1. Iowa LINC System Legislative XML Standardization Case Study

2. Introduction Jared Saxton, Managing Partner, BlueLid Technologies BlueLid Technologies Services company Designs & develops custom XML-based content management & publishing systems Experience with Legislative, Legal, Tax, and Accounting content systems Five years partnering with Iowa Legislative Services Agency (LSA) developing LINC system

3. Overview What is XML? Why XML? LINC Initiative XML Standardization Results Closer Look at LINC System (time permitting)

4. What is XML? Extensible Markup Language (XML) Provides standardized way to structure content Human and machine readable Uses descriptive, meaningful tagging (not just formatting instructions) Nested tree structure (parent/child) Schemas can be used to define valid tags and tag contexts

5. XML in Action

6. Why XML? Can Help Improve Content… Accuracy – documents can be validated & structure enforced throughout document lifecycle, outputs are predictable and consistent Accessibility – content can be queried and reported on easily and granularly Production Efficiency – structured XML tagging can make content easier to author and process Reuse – content can be leveraged and referenced more easily from multiple contexts without creating redundancy Publishing Flexibility – easier to publish to multiple formats (e.g. print PDF, web HTML, XML web services)

7. What is LINC? Iowa LSA Initiative Legislative Services Agency (LSA) provides IT support and services to more than 450 users, including Legislators, Legislative staff, and personnel in a variety of Agencies LSA facilitates introduction of emerging information technologies LINC Objectives Consolidate systems used for creation and delivery of legislative content Manage all document types on single platform with a single toolset

8. Legacy System Issues Long production cycles — would like to publish content to the public as soon as possible Difficult to determine content accuracy — how do we know we have resolved all content issues prior to publication? Difficult to train new staff — arcane, outdated production tools and techniques (e.g. Silhouette, MS-Word macros, MAPPER) create steep learning curve for new personnel Tables and Indexes difficult to generate — manual processes used to maintain reference tables and indexes for Code and Acts publications Difficult to implement new content projects — content inflexible and disparate, housed in disparate outdated systems; solutions tend to be brittle and inflexible when changes are needed

9. Where to Start? Like eating an elephant… possible if done one bite at a time. Start with Content! Defined custom XML schemas for each document type: Iowa Code Iowa Acts Bills, Resolutions, Amendments, Conference Committee Reports Administrative Code Court Rules, other document types Converted existing “flat” content to structured XML

10. Back-End Development Develop Essential Services Content management services (check-in/out, versioning, rollback) Engrossment Engines Workflow management services (bill requests, content routing, task assignment) Publishing Engine services (style sheets, customizations for page/line) Comparison Engine services Indexing Engine services

11. Tool Development Develop Essential Tools Drafter tools Tools for researching and reusing from prior bills and bill drafts Tools for managing bill requests Text Processor tools Tools for building up bills in XML from Code Tools for validating XML and fixing errors Tools for Engrossment (e.g. Acts->Code) Chamber Staff tools Engrossment tools (e.g. amendment->bill, amendment->amendment) Indexing tools

12. Tool Development Develop Essential Tools (cont.) Table & Indexing Unit tools Internal Reference management tools Table generation tools Machine-aided Indexing tools Index generation tools Publishing tools Print Volume management tools Publishing workflow tools Editor tools Lists (“Tickler”, “2B.13” harmonizations) Renumbering tools Footnoting tools

13. Application Development Develop Main Applications LINC Dashboard — user interface for managing bill requests, bill and amendment drafting, tasks, print volume production, much more… NOBA Dashboard — manages financial notes for appropriation bills Web Applications — SOLR Search, Bill Management System (BMS), Bill Tracking, etc. Mobile Apps — iPhone, iPad, Android applications in planning stage

14. XML Standardization Results Shortened production cycles — content now gets to public faster Improved content accuracy — more content issues caught and resolved upstream, before publishing Reduced learning curve for new staff — arcane, legacy console-based systems and production techniques replaced with familiar modern graphical interfaces Revealed new ways of exposing content — flexibility of XML content providing catalyst for new ways of publishing content (e.g. web services, mobile apps)

15. Detailed Look at LINC System The LINC System is comprised of tools for authoring, managing, publishing, and researching: Codified Statutes (Iowa Code) Acts (session laws) Bills Bill Drafts Amendments Administrative Code Court Rules

