factors that are significantly affecting the Hanford Site workplace are identified, with emphasis on the effects of these factors on the workplace activities of Hanford Site technical communication professionals. http://tc.eserver.org/30112.html http://tc.eserver.org/30112.html Duff Johnson looks at how several federal government agencies use Acrobat and PDF to solve old problems and, in some cases, to create new opportunities. http://tc.eserver.org/29830.html http://tc.eserver.org/29830.html Much of America was stunned into mourning on February 1, 2003 as the space shuttle Columbia was reported to have broken up over Texas. The ensuing investigation revealed that debris at liftoff was the cause of the crash, but the official report suggested that NASA's organizational communication was just as much to blame. This article uses transactive memory theory to argue that there were significant gaps in the knowledge network of NASA organizational members, and those gaps impeded information flow regarding potential disaster. E-mails to and from NASA employees were examined (the 'To' and 'From' fields) to map a network of communication related to Columbia's damage and risk. Although NASA personnel were connected with each other in this incident-based network, the right information did not get to the people who needed it. The article concludes with extensions of theory and practical implications for organizations, including NASA. http://tc.eserver.org/29744.html http://tc.eserver.org/29744.html This paper presents a case study of implementing a content management system in a federal government setting. This case study may aid technical communicators who are interested in leveraging content management technology and who work for complex organizations or organizations with intricate communications requirements. Included in this paper is a detailed description of the background, approach, and early lessons learned for this implementation. The implementation was still in process at the due date of this paper. Additional lessons learned will be in the presentation's slide set and available from the Society for Technical Communication (STC) website at www.stc.org. http://tc.eserver.org/29704.html http://tc.eserver.org/29704.html It appears to be difficult for experts to predict the problems users of documents and websites experience. Realistic usage scenarios may help experts to achieve better prediction rates, since they focus the experts' attention explicitly on the users and their use situations. We developed a set of scenarios for evaluating municipal websites, and used them to evaluate 15 websites. In this paper, we will describe the scenario evaluation method, and the feedback it helps to provide. The results suggest that a scenario-based evaluation method may be a fruitful way of enhancing experts' sensitivity for detecting user problems. open, except for the instruction to concentrate on potential reader problems. http://tc.eserver.org/29453.html http://tc.eserver.org/29453.html This paper describes a usability study of the Nedap voting machine in the Netherlands. On the day of the national elections, 566 voters participated in our study immediately after having cast their real vote. The research focused on the correspondence between voter intents and voting results, distinguishing between usability (correspondence between voter intents and voter input) and machine reliability (correspondence between voter input and machine output). For the sake of comparison, participants also cast their votes using a paper ballot. http://tc.eserver.org/29123.html http://tc.eserver.org/29123.html This article draws on the principles of linguistic theorist Mikhail Bakhtin to analyze and explain discursive diversity in organizational Web pages. Organizational Web sites must typically appeal to multiple audiences, a condition that often results in different discourses being juxtaposed within the same interface. To analyze and explain the effects of such juxtapositions, this article adapts to the Web the principles that Bakhtin developed to conceptualize discursive diversity in the novel, in particular his concept of dialogism. To illustrate their efficacy, the article applies these principles to analyze a pair of government Web sites about forests, the forest industry, and the environment. Whereas the homepages of the two sites project divergent approaches to the discourses of their diverse audiences, a dialogic analysis of the new site's deeper levels reveals how the government's discursive strategy appears to favor one audience at the expense of others. Drawing on this case study, this article discusses how an approach informed by Bakhtin's principles can illuminate our analysis of organizational Web discourse. http://tc.eserver.org/29035.html http://tc.eserver.org/29035.html The foundation for Rome's imperial bureaucracy was laid during the first century B.C., when functional and administrative writing played an increasingly dominant role in the Late Republic. During the First and Second Triumvirates, Roman society, once primarily oral, relied more and more on documentation to get its official business done. By the reign of Augustus, the orator had ceded power to the secretary, usually a slave trained as a scribe or librarian. This cultural and political transformation can be traced in the career of Marcus Tullius Tiro (94 B.C. to 4 A.D.), Cicero's confidant