World Wide Web Warriors

Knowledge Management at The Australian Department of Defence

Tom Worthington

Special Advisor Defence Internet/Intranet Policy

Monday 29 June 1998 - Sydney & 21 July 1998 - Auckland

AIC Electronic Document Management 1998 Conference

Note: These are the "slides" of the talk, intended for display to an audience in 18 point font on a 640 x 480 video display. Draft of 17 July 1998 (comments welcome). The text of the Sydney and Auckland - talks are also available.

About the speaker
Prescript: A Very Large Web Server
Introduction
Managing "Mission Critical" Information
Email and the Web Into Business Processes
Forms
Infrastructure for the Internet and intranets
Conclusion

About the speaker

Special Adviser for Internet/Intranet Policy, Defence
Immediate Past President of the ACS.
Member of: ACS, ACM, Internet Society, IEEE-CS & SA Council.
One of the 10 most influential IT&T people in Australia
Work since 1994 on the policy and practice of the Internet
Including appearances before three Senate hearings
First home pages for: Defence, ACT Government, SBS, AIIA & NPC.

Prescript: A Very Large Web Server

Introduction

Transition period to electronic documents
Changing the way organisations operate
Limiting factor is ability of management to work differently
Improving Electronic Document Management: Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies
Architecture For Access To Government Information
Whole-of-Australian-Government Search Architecture

Managing "Mission Critical" Information

Manage each electronic document throughout its life cycle
Each document has Meta-data attached or embedded
Whole of Government Secure Intranet announced by the Prime Minister 1997

Email and the Web Into Business Processes

With trained staff, simple Internet facilities can be used for document management, groupware and work-flow.

Document Management: Web documents need not be flashy
Groupware is provided free with the Internet in a simplified form
Workflow just have the form e-mailed around
Think about how documents will be maintained

Forms

Large but un-glamorous part of document management
Defence has more than 3,600 different forms, now electronic
Forms are in transition from paper look to web based
problems of integration into e-mail and web based systems
XML may help

Infrastructure for the Internet and intranets

An internet is a network made by joining two or more networks.

To build an intranet, disconnect from the Internet.
Extranet: of your intranet via the Internet
Defence uses encryption to secure access to internal systems
Firewall and gateway security manuals from DSD

Conclusion

Document management is not an organisation's primary business
Enough is needed to facilitate business needed, but no more
Combination of simple technical sophistication, plus the good sense and training of staff