Technology & Management Solutions Publications
2009 Publications
CommentWorks e-Tour
CommentWorks® ® CommentWorks® , federal, state, and local government agencies and private companies can streamline the labor-intensive process of accepting and resolving public feedback and integrating these comments into projects and programs.
Improving HR Selection Processes: Using Simulations to Optimize Cut Scores
Webcast, October 2009. Agencies frequently use a multiple-hurdle approach to testing and selection but spend a lot of time and money screening and testing candidates who cannot possibly succeed in the overall selection process. This webcast, featuring ICF Vice President Lance Anderson, explores how agencies can be certain their processes are efficient and effective, how you can set cut scores to be certain that only the most qualified candidates will advance through the entire process, and how agencies can be certain that they are setting optimal cut scores.
Sounding Board: The Stimulus, Budget and the Future of Health IT
As featured in the spring edition of
Service Contractor Magazine , ICF CEO Sudhakar Kesavan offers his perspective on the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the projected additional initiatives signaled by President Obama's Administration.
2008 Publications
Building San Francisco's Cleantech Economy: Analysis and Strategy Options
September 2008. A market profile and understanding of relevant workforce is critical to supporting the growth of any industry, particularly one as nescient as the Clean Technology economy. ICF International conducted an analysis to develop a Clean Technology cluster strategy for the San Francisco Bay area. The analysis focused on the potential for clean technology industry and green businesses in the City of San Francisco compared to the broader San Francisco Bay Area by identifying competitive challenges facing different segments of the industry. Specifically, it identified the relative strengths and weaknesses of different geographic centers around the Bay area relative to enabling and sustaining the clean technology industry. The project identified shared challenges and specific actions that would enhance cluster development, particularly in San Francisco, and concluded with initial specifications for a clean technology partnership to implement priority actions.
Enabling Transformation with Communities of Practice (CoP)
ICF International has partnered with the U.S Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to bring innovative approaches to internal operational challenges in
FHWA's Knowledge Sharing Initiative . This
Communities of Practice Case Study describes a virtual network of people tied together by a common job function or focus area. FHWA's external communities link more than 4,000 staff members from partner organizations in an ongoing information-sharing effort to find common solutions to common problems in the industry.
Implications of Cyber Security Standards for Electric Power Grid
ICF International examines the implications of the cyber security and critical infrastructure protection (CIP) standards set forth by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The Commission has implemented eight mandatory security standards that apply to all bulk power system users, owners, and operators. Developed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), these critical infrastructure protection standards attempt to protect the nation's electric power grid from cyber attacks.
Mind the Gap: Using Sharepoint for Compliance Tracking
Published in Energy Central, December 23, 2008. A compliance culture implies that the organization understands the standards and the organization takes proactive steps in order to meet or exceed them. More importantly, the organization can prove this compliance empirically with documentation. In this article, Kevin McDonald of ICF International demonstrates how routine compliance tasks can be automated using native Sharepoint capabilities. This framework can free the compliance organization to operate at higher operational tempo and increased productivity.
NERC/CIP Cyber Security: Leveraging Existing Controls to Secure the Enterprise
Published in the February 28, 2008, issue of
Energy Central's EnergyPulse , by Kevin T. McDonald, Senior NERC Cyber Security Analyst at ICF International. The electric utility industry is facing the daunting task of compliance with the rigorous
North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) critical infrastructure protection (CIP) physical and electronic security standards. Formulated to mitigate the threat of damage or disruption to the U.S. and Canadian Power Grid, these standards were formally adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in early 2008 and are now mandatory. This article demonstrates methods to reduce the impact of compliance by identifying and incorporating existing controls into the NERC CIP Framework.
Protecting Privacy in Public Private Partnerships: What Government Agencies Should Know
Published in the March 2008 edition of
The Privacy Advisor , the newsletter of the
International Association of Privacy Professionals , and coauthored by David Carpenter of ICF International and Rebecca Andino of Highlight Technologies. The content of the article is based on their experience supporting the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Registered Traveler Program. ICF International developed security and privacy standards based on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidance and Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FIPP). The standards are flexible enough to allow market-driven innovation, yet provide TSA assurance that its private partners maintain necessary levels of security and privacy protection of sensitive participant information.
