----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher McMillan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2001 11:00 AM
Subject: A portal to new freedom


Labor site will help people with disabilities find information about
services

BY William Matthews

July 9, 2001

A blind man needs a job and a way to get to work. A child with a
disability
requires special education and transportation. A woman in a wheelchair
must
find accessible housing near the office where she has been offered a
job.

The federal government funds programs that can help meet their needs,
but
finding out about the programs hasn't always been easy. In October, a
new
federal Web site is expected to make it much simpler to get information.

The Labor Department is pre.paring to launch www.Disability.Direct.gov
a
portal designed to direct Internet users to local, state and federal
information about services available to people with disabilities.

The site is part of President Bush's New Freedom Initiative, which is
intended to increase education, employment and housing opportunities for
Americans with disabilities.

Unlike most federal Web sites, DisabilityDirect will focus heavily on
the
local level where services are typically delivered, rather than on the
federal level where they are funded, said Dick Griffin, the project's
manager at Labor.

Users will begin by entering a ZIP code. That automatically screens
information to the user's locality. Next, users select a category of
services or information and are presented with details about programs
and
services available in their areas.

Helpful tips - such as telephone numbers, travel instructions and
suggestions on steps to take - will also be offered, Griffin said.

"We've worked very hard to make this as easy as possible," he said.

Making the site easy for the public to use was only part of the
challenge,
Griffin said. It also had to be designed for easy use by those who will
supply information for the site. For the most part, they will be local,
state and federal employees trained to provide services to people with
disabilities but most likely not trained to operate Web sites.

To a degree, the DisabilityDirect site will be automated. A search
engine
developed by Autonomy Corp. will comb the Internet for information and
programs that would be useful to people with disabilities.

Unlike search engines that work by finding keywords, the Autonomy engine
analyzes Web content for concepts. It will develop lists of relevant Web
sites for DisabilityDirect managers to evaluate for inclusion in the
public
site.

The Autonomy engine "minimizes the need to have employees and
DisabilityDirect partners manually categorize, tag and insert hypertext
links between related content," said Richard Gaunt, Autonomy's chief
technology officer. "For example, as new information is created by a
local
government, our software analyzes the main concepts and then
automatically
categorizes it and inserts links to related content in real time."

In a sense, the Labor Department is creating a virtual private network
of
disability service providers, Griffin said. It will be invisible to the
public and will reside behind the DisabilityDirect Web site that the
public
views. It will help agencies collect and arrange information in a way
that
links services people with disabilities are likely to need - such as job
training and transportation, or employment and housing.

The virtual private network could grow to include tens of thousands of
agencies and programs offered at municipal, state and federal levels, he
said.

"It's not enough for agencies to do the stovepipe thing anymore,"
Griffin
said. "We're all aware that we've come across a threshold in the
information
environment. Technology has built bridges between agencies."

Information technology now makes it relatively easy to link housing
information from the Department of Housing and Urban Development with
employment information from the Labor Department and transportation
information from local transit agencies, he said.

"That triad - housing, employment and transportation - is a show
stopper"
for many people with disabilities, Griffin said. "The big issue here is
getting people to work. There are 54 million people with disabilities in
this country, and 70 percent of them are unemployed or underemployed.
Our
objective is to break the barriers down and create opportunities."