Government Computer News
Beyond 508
Digg
De.licio.us
Slashdot
Technorati
Image:
GCN photos by Henrik G. DeGyor
EPA’s Erin Conley tracks Superfund facts and figures nationwide with PopChart tool
EPA’s Erin Conley tracks Superfund facts and figures nationwide with PopChart tool
Agency managers have found bonus capabilities in the compliance software they bought last year to meet Section 508 accessibility deadlines. Several related their expe
Image:
More ways to access the Web means Treasury agents are more likely to use their PDAs in the field, deputy CIO Mayi Canales says.
The Environmental Protection Agency bought PopChart charting software from Corda Technologies Inc. of Lindon, Utah. Now EPA is using the application to aggregate information about its various Superfund activities.
PopChart “really puts power in the hands of managers,” said Erin Conley, program analyst for EPA’s Office of Emergency and Remedial Response. “Everybody is on the same page. Everybody is looking at the same data.”
Each night, the 10 EPA regional offices upload information from their Oracle Corp. database systems, nicknamed WasteLANs, into the national Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System, or CERCLIS.
PopChart extracts data from CERCLIS into Microsoft SQL Server and automatically generates visual representations using the Microsoft Component Object Model and Extensible Markup Language under Microsoft .Net, Conley said. Managers who want details can click on map regions to see how the figures were derived.
All work stops
Before PopChart, EPA staff twice a month had to stop working on other projects to organize the Superfund data, program analyst Walt Johnson said.
“It just shows you how primitive the process was before,” Conley said.
The staff had to produce new fact sheets and charts for each state, which was the most tedious task, Conley said. Every state has dozens of projects and each detail, from location to project status, had to be graphed, formatted and packaged by hand.
Guy Wall, an Army Materiel Command computer scientist, said he needed to generate Section 508 compliance reports about 300 Army Web sites without having to contact multiple network administrators and page designers.
He automated 508 verification through a server application, AccMonitor from Hiawatha Island Software Co. Inc. of Concord, N.H.
![1105 Government Information Group [justice]](/images/1105logo_website.gif "Government Computer News [justice]")
© 1996-2008 1105 Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