and amanuensis. A freedman credited with the invention of Latin shorthand (the <em>notae Tironianae</em>), Tiro transcribed and edited Cicero's speeches, composed, collected, and eventually published his voluminous correspondence, and organized and managed his archives and library. As his former master s fortune sank with the dying Republic, Tiro s began to rise. After Cicero's assassination, he became the orator's literary executor and biographer. His talents were always in demand under the new bureaucratic regime, and he prospered by producing popular grammars and secretarial manuals. He died a wealthy centenarian and a full Roman citizen. http://tc.eserver.org/29153.html http://tc.eserver.org/29153.html This historical case study of a non-rule policy document (NPD) adopted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management describes an emerging genre in environmental discourse. The NPD standardizes environmental public policy for land disposal of foundry sand, a solid waste. The collaborative writing process took six months with industry input, and the NPD was presented to two environmental boards. Two contrasts, in process and format, distinguish NPDs from rules. The NPD is an entirely new kind of writing which includes guidance for implementing statutes. The writing process in the case involves government writers and industry representatives, although it does not include other public input such as public hearings. Instead, the staff of the pollution control agency simply presents the NPD to the appropriate environmental policy boards and arranges for its publication. This article adds to the body of knowledge about technical writing in government, specifically environmental policy and non-academic genres. http://tc.eserver.org/29039.html http://tc.eserver.org/29039.html This article describes the linguistic and semantic features of technocratic discourse using a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework. The article goes further to assert that the function of technocratic discourse in public policy is to advocate and promulgate a highly contentious political and economic agenda under the guise of scientific objectivity and political impartiality. We provide strong evidence to support the linguistic description, and the claims of political advocacy, by analyzing a 900-word document about globalization produced by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). http://tc.eserver.org/29142.html http://tc.eserver.org/29142.html In this article, I present findings from a discourse analysis of an often-overlooked genre of technical communication, regulatory writing. The study focuses on post-bellum regulations that disproportionately affected African Americans and the historical contexts in which the regulations were written. Historically, African Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds have maintained an implicit mistrust of government regulations and the government officials who write them. The justification for this mistrust is deeply rooted in the fact that for decades regulations were not written to protect the rights of African Americans nor was their input considered in regulatory writing. In Communicating Across Cultures, Stella Ting-Toomey argues, "if conflict parties do not trust each other, they tend to move away (cognitively, affectively and physically) from each other rather than struggle side by side in negotiation" [1, p. 222]. This study reveals rhetorical strategies used in historical regulatory writing that may still impact the ethos of regulatory writers. http://tc.eserver.org/27906.html http://tc.eserver.org/27906.html The state and the government, as we understand, are responsible for the safety security of the citizens. The state and its organs understand this as a mandate and this also means realising the lofty goal of safety and health for all in every walk of life. http://tc.eserver.org/27737.html http://tc.eserver.org/27737.html Communication between citizens and public officers is a fundamental aspect of public institutions’ planning. It is through an open and clear dialogue that positive public opinion is shaped. Furthermore it is a tool for creating a good reputation and stronger support. Currently the European Union is facing a period of low reputation, scrawny image and poor trust, which have direct influences in EU’s decision making. Different scholars impute this problem to the poor EU communication planning, the so called communication deficit. This paper seeks to examine whether public relations can help to solve the communication deficit of the European Union or not and which challenges public relations profession can open within the European context. Specifically the European societal approach of public relations is considered the essential bond to the European institutions. This study draws on theories and discussion in the fields of European public relations; reflective and educational approaches; a critical analysis of EU information and communication policies; and interviews with EU officers. It is followed by a discussion of the link between public relations’ reflective approach and public organizations, and suggests new interpretations and considerations of this profession within the European institutions. http://tc.eserver.org/26669.html http://tc.eserver.org/26669.html This research shows some potentiality of Digital TV, and chiefly DTT, for