Devan Shepherd is the author of Sams Teach Yourself XML in 21 Days, 2/e, ISBN: 0-672-32093-2. He has more than 25 years of progressive experience in the IT industry as a developer, executive, solutions provider, keynote speaker, journal author, tutorial leader, and instructor. Devan runs, as CEO and Chief Technical Officer, XMaLpha Technologies, LLC. (http://XMaLpha.com), a successful consulting and technology training practice that can trace its corporate roots back 25 years to the early days of the modern IT industry. XMaLpha has a proven track record of providing leading-edge high technology solutions for public and corporate clients with a focus on XML, Web Services, J2SE/J2EE, .NET, Middle-tier Solutions, and e-Business. Devan is a co-founder and principal in XML Planning Group, a consortium dedicated to designing and implementing sophisticated XML-based solutions for various Government Agencies. XML Planning Group can be found on the Web at: http://XMLPlanning.com. Devan has extensive experience in the fields of State Legislature Automation, Health Care, Defense, Banking, Legal and Medico/Legal Litigation Support. A laureate and recipient of the Smithsonian Institute Award for Innovation, Devan was recently honored to have received a National Business Leadership award from the Congress of the United States.

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Abstract:

This talk will review an XML automation project for authoring, update, and distribution of data comprising State legislative documents. XML was chosen to permit the immortalization of intelligence in the data. Lessons learned and solutions will be presented and a demonstration of component parts of the system will be provided.

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Description:

This Case Study focuses on selected best practices for XML automation projects. The Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes implements and maintains hardware and software systems used to create, update, and distribute the majority of data that comprise the State’s legislative documents. Replacement of outdated computer hardware and legacy software was identified, along with a need for a technology that allows the structure of a document to be described, encoded, and immortalized. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is such a technology. During the project, several lessons were learned regarding the nature of planning specific to XML data conversion and integration, the scope of new development specific to XML creation and storage, and certain disadvantages associated with preservation of old logic and data structures.

The document suite includes statutes, bills, session laws, amendments, committee reports, calendars, resolutions, various indices, comparative biennium compilations, administrative rules, and the State constitution. The authoring parties responsible for creation and amendment of these documents include elected members, advisors, attorneys, and support staff for the Minnesota Senate, House of Representatives, and Legislative Council. The Revisor’s information systems serve multiple purposes. In addition to document creation, these systems of inter-related data structures provide repository functions and source data for Website presentation, commercial print publications, interim reports, and other highly styled documents (Gearhart, 2002).

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The replacement of outdated computer hardware and legacy software became a priority for the Revisor’s office in early 2002. The Information Technology department of the Revisor’s office identified a need for a technology that allows the structure of a document to be described and encoded. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is such a technology, allowing the structural representation and immortalization of intelligence in text documents. In order to benefit from such an encoding system, it is necessary to first appreciate the structure of documents (Daum & Scheller, 2000). All documents have structure that can be described, and documents that have the same structure are considered instances of a single document class, such as statute class, bill class, amendment class, and others (Shepherd, 2001). Following presentations, education sessions, and feasibility studies, the Revisor’s office embarked on the XML-Based Text Editing – New Development (XTEND) project.

The XTEND project is still underway, but progressing rapidly. To date, it has been largely successful with many of the major objectives accomplished to user satisfaction, management quality guidelines, and industry standards. To ensure success, a large quantity of documentation was produced, tied to Use-Cases, and frequently reviewed by the team and external authorities. These reviews offered many benefits throughout the development effort.

The lessons learned have value for anyone engaging on an XML conversion of a legacy system. The personnel invested in the project, such as users, developers, subcontractors, stakeholders, etc., shared a vision and a voice with regard to the project and its eventual outcome. As such, the XTEND project offers a testament to shared commitment, orchestrated development efforts, object oriented programming concepts, and hard work.

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