Project Requirements
Prior to PWGSC's Government Online initiative, which provided government wide policies and best practices for the deployment of websites and information management technologies, many departments and agencies launched their own websites, which resulted in the implementation of a variety of user interfaces, information architectures, search functions, infrastructures, and back-office technologies. It also resulted in the creation of web content using a variety of different tools and processes. Consequently, the government now faces a lack of technological standards throughout its departments, and in many cases, the inability to share information across groups and clusters.
A number of external pressures are also driving changes in how the federal government manages content:
- Increasing expectations and confidence of Canadians with using the Internet channel to access government services and information.
- Increased emphasis by the Canadian government to encourage Canadians to use the Internet channel.
These external pressures are coupled with a number of other factors:
- The amount of content is growing and aging, there is often limited organization and knowledge of the content and its validity, and limited content management systems.
- The individual search functions within some websites may be quite effective, however searching the Canada and gateway sites results in a large number of 'hits' that are often not relevant to the user.
- The content within the underlying websites may be accurate, relevant, and current, however the total user experience depends on the weakest link in the chain - if one set of content is out-of-date, inaccurate, or irrelevant, then the user develops a perception that the usefulness of the cluster of websites is questionable; and
- The organization of the content, often referred to as the "information architecture", may also be inconsistent across departmental websites, resulting in an inconsistent user experience.
In summary, PWGSC required a solution where a user can navigate through every link in the chain quickly, find the appropriate information or services, and navigate effectively through the information once it is found.
Another pressure for PWGSC was to address these challenges in a timely manner - if Canadians are encouraged to use a channel more, then they must be able to find the information or service that they are seeking quickly; the information itself must be relevant to the individual and must be accurate and current; and the total experience must be positive. Anything less may discourage the user from returning, causing them to use alternative, more expensive service delivery channels, or worse, to use multiple channels for each search.
Solution
As a solution to the aforementioned challenges and objectives, PWGSC adopted the Metadata and Content Management Solution, along with the introduction of a number of standards and guidelines such as Common Look and Feel Standards, Metadata Guides, and Subject Thesauri.
The goal of the initiative was to improve the management of content by:
- Optimizing the effort required to maintain existing content and manage the overall content publication process;
- Increasing the effectiveness of the process in updating content quickly and being responsive to gateway/cluster and web user needs;
- Increasing the effectiveness of the Canada site and gateways by reducing the search time/cost for web users;
- Providing departments and agencies with the option to use a government-wide content management solution, either in whole or part; and
- Providing a platform for the future to allow additional content and services to be added in a timely manner.
To meet the above goals BAU Canada's team of experienced and talented information management specialists designed and implemented a Solution application architecture that met PWGSC requirements through the implementation of best of breed technologies, detailed project plans, solid design methodologies and team members thoroughly experienced in the deployment of dynamic content managed web sites. The BAU team deployed Verity K2 for its powerful content searching and indexing capability. The Interwoven suite of products was used to form the core of the content management and publishing capability of the overall solution. The Interwoven Workflow core process was used to move the assets through an automated approval process. Reporting requirements were met using the out-of-the-box capabilities of Cognos' Impromptu. To meet the system monitoring requirements, BMC Patrol was deployed.
The BAU Canada team provided 16 resources during the course of the project within the following roles:
- Project Manager
- Applications Architect
- Database Specialist
- Technical Architect
- Data Architect / Modeler
- Business Analyst
- Systems Analyst
- Programmer Analyst
- Software Specialist
- Middleware Specialist
- Data Services Specialist
Overall the technologies employed by the BAU Canada team include:
- Interwoven Suite
- Oracle 8i
- Verity K2 Enterprise
- J2EE
- Cognos Impromptu
- BMC Patrol
- MS Project
- MS Visio
- ERWIN
- UML
- Rational Rose
- SSL
- LDAP
- SQL
- UNIX
- Java Beans
- XML
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