promoting e-inclusion activities and granting accessible entertainment and t-government services. http://tc.eserver.org/26608.html http://tc.eserver.org/26608.html In response to the initiative of providing juror education materials online, this study proposes that unless Web sites are designed in a usable fashion, initiative could fail to enhance jury response and further aggravate the problem of under-representation by minorities. This study suggests that all online juror information Web sites be analyzed for “usability” if they are to be an effective education tool. Specifically, this study focused on online materials that will reach primarily Hispanic jurors. The state of Texas has 254 counties, of which 187 have Web sites or addresses. For this study, we selected all the counties with a Hispanic population of 50.1% or higher (34 counties). Of those 34 counties, 24 had actual Web sites. Of the 24 counties with Web sites, only five had juror education materials online and so were selected for this study. Prospective jurors were selected from each of the identified counties and were asked to evaluate the Web sites for usability. Participants were asked to visit each of the five Web sites and then complete both an evaluation instrument modified for this study but based on the work of Jonathan Palmer and a checklist of basic Web design guidelines modified for this study but based on the work of Jakob Nielsen. The resulting data will further contribute to the literature for future Web design by counties with a large percentage of Hispanic potential jurors that intend to implement No. 2188. http://tc.eserver.org/26387.html http://tc.eserver.org/26387.html Just when it seemed typography had no discernable impact on government policy the US State Department outlawed its standard typeface. http://tc.eserver.org/26149.html http://tc.eserver.org/26149.html Today, at least in this country, most government and corporate organisations are well aware that words online matter. A lot. Even when the technology is perfect, words can make or break the success of a web site or intranet. So sure, words now get due respect in many quarters. http://tc.eserver.org/25801.html http://tc.eserver.org/25801.html The spread of information systems and, in particular, information infrastructure throughout the economy and social fabric raises questions about the technology's ease of use by different people, from those with limited technical know-how to those with various disabilities to the so-called power users who push for higher performance on many dimensions. http://tc.eserver.org/25624.html http://tc.eserver.org/25624.html This report is a summary of a two year research project carried out by the IT byg group at BYG. DTU for the Danish government agencies Erhvervsfremmestyrelsen and By- og Bolig-ministeriet. The objectives were to collect data on the use of IT by the PPB housing consortia, a development project to test out various innovations, to map communications between the partners, and compare IT usage with their original proposals. Data was collected on communications in housing projects in the period June 1999- Aug 2000. The original PPB proposals were made in 1994/5 but there have been breaks in the flow of projects, and information technology has gone through much change since then. Use of Email has taken over from post and fax, and Project Webs have been developed in most consortia. Consortium members' policies have dominated the choice of management and logistics software, restricted compatibility in the consortia, and limited willingness to share data. Greater involvement by the client, and more sharing of equity, would have encouraged adoption of common IT systems and created more trust for data sharing between partners. PPB projects have allowed consortium members to test out new technologies but, in general, the IT systems used have been similar to those which the larger firms use elsewhere. Vertical integration has been limited by lack of experience and technology in smaller firms. In future, access to Project Webs from mobile devices should help use by all partners from any location. In all the projects studied, and in spite of the introduction of Email and Project Webs, the ratio of non-IT communications to IT varied from 0.8 to 4.6. When problems need to be solved rapidly there appears to be a tendency to revert to traditional means of communication - meetings, telephone and fax. http://tc.eserver.org/25028.html http://tc.eserver.org/25028.html Since government agencies deal with all audiences represented in the population, a variety of communication strategies must be used. One example from work at the National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory serves to illustrate this point in reaching out to communicate environmental issues. In this example, interpersonal, community, mass media, and print communication all serve a vital role in building a constituency around one environmental issue. http://tc.eserver.org/24738.html http://tc.eserver.org/24738.html The UPA Voting and Usability project works to create a better elections process by improving the usability of ballots and voting systems. http://tc.eserver.org/24584.html http://tc.eserver.org/24584.html An environmental impact statement (EIS) is supposed to ensure that a government agency thoroughly evaluates a project's impacts, studies feasible alternatives, and gives all