Welcome:
Susan Turnbull from the General Services Administration (GSA) opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the continuing collaboration workshop series and introduced the topic of the day, “The Social Potential of Universal Access”. Susan introduced Elizabeth Isele from Cyberseniors.org .
Susan noted that today’s workshop is part of a series that has been ongoing for six months. The findings from the previous workshops will be available in a guide that will be published soon. The guide discusses how to extend digital dividends of Information Technology to ensure services are accessible and equitably distributed to all. The guide will be integrated into a U.S. Federal Government report on e-government. The findings of the guide will be presented at a NSF research committee workshop led by Helen Gigley, and may influence the long-term scientific agenda.
The next workshop meeting will be held Tuesday, November 13th. Topics for this session are still being sought. The notes and email addresses of the attendees from this workshop session will be available, in addition to the previous Collaboration Expedition Workshop notes (for sessions #1-6)
Overview of 4-H CyberSeniors/CyberTeens and the CyberHealth Initiative by
Elizabeth Isele, Founder & President, Cyberseniors.org:
Susan Turnbull introduced Elizabeth Isele, Founder and President of Cyberseniors.org to provide an overview of her organization and it’s work.
Elizabeth thanked Susan and introduced CyberSeniors.org, an organization dedicated to teaching senior citizens how to use a computer and access the information world presented to them over the Internet. The program was founded in Maine 3 ½ years ago with the idea of bringing information and computers into the world of seniors. The program is supported by the 4-H and AARP. Approx. 7,500 seniors have been trained to date. The program involves teens teaching seniors how to use a computer. In some areas, retired teachers work with teens – the teens teach computer skills, the retired teachers teach “teaching” skills. CyberTeens will soon have its own designation on the Internet.
Elizabeth discussed the motivation behind the program, to help seniors overcome isolation – “put down your canes and pick up your mouse”. The program is not advertised, it is by word of mouth only. It has limited centers: Maine and 3 sites in Virginia. All courseware is developed in-house with simple presentation. Class sizes are usually kept to a maximum of 8 students, with a 2 to 1 student to teacher ratio.
Elizabeth pointed out two recent major accomplishments for the program. First, under the direction of Sonia Guzman, from Webalization, the program materials will be translated into Spanish with additional translations as appropriate. Second, a “wellness web” will be introduced with a new sponsor, National Institutes of Health (NIH). The goal is to provide tools and training to help seniors evaluate doctors and healthcare providers, provide mini-dialogues on health related issues, and research on validity/credibility of sites in an effort to help identify “rogue” web sites.
Discussion:
Q: Larry Koskinen - What government entities/units support your program?
A: Elizabeth - No explicit government support. Program is very much a grass-roots effort – starts in a community (e.g. Arlington, VA.).
A: Tom Tate – The leverage points in government are at the County level – Cooperative Extension Services offices located in each of the 3,150 counties across the country. These offices represent 6 million teenagers (4-H) and 600,000 precommitted youth volunteer leaders that are eager for partners/sponsors to step up and fund needs within communities. The U.S. Federal government supports the Cooperative Extension offices with a mission to improve the quality of the communities.
Q: Rick Smith – What is the relationship between Virginia Tech and the Cooperative Extension?
A: Tom Tate – Virginia Tech is the Virginia Land Grant University. The Federal Sponsor organization is the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state office is the Land Grant University (affiliated with USDA) in each state. The Cooperative Extension Agency is at the County level. If a county does not have an office or the expertise needed to address a community issue, they can leverage the Land Grant University, which in Virginia is Virginia Tech.
Susan Turnbull commented on the idea that International organizations are more familiar with the Cooperative model. The model will expand behind the power of the developing infrastructure as it becomes easier to use, more secure.
Overview of a Cultural Context for Security by Mark Frautschi, Consultant,
Shakespeare & Tao Consulting:
Susan Turnbull introduced Mark Frautschi, a consultant who has been participating in the workshop series. Mark has contributed to the U.S. Federal Government in the areas of Y2K and the Digital Divide.
Mark began a discussion on how one would accomplish establishing a cultural context for security while providing universal access by asking the following questions;
Q: “What are some of the tensions a renewed emphasis on security may present?”
A: Freedom vs. Control, Time/Convenience vs. Thoroughness, Privacy: Who and How much?
Q: “How may we effectively manage these?”
A: The issue of security engages issues of resistance, however, resistance can be used as a learning opportunity. Polarity Management is a tool that can be used.
Mark briefly discussed the contents of a book on Polarity Management by Barry Johnson entitled, Polarity Management, Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. The idea here is that a Polarity is not a problem – a problem can be solved, whereas a polarity is comprised of two opposites or compliments (poles) without an end point or conclusion. Security and Universal Access can be represented as a polarity, with polarity management the tool used to address issues and work toward ideas for resolution.
For example, Mark recounted an experience of his in a local diner where he saw a poster that had a cut out of a Washington Post article on Section 508, with a hand-written message, “look what the government is spending your tax money on - web-pages for the blind.” The originator of this poster did not receive the message about Universal Access for all citizens.
