Researchers from the Center for Technology in Government are joining forces with New York state information technology officials to determine how Extensible Markup Language can improve Web site management.

As government Web sites have grown in size and complexity, managing content has become more laborious and costly.

Now researchers from the center, which is part of the State University of New York at Albany, are evaluating whether XML could become a viable alternative to HTML, which is the predominant language used to define the structure and layout of a Web document.

Although XML commonly supports effective data exchange, using it to manage Web content is less understood, researchers said. But XML, which describes the content and is more flexible than HTML, can dramatically improve workflow and reduce time, effort and costs related to Web site management, they added.

"It hasn't been talked about a lot, and I'm not sure really why," said Derek Werthmuller, the center's director of technology services. "Part of it is because there really isn't something to sell. XML is like HTML, everybody owns it."

The center is leading an 18-month project with the Office of the Chief Information Officer and the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER), which provides labor relations and employee training and development, to evaluate XML's advantages and shortcomings in Web site management.

Since July, five state government agencies have been participating in the test bed project, in which each agency will create a prototype XML Web site and business case model. Researchers will discuss findings at a Jan. 25 presentation and will continue to develop guidebooks and an online library of XML technical resources until next summer.

The center converted its HTML-managed Web site to an XML format several years ago.

Jim Costello, the center's Web application developer, said in 2001 it took one full-time employee to manage the site's 1,300 pages, including keeping up with links and changing and redesigning content. Now it takes one person only a quarter of the time to manage the Web site's 5,000 pages, he said.

Onnolee Smith, GOER's assistant director of workforce organization and development, said state agencies began exploring ways to improve Web accessibility and training needs more than a year ago. She said they view XML as a next-generation application that will help agencies manage the complexity, cost and effectiveness of their Web sites. The state wants Web site management to be more logical and sequential.

"Let's face it, there was no such thing as a Webmaster 10 years ago," Smith said. "There was not a set of skills for maintaining a Web site. There was not a thinking pattern on what Web communications were about."

Richard Pilarski, assistant director of GOER's management development unit, said that with the advancement of technology, there are opportunities to provide more functionality to a Web site, such as video streaming, which would be more cumbersome to manage in an HTML format.