stakeholders an active role in project-related decisions. Previous rhetorical studies of the EIS describe a failed or subversive genre routinely used to advance the strategic aims of an agency seeking to implement a project despite significant opposition. This article contends that an EIS motivated by a genuinely persuasive purpose can serve as the discursive focus of democratic decision making about major projects and substantially achieve Habermas's norms of communicative action. This may happen, for example, when a local transportation agency develops an EIS for a federal transportation agency. To illustrate this possibility, two EISs involving distinct federal-local relationships in Puerto Rico are evaluated using criteria proposed by John Forester for investigating the degree to which public decision-making processes fulfill Habermas's norms of communicative action. http://tc.eserver.org/24582.html http://tc.eserver.org/24582.html This article compares three rhetorical approaches to accident analysis: materialist, classical,and constructivist. The focal points for comparison are the two accident reportsissued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)—reports that attempted(and failed) to persuade the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) to change a problematicpolicy about rail communication alongside its technology for rail communication. Thecentral question the article asks is, How can rhetorical theory help explain the CTA'sinaction, which ultimately led to property damage, injury, and death? Classical andconstructivist approaches, emphasizing rational deliberation between equals, on onehand, and the social construction of technical knowledge between professionals, on theother, offer plausible explanations for what went wrong. But only the materialistapproach appears capable of discerning the ideological nature of the CTA's resistance tothe NTSB's recommendations. http://tc.eserver.org/24585.html http://tc.eserver.org/24585.html This article explores approaches to crisis communication and the application of those approaches by organizations responding to a disaster. The authors conducted a survey of 107 state government agencies to learn about government efforts in situations requiringcrisis communication. Generally, the survey results suggest that although state agenciesenjoy a positive relationship with the media, they have little proactive communicationwith the media, and less than half have a written crisis communication plan. Significantassociations were found between the variables under study, including size of the organization,roles in crisis situations, media relationships, and preparation of a crisis communicationplan. Case studies and additional evaluations of communication resources areneeded to help determine the ability of the public sector to respond effectively to crises.This article considers the needs of state agencies and proposes a conceptual approach thatsynthesizes a crisis communication process designed for the public sector. http://tc.eserver.org/24506.html http://tc.eserver.org/24506.html Drawing on rhetorical genre studies and recent work in activity system theory, this study focuses on the collaborative development of a new written form, a municipal plan for protecting and managing natural areas. The author advances a twofold claim: (a) that the written plan is developed in the absence of a stable textual model and (b) that the text, as part of the context, functions, in turn, as a mediational tool for solving the rhetorical problem of audience resistance. Findings show that as participants reconfigure the project into successive cycles of activity, they create corresponding zones of proximal development. This study contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of the text-context relationship and to recent elaborations of genre as an activity system that help explain the relationship between genre and learning. http://tc.eserver.org/23836.html http://tc.eserver.org/23836.html Governments hire thousands of employees and spend millions of dollars on contractors to design, build, and operate websites. Chances are good that you will have some exposure to government work, and therefore, some exposure to the politics of user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/23719.html http://tc.eserver.org/23719.html This case study presents lessons learned from usability engineering in a federal government setting. Technical communicators are becoming increasingly involved in usability issues but may face difficulties in addressing them. For example, producing web communications for the federal government presents special challenges, such as time and financial restraints, legal requirements, technical constraints, and an internal focus. Discount usability engineering helped the CDC address these challenges in developing an injury data web application. The lessons learned can help technical communicators advance usability as a priority in their workplaces and overcome constraints and challenges they face. http://tc.eserver.org/23584.html http://tc.eserver.org/23584.html Although global computer networks have existed for many years, they have grown explosively only in the last few—particularly the one called the Internet. ARPANET, the forerunner of these network, was set up to aid communication between the government and people doing defense research in universities and