Evans lays out CIO Council's goals

Over the next year, to improve how agencies and systems communicate, the CIO Council will consider publishing a governmentwide dictionary of IT terms and will develop standards for Extensible Markup Language data definitions. These are two of the six goals Karen Evans, the council's new vice chairwoman, laid out yesterday in a memo to agency CIOs.

The council elected Evans, the Energy Department CIO, last month. She takes over for James Flyzik, who retires today.

In the memo, Evans described her vision of where the council is heading and the priorities it will work on.

"As I see it, the Federal CIO Council stands today at a crossroad," she said. "Signs that the government as a whole has seen the importance of IT systems are all around. Together [with the Office of Management and Budget], we are teaming for results and working to drive IT management in government."

Along with governmentwide XML data standards and a set of common definitions, Evans said the council will work to guide agencies' use of enterprise architectures and develop interagency transaction standards. She said the council also will concentrate on IT work force training, especially project managers. Evans said the council will cooperate with OMB to formulate policy and work with agencies to implement those policies.