Army knowledge guidance due

Within the next two weeks, the Army secretary and chief of staff are supposed to sign off on the second knowledge management guidance memorandum, which details new goals for the servicewide initiative, including reductions in the number of servers and applications in use.

Speaking at the Army Small Computer Program's Information Technology conference in Reno, Nev., Miriam Browning, the Army's principal director for enterprise integration, said the memo has been awaiting approval for about two weeks and she hopes it to will come out within the next 14 days.

Browning presented a draft version of the guidelines during her April 23 keynote presentation. The guidelines include three main goals:

* Making server reductions of 30 percent by the end of fiscal 2003.

* Making application reductions of 50 percent by fiscal 2004.

* Developing a reporting process by July 1 using baseline assessments to track the progress toward those application reductions.

If the memo is not formally released soon, the Army will be forced to re-evaluate the deadlines, especially the baseline assessments due in July, Browning told Federal Computer Week.

The Army's original five knowledge management goals were issued in August 2001 and the service has made progress in all of those areas, Browning said. The original goals were:

* Governance and cultural change.

* Knowledge management through best business practices.

* Enterprise management.

* Establishing the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) portal.

* Increasing workforce.

Speaking about AKO, Browning said the service has established more than 950,000 accounts and that "more than 95 percent of the people that need it have it already."

AKO offers Army news, distance-learning opportunities, lifetime e-mail accounts, a search engine and a chat room for soldiers, civilian employees and retirees.