The E-Business Revolution in Energy Services
by Philip E. Mihlmester of ICF International and Michael McKelvey. Reprinted with permission from American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, ©2000, Washington, D.C. Published in Proceedings of the ACEEE 2000 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 5.209-5.218. For information about the ACEEE proceedings, contact
http://www.aceee.org. This paper offers insights into the key steps involved in configuring an e-business and demonstrates how e-business can transform and is transforming the energy and energy efficiency marketplace. This paper provides an overview of energy and efficiency related e-business concepts, including examples.
2007 Publications
Cyber Security Under the NERC Reliability Standards
By James R. Stanton of ICF International and published in
IT Compliance Magazine , Spring 2007. The interconnected nature and electronic control systems of the nation’s high voltage electrical system renders it susceptible to coordinated cyber attacks.
Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) requirements are key components in the newly enforceable set of NERC Reliability Standards. Perhaps more than any other set of standards, the CIP group holds the potential to deflect and address the most potentially devastating contingencies on the interconnected systems. Cyber security has a wider meaning in the context of large system disruptions and interrupted service to broad areas of users than the previous concerns about data and file server corruption.
Going Online With Existing Assessments: Blessing or Curse?
Published in the
Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington (PTC/MW) Quarterly Newsletter, March 2007, by Greg Beatty, Ph.D., of ICF International. This article reviews the layout factors to consider when taking paper-based tests that are used for hiring or promotion and converting them to an on-line environment. The implications of changes in layout shape and length, and the inability to see more than one page at a time are examined, and options for overcoming the differences are offered. Advantages of on-line tests over paper-based tests are also reviewed.
Lean Metrics: Red is Good, Green is Worthless
Published in the Logistics Officer Association's
Exceptional Release , Fall 2007, by Russell Rhea of ICF International. The article compares how a traditionally managed company uses metrics to manage its business to how a lean Toyota-management style company operates. The author proposes that a company or organization has much more to gain from a lean management style, where metrics against aggressive goals are often "red" to help focus company efforts to improve.
2006 Publications
Primer on Information Design for Transportation Agencies
Prepared by William Schroeer of ICF International for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Standing Committee on Planning, July 2006, as part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), Project 08-36. How can we use the vast array of data that are collected by transportation agencies to create information that is easily understood and acted on by target audiences? Practitioners have powerful data management, integration, and dissemination tools to work with. However, the NCHRP believed that a more sophisticated approach to developing and communicating information was needed to further improve the decision-making process. This primer aims to educate and guide transportation professionals as they create information graphics for documents and presentations.
2005 Publications
Contract Repair Asset Visibility—Around the Corner: The CRISP Pilot
Published in
The Air Force Journal of Logistics , April 2005, by Joe Mueller of ICF International, Christine Caroen of the Altarum Institute, William Clark and Robert Heckler of the U.S. Air Force Material Command (AFMC), Stuart Scott of Defense Automated Addressing Systems Center (DAASC), and Keith Tindal of Rockwell Collins. Contract Repair Information System Protocol (CRISP) was a pilot sponsored by the Defense Sustainment Consortium, which focused on applying extensible markup language (XML) to enable automatic real-time reporting of repair status between commercial repair contractors and the Air Force and evaluated its impact on the contract repair parts supply process. ICF International’s role was to act as the technical lead in the team effort to develop system requirements, design, development, and implementation. ICF International is assisting AFMC by converting all necessary logistic transactions into an XML standard approved by the U.S. Department of Defense in order to implement CRISP in the Air Force repairable reporting system.
Fixing Program Management
Published in the September 1, 2005, issue of
Government Executive , by Ellen Glover of ICF International. Poor program management hurts both the image and the mission effectiveness of the government. The article highlights some of the initiatives underway to address the issue, including Project Management Institute (PMI) certifications and the work of the Industry Advisory Council, which Glover chairs.