industry. The network got a major boost in the late 1980s when the National Science Foundation created NSFNET, linking the five NSF supercomputer centers with networks at university campuses and the ARPANET. Continuing advances in reliability, speed, capacity, and ease of access have made the Internet an international medium for information exchange. http://tc.eserver.org/23518.html http://tc.eserver.org/23518.html Redesigning an intranet for usability often more than doubled the use of these award-winning designs from ten public-sector organizations. http://tc.eserver.org/23427.html http://tc.eserver.org/23427.html To keep abreast of current issues, Australia's federal parliamentarians need timely information, analysis and advice. This is used not only within the Parliament itself, but also by Members and Senators when undertaking their electorate duties. A large and vital part of this service is provided by the Parliamentary Library. The particular characteristics of clients and their diverse needs means the Library’s communication issues differ from those faced by other libraries. From a myriad of manual techniques the Library has increasingly moved into using electronic sources and dissemination methods, which are being enhanced and expanded regularly and will soon include a comprehensive intranet portal to Library services. http://tc.eserver.org/23081.html http://tc.eserver.org/23081.html The Access Board is an independent Federal agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities. It operates with about 30 staff and a governing board of representatives from Federal departments and public members appointed by the President. http://tc.eserver.org/23078.html http://tc.eserver.org/23078.html Here are some useful tools for people designing accessible websites for the Federal government. http://tc.eserver.org/23079.html http://tc.eserver.org/23079.html Following are job listings from government organizations seeking to fill communications positions.  Because of space, these listings are edited to provide an overview of each position.  Users are advised to contact the organization providing the listing to obtain a full set of requirements and procedures for submitting a complete application for each job. http://tc.eserver.org/22965.html http://tc.eserver.org/22965.html One of the most common, and least enjoyable, experiences of citizens of the United States is that of filing income tax forms. This year, Sachin Pavithran, who is blind, attempted to complete the forms and file them without assistance from sighted friends. Find out whether he was successful or not. http://tc.eserver.org/22748.html http://tc.eserver.org/22748.html Needing to cope with its enormous needs for document and data exchange, the United States is looking more and more to XML. Paul Ford explains what happens when Washington meets markup. http://tc.eserver.org/22238.html http://tc.eserver.org/22238.html Research has shown that public perceptions of risk are constantly changing and evolving as the dynamics of public opinion shift in response to the environment in which we all live. http://tc.eserver.org/22242.html http://tc.eserver.org/22242.html Risk communication is central to making decisions. It enables people to participate in deciding how risks should be managed. http://tc.eserver.org/22246.html http://tc.eserver.org/22246.html Risk communication is a relatively new field of study which has been concerned with the problems arising from the communication of scientific and technical assessments of risk to various sections of the public. These problems have largely been construed as technical ones: how to transfer difficult material from 'experts' to 'people' with the maximum effectiveness and the minimum loss of accuracy and content. Perhaps because technical or practical concerns have dominated, debates which have occurred in the literature of risk analysis have apparently had little impact on the field of risk communication. http://tc.eserver.org/21276.html http://tc.eserver.org/21276.html From Washington, D.C. to Olympia, Washington, there's a rich potential for user experience consultants of all flavors to provide services to government. In this article I'll share some thoughts directed toward you, the independent consultant or small firm that would like to work with government. http://tc.eserver.org/20911.html http://tc.eserver.org/20911.html The importance of scientific and technical information stems from its critical role in all phases of the innovation process. These include education, basic research, applied research and development, product development and manufacturing, and the application of science and technology to meet the needs in the commercial, not-forprofit, and governmental markets. http://tc.eserver.org/20306.html http://tc.eserver.org/20306.html How a new spin on document management software helped revolutionise customer service at the Queensland Department of Housing. http://tc.eserver.org/19548.html http://tc.eserver.org/19548.html Traces Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable 'virus of freedom.' http://tc.eserver.org/19513.html http://tc.eserver.org/19513.html Presents a case history of implementing discount usability engineering in a U.S. federal government agency. Discusses the case history's implications for technical communicators who must implement Web communications in a restricted environment. http://tc.eserver.org/19454.html