Polarity participants are the “Bearers of Tradition” and the “Agents of Change”. Polarity is subjective. It is dependent upon an individual’s values and only works if it fits those values. IT cannot be forced upon someone else and work unless it fits his or her values.
Discussion:
Owen Amber commented that a polarity could be derived from tacit vs. explicit knowledge. Problems are caused by tacit knowledge, e.g. the Taliban “know” Israelis destroyed the World Trade Center. The U.S. Federal Government does not manage records or information (explicit knowledge) effectively, e.g. “Is it better to infiltrate a terrorist organization or understand their language?
Mark commented that perhaps we should look to examine the terrorist inside us to gain a better understanding. Invite more of the Intelligence and Security communities to this workshop.
Lowell Christy commented that the problem is Polarity Creation. The media focus is on visible images that it freezes, and influences how we view things – access for those with disabilities vs. the cost to society.
Mark suggested invitations to the media. Rex Brooks (participating via telephone) commented that dialogue, like the one currently engaged, is polarity management.
Susan restated the question about who was missing from this audience. She informed the participants that future meetings would be held in a larger room to accommodate more people – look to invite appropriate additional participants. Susan used the analogy of closed source code to tacit knowledge with open source code analogous to explicit knowledge that allows validation. Security and Universal Access need access to each other.
Nick Guzman summarized by suggesting that issues, which form a polarity, are used to attack the validity of the other; secure vs. non-secure, open vs. closed. Opinions are created and used/managed for mission fulfillment.
Janina Sajka commented that a paradox exists between security and “being out in the open”, because sometimes “being out in the open is the safest place to be”.
Lunch Break
Overview of Human Markup Language by Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga, Founder &
Chairman of HumanMarkup
Susan Turnbull introduced Ranjeeth Thunga, the chair of the Oasis HumanMarkup Technical Committee.
Ranjeeth led a discussion on the potential contributions of the Human Markup Language (HumanML) to advance social trust and reduce human miscommunication.
Ranjeeth initiated the discussion by providing a brief synopsis of the missions for both the Oasis Committee; to develop the HumanML and associated specifications, and his company, HumanMarkup to provide support for Internet tools which can enhance human communication. HumanML is based on XML and RDF schema. It is not captured by a single schema, rather it is extensible, an open standard that is culturally sensitive.
HumanML seeks to emulate, or embed human contextual characteristics within the data or information that is being communicated between two or more parties. These characteristics include psychological characteristics, physical traits, speech patterns, kinesics (physical movements), and mentational (attitude attributes).
Discussion:
Ranjeeth asked what applications could benefit from HumanMarkup?
Mark Frautschi replied that essentially all communication applications could benefit, that technology would exist to allow people to communicate on their own terms, by their own design.
Own Ambur suggested that in the future all IT systems will be built around us as human beings. He suggested that “stove-piped systems” are those which are created for us, but do not take into account who we are. Quick Silver applications are citizen centered, e.g. systems built on the elements that describe our relationship to government. HumanML can help make this happen.
Ranjeeth commented that HumanML can establish interoperability between schema and attitudes – the translation will become explicit.
Bob Andrews challenged HumanML to translate/differentiate humor? Other emotions discussed were sarcasm, intensity and irony. Ranjeeth stated that perhaps HumanML could be coded to avoid the miscommunication of irony by explicitly tagging “irony” as appropriate to those engaged in a conversation – similar to color-coding.
Nick Guzman asked Greg O'Connel from Tellme if Voice XML could be used to accomplish the aforementioned task. Greg stated that he wasn’t certain; he felt some aspects of Voice XML could be useful and that staff from his company were working with the W3C working group. Janina Sajka confirmed that the W3C working group was involved in speech markup.
Karl Hebenstreit asked if the semantic analysis from HumanML could be linked to Customer Relationship Management? Mark Frautschi indicated that Verizon already had an “irate customer” flag on their database. Ranjeeth indicated that conflict resolution systems are ideal candidates for HumanML, and could lead to synchronization of human communication styles. Unfortunately, there is no “quick-hit” strategy; the whole picture must be thought through.
Susan Turnball commented that perhaps the process of HumanML could be used to annotate dialogue after-the-fact, like theatre. Perhhaps is could capture some social pragmatics present during treaty negotiation. It would be similar to the evolution of a play – dialogue is annotated as progress is made from improvisation to dress rehearsal to opening night.
Rex Brooks commented that biometrics, such as unique retinal patterns, could be used to describe physical characteristics.
Owen Ambur mentioned that the law enforcement community had defined human physical characteristics through the “Global Justice Information Network” and recommended coordinating with them.
Susan Turnball recounted a situation with the GATT treaty in which the parties involved were too busy taking notes to engage in high-level thinking. She suggested that perhaps HumanML could be used to provide real-time feedback, allowing presenters to adjust their technique to reduce miscommunication. Mark Frautschi said that a company called Covision.com provided dynamic facilitation services (in meeting feedback) similar to what Susan had outlined, perhaps they could be contacted as a sponsor for HumanML.