How to Efficiently Gather Metadata and Content and Write Your XML Too
Published on the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) SCORM® Web site, September 27, 2005, by Greg Gardner of ICF International. This article discusses how programmers and instructional designers can easily work together to identify very detailed information about on-line training courses during the early stages of product development. The processes shown provide a series a questions, many with multiple-choice type options that nontechnical people can complete. The programmer then uses the completed form to create the XML needed for a Learning Management System. The key to the process is the way the questions are mapped to XML templates.
Introduction to Documentation Management for Lone Writers
Published in
INTERCOM , June 2005, by Katharyn Bine of ICF International and David J. Dick of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Used with permission from
INTERCOM , the magazine of the Society for Technical Communication, Arlington, VA. The authors' recommendations for dealing with the many documents handled by lone writers, including creating a documentation review board, defining a policy for approving documents, and ensuring that the documents are available to users. This article is part of
INTERCOM 's special issue on lone writers.
2004 Publications
A Safe Architecture Framework: Leverage the Security Features of BEA WebLogic 8.1
Published in
WebLogic Developer's Journal Magazine , March 2004, by Ashley Byrd of ICF International and Girish Gupte of BEA Professional Services. EMALL is a procurement and collaborative commerce portal for the U.S. Department of Defense and based on J2EE and WebLogic Platform 8.1. One core component of EMALL is a rule engine based on WebLogic Platform 8.1.
EMALL: Building an Integration Application—A Secure, Mission-Critical App in Almost No Time
Published in
WebLogic Developer's Journal Magazine , January 2004, by Ashley Byrd of ICF International and Girish Gupte of BEA Professional Services. EMALL is a procurement portal for the U.S. Department of Defense. Defense and federal personnel use it to tshop for items ranging from office supplies and equipment to weapons systems. The personnel have various levels of privileges to access classified catalogs and place orders.
Shopping Without Dropping: DOD EMall Embraces New XML Extension to Handle Transactions of $1 Million Weekly
By Joab Jackson, published in
Government Computer News , January 12, 2004. This article describes the Emall portal developed in party by ICF International as a subcontractor to the South Carolina Research Authority, one of the three primes on the U.S. Department of Defense Emall project. The Emall portal is one of the largest online operations, within or outside of government, to adopt the ebXML standard, which uses Extensible Markup Language for Electronic Business. The common format is a more scalable and affordable solution for multiple transaction systems and uses the Java2 Enterprise Edition platform plus WebLogic application servers and application development tools from BEA Systems, Inc.
The Business Value of CMMI
Published in ICF International's
Perspectives , a quarterly report that provides executive briefs on key insights and perspectives, Fall 2004.
2003 Publications
Documentation Management for Dummies
Published in
The Nor'easter , the publication of the Northern New England (NNE) chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), July/August 2003, by Katharyn Bine of ICF International and David Dick of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). This article outlines the goals of documentation management and how to define a documentation management strategy to save time and effort and improve quality throughout your organization.
IT Innovations in Grants Management
Published in ICF International's
Perspectives , a quarterly report that provides executive briefs on key insights and perspectives, Summer 2003.
Testing, Testing, Easy as 1-2-3
By Pete Arvanitis of ICF International, February 2003. Published in WMUsers.com, a monthly electronic publication that serves webMethods developers, administrators,and managers. This article discusses how to write unit tests to help ensure quality and accuracy of Web services.
2002 Publications
E-Government: Talk of the Town
Published in ICF International's
Perspectives, a quarterly report that provides executive briefs on key insights and perspectives, Summer 2002.
Internet Watch—One-stop Shopping for Geospatial Data
Published in
Public Roads magazine, a publication of the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, May/June 2002, by Keri Funderburg of ICF International. This article describes a Web site developed by the U.S. Department of Interior that serves as a one-stop shop for geospatial data and information, which can be helpful in planning a transit route, rehabilitating an existing road, or performing other tasks in the public and private sectors of the transportation industry.
2001 Publications
Section 508 and Why It Matters
By Katharyn Bine of ICF International. Spring 2001. Published in
Hyperviews:Online , a quarterly publication of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) Online Information Special Interest Group (SIG). This article discusses the implications and effects of this U.S. law on Web sites, applications, and anything that uses online information.
2000 Publications
1998 Publications
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