http://tc.eserver.org/19454.html FOIA has become an indispensable tool for probing actions of government and the companies and people that come into contact with government. Your catch is only limited by your imagination. http://tc.eserver.org/18522.html http://tc.eserver.org/18522.html In the future e-Home, information from various sources, located both globally and locally, are at hand for a wide range of tasks. Many of these tasks involve finding out about public authorities' rules and regulations. The Public Tax authorities, for instance, provide hundreds of documents on their web site (forms, FAQ’s, tax rules, etc.). Currently, the user is restricted to navigating and searching these information sources by clicking hyperlinks or typing in keywords in a search box. Suppose a citizen needs to know what the local tax in his area is. By providing the keywords “kommunalskatt” (local tax) and “Linköping” to the search engine five documents are retrieved and the user can continue clicking on the provided links to see if the answer is provided in the documents found. On the other hand, supposing that the user had the ability to state the information problem in natural language. http://tc.eserver.org/15045.html http://tc.eserver.org/15045.html The Department of Justice Canada and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) are working jointly on a new 'plain language' version of the EI Act – a version with the potential to be more reader-friendly and usable. This is a profoundly important, precedent-setting initiative with implications for legislative drafters and users of legislation across the country. The usability testing was commissioned to help provide strategic insight into plain language legislative drafting so that drafting efforts can be as effective as possible and speak to the realities and unique needs of key legislative user groups. Simply put, the purpose of the testing is to provide a solid foundation for wise decision-making to guide plain language drafting. To this end, the testing gauged how efficiently users of different versions of the EI Act found needed information, understood it, and applied it to an intended purpose. http://tc.eserver.org/13924.html http://tc.eserver.org/13924.html Despite being raised in a culture that denied her access to formal education and employment, Flora Annie Steel became an Inspector of Female Schools in the Punjab, India, in 1884.  Her inspection reports for the occupying British government of India are the focus of this study, which examines texts within the context of British imperialism and late-nineteenth century report conventions. The study concludes 1) that cultural expectations for women in imperialism influenced Steel's response to the genre and 2) that the report genre may have been fluid within imperialism, crossing boundaries between professional and  government writing pertaining today.  The study suggests that, historically, we need to study these genres of writing from the perspective of economic and political expansion as genres of imperialism. http://tc.eserver.org/13918.html http://tc.eserver.org/13918.html Practical experience teaches the difficulty and the messiness of democratic public policy processes. A discourse analytic perspective on rhetorical action in the institutional settings of policy work reveals the dynamics of effective agency. By simulating practical experience and by developing a discourse analytic perspective, academic instruction in professional and technical communication can show students what elected officials, governmental staff, and non-profit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) do to make or to implement policy. http://tc.eserver.org/13522.html http://tc.eserver.org/13522.html The National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) is a national not-for-profit professional network of federal, state and local government employees who disseminate information within and outside government. Its members are editors, writers, graphic artists, video professionals, broadcasters, photographers, information specialists and agency spokespersons. http://tc.eserver.org/13392.html http://tc.eserver.org/13392.html This paper discusses the software development process at a particular government agency, the documentation standards used by that agency, the problems caused by these standards, and some of the solutions that have helped the technical communication there to work through the problems and still create documents of use to the reader. http://tc.eserver.org/10338.html http://tc.eserver.org/10338.html While acknowledging all the ways in which LLNL has failed to make optimal use of strategic planning tools, the authors believe that this planning process has helped their organization to disengage from the everyday 'work harder' perspective and to refocus on the 'work smarter' or 'putting the ladder against the right wall' goal, insofar as they have been able to do. The authors maintain that however imperfect one's strategic planning process is, it is nevertheless the best way to focus management attention. When a plan is flawed, its existence enables others (whether employees, upper management, or interested reviewers) to criticize and thereby improve it. Each year's plan further serves as the foundation for a better plan the next time around, defined in whatever way makes sense to the management team.