Ranjeeth asked for additional ideas of organizations that would be interested in HumanML. Mark suggested contacting Craig Holcomb from NSA.
Overview briefing on the use of biometrics and smart cards to advance a trusted
environment by Fernando Podio from NIST, Information Technology Lab:
Omid Omidvar introduced Fernando Podio from NIST. Dr. Podio is the co-chair of the U.S.
Biometric Consortium and works in the Convergent Information Systems Division of NIST.
The biometric consortium is an R&D organization focusing on biometric-based personal identification/verification technology. The consortium has over 800 members from government, industry and academia.
The presentation covered these major topics in the discussion on the use of biometrics;
· Benefits of Biometrics vs. the use of passwords
· Basic Biometric Process
§ Verification (1 to 1 matching)
§ Identification (1 to N matching)
§ Enrollment – candidate must be actively enrolled in a biometric program in order for verification/identification process to work!
· Current Biometric technologies
· Trends and Driving Forces behind Biometric use and proliferation
· Advantages of combining Biometrics with smart cards
· Biometric standards and supporting organizations
Discussion:
Ranjeeth Thunga asked about average processor speed needed to access and process a biometric identifier. Fernando indicated that processor speed is measured in time and the average time to process a fingerprint is one second. When using biometrics it is best to try and avoid sending the identifier to a server for search, match and response.
Larry Koskinen asked how biometrics are being used for assessing risk. Fernando replied that biometrics are used to identify or verify a person. They cannot be used to predict an individual’s behavior.
Mark Frautschi asked if he should be concerned about identity theft when signing an electronic keypad while making a credit card purchase. Fernando indicated that this process is not biometrics. The electronic signature process dynamically recognizes the “way” an individual signs his name, not the actual signature. Given that, and depending upon the design of the system, it would be rather difficult to steal a “signature identity”. Fernanado also went on to explain that biometric data couldn’t be easily used or stolen for “rogue” purposes.
Kerry Romesburg asked if it would be easy to access data from a smartcard. Fernando said that it is not an easy task. In fact, he stated that some smart cards shut their processors down if “unauthorized” penetration/data access is tried.
Susan thanked everyone for attending today’s workshop and indicated that the room was available if people wanted to continue informal discussion. She said she will continue to work on establishing an on-line collaborative environment for the workshop series. Susan also asked for suggestions for future workshop topics.
Contributors:
Susan Turnbull – GSA, Senior Program Advisor (susan.turnbull@gsa.gov)
Owen Ambur – US Fish and Wildlife Service, CIO Council XML working group (owen_ambur@fws.org)
Bob Andrew – Principal, ICF Consulting (BobAndrew@icfconsulting.com)
Mark Frautschi – Independent Consultant, Shakesphere & Tao Consulting (frautschi@bigmindmedia.com)
Nick Guzman – George Washington University, School of Medicine (guzman@gwu.edu)
Sonia Guzman – Webalization, Translation and Localization Solutions (sguzman@webalization.com)
Lowell Christy – Chairman, CityofMind (lowell@cityofmind.com)
Karl Hebenstreit – GSA, Systems and Accessibility specialist (Karl.Hebenstreit@gsa.org)
John Huth – John J. Barklow Foundation (john.huth@verizon.net)
Larry Koskinen – Consultant, Digital Government (Lkoskinen@aol.com)
Omid Omdivar – NIST, Advanced Technology Programs Researcher, Program Manager and Technology Analyst
Fernando Podio – NIST, Information Technology Lab (podio@biometrics.org)
Rick Smith – Maximum Performance Group (daddy.rick@attglobal.net)
Tony Stanco – George Washington University, Cyberspace Policy Institute (stanco@seas.gwu.edu)
David Zilly – Consultant (vqphoto@qwest.net)
Vesnier Lugo – DMH (vlugo@osophs.dhhs.gov)
Helen Gigley – NCO (gigley@itrd.gov)
Tom Tate – USDA, Nat’l program leader Cooperative Extension agency (ttate@reeusda.gov)
Genevieve Lucas – USDA, 4H (glucas@reeusda.gov)
Greg O’Connell – Tellme., Director, Public Sector Operations (grego@tellme.com)
Kerry Romesburg - GSA, Global Account Mgr., Customer Service Center (kerry.romesberg@gsa.gov)
Ranjeeth K. Thunga – Founder and Chair, HumanMarkup (rkthunga@humanmarkup.org)
Rex Brooks – Oasis technical committee and HumanMarkup (via telephone)
Janina Sajka – American Foundation for the Blind (janina@afb.net)
Elizabeth Isele – Founder and president, Cyberseniors.org (cybersrs@maine.rr.com)
Judy Douglas – EDS, Principal, E-Government Community of Practice (judy.douglas@eds.com)
Paul Mrochinski – EDS, Managing Consultant, E-Government Community of Practice (paul.mrochinski@eds.com)