16. Bills and Amendments The LINC System tracks bills and amendments from initial request to draft, and from draft to file. Key features include: Request Management Drafting Versioning Workflow Page/Line Amendment Engrossment Publishing

17. Bills and Amendments: Request Management Bill Management System (BMS) provides interfaces for submitting legislation requests to the Iowa Legislative Services Agency (LSA) BMS manages workflow of requests as they are passed between LSA staff (e.g. Drafters, Editors, Text Processors, Proofers) Amendment requests submitted via BMS routing form

18. Bills and Amendments: Request Management BMS helps Drafters track Word drafts Text Processors build up Word drafts in XML format XML Repository used for tracking versions of the draft built up by Text Processors

19. Bills and Amendments: Drafting Text Processors use LINC Dashboard to check out XML bill for editing Bill XML is edited through Arbortext Editor Custom editor tools used to pull Code XML into bills and amendments Strike and Add markup used “Protected Text” (gray background) prevents unintentional changes to Code

20. Bills and Amendments: Versioning Versioning tracks XML document changes (who changed what & when) Versioning facilitates: Check-in/check-out Comparison Rollback Version notes

21. Bills and Amendments: Workflow Bills and Amendments are routed between content libraries as they progress through the system Libraries are secure repositories, restricting access to specific roles and users Routing to library can trigger actions (e.g. routing to Introduced library triggers publish to web)

22. Bills and Amendments: Page/Line Amendment Engrossing LINC contains a robust amendment engrossment system Amendment operations target bill content by page and line number Amendment Engrossment Engine parses operation language, applies action to target document User interactively processes amendment operations, in bulk or individually

23. Bills and Amendments: Indexing and Publishing Introduced, Reprinted, and Enrolled bills are published to the public Indexing allows topics to be associated to the legislation Indexing Tasks are created and assigned when content routed to central libraries (Introduced, Reprinted, Enrolled) Machine Aided Indexing used to interactively or automatically assign topics to the bill from a controlled thesaurus Drafts are published to SOLR for internal research Introduced, Reprinted, and Enrolled published to Bill Book and SOLR

24. Acts The LINC System manages the process of preparing and compiling enrolled bills and joint resolutions into a final Acts volume. Key features include: Workflow Task Tracking Editor Tools Table Generation Volume Publishing

25. Acts: Workflow Governors Action Acts Processing Library Task Spawning Acts Chapter Tracking

26. Acts: Task Tracking Task Workspace Task Assignment Task State and Dependencies Task Comments Task Reporting

27. Acts: Editor Tools for Enhancing Content Numbering Titling Reference Markup Item Veto Markup Footnoting

28. Acts: Table Generation Tables can be generated per-chapter or across all Acts Tables generated from reference markup Tables: Conversion Tables New, Amended, and Repealed Code Tables Amended Session Law Tables “Referred To” Tables Vetoes Tables State Mandate Table

29. Acts: Volume Publishing Volume Manager Compose Acts Volume Compose Summary of Legislation booklet

30. Code The LINC System manages the process of engrossing Acts into Code and preparing the Code for print and online publishing. Key features include: Engrossment from Acts Task Tracking Chapter Tracking Editing Indexing Volume Publishing

31. Code: Engrossment from Acts Amendment Types New Amend Strike and Replace Repeal Etc. Trial Engross Engrossment Highlighting Section History Temporary Footnotes

32. Code: Indexing Code chapters and sections are indexed using Machine Aided Indexing Indexing facilitates print indexes and web search navigators

33. Code: Volume Publishing Volume Manager

34. Research Folio – local search SOLR – online search

35. Research: Folio Folio infobases used for research when drafting legislation Code Administrative Code Court Rules

36. Research: SOLR Search SOLR Search Engine used for next generation web search Features a Unified Taxonomy Field indexing on metadata ties together disparate content sets Indexing metadata applied by machine aided indexing

37. Research: SOLR Search Hierarchical subject matter navigation allows user to discover disparate content sets that relate to a topic

38. Research: SOLR Search Search results returned from multiple content sets

39. Research: SOLR Search Search Facets can be used to further narrow results

40. Research: SOLR Search Selected Search Facets combine to further refine results